(Ecclesiastes 3:8)
We are surely living through a time of hatred. It’s running on our streets, it’s galloping on our screens, it’s in our classrooms and our conversations. It seems unapproachable, unstoppable, unrelenting.
Is this simply a season of rancour, revulsion, contempt and hostility? Is it one that we have to live through like a dark and fearsome winter of discontent?
Or can we warm up the winter, challenge the contempt, and let the sun shine in?
This may not be the dawning of the age of Aquarius, but we can and must take on the purveyors of division and derision. That’s the Jewish way. Out of our long and dark history, we have learnt how to be the seasonal changers, the hopeful influencers.
And if there’s one festival that is about the power to change and the capacity to love, it’s got to be Shavuot.
It’s a festival reflecting seasonal change – a time of harvest and first fruits. It’s a holiday about a turning point – the radical 10 Commandments that change the face of civilisation. But it is most powerfully a love story. The great romance between God and the Jewish people which culminates in their marriage at Mount Sinai. The sign of their love embedded in that most beautiful and compelling marriage document of all time, the Torah.
And on this festival, we read another (or second) great love story, the book of Ruth. Megilat Ruth presents us with a number of contemporary motifs as fresh and varied as a beautiful artesian sour dough bread. It’s about the connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. It’s about embracing Judaism and converting even in a time of turmoil. It’s about homelessness and being a migrant. The poet Keats poignantly captured Ruth’s loneliness in that memorable phrase, Ruth “amid the alien corn”. But its main thrust and purpose is however, on chesed, the potency, persistence, and power of human love and compassion. As Rabbi Zeira put it: It is a book written to teach us of the great reward of those who perform acts of thoughtfulness and loving kindness.
Ruth’s love operates on different levels – there is her love and sensitive care for Naomi and Boaz, her endearment for the Jewish people, and her dedication to God. “Your people shall be my people, your God, my God”.
It’s a book which encapsulates the great love themes of Judaism – love of God, love for our neighbor, love of the stranger.
In this age of rage, this season of loathing of Judaism and hostility to Israel, we can still wield the weapon of love.
Shavuot reminds us that even as hatred breaks all boundaries, love is stronger than death, wider than a river, and deeper than the sea. It can crash through all barriers, it can heal the world.
Chag Shavuot Sameach – a happy and meaningful holiday.
Parashat Shemini