Tag: Shavuot

Off the Grid – Torah and A Major Light Show

Cheesecake I'll be offline until Sunday celebrating a somewhat (and undeservedly) obscure Jewish holiday called Shavuot.*  It celebrates the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai – a story I love not only for its religious importance but also because it sounds like such a wild light show.

16. It
came to pass on the third day when it was morning, that there were thunder
claps and lightning flashes, and a thick cloud was upon the mountain, and a
very powerful blast of a shofar, and the entire nation that was in the camp
shuddered.  

17.
Moses brought the people out toward God from the
camp, and they stood at the bottom of the mountain.  

18.
And the entire Mount Sinai smoked because the
Lord had descended upon it in fire, and its smoke ascended like the smoke of
the kiln, and the entire mountain quaked violently.  

You know I'm not a Bible quoter but this is just so great and dramatic – isn't is?  Anyway I'll see you Sunday.    

*OH and the cheesecake is up there because this is a holiday that is, traditionally, heavy with dairy meals. 

I LOOK LIKE A BUSH (THE LEAFY KIND, NOT THE ALMOST-NO-LONGER-PRESIDENT-KIND)

Bushy_tree
See this bush?  That’s pretty much how my hair is starting to look only more unruly.  Why?  In observant Judaism the tradition is that you don’t get your hair cut during the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot (that’s the celebration of receiving the Ten Commandments.)  It has to do with mourning for the 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva, who died because they did not honor one another — there’s more to it but it’s way too complicated — basically it’s a mourning period – also a portion of the time that you work your way from the political freedom of gained at Passover when the Jews left Egypt to the gift of discipline and self-control that comes with the giving of the commandments.- There are lots of things you aren’t supposed to do except for one day in the middle — Lag b’Omer – the day the dying of the students ceased.

This is a long way of saying that my hair is too long.  Way too long.  And it’s not even my fault!  I had made an appointment for a hair cut right before this period was to begin.  Then, of course, a huge crisis arose (don’t ask) which meant I couldn’t go.  So now I’m stuck. With all this hair.   I feel like Medusa.