Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. – Elvis Costello
Just begin to read Haftarat Rishona Shavuot, and you are breaking the law:
The Account of the Chariot may not be expounded by even one person, unless that person was a scholar who can understand it from his own internal perception.
Mishnah Haggigah 2:1. Our Haftarah includes the “Account of the Chariot,” Ezekiel’s fiery, spectacular vision – one still that carries compelling power after 2,500 years. The prophet is overwhelmed by awesome creatures emerging out of a storm, and at the end, “the appearance of a semblance of the Presence of the Lord.” Contemporary cynics might wonder what the prophet was ingesting and whether they can have some of it. They might also respect the rabbinic fear that immersion in this vision by the untutored might carry pernicious consequences. Then the Haftarah concludes with 3:12, the famous line ברוך כבוד יהוה ממקומו – “Blessed is the Lord in His place…”
But there is a gap – a big one. What’s missing? Well, chapter 2 and most of chapter 3. The Haftarah makes very sure to let you know that this excision is not some sort of accident or just a decision to cut things short; that’s one reason why Ezekiel 3:12 is included.
What do these omitted chapters contain? Everything that God actually says to Ezekiel – the actual verbal content of the prophecy. That content not only has words; it's about words:
And he said to me, “Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the people of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. Then he said to me, “Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.” So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.
He then said to me: “Son of man, go now to the people of Israel and speak my words to them. You are not being sent to a people of obscure speech and strange language, but to the people of Israel— not to many peoples of obscure speech and strange language, whose words you cannot understand.
And he said to me, “Son of man, listen carefully and take to heart all the words I speak to you. Go now to your people in exile and speak to them. Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says,’ whether they listen or fail to listen.” (3:1-6, 10-11)
So let’s get this straight. Ezekiel has something close to a mind-blowing vision of God; after this vision, God gives him his mission, and tells him to spread words to the Israelites, words so important and necessary that God commands the prophet literally to eat the words of the scroll. So sweet are these words that Ezekiel compares them to honey. And that is the portion that the Haftarah cuts out.
The message here concerning religious experience is not merely unconventional: it is deeply subversive. Recall that this Haftarah is read on Shavuot, the day in which we commemorate the receiving of the law. Or in other words, we excise the emphasis on words on the very day we are supposed to focus on words.
Haftarat Rishona Shavuot thus questions the ostensible nature of the holy day. Shavuot concerns the law, yes, but for the Haftarah, it concerns all forms of religious experience. What’s more, the Haftarah suggests that large portions of that religious experience are not verbal at all. Religious experience can be visual, aural, tactile, sexual, ecstatic, everything. The “Torah” that the Israelites received at Sinai? It’s not what you think it is: it might not even be written down in the first place.
Word skepticism is reinforced the next day. The Haftarah for the second day, Habbakuk 2:20-3:19, begins:
The Lord is in His holy abode—
Be silent before Him all the earth!
The subversive message is clear: religious experience transcends speech – and some of the holiest times require refraining from it altogether.
This subversion points to a key part of our heritage, sadly lost to most modern Jewish practice. We do words brilliantly. We do music quite well, but all-too-often, Jewish religious music succeeds only as performance: it does not generate religious experience. And some of the most critical things we do quite badly. Consider this gem from the Talmud:
One may only stand and begin to pray from an approach of gravity and awe. The early pious men would wait silently for one hour, and then pray, so that they would focus their hearts to their Father in heaven. Even if a king greets him, he should not respond to him, and even if a snake if wrapped around his heel, he should not interrupt his prayer.
Mishnah Berachot 5:1. Can anyone imagine a modern Jewish community in which the prayer is so deep that congregants would ignore snakes around their legs? And if not, why not?
Modern Jewish prayer does not cultivate an approach of gravity and awe. We do silence poorly; only Judaism could have a “silent” prayer – the Amidah — in which everyone is busily speaking. We use few if any practices to nurture religious experience; those that do are often dismissed as fringe. They are not; they represent the flowering of the promise of our Haftorah.
Shavuot lacks the powerful, evocative traditions of other major Jewish festivals. But the Haftarah points the way to re-energizing it. Shavuot needs to be the holy day of religious experience, where Jews embrace the activity of reaching directly for divine connection. As the Kabbalists believed, studying through the night can serve that purpose. But so can other things. Get some rest after staying up, and then go out and find God. Do not speak. Do not focus on words. Go. Find your experience. Tell us what you find.
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