Concluding Shavuot

Jewish festival days begin at twilight, ushering us into a night that we hope and pray brings us into morning renewed.

Twilight is, by definition, liminal, transitional. We have not yet left one space and we have not yet arrived into the new one.

All the possibilities of the time ahead are there to be filled with what we have gleaned from the times before. 

This holiday of Shavuot is set to begin with so much unsettled in the world, old conflicts exploding, ongoing pandemics raging, systemic injustice prevailing. How are we to complete our time of counting?

From a kavanah for this erev Shavuot by Rabbi Tirzah Firestone:

"Standing again at Sinai, at the foot of the mountain this year means to ground ourselves on this good earth, and recommit to our people's highest principles, and to the Torah's unchanging values of tzedek, justice and fairness, tzelem Elohim, the inviolable dignity of all human beings, and emunah, faith, that our prayers, study, and good acts truly matter, have weight, and will have a ripple effect for good."

So let’s light our way into Shavuot, as this rich day of learning comes to a close, and the holiday begins in the spirit of transformative healing and remembrance.

As we light our memorial candles may we spark resistance. As we bless our festival candles may we extend the hope and light and discoveries and insights and flavours and challenges of this day with our hope that torah orah, the light of Torah shared beyahad (together) illuminates the path of justice, joy, and healing.                 

When we remember, at memorial gatherings, we invoke their names. Some communities have walls, with lights that are turned on at the traditional four times a year of yizkor services, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Pesach and Shavuot.

Say their names . . .

Joyce Etchequan.

Adbirahman Abdi.

Colson Boushey.

Regis Korchinsky-Paquet.

Sammy Yatim.

Chantel Moore.

Ejaz Ahmed Choudry.

Andrew Loku.

Struck down by police in uniform, or by citizens. They are Black, Indigenous, of African, or Middle Eastern, or South Asian descent. In this country, as in others, the colour of their skin was entered into some perpetual registry as a weapon.

A Kaddish for Black Lives posted by the Jewish Multiracial Network for Juneteenth observances last summer embeds this knowledge into the heart of its text:

Black lives have been lost to the violence of the vigilante, the cruelty of the marketplace, and the silence of the comfortable

We understand that black lives are sacred, inherently valuable, and irreplaceable. We know that to oppress the body of the human is to break the heart of the divine.

I add to my kavanah to honour my own beloveds whose death I mourn for Yizkor moments, my parents, and intention to “bind up the wounds, to heal the shattered hearts, to break the yoke of oppression.”

Read the Shavuot opening remarks

Explore a text study on diversity and the erev rav

Try some recipes that go "Beyond Blintzes"

Watch a presentation on "Lies we tell Ourselves"

Check out a discussion on "Celebrating Jewish diversity"

Go back to the Shavuot schedule of events