Spring cleaning is underway and while most of us are concerned with organizing our closets, tending to our gardens and making summer vacation plans, the Jewish holiday of Shavuot is an opportunity for self-improvement of the mind, body and soul. While most of us know how to improve ourselves physically through diet and exercise, few of us know how to improve our lives spiritually.  It is with this in mind that we might look to the festival of Shavuot for some insight into how to further our spiritual development.Shavuot begins on the evening of May 28 and ends on May 30 and is a celebration of the giving of the Torah to Moses at Sinai. When thinking about Shavuot, many of us immediately create a mental image of Moses holding stone tablets engraved with the Ten Commandments.  According to a traditional perspective, however, Moses received from G-d not only the written Torah, which is said to contain 613 commandments, but many additional teachings in the Talmud are known as the Oral Torah. 

Consequently, revelation is traditionally regarded as the teachings and traditions outlined in the Torah and the Talmud.  But, many Jewish teachers and mystics go a step further and suggest that revelation didn’t begin and end at Sinai but continue as an ongoing process today. If that is the case, Shavuot can be a celebration of the revelation of Torah as we have come to know it through written and oral traditions, the historical experience of the Jewish people and even in our own lives. 

This ongoing revelation can be realized if we are open to the lessons to be learned from life, from history and from our surroundings. Yet, we can’t just wait for a revelation to appear; its discovery requires wisdom, understanding and practice. That is what prayer, study, meditation and other forms of Jewish spiritual practice are for – to help us become aware of how everything is a kind of revelation.

“Spiritual practices are simply ways of developing our capacity for spiritual discernment,” says Rabbi Tom Heyn, a local rabbi, who is the Interim Director of Pastoral Care at Cedar Village and teaches integrative approaches to Jewish spirituality.  While there are many interpretations of Jewish tradition, Rabbi Heyn points out that there is a unifying element.  “Throughout our history, all the diverse expressions of Jewish identity emerge from an essentially spiritual tradition.  Beginning with Abraham, this tradition sees the world not as a place governed by a multiplicity of gods or competing interests, but as an incredibly complex manifestation of an in-dwelling yet transcendent intelligence.” 

From this perspective, says Rabbi Heyn, one can see the many facets of Jewish community and culture as being infused with a common purpose. “This common purpose – an endeavor to discern and live by the lessons that are being revealed to us – is really at the center of it all,” said Rabbi Heyn.

Rabbi Heyn began sharing his integrative approach to Judaism in Cincinnati about ten years ago when he founded The Jewish Spirituality Network of Southwestern Ohio.  The group was started at a time when healing circles, meditation, Kabbalah and other integrative approaches were becoming popular.  “I wanted to establish a center of gravity for people who feel that spirituality is not a fixed set of practices but a dynamic process."  Although Rabbi Heyn is no longer directly involved in the group, the lessons he learned from interacting with its members have impacted how he teaches and practices spirituality today.

One lesson Rabbi Heyn learned is that music has the power to deeply touch a human being in a way that is different than the spoken word.  A few years ago he began performing in a band called Mamash, a word which serves in the Hebrew language as an exclamation mark. For example, when something is truly beautiful beyond description, the Hebrew word ‘mamash’ is often used.  Music, Rabbi Heyn explains, has a similar ability to touch us in emotional and even spiritual ways that are often beyond description.

In the final analysis, the festival of Shavuot reminds us that the revelation of Torah is the origin and the very essence of Jewish life.  This theme is also reflected in the Book of Ruth, which is customarily read on Shavuot.  Ruth, who was from the Moabite tribe, the members of which were sworn enemies of the Israelites, decided she identified more with the Israelites and was welcomed into their community as a convert.  Even though she wasn’t born Jewish, Ruth identified so strongly with the spiritual intentionality of the Jewish people that she vowed to follow their customs without hesitation:  “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy G-d my G-d.” (Ruth 1:16)

According to Rabbi Heyn, “The Book of Ruth is one of the books in the Tanakh (the Hebrew Scriptures) that is the most inclusive and welcoming in its theme.  Today’s world is so diverse and often at odds with itself – as much as when the Israelites were at odds with the Moabites.  It is as important now as it was in ancient times to believe that revelation is a dynamic and ongoing process.”  Then we can recognize the multiple ways in which Jews express their identity as genuinely ‘Jewish’ forms of expression.

As in the story of Ruth, it is possible for individuals who can identify with the principles of our tradition to find their place within Judaism and help the Jewish community find its place in the world as “a light unto the nations.”  Whether religious or secular, on Shavuot we can all celebrate the timeless revelation of Torah.