Welcome

April 26, 2023 Edward Feld

It is customary to study throughout the night on Shavuot in hopes of recreating the experience of revelation at Sinai, and it’s been lovely and exciting to see how this practice has been revitalized in the past several decades.

Because many people have come to enjoy virtual study, or shift back and forth between studying on their own and “shul-hopping” between different study sessions online and/or in person, I wanted to offer some materials that could be used in a number of ways. Perhaps you are a leader of a study evening this year, perhaps you are gathered in person or on Zoom with your chavurah, or just sitting together with a friend or two and looking for a variety of resources with which to spend some meaningful time tonight while you munch blintzes or allow yourself free rein enjoying a hot fudge sundae. Or, you want to give yourself time for journaling in response to soulful writing prompts. Whatever brings you to Shavuot study this year, I hope you’ll enjoy these diverse texts.

Below, you’ll find three very different possibilities: First, a collection of my own poems and prompts which hopefully speak to this night’s focus on our encounter with the Source and with those who lead us through the wilderness. Next, Rabbi Daniel Raphael Silverstein’s gorgeous slam poem “Revelation,” which sparked my desire to create this program. And finally, a text study on the midrash of Miriam’s Well by Lisa Batya Feld, fueled by her ongoing exploration of biblical myths and legends. I invite you to explore some or all of them, alone or with a partner or friends.

May the heavens open for you this Shavuot, and for us all.

Merle, Lisa and Daniel

Poetry Beit Midrash

April 26, 2023 Edward Feld

Approaching the celebration of Shavuot, the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai, it seemed natural to me to consider a poem which reflects on the Sinai experience and the meaning of revelation. I didn’t have far to look choosing a text – the poem “We All Stood Together,” commonly referred to as “your Sinai poem,” is undoubtedly my best-known poem, included in numerous anthologies and prayer books and in my first book, A Spiritual Life.

But the journey to Sinai had its beginnings of course with the going out from Egypt, with Pesach. So I’d like to open with a text which imaginatively helps us to remember that time of exodus, to remind us literally where we came from and who we were just 7 weeks ago. The vulnerability of it, the uncertainty of it, indeed, perhaps the terror of it.

Leaving Egypt

The night is so dark
and I am afraid.
I see nothing, smell nothing,
the only reality—
I am holding my mother’s hand.

And as we walk
I hear the sounds
of a multitude in motion—
in front, behind,
all around,
a multitude in motion.

I have no thought of tomorrow,
now, in the darkness,
there is only motion
and my mother’s hand.

Beit midrash discussion prompts:

What do you feel experiencing the exodus through a child’s eyes?

How are your senses engaged in this poem?

The counting of the Omer is a quintessentially liminal time. What is hard for you about liminal moments, transitions? It might be helpful to identify what some of those times have been in your life in the past, and choose one such time to dive in deep: Who/what did you hold onto for support? What was exciting, enlivening about that transitional liminal time? What gifts did that time of life offer?

In this next poem, familiar to many of you perhaps, the speaker feels outside the normative experience – the popular story that was handed down doesn’t represent my story, she says – because I’m a woman. But there are many ways to feel yourself outside what seems to be “the norm” of revelation, of Jewish experience, and that is something I want to invite you to engage with.

We All Stood Together

for Rachel Adler

My brother and I were at Sinai.
He kept a journal
of what he saw,
of what he heard,
of what it all meant to him.

I wish I had such a record
of what happened to me there.

It seems like every time I want to write
I can't –
I'm always holding a baby,
one of my own,
or one for a friend,
always holding a baby,
so my hands are never free
to write things down.

And then
as time passes,
the particulars,
the hard data,
the who what when where why,
slip away from me,
and all I'm left with is
the feeling.

But feelings are just sounds
the vowel barking of a mute.

My brother is so sure of what he heard –
after all he's got a record of it –
consonant after consonant after consonant.

If we remembered it together
we could recreate holy time
sparks flying.

Beit midrash discussion prompts:

What is the dilemma the poet is describing? What is her experience of Sinai? How does her experience differ from that of her “brother”?

How does the poem speak to your life, your longing, your understanding of revelation?

Shavuot is a good time to ask, Are there ways in which, like the poet, you feel “outside the norm” of Jewish experience? How do you find yourself in the Sinai story? Have have you foound agency to include yourself, as the poet does in the writing of the poem?

The poem explores a tension between “particulars”/”hard data” and “feelings” – how is your Jewish life and practice informed by each side of that tension? How do you mediate that tension in your understanding of revelation, of Torah?

Shavuot, revelation. What comes after? What came after for the Israelites were many years in the midbar, in the wilderness, wandering. They had Moshe as their guide, their protector, their teacher as they wandered. As we wander, we cast about for support, for wisdom. Perhaps we, like they, find our teacher, our guide. And then perhaps, like they, we feel disappointment, the guide falls short, we feel abandoned.

Unfulfilled promise

I guess I thought you’d lead me
to the promised land, but finally
I realize I never had a vision

of what that would look like,
or what it would feel like
to be free and whole at last.
All I had was confidence in you
as scout, trailblazer, trustworthy
and steady guide. I had faith

you’d take me the whole way
and deliver me safely
to the other side.

And now, we stand together
at the crossroads,
and you tell me,

I’ve come as far as I can with you,
I’ve taught you whatever I know
about how to find water

in a wasteland, how to build
a temporary shelter, how to read
the sky, the stars, the trail and the winds.

I look to the horizon
but all I see ahead of me
is more wasteland.

Beit midrash discussion prompts:

What do you make of the guide in this poem? What did they provide of value?

Who have been the important guides in your life? What did you learn from them?

Did they come to disappoint you? How did you deal with that? How is the issue of “less than perfect” (v. “good enough”) relevant in our religious lives?

What do you want from a guide, a leader, a spiritual mentor?

Do you think you need a “vision” of the Promised Land to get there? What is your vision? Do you try to get there? How?

How do you read this poem as one who is “a guide”?

The fourth and final poem in this beit midrash session opens the questions, the pain and longing, of a soul in spiritual midbar, desert. It’s a state of being that may be familiar to many of us - although the fabric of life has held and one should overflow with gratitude, the underlying experience is one of malaise, dis-connection, a barrier to faith, a loss of faith. Perhaps an unfortunate time, perhaps a propitious time, to arrive at Shavuot, at Sinai.

Sinai Again

I'm coming back
to this mountain now
alone.
It's quiet
the barren brush
the stillness
match my mood.

I haven't seen you
in a long time, God –
where have you
been keeping yourself?

Me, I've had two kids
work has its ups and downs
I'm still married
to the same man.

I don't know if you noticed
but I stopped talking to you.
I called to you
I called and called
but you didn't answer.

You pushed me far away
so far that even I,
who has so little pride
after all, even I
couldn't bring myself
to come crawling back.
I don't know if you noticed.

I only returned now
to walk around
kick the brush
across the sand
to walk around
and think about us.

This could be a holy place
again, if you would just
give me a sign –
a thrush or a hare
or a mountain goat
gracefully coming
toward me.

Beit midrash discussion prompts:

Is the speaker in this poem a seeker? How would you define “a seeker”? What is this person seeking?

What do you imagine is meant by “you pushed me so far away”? Are there times you feel enfolded by God, by a sacred force, a life force, a holy connection? Times when you don’t?

How do you find sacred connection when you feel bereft in the world?

I like to end a poetry beit midrash by asking participants to reflect a bit on the process they’ve just engaged in: What was this experience like – with this text? with each other? Do you have some new awareness of yourself? of your study partner? What is special about this way of talking together and where might you want to go from here?

Note: There are materials for a number of beit midrash sessions to be found in the revised edition of A Spiritual Life, exploring many of the poems in that book.

Revelation

April 26, 2023 Edward Feld

I’m delighted to introduce a new voice to this site, that of Rabbi Daniel Raphael Silverstein. Daniel and I first met and worked together when he was a rabbinical student at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah in NY. To our mutual delight, he has continued writing with me from his home in Israel. Last year I offered him these pre-Shavuot prompts: What are you approaching this year, as you move toward Sinai again? What do you hear? What do you hope to hear? What emerged was the poem below which Daniel is in the process of recording.

Revelation

Three thousand times I have come to this mountain
So many lifetimes, I'm tired of counting
I know it I smell it, it's with me it's in me
But this is the first time I've even been me

And you are not you that was you yesterday
That was you that was then but where atoms can play
There's a choice there's a voice there's a brand-new creation
The you that is you in this moment awakens

And that's why the ends of the earth are all shaking
The birds have gone silent the animals quaking
And even the people are pausing to notice
There's something that happens when we can just focus

Not magic not mystical no metaphysical
No hocus no pocus there's nothing to give at all
Knowing just nothing is all that is needed
To see it to hear it to help to complete it

I'm there I mean now in the thick of the crowd
Among hundreds of thousands we circle around it
The mountain the fountain the flame and the cloud
It is calling me up as the Heavens come down

But the fences are there to protect us from death
Cos this body is only a vessel and yet
We can see we can sense there is more there is something
That we cannot touch but it's constantly coming

A voice – like nothing that's ever been heard
A call that contains every letter and word
Ever said ever thought ever dreamed or imagined
A silence so total my being unravels

And millions around me the sea that surrounds me
In an instant evaporates particles separate
Nothing -

Then we return
From death,
Now empty,
We're ready,
To learn.

Beit midrash/discussion/writing prompts:

What is familiar and what is unique about this moment of revelation, right now?

What feels reliable and what feels precarious, new, uncertain?

The midrash says that the people died when they heard the Divine Voice and were then revived to continue receiving the Torah. What parts of you might you be ready to let go of, to facilitate receiving something new?

Can you find enough quiet and stillness to access the inner voice that does not use language, but deep intuition? If so, what is it saying?

Daniel Raphael Silverstein is a rabbi, educator, meditation teacher and MC/poet who performs by the name Danny Raphael. He lives in Israel with his family, where he directs Applied Jewish Spirituality, an online portal which makes the transformative spiritual wisdom of our tradition accessible to all who seek it.

Miriam's Well

April 26, 2023 Edward Feld

Revelation comes in many forms—sometimes it’s a climactic moment on a mountaintop, but more often it’s a slow unfolding, a process of discovery. One way Jews have made room for such discoveries has been writing midrash: making connections between biblical passages or filling in gaps in the biblical narrative. (Some moderns playfully call midrash “biblical fan fiction.”)

This is a more traditional text study created by Lisa Batya Feld, looking at the midrashic legends that have evolved over the centuries about Miriam’s Well, which sustained the Israelites through their 40 years of wandering in the desert. What do these stories tell us about how midrash enables our tradition to grow and evolve over time? What images do they offer for modeling communal, non-hierarchical leadership? You can find the source sheet here: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/309736?lang=bi

Commentary and Discussion Prompts:

Our source for the story of Miriam’s well is just two sentences in the Book of Numbers: Miriam dies, and there is no water. The writers of midrash took this to mean she had been providing water all along, and with her death, that water went away. By the time of the Mishna, a list of miraculous items in Pirkei Avot assumes its readers understand that Miriam’s well is special. A few centuries later, by the time of the Talmud, a passage in BT Shabbat claims Miriam’s well has many extraordinary, even bizarre characteristics! What details in this passage strike you as surprising?

The Talmud and later texts unpack some of this imagery and explain the textual basis for each element. Why does Miriam merit this miraculous well? What happens to the well when she dies? The commentators note that Moses strikes the rock immediately after Miriam’s death to produce water, and make the connection that the rock had been the source of the water. Do you see any significance to the rock/well changing its name and its nature in different contexts?

Going back to the original image from the Talmud of a sieve-shaped rock in the sea, which of these details do you see reflected in the other sources? What significance do you think each of these pieces has?

Finally, a selection of modern feminist texts, beginning with a quote by Mary Beard on how individual women and marginalized folks trying to achieve high office, fitting themselves into traditional power structures, may not be the best way to effect meaningful change. Miriam is the only one of the three siblings who leaves no clear successor: Moses passes his mantle of leadership to Joshua, Aaron invests his son Elazar as High Priest. Did Miriam’s power die with her? Or has she left the field open for any number of successors? How might a moving well with multiple mouths serve as a metaphor for non-hierarchal leadership?

Lisa Batya Feld is a writer and a Hebrew College rabbinical student (2023) in Boston, Massachusetts. She is currently at work on a midrashic novel about Miriam, Aaron, and Moses as siblings.