49 Days of the Omer. That is 7 Weeks.

Malchut shebe Malchut
Nobility/Sovereignty within Nobility/Sovereignty 
Tuesday evening June 11 and Wednesday June 12

Who am I walking with today?
You. 

Shavuot means weeks, literally, and we’ve traveled together for seven weeks of seven days, and . . . here we are.
Hinei anachnu. 

We did it!

The two loaves of green chili and cheddar stuffed challot I made yesterday are waiting patiently for us to offer them. In contrast to the matzah of 49 days ago they bubbled and rose triumphantly on the counter before they were baked - a double rise because we are in no hurry. They are shaped like two tablets, one with an aleph and the other with a bet. I made the extra grocery run this morning so Liddy has what she needs to make blintzes when she wraps up teaching at one. Vegetables enough for a few meals are roasting in the oven with an eggy blue corn baked something that I invented this morning - we’ll see how that goes. There is lentil salad in the fridge. Liddy made boursin cheese which I can’t seem to pronounce, but which I love to eat. 

I have the colorful tissue paper ready to make flowers with my students at our “See You at Sinai Pajama Party” tonight. I’ve contributed tzedakah to Standing Together and Love is Boss and Breaking Free and Leket. 

This year it has felt and feels particularly important to me to give this holiday, one of the three pilgrimage festivals marked in ancient times by the entire Israelite people gathering at the Temple in Jerusalem, time and attention. Like Passover and Sukkot, Shavuot is also timed to important moments in the agricultural calendar: the first grain harvest of the season and the kidding of goats. The Torah refers to Shavuot as Chag HaKatzir, the festival of the harvest. The first fruits, the bikkurim, were brought as an offering of connection in the Temple. 

I mean, seriously, could goats get any better? When goats have babies it’s actually called ‘kidding’ . . . I can’t quite get over it. 

Between the barley, wheat, first fruits, and abundant goat milk given the season, Shavuot foods tend to rely heavily on breads and baked treats and dairy. Different cultural food influences from the places we’ve lived significantly inform what specific food traditions families have. 

Shavuot is also called Z’man Matan Torateinu. Why? Well, religiously we are celebrating the giving and receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai - one of the most important moments in Jewish history. Mystically, this was the moment when God’s will was expressly communicated to human beings. Passover transitioned us into a People and Shavuot into a People bound by covenant in a mutual relationship with God. Some Sephardic communities even recite a marriage contract symbolizing the betrothal of God and the people. We could see the mountain as a chuppah.

On Sukkot in the fall we build booths and invite in our ancestors, on Passover in the earlier spring we have a seder, and on Shavuot we have a Tikkun Leil Shavuot, a custom that seems to have emerged around the same time as the practice of the Tu BiShvat seder in the 16th century. The word “tikkun” means “repair” and this communal ritual is understood to also bring communal and relational healing.

There is a custom to associate eating dairy foods on Shavuot with the obligation of keeping kosher, including the prohibition on eating meat and dairy together, in the Torah. As the story goes, after we received the Torah we returned to our tents and discovered our previously prepared meat could no longer be eaten because its preparation hadn’t followed the newly given dietary laws. Hungry from being up all night, we ate dairy foods instead.

The core story of this holiday is the Book of Ruth - the setting is the barley and then wheat harvests. It is a story that in many ways weaves together the sephirot of the Omer and most centers on Chesed - loving kindness. At the opening of the narrative, Ruth is a Moabite woman whose father-in-law, brother-in-law, and then husband die. Her sister Orpah returns to their people and her mother-in-law, Naomi, urges her to do the same. Ruth clings to Naomi and joins her on her journey back to Bethlehem - back to the Israelite people. Boaz welcomes and protects her, and then eventually they marry. In the end, the Israelite people have fully welcomed Ruth and she has fully committed to being one among the Jewish people. King David is one of the descendants of the love between Ruth and Boaz. 

When I baked our challah yesterday and added the wheat flour I thought about the journey it took to become the bread I was baking. In a physical sense, it was a sown seed and then a plant drawing in nutrients from the soil. It blew in the wind, it weathered rain, it danced in the sun. It was harvested and processed and became flour. That wheat, though, is also a kind of a spiritual descendant of one of the main characters of the Book of Ruth. Kneading the dough I felt the connection between my hands and hers and yours - even if bread baking isn’t your thing.

Speaking of things . . . 

If you don’t have a plan yet for Shavuot, or if you aren’t sure about the plan you have, I’ve got some ideas for you about celebrating tonight and tomorrow. Outside of Israel and in some communities you also have the opportunity to celebrate Wednesday night and Thursday. That’s what I’m doing, and then it’ll be a quick turnaround for me before Shabbat! And hey, this is a season. Celebrate all week!

Celebrating Shavuot can look and feel and sound like so many things.
Here are some choose your own adventure(s):

You eat:
Eat something on this day or these days because it’s Shavuot.
Seriously, it could be just about anything IF you can make a connection with the intentions and meaning of the holiday.
Go out for ice cream.
Get some goat cheese.
Put honey on stuff.
Eat a baked something.
Eat barley soup. 
Eat edible flowers.
Go out for cheesecake.
Have some fruit. 
I mean it. Pick something you are going to eat because it’s Shavuot and it can become a Shavuot tradition. 

You love flowers:
Garden, bring home flowers for your table, go out and find some native flowers, all things flowers. There is a midrash that the moment we received the Torah the entire mountain bloomed.

You like to be outside:
Go for a walk, or a hike, or a roll, or an anything.
Do it because it’s Shavuot and JUST LIKE THAT you are celebrating Shavuot.
Have a pool party (there are water festival things for Shavuot in some communities).
Have a water fight.
Go fly kites.

You like documentaries:
Watch a Jewish one.

You like movies:
Watch a Jewish one.

You like books:
Read a Jewish one.
*You’ve got the idea. 

You care about something:
Give them some tzedakah - that’s the kind of donation that is like the gleanings Boaz left for Ruth. It restores balance, it brings about justice, it reallocates money or resources from where they are not needed to where they are.

You are into crafts and creating:
Make these tissue paper flowers or any flowers and decorate a room or your house or bring them to neighbors. There is a midrash that the moment we received the Torah the entire mountain bloomed.Knit something with colors that make you happy. 
Paint something with some Shavuot thing in mind - flowers or mountains or goats or fig trees or Ruth’s story. 

You love Bridgerton but want it Jewish:
Read Marry Me By Midnight, by Felecia Grossman. 

 You are into music:
Okay, so first of all I have no awards or big gifts to offer, but you’ll get lots of shout outs from me if you are a singer-songwriter and you create some music for Shavuot. Seriously, Shavuot is so under music’d. (I’m not sure how to spell that.) We NEED more Shavuot-specific Jewish music of all genres. In a big way. For real.

You could also just play music because the story at Sinai is that the air was filled with the sound of a shofar blast and we could see the thunder and hear the lightning. So, yeah, fill the senses!

For those of us who aren’t musicians:
You could think about the themes of Shavuot and make a playlist.
If you do this please, please share it with me!
You could listen to my Shavuot playlist.

You are into the tradition of studying or want to try it out:
If you want a well-crafted self-guided study with children, Hadar’s got you covered.
Temple Israel of Boston has 25 hours of online learning “Tikkun Zoom Shavuot”.
If you want a lot of options for study on your own specifically about Shavuot or about anything Sefaria is an excellent resource.
Pardes has a collection of podcasts you could listen to.
The URJ has an all-night small congregations Tikkun open to everyone. 
Looks like Park Avenue Synagogue has something going live from here.
If you’d prefer to learn with videos - Aleph Beta has so many.
Judaism Unbound had a 24 hour event over the weekend - a pre-Shavuot tikkun.
Seasons of Our Joy, by Arthur Waskow is a great and very widely available book about all of the holidays.
A Rainbow Thread, by Noam Sienna is also one of my favorites.
I’m a very big fan of The Daughters Victorious, by Shlomo Wexler.
Loving Our Own Bones, by Julia Watts Belser is on my Shavuot reading list this year.

One of the wonderful and challenging things about us all being at Sinai together is that we are ALL at Sinai together. The super religious and the totally secular, the take it or leave it and the Judaism-is-my-favorite-fandom, the bake all day and the study all night, the read in a hammock and the climb a mountain. We’ve got the people who eat matzah on Passover with their lobster and the people who have four sets of plates, two ovens, and two dishwashers. We are the ones who always sit in the same spot and the folks for whom being at Sinai is kind of a surprise - who aren’t sure where to sit . . . or if we should stand. We’ve got me and you and everyone.

If Malchut is about making it real . . . well, it doesn’t get any more real than this:
Here we are - at Sinai at last.

How to say the blessing:
Choose the language that resonates with you the most.
Non-gendered Hebrew based on grammar system built by Lior Gross and Eyal Rivlin,
available at www.nonbinaryhebrew.com 

Gender Expansive:

הִנְנִי מוּכָנֶה וּמְזֻמֶּנֶה …

Hineni muchaneh um’zumeneh …

Here I am, ready and prepared …

Feminine:

הִנְנִי מוּכָנָה וּמְזֻמֶּנֶת …

Hineni muchanah um’zumenet …

Here I am, ready and prepared …

Masculine:

הִנְנִי מוּכָן וּמְזֻמַן …

Hineni muchan um’zuman …

Here I am, ready and prepared …

All Continue:

… לְקַיֵּם מִצְוַת עֲשֵׂה שֶׁל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר כְּמוֹ שֶׁכָּתוּב בַּתּוֹרָה וּסְפַרְתֶּם לָכֶם מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת
מִיּוֹם הַבִיאֳכֶם אֶת עֹמֶר הַתְּנוּפָה שֶׁבַע שַׁבָּתוֹת תְּמִימוֹת תִּהְיֶנָה. עַד מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת
הַשְּׁבִיעִית תִּסְפְּרוּ חֲמִשִּׁים יוֹם וְהִקְרַבְתֶם מִנְחָה חֲדָשָה לַיי

… lekayyem mitzvat aseh shel sefirat ha-omer, kemo shekatuv batorah: us’fartem lakhem mimacharat hashabbat, miyom havi’akhem et omer hat’nufah, sheva shabbatot temimot tih’yena, ad mimacharat hashabbat hash’vi’it tis’peru khamishim yom, vehikravtem minkha khadasha l’adonai.

 … to fulfill the mitzvah of counting the Omer, as it is written in the Torah: And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Shabbat, from the day on which you bring the sheaf of the wave-offering, you shall count seven full weeks. Until the day after the seventh Shabbat, you shall count fifty days, until you bring a new gift to the Eternal.

Gender-Expansive Language for God

בְּרוּכֶה אַתֶּה יי אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ חֵי הָעוֹלָמִים אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשֶׁנוּ בְּמִצַוְּתֶהּ וְצִוֶּנוּ עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר

Brucheh ateh Adonai, Eloheinu khei ha’olamim, asher kidshenu bemitzvoteh v’tzivenu al sefirat ha’omer. 

Blessed are You, Eternal, Life of all worlds who has made us holy with Their commandments, and commanded us to count the Omer.

Feminine Language for God

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ יָ-הּ אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוְּתָהּ וְצִוָּנוּ עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר

Bruchah at Yah, ru’akh ha’olam asher kidshanu bemitzvotah v’tzivanu al sefirat ha’omer

Blessed are You, Yah, our God, Spirit of the universe who has made us holy with Her commandments, and commanded us to count the Omer.

Masculine Language for God

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melekh ha’olam asher kidshanu bemitzvotav v’tzivanu al sefirat ha’omer.

Blessed are You, Lord, our God, ruler of the universe who has made us holy with His commandments, and commanded us to count the Omer.

Count the day and week

Today is the _________ day, which is _________ weeks and _________ days of the Omer.
Today:

*

הַיּוֹם תִּשְׁעָה וְאַרְבָּעִים יוֹם
שֶׁהֵם שִׁבְעָה שָׁבוּעוֹת לָעוֹמֶר.

Hayom tishah v’arba’im yom
shehem shivah shavuot la’omer.

Today is forty-nine days.
That is seven weeks of the Omer.

Sefirat HaOmer Blessing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8hCiPI1tMQ