Chag Shavuot Sameach from the Mazkirut Artzit!

In honor of Shavuot, weve put together some resources about pilgrimage, capitalism &
dairy, the transformation of the chag and its relevance to our Habonim Dror values, our covenant
with God, and of course, no Shavuot resource is complete without a recipe for dairy kugel! Weve
also included a Farm-to-Table curriculum for Shavuot from The Shalom Center.
We hope you enjoy this as well as the chag!
As God said to Moses before he ascended to receive the Torah on Mount Sinai, Aleh vhagshem,
Kali, Jeremy, David, Zoey, & Eitan
As we know, the holiday of Shavuot is one of the three annually commanded pilgrimages in Jewish tradition. In ancient
times Jews from all over the region of Israel would travel to Jerusalem, to the temple, to bring the Kohenim their bikkurim (first fruits). They came from near and also very far to make this offering. This wasnt a pilgrimage by bus or train, but
by foot and mule or horseback.
This piece of the Shavuot tradition and both of the other two pilgrimage holidays (Pesach & Sukkot) are fascinating. Imagine doing this today: putting your life on pause to walk for a few weeks to eventually give a priest some of your precious
fruits that youve worked so incredibly hard to produce. It highlights how strong their faith in God was. There was great
power in a pilgrimage; they must have found so much meaning in making the trek.
Pilgrimages are significant tools to attach meaning to history or an idea, as well as a way to commemorate the past. Each
of us can probably think of pilgrimages we make in our own lives. Maybe its to the cemetery to visit a relative that passed
away or to visit a place you used to live.
Just recently, I went on a pilgrimage with my family to Greece to see where my dads family lived before they came to the
States. Trips like this are critical because they remind us of whats important to us and what we value. Pilgrimages signify
the importance of some of the most important holidays of the year. Today, people have busy lives and many distractions
from their religion. The pilgrimage centers the individual in their tradition and Jewish values. Very few of us are fortunate
enough to surround ourselves completely in the values that we hold strong, which gives us the ability to bring us closer to
actualizing our ideals, and more in tune with ourselves and our communities.
We must all try to experience the pilgrimage, in the tradition of Shavuot, in whatever way is most relevant to our lives
today and the Jewish people.
Jeremy Oziel
Habonim Dror North America 1

Words & Wheat adapted from The Shalom Center by Kali Silverman
The Hebrew word Shavuot means Weeks. Its name comes from the festivals timing in regard to Passover: It comes
after a week of weeks, seven weeks and one day, beginning on the second night of Passover.
In Biblical Israel, Shavuot was the celebration of a successful spring wheat harvest. For seven weeks, the community anxiously counted its way into the precarious abundance of harvest. The counting began during Passover as each household
brought a sheaf (an Omer) of barley to the Temple, because the barley crop ripened before wheat.
On the 50th day, there was a unique offering at the Temple -- two loaves of wheat bread -- regular leavened bread, not
unleavened matzah. This was the only occasion all year when leavened bread was offered.
Then the People of Israel were severed from the land and from its ability to bring earthy offerings of foods of the Land
of Israel to the Temple. As the People were deprived of its original, sacred relationship with the Earth, and as the Jewish
community became more and more widely dispersed -- the Temple was destroyed and the Jewish community was fractured by the Roman Empire -- the ancient Rabbis realized they could no longer celebrate Shavuot this way. Indeed the
food-offering connection with any piece of earth grew weaker.
Hellenistic philosophy showed that adept use of words could make connection with the Divine. Words could be carried
from place to place, land to land. A new form of sacredness was introduced: to replace food and land, the Rabbis sought
to make words of prayer, words of Torah, words of reinterpretive midrash into new ways of connecting with
God. Spiritual leadership was redefined as well. It was handed to a meritocratic lineage of men skilled in words: the Rabbis.
So the Rabbis transformed the Torahs agro-meaning of Shavuot into the festival of Revelation.
They sought to create a festival when all Israel in every generation could stand at Sinai to receive the words of Torah and
speak new words of Torah, just as all Israel in every generation could use Passover to be, themselves, freed from slavery creating a different kind of individual and collective ownership and responsibility for the Torah and the Jewish People.
But this transformation of Shavuot left the festival almost bereft of ceremony, hands-on ritual that could engage people
bodily and emotionally. Passover has the Seder and its foods; Sukkot, the fall harvest festival, has the building of a leafy,
leaky hut; Rosh Hashanah, the ear-filling, heart-stopping blasts of the rams horn; Yom Kippur, a 26-hour fast; Hanukkah, the lighting of a growing blaze of candles. Shavuot - what?
Words. Powerful words, but still only words. Reading the Ten Commandments of Sinai. Reading Ezekiels weird ecstatic
experience of God in the form of a whirling chariot, crowned by a rainbow of flashing colors - his consecration as a
prophet. Reading the Scroll of Ruth, about the transformation of a poverty-stricken immigrant from a despised pariah
people into the ancestress of King David and therefore of Messiah.
The Jewish mystics in the town of Tzfat, some 500 years ago, embraced an all-night teach-in of the many faces of Torah. From the all-night learning could come both exhaustion and exhilaration unifying each persons personal Jewish
journey into the higher, deeper, fuller, collective experience of Sinai. Some Jewish communities practice that all-night
learning still. Perhaps for some it does engage the body. Still, the body and the Earth are under-involved -- though we live
in an era of crisis for the Earth, the Earth we overwork.
So perhaps the time has come to move beyond the word-focus of Rabbinic Judaism not abandoning words but reintegrating Wheat and Word, the Food that comes into our mouths and the words of Torah that come out of our mouths.
How can we unify the earth-Shavuot of wheat harvest with the word-Shavuot of Torah?
There is a parallel pattern of 7x7+1 in Torah that especially calls us to unEarth the earthiness of Shavuot. This pattern of
seven weeks and the fiftieth day is a microcosm of the pattern of Sabbatical/Shmita Years and the Jubilee or Home-bringing
Year (the Shmita is coming to us Rosh Hashanah 5775, which makes this parallel especially relevant).
In that pattern, every seven years, the Land and the People rested from organized agriculture and all debts were annulled. Then,
in the year after the seventh seventh year - the fiftieth year - there was again a pause from all agricultural work (which made
the Shabbat pause two years in a row).
Going even beyond this Sabbatical pause, during this 50th year there was a total redistribution of land, each family returning to
its ancestral holding. The rich gave up being rich, the poor gave up being poor. [Sound relevant to our ideology?]
This pattern of 49 days plus 1 day begins by affirming that it comes BHar Sinai On Mount Sinai. So we have an
additional powerful reason to connect these patterns.
What can the 49+1 years of both social and eco-social transformation that lead to Jubilee/Home-bringing teach us about the
49+1 days that lead to Harvesting Torah?
Habonim Dror North America 2

Got Milk? : Socialism, Capitalism, and the rise of the dairy Yom Tov by Eitan Tako
Whether you call it Shavuot, Shavuos, Pentacost, the Festival of Weeks, or the Day of the First Fruits, Shavuos
was a tremendously important holiday during the time of the Temple in Jerusalem. It was one of three biblical
pilgrimages (shalosh regalim), or occasions each year when the Temple was visited for large-scale worship. The holiday marked the precise day that the Torah was revealed to the Israelites at Mount Sinai and the Jews became a
nation of service to God.
Ancient Israel was largely an agrarian society, and the holiday was not only religious, but also deeply agricultural.
Bikkurim (first fruits) were brought to the temple in a grand procession of oxen with gilded horns, gold and silver baskets, music, and parades. The harvest was a time of great gladness, and the Seven Speciesbarley, dates,
grapes, figs, olives, pomegranates, and wheatwere the focus of immense joy as the Jews obeyed Exodus 23:16,
Celebrate the Festival of Harvest with the first fruits of the crops you sow in your field.
Shavuot does not require any specific mitzvot, but it does carry with it many particular customs. The custom of
eating dairy products is among these, but was certainly not the most important, either halachically or historically.
Reading the Book of Ruth, engaging in all-night Torah study, decorating with greenery, abstaining from work,
and public worship and poetry were at least as important as consuming dairy products.
So how did a religious and agricultural chag become primarily a celebration of cheesecake, butter, and blintzes?
In modern Israel, the surge in dairy product consumption on Shavuot can be related to two main factors. As Israeli Jews became increasingly urban and secular, the agricultural and religious pillars of Shavuot became less
meaningful. People were seeking meaningful rituals and traditions they could relate to as non-religious Jews living in cities and suburban neighborhoods.
At the same time, dairy production in the land of milk and honey greatly intensified. Dairy manufacturers and
supermarket chains recognized the need for relatable customs. They took advantage of the connection between
dairy foods and the chag, and started to focus their marketing efforts on making the dairy component of Shavuot
a prominent part of every Israeli households celebration. Their marketing strategy succeeded beyond anyones
expectations.
And who were those dairy manufacturers? They were SOCIALISTS! The kibbutzim and Moshavim controlled
nearly all dairy production in Israel. They were socialist organizations using capitalist tools to develop a tradition
that would create an increasingly bigger market for their products.
Was this strategy the beginning of the decline for Israels kibbutzim and moshavim? Do you think they betrayed
their socialist values?
Is it moral to protect your values within an organization while not living them outside the organization? Can it
be sustainable for the organization?
Do you follow your values in everything you do? Do you live by a different set of values in your Habonim surroundings and outside of Habonim? Does this protect Habonim? How hard is it to keep to the same values?
Does this conundrum apply to other organizations or structures in your life?
Reconnecting To The Land And Its Produce: A Confirmation Curriculum for Shavuot by Heather Borshof, Emma
Gottlieb & Ariana Silverman
This is a Confirmation/Shavuot curriculum consisting of five parts:
1. A text study on the Book of Ruth
2. Planning a dish to prepare for Erev Shavuot following Confirmation/Shavuot services
3. A site visit to trace one ingredient of that dish to its source
4. Further research and a 10 minute presentation to the class
5. Preparing the dish for Erev Shavuot, along with a visual presentation for the congregation
Program Goals:
1. To trace an ingredient from its growth to the table.
2. To familiarize and connect the students to the holiday of Shavuot, when they will be confirming their commitment to the Jewish people and to the continuation of Talmud Torah.
Habonim Dror North America 3

We must choose to be chosen by David Meyer

For Richard Rodriguez, Catholic religion and Hispanic identity are one-in-the-same: inherent facts in his
soul as the son of Mexican-American immigrants. One might assume a gay man raised in a strongly
Catholic immigrant household to have rejected religion. Yet Rodriguez feels that as he was born a Mexican
Catholic, a Mexican Catholic he will forever remain:
RICHARD RODRIGUEZ: I never think of my religion as being something that I choose. I think
in some ways, it's something that-- it chooses me. I mean, people have asked me for many years, you
know, "How can you be a Catholic when you're also a gay man?" Well, how could I not be a Catholic?
It's not something that I choose. It's chosen me. It feels larger than me. It feels like, you know, they're
asking me, How can you be your parents' son? It's nothing that I chose. It's something that I believe
in. It encompasses me someBILL MOYERS: But, that's a perplexing question to me, because what you're saying is, "I belong to
this church that institutionally condemns me."
RICHARD RODRIGUEZ: Yes. It's-BILL MOYERS: "It doesn't accept me."
RICHARD RODRIGUEZ: --but also consoles me, that also on some level it feeds me -- that also I
own. That is it as much my church as it is the Pope's church. And I never forget that.
If the Catholic Church chose Richard Rodriguez, then God, in delivering the Torah to the Jews at Mount
Sinai, chose the Jewish people.
There is an obvious difference between Rodriguezs soul and the Torah. The soul, as Rodriguez has said,
is malleable. It forms and re-forms constantly depending on how it relates to its surroundings. The Torah
is covenant: an unbreakable contract the Jewish people made with God. In theory, to reject this contract
is to reject Judaism. The Torah, like the Catholic Church, demands our compliance: God chose us, but we
have to choose him over and over again by performing the mitzvot.
But here we are, in 2014, rejecting and rewriting this covenant, rejecting and rewriting our own souls. The
contract we signed with God at Mount Sinai cannot be changed but our reality can and constantly does.
The Torah has chosen me it is on my soul to define what that means.

Dairy Kugel Recipe

Ingredients (15-20 Servings)
4 cups uncooked egg noodles
1/4 cup butter, melted
5 eggs
2 cups (16 ounces) 4% cottage cheese
2 cups (16 ounces) sour cream
2 cups 2% milk
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1-1/4 cups sugar, divided
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Directions (Prep: 25 min. Bake: 55 min. + standing)

Cook noodles according to package directions; drain. Toss with
butter; set aside. In a large bowl, beat the eggs for 3-4 minutes or
until thickened and lemon-colored. Beat in the cottage cheese, sour
cream, milk, cream cheese, 1 cup sugar, vanilla and salt until
blended. Stir in noodles.
Transfer to a greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish. Combine the
cinnamon and remaining sugar; sprinkle over noodle mixture.
Bake, uncovered, at 350 for 55-60 minutes or until a knife
inserted near the center comes out clean. Let stand for 10 minutes
before serving.
Habonim Dror North America 4