21/5/99

Weeks of What, and Why?

Shavuot is not one of our most sensible festivals.

    Shavuot is probably the holiday least written about in secular liturgy. That it has an image problem is obvious: whereas other holidays are represented by powerful symbols (the shofar, the succa, Hanukka candles, a live chicken flapping over our heads) or riveting activities (fasting, overhauling the house for Pessah, fasting, dancing with the Torah, fasting), Shavuot has:
    Blintzes.
    And what makes this a major religious holiday, what exactly do we celebrate?
    Weeks.
    Ask 10 Israelis what this festival is about, nine of them will say: "Did Betar win today?"
    I checked my Webster's Unabridged, and it gave this description: "Shavuot (meaning unknown): Please see the Oxford Dictionary."
    Sure, it's got a pretty important meaning attached to it: the greatest epiphany in the history of the cosmos, the personal appearance of God to mankind when we were given the Torah. But besides that, Shavuot is totally meaningless.
    On the other hand, it's my birthday. I will be 43.
    As I am the first journalist of a reputable newspaper to write about Shavuot (another scoop for But Seriously), I should tell you a bit about the holiday.
    It celebrates the end of the grain harvest, so naturally we read the Book of Ruth and eat cheese. It is logical if you understand anything at all about Judaism. The base of a good cheesecake, as any woman named Ruth could tell you, is good quality wheat flour. That also explains why the holiday is also known as Yom Habikurim, the Festival of the First Fruits (often mistranslated as the Festival of Unexpected Visitors), because the topping of any good cheesecake is an arrangement of berries or plums. (Go ahead, ask your friendly neighborhood Ruth.)
    This is the first time all year that this is possible because, as you must have noticed, we are celebrating both the end of the grain harvest and the first fruits. Only one other time can we sandwich white cheese with these two elements: in six months, when we celebrate the beginning of the grain harvest and the last fruits. For the remainder of the calendar year, we have no choice but to eat white cheese with dill. So you can see why this is meaningful.
    The renowned 9th century gematria expert Dudu ibn Topaz pointed out that the numerical equation for the word Shavuot is 784. Yom Kippur adds up to only 362. It is obvious which day is more important.
    Furthermore, he postulated, the square root of gvina (cheese) is 8.3 which almost precisely corresponds to how many cups of flour you need to make a cake for a family of 49 -- the square root of which is 7, equal to both the estimated days of Creation and the number of grandchildren Habakuk had. Not to mention that 49 is how long we count the Omer which leads up to -- you guessed it -- Shavuot.
    But why do we read Ruth? Why not, say, Tiffany, or Monica? Aha, ibn Topaz said (Baba Myses, 12b, near the bottom of the page): "It is a foolish question. The gematria for Ruth is 606, no? As every child knows, 'Torah' equals 609. No, wait a minute -- 400, plus 6... I make it 611. The difference is only 5, or the letter heh, which is God's name without the apostrophe. Add another 10, for how many Commandments there are, and subtract 2, which amounts to the total number of Gods multiplied by how many tablets Moses brought down from Sinai, and you get exactly 613, the number of mitzvot. Nu? That proves everything."
    The secular public will have noticed that mysteriously, on the night of Shavuot, there are no haredim in discotheques. There is a good reason: it is customary for religious people to stay up all night and study Torah. This is known in yeshiva circles as "cramming": students traditionally worry there will be a test the following day.
    Why they do this is unclear: they spend their whole lives studying Torah, you'd think by now they'd have learned it all. But it's not fair to criticize: after all, in other religions, people don't read to show their devotion to God, they kill. So you have to give religious Jews credit.
    When I was in yeshiva (go ahead, laugh) I asked Rabbi Feigelstock why we should give a hoot about the harvest, which is the gist of Shavuot. This did not seem important enough to warrant a holiday. (It still doesn't). It's so, like, goyish. I posited that the whole difference between Jews and animists is that we commemorate disaster, destruction, annihilation, misery, self-pity, while their religious practice consists entirely of having a big picnic when the crops come up.
    Rabbi Feigelstock responded that I was unsuitable for serious learning because I was obviously rebelious in character, and he kicked me out of yeshiva the day before the annual Lubavitch Blintz-a-thon. Since that day, to commemorate my deliverance, I give thanks on Shavuot by eating a symbolic Big Mac hold the cheese.
    But I'm basically a good Jew, and accordingly, I observe the holiday whenever it coincides with my birthday. Like this year.
    I'm planning an all-nighter. I will get blintzed, I mean blitzed on grapes and grains that have been fermented for weeks. There will be cake, though not necessarily made of cheese, and upon it candles will be placed. Candle-lighting time will be at 6:57 p.m. At 6:58 we will sing a traditional holiday tune ("Happy Birthday To You") and if someone points a camera at me I will say "cheese!" Perhaps I will be given a Torah as a gift ("Surprise!"). Many people will give me a hug and say "Hug Sameach!" There is a good chance someone named Ruth will be present. The following morning, having liberally partaken of the grapes and grains and feeling just the same as someone who has learned all night, I will pray ("Ohhh, God. Ohhh, Lord..."). I will take the day off.
    Anyone who's not having a birthday won't have any idea of the true meaning of Shavuot.