"For Everything There Is A Season...."

Rabbi Irwin Wiener, D.D.

“..a time for every experience under Heaven” (Ecclesiastes). King Solomon exhorts the remembrance of all the frailties of life and in the same breath explains the wonders of fulfillment.

We are at the crossroads of celebrating both completion and continuity. This is a time for learning and realizing the inescapable truth that our future is connected to our past. We commemorate the re-unification of Jerusalem that occurred June 6, 1967 (5 Iyar, 5727). At the same time we rejoice in learning as we stand at the foot of the Mountain and listen to words that have echoed throughout history – Shavuot.

The Ahad HaAm wrote that learning-learning-learning: That is the secret of Jewish survival. When the Romans were destroying Jerusalem and the Temple, the one thing that was asked was that a school of learning be established because it was understood that while the center of Jewish life was in flames, the flame of Jewish survival rested with the continuation of knowledge. That is Shavuot.

And after 2,000 years we have learned that patience and fortitude and petitions allowed us to return to the eternal capital of Israel and we, the eternal people of Israel were once more fastened to the dreams of centuries.

Judah Halevi wrote an essay titled “City of the World” in which he describes the feelings of the generations:

“Oh city of the world, most chastely fair,
In the far west, behold, I sigh for thee...
Oh, had I eagles’ wings I’d fly to thee,
And with my falling tears make moist thine earth…
Oh, that I might embrace thy dust, the sod
Were sweet as honey to my fond desire.”

There are no other people on the face of the Earth who have had and continues to have such a connection to a place. More than that, there is an emotion that transcends time and space and understanding. That is Jerusalem.

And it is no accident that the holiday of Shavuot coincides with this miracle of the ages. It is no accident because we took with us the trappings of Jewish existence and ensured that our survival would be complete.

Shavuot is a time of learning because it is at that precise time in our history that we learned the true meaning of life and developed a sense of understanding of our place in the unending search for connection.

There is a poem written by Ibn Ezra:

“In the mirror of thought,
By the light of his mind,
The wise man perceives all about him
His Creator’s glory.
In his own body-
In the four elements of its substance,
In the design of its structure,
In the concord and symmetry of
its parts –
He beholds God.

Each place we found ourselves we established schools because knowledge is the foundation of moral relationships. We stay up all night on Shavuot to emphasis the grandeur of the written and spoken word. It is through the process of education that we can fully comprehend the moments of truth.

“For everything there is a season, a time for every experience under Heaven.” This is the season of reason and salvation. This is the time to rejoice in the gift of verbal intercourse and the place where the Word took shape and was permeated throughout civilization.

This is Shavuot and Yom Yerushalayim. We have seen this day, the day that God speaks to all of us. This is the day of His word and His place.