Dear TEE community,
This week marks Shavuot, the holiday on which we celebrate the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people. One of my favorite rabbinic stories about the event says that with each word of revelation a distinct fragrance entered the world. This story is important to me in several ways.
First, it tells us that we experience Torah, sacred teaching, with our senses as well as our mind. When we say the blessing for Torah study which says we are instructed to “engage” ourselves with Torah, that means our whole, embodied selves. The corollary to that understanding is that we can receive Torah in countless experiences. For many of us, being out in nature is a powerful doorway to a sense of the divine.
As a gardener, I love the idea that the fragrance of each blossom has something to teach me or offers an appreciation of the holiness of creation. Each is, in its way, a word of Torah. Similarly, my sense of sight allows me to take in the beauty of each plant or tree, insect, or bird as an expression of the sacred.
The rabbis also taught that we all stood at Sinai. Just as the Passover seder is a reminder that freedom is an ongoing process in which we participate in our own lives, Shavuot instructs us to consider how the Torah is always being given anew.
I used to imagine standing at Sinai by picturing myself in the wilderness of the actual Sinai peninsula, but I have now come to understand that I stand at Sinai here in Rochester as I open myself to receive the teachings of the place in which I live. As I see life blossoming around me, I am reminded of another midrash, which portrays the entire mountain bursting into flower at the moment of revelation. For me, the blossoming I see around me at this season is a form of revelation.
I recently read an article about whether plants have intelligence.* The author reported that, in response to the question, an ethnobotanist replied, “They can eat light, isn’t that enough?” We live in a word where plants grow through light, isn’t that enough to have a sense of wonder, to be profoundly grateful for being part of such a world, and want to experience a deep sense of connection to it?
Our Shavuot gathering this Saturday is intended as an opportunity to experience Torah in these ways. We will combine prayer, song, crafts, and time outside in ways which I hope will provide a meaningful and joyful sense of creation’s sacred teachings. I look forward to celebrating with you.
Rabbi Drorah Setel
*Rachel Riederer, “A New Book About Plant Intelligence Highlights the Messiness of Scientific Change,” The New Yorker