By Rabbi Avi Shafran
June 10, 2005
The first day of Shavuot, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, falls on a Monday this year. Had the Tzaddukim been successful in their quest, however, the holiday would invariably be celebrated on a Sunday.
That is because the Tzadukim, or Sadducees, who comprised one of the two major denominations of Jews during the Second Temple period, asserted that it would well serve the needs of the people to have two consecutive days of rest and feasting: the Sabbath and, immediately thereafter, Shavuot. (In the Holy Land, Shavuot is observed on a single day; in the Diaspora, we celebrate it for two.) And so the revisionists advocated amending the Jewish religious tradition sourced at Sinai.
They provided a textual basis for their innovation too. The seven weeks whose days are counted from Pesach, or Passover, until Shavuot are, according to the Torah, to begin "on the day following "the Sabbath" -- which, at least on its face, seems to imply that the count begins on a Sunday, and that the fiftieth day thereafter, Shavuot, would likewise perpetually fall on the first day of the week.
Despite the Tzadukim's scriptural argument, though, the Talmud contends that their motivation was their sense of propriety -- two days in a row of rest just seemed right.
But the Oral Law, the bedrock of what we call Judaism -- championed by the other Jewish denomination of the time, the Perushim, or Pharisees -- often holds surprises. Just as "an eye for an eye" according to the Oral Law, is not intended literally (but refers, rather, to monetary compensation); just as "they shall be frontlets between your eyes" does not refer to wearing whatever "frontlets" might mean on the bridge of one's nose (but rather, as the Oral Law specifies, leather boxes containing special parchments on one's head, above the point between the eyes), so does the word "Sabbath" in the weeks-counting verse not in fact mean what it seems to say.
What it means, the Oral Law teaches, is the first day of Passover, so that the counting commences on the following day, whatever day of the week it might be. Thus, Shavuot can theoretically fall on any day (the standard calendar later put into effect does limit the actual days it can occupy, but that's another, and rather lengthy, story).
Defended assiduously by the Perushim, the Oral Law triumphed. And so today we celebrate Shavuot on the fiftieth day after the first day of Passover, whatever day of the week it is.
Interestingly, the desire to supplant the Jewish religious tradition with what "seems" more appropriate appears to be a theme of Tzadduki-ism. The group, for example, also advocated a change in the Yom Kippur Temple service, at the very crescendo of the day, when the Cohein Gadol, or "High Priest," walked into the Holy of Holies, the only time of the year that room was entered. The Oral Law prescribes that incense brought there as a special offering be set alight after the Cohein's entry into the room. The Tzadukim contended that it be lit beforehand.
Although here, too, they mustered scriptural support, the Tzadukim were in fact motivated, explains the Talmud, by "what seemed right." To wit, they argued, "Does one bring raw food to a mortal king and then cook it before him? One brings it in already hot and steaming!"
Such placing of mortal etiquette -- "what seems right" -- above the received truths of the Jewish religious heritage stands precisely in opposition to the message of Shavuot. According to Jewish tradition, our very peoplehood was forged by our forebears' unanimous sentiment at Sinai: their response to G-d's offer of His Torah with the words "Na'aseh v'nishma" -- "We will do and we will hear."
That phrase captures the quintessential Jewish credo, the acceptance of G-d's will even amid a lack of "hearing," or understanding. "We will do Your will," our ancestors pledged, in effect, "even if it is not our own will, even if we feel we might have a 'better idea'." Na'aseh v'nishma, in other words, constitutes a declaration of our dependence -- on G-d's judgment.
These days, as in all days, we humans try to convince ourselves that we know what is right, what is ethical, what is moral. Such hubris is both ancient and inevitable. But it is as far from the true Jewish attitude as anything could be.
And so, as we approach another Shavuot -- June 13 and 14 this year -- amid a marketplace-of-ideas maelstrom of "ethical" and "moral" opinions concerning myriad contemporary issues (often complete with "support" from Scripture), we Jews would do well to pause and reflect on the fact that our mandate is not to "decide" what seems right to us, but to search, honestly and objectively, for guidance in our timeless religious tradition -- to try to divine the will of the Creator.
When we choose to do that, with sincerity and determination, we echo the words of our ancestors, declaring, as did they, that we are not the arbiters of right and wrong; G-d is.
Views expressed by the author do not
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