One holiday features dairy foods and the other meaty cookouts. Unless you are into barbecued blintzes, it seems like a mismatch.
But Shavuot, which begins this evening and lasts into the weekend, and Memorial Day which falls on Monday but is really all weekend, have more in common than we would think. For one thing, both celebrate the unofficial beginning of summer, when wearing white is now officially permissible, and even desirable, evoking symbolism of nature’s renewal and our recommitment to higher ideals (Shavuot is considered the “wedding” of God and the Jewish people). For another, both holidays are curiously neglected and rarely are they observed as originally intended.
In the case of Shavuot, the celebration of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai was a later insertion of history into what was essentially an agricultural holiday, the wheat harvest. These days, most Jews are unfamiliar with Shavuot, as it gets the least attention of all Jewish festivals.
Memorial Day, meanwhile was originally a day to remember war dead (“Memorial” Day...get it?), before it became an occasion for car sales, beach trips, auto races and barbecues. Maybe this year we can regain some of the deeper meaning of each festival, now that they’ll be celebrated back-to-back.
We need to.
On Memorial Day and on the second day of Shavuot in the diaspora (there’s only one day observed in Israel and for Reform Jews - it’s complicated), we will recite memorial prayers. This weekend, I hope that each of us will take a moment to recall those who have made the supreme sacrifice.
For a history of Memorial Day you can go to the History Channel website. It’s become a custom for me on this weekend to share the words of Rabbi Roland Gittlesohn in a speech delivered in dedication of the 5th marine cemetery on Iwo Jima, in March 1945. Click here for the backstory. It has been called one of the great battlefield sermons to come out of World War Two and it has never been more urgent for us to hear it in its entirety:
Both Memorial Day and Shavuot focus our thoughts on those who have sacrificed, on their commitment, selflessness, and love.
And both holidays remind us - as Gittlesohn did - that democracy and freedom are for everyone.
The Kindest Person in the Bible
On Shavuot, we read my hands-down favorite biblical book, Ruth, the tale of a kind Moabite woman who chose to cast her lot with the Jewish people and was welcomed by them. Ruth is among the most exemplary, compassionate and courageous people in all of ancient literature, and a fitting great grandmother to King David, as we discover at the very end of the book. Her very name means friendship.
Ruth1 is especially about easing the plight of refugees, as Ruth herself was embraced by her mother-in-law Naomi and her community. We Americans, who live in a country whose default seems permanently set on “They’re eating the dogs,” have much to learn from this book.
To illustrate my point about this country, here’s Fortune’s survey on how Americans viewed Jewish refugees in 1938, euphemistically called “Austrian” and “German” even as the walls were closing in on them:
In a July 1938 poll, 67 percent of Americans told Fortune magazine that America should try to keep out altogether German, Austrian and other political refugees, and another 18 percent said America should allow them in but without increasing immigration quotas. In another 1938 poll, cited in the book “Jews in the Mind of America,” some 75 percent of respondents said they opposed increasing the number of German Jews allowed to resettle in the United States.
In January 1939, 61 percent of Americans told Gallup they opposed the settlement of 10,000 refugee children, “most of them Jewish,” in the United States.
Americans have a problem with people who are different. It’s endemic, it’s ageless and it is us. This is “who we really are.” We have to change who we really are.
Here’s a sobering bit of news for this week. The killings at the Islamic Center in San Diego were horrific. And these nihilistic, neo-Nazi, far-right extremist haters turned out to be equal opportunity bigots. After aiming for Muslims, these killers had to get their verbal shots in - at the Jews….
Shavuot and Memorial Day remind us to seek the good, to use our power for the betterment of others. We see that in Ruth. And we saw that on the beaches of Normandy.
Not eating the dogs - but marrying them?
Hate and intolerance take many forms. While it may seem trivial and even comical, an incident from the Israeli Knesset this week is quite typical, and indicative of why the current government needs to be replaced.
As the rush to fall elections begins, the extremist far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties are pushing for some of their pet legislation to be passed. One item on their radar is the elimination of non-Orthodox prayer spaces at the Western Wall. They want to make it a criminal offense to have religious services - even in specially designated areas, as has long been the case - where men and women stand together. Many groups who attempt non-Orthodox prayer there, such as the Women of the Wall, are harassed. But five years in jail for praying in a Jewish state? This will look really good on an El Al brochure.
So that set the stage for this outburst by a Knesset member from Likud, the Prime Minister’s party, advocating for the new law:
Welcome to my world! (Understand that yes, I’ve been dealing with this forever, and it takes nothing away from my love for Israel. I can love Israel despite May Golan just as I can love America despite Clarence Thomas.)
It all comes back to the imperative of Memorial Day and Shavuot, for us to build societies that embrace difference. The ultra-Orthodox establishment in Israel is notorious for narrowly defining Jewish identity, and they feel threatened by the progressives’ embrace of people like Ruth the Moabite.
Click here for a YouTube clip, with subtitles, from a popular Israeli comedy series that parodies Jewish history and touches on this topic of Othering with piercing wit. It’s dark and hits you over the head like a sledgehammer. But it gets the point across.
In another episode of that same show, there is a skit where, following Ruth’s supreme gesture to follow Naomi wherever she goes, immigration officials jump out of the bushes and demand to see her papers. But all joking aside, the message of this book is that the only way to confront tragedy is though steadfast kindness, by standing shoulder to shoulder with those who are bereft, by restoring hope to the hopeless and by welcoming the stranger.
The rabbis had it right in assigning the book of Ruth to this holiday. In order to be worthy of receiving the Torah, we need to first purify our souls of hate and then fill that empty space with kindness. We need to be more like dogs!
I have an additional bone to pick with May Golan.
Now to be clear, I’ve never performed a dog wedding, but I did host a Bark Mitzvah in my backyard. It was for my dog Crosby. And it was wonderful! I believe that, weddings aside, humans should create rituals to celebrate and sanctify their relationships with their pets. Below in the footnotes, you’ll find the tribute I wrote for Crosby when he traversed that rainbow bridge several years ago.
Put that in your next hateful speech, May Golan, and may a random dog in the Sachar Park just outside the Knesset - which features a dedicated, off-leash dog park - mistake your leg for kibble and take a small nibble of it on your way home.
Or if not a dog, perhaps a rabid progressive rabbi.
We’ve been known for our biting satire, after all.
Here’s a video from Crosby’s Bark Mitzvah, for May Golan’s scrapbook. This is how a progressive rabbi makes Judaism a special treat for everyone!
My full tribute to Crosby is at the bottom of this newsletter.2
And a couple of assorted items:
For those who missed my Substack Live event yesterday with Substack star and noted pundit Julie Roginsky, here it is. We discussed the challenges of being a diaspora Jew these days, and what lies ahead.
And finally, WTF? Bibi and Trump wanted to install HIM?
The NYT claims that Israel and the US had a scheme all worked out in the early days of the Iran war to install as the head of their new Iran puppet government none other than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Come again? So this guy, the one who I schlepped to Daj Hammarskjöld plaza outside the UN to protest, he’s the one Trump and Bibi wanted to install to lead Iran? This guy didn’t just deny the Holocaust; he convened international conferences to deny the Holocaust. Brilliant! What could go wrong with that? Seriously, who comes up with these ideas? The same one who thought of stuffing Qatari money into suitcases and funneling it to Hamas? I’m so glad our world is in such stable hands. Sometimes I wish the producers of the streaming shows Tehran and Fauda would just take over the whole operation. One wonders who they are picking for Our Man in Havana: Ricky Ricardo?
For those who are celebrating, have a happy Shavuot and meaningful Memorial Day
Some more worthwhile links about Ruth and Shavuot:
The Covenant of Redemption: Shavuot (Rabbi Irving Greenberg) - A superb summary of the themes of this holiday, from his book, “The Jewish Way.”
The Book of Ruth: A Serious Comedy (Nechama Ashkenazi)
Here’s a funny, quick primer, The Idiots Guide to Shavuot).
And see my op-ed: Subversive Shavuot: Our Most Radical Holiday. Spoiler for Jim Hegseth: It involves Pharisees:
