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May 28, 2020
Challah for my 40th birthday and Shavuot

Today is my 40th birthday. It is also a week bookmarked by Memorial Day and Shavuot. All of it coming on the heels of my mother-in-law’s miraculous recovery from COVID-19 (my previous blog “A Walking Miracle”), so much to be thankful for. And a time to pause and reflect on what is really important in life.

We are a people who relive our history. We tell stories about our loved ones, so they will not be forgotten. And name our children after them as well. As we go through the holiday calendar, we do not just talk about the events of our past, we live them. The Passover Haggadah teaches us that each of us must see ourselves as if we each came out of slavery in Egypt. And, so we do not just remember the Exodus. We recreate it with the seder. And, seven weeks later, we can do the same with Shavuot. As I wrote in a blog last year (“The Forgotten Holiday”), Shavuot really does get short-changed when it comes to the holiday calendar. Although there are no prescribed rituals associated with Shavuot like there are with other holidays, there are many messages which can continue to resonate just as they did so many years ago.

Just as we are to see ourselves as if we came out of Egypt, so too, to do we see ourselves as if we were at Mt. Sinai. The Jewish dating site “Saw You at Sinai” gets its name from the idea that all of us were there when Moses got the Ten Commandments. We reenact this each time we participate in the public Torah reading. This gives rise to the practice of Tikkun Leil Shavuot, the tradition of staying up all night on Shavuot to study, in reparation for sleeping through the revelation at Mt. Sinai.

Whether we can stay up all night or not (I am no longer a spring chicken!), we can all commit to honoring our past and renewing ourselves for our future. On Shavuot, we read the book of Ruth and the story of perhaps the most famous person to “choose Judaism.” And since the 1800s, Jewish young adults commit themselves to their faith at their Confirmation ceremonies. In one of my most memorable Shavuot experiences ever, I was in Jerusalem. I stayed up all night, first at Tikkun at Hebrew Union College, then watching the sunrise over the kotel, a streak of blue forever etched in my memory.

Now, here we are, in the middle of a pandemic. It has changed life for everyone. We will not be in our synagogues for the public Torah reading—and we do not know when we will be again. It is never how I imagined celebrating a milestone birthday. But, given that it coincides with Shavuot (my father-in-law’s yahrzeit) and my mother-in-law has just been given a second chance at life, it is all the more fitting. So, I am choosing to celebrate the gifts I have been given—the gifts of my rich Jewish heritage, my wonderful family, and another year of life that a birthday brings. It need not be in a synagogue or anywhere else. It is within all of us. This is my revelation.


Lisa Rothstein Goldberg is a social worker, educator, and student in the Gesher program at the Academy for Jewish Religion (NY). She lives in Louisville, Kentucky with her husband and their two young daughters.

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