SOMETIMES CHANGE JUST IS: PASSOVER TO SHAVUOT

SOMETIMES CHANGE JUST IS: PASSOVER TO SHAVUOT

By: Rabbi Debra Nesselson

     Shelach et Ami!  Let My people go! 

    With these words, the Jewish people were never quite the same. Signaling change was at hand, the Egyptians resisted these words of God, even the Israelites at first resisted. But, sometimes change just happens. As Donald Draper, the main character in the award winning television show, MAD MEN says, Change is not good. Change is not bad. Sometimes it just is. No matter how hard people tried to maintain the status quo in Egypt, change was in the air; it just was. God could no longer tolerate the enslavement of His people. And the rest is history—our history. 

     We mark our transition from slavery to freedom during the days of Pesach. We are not just observers but we become actors in the Exodus saga itself as best we can. As we do, we also begin the seven week count, 49 days, known as the counting of the Omer, marking the time of our escape from slavery to the time we receive God’s commandments at Mt. Sinai, which we commemorate on Shavuot.  Imagine that—just seven weeks to make the transition from slavery to freedom so we were able, as a sign of reciprocity, to say these words to God at Mt. Sinai: Na’aseh v’Nishma—We will do and we will observe, words which have connected every succeeding generation of Jews to God in a covenantal relationship, as if we, ourselves, were standing at Mt. Sinai. 

            Such monumental change which created a reality the likes of which

                                     the world had never seen until then or since. 

     Imagine, the Revelation by God to an entire people creating the moral underpinnings for Western civilization and for the three monotheistic paths of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Such transformation and within such a short period of time!

     All of human life is about change and these days the world feels like it’s all about change. We may not like to see it that way because change can be threatening, even terrifying. But, if we stop to think about it, even though the year may be routinely cyclical, every Jewish holiday signals change, change in our status, in our thinking, in the way we see ourselves and in our behavior. What is comforting for those of us resisting change is the realization that regardless of the tribulations of the Jewish people throughout the ages, we have had certain eternal truths we keep coming back and back to, as Robert Frost says. They are these eternal truths that have anchored us through the most trying of times, and these truths are the ones we pass from generation to generation enabling our continuity. They are truths and values given to us by God at Mt. Sinai which help us to create meaning in our lives. They are the words and ideas of Torah and we have taken them with us wherever we have been and wherever we will be going. They are eternal. Change is certainly in the air. We can just feel it, as the days become longer and warmer. 

                                 Sometimes change isn’t good or bad; it just is. 

As we have always done, we meet whatever the changes are with gratitude to the One who has enabled us to be the Children of the Covenant.

 Keyn Yehi Ratzon.

 So may it Be God’s will.

 Chag Sameach!

Rabbi Debra Nesselson

                                                   May, 2013