Even as the world takes baby steps towards reopening the economy and returning to a semblance of business as usual, it’s clear that many will remain shut in for some time and that many communal institutions, including some synagogues, will remain closed for the foreseeable future.
To serve those shut in for Shavuot, which begins this year at sunset on Thursday, May 28 and ends at nightfall on Saturday, May 30, the Chabad.org editorial team has created a cornucopia of tools and resources to help them celebrate and relive the Sinai experience in their own living rooms.
The Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—has encouraged every living Jew, from newborns to nonagenarians and beyond, to be present during services on the first morning of Shavuot, when attendees recreate the experience by reading the record of the event from the Torah scroll.
For those whom synagogue attendance will not be an option, the team created a guide on how to read the Ten Commandments at home, accompanied with a version to be printed before the holiday, replete with Hebrew and English texts, instructions and questions to foster meaningful discussion.
Another major element of the holiday is the custom to remain awake for the entire first night of Shavuot, studying a text known as Tikkun Leil Shavuot. Those unable to read this text traditionally learn other Torah subjects or attend classes. To aid those who will be unable to attend classes, the team collected essays and learning materials—in a wide array of interests and styles—to be printed (before the start of the holiday), and then studied and enjoyed over Shavuot.
Since people will be praying at home without the benefit of a rabbi or others to guide them through the prayer service, a text with page numbers, as well as information regarding the Yizkor memorial prayer, has been prepared.
Even in places where services will have resumed in a limited fashion, communal meals and receptions remain on hold. To help people prepare their own meals (especially the dairy repast traditionally enjoyed on Shavuot), a full line of recipes, which run the gamut from traditional blintzes to Italian creations with names that are difficult to spell and almost impossible to pronounce, has been collected and made available.
Children, who served as the guarantors for the covenant at Mount Sinai, are central to the Shavuot celebration. To ensure that they are included in the festivities, a special Shavuot party packet with games, stories and even an edible activity has been prepared for pre-holiday printing.
For those wishing for a one-stop shop, various offerings have been aggregated and presented in an easy-to-read format aptly titled How to Celebrate Shavuot at Home.
PART 3
Now is the time to gather as congregations of our people where the risk, if any, is miniscule compared to our past. Let’s get out of the MENTAL narrow place.
Let us declare liberty from the tyranny of the State and from any local government and perhaps even Chabad HQ which is in the middle of the hot spot of this infection. Let us declare freedom NOW in our tiny world and congregate normally this Shabbat, Shabbat, and on Shavuot.
It is critical for our congregants to get together as we have done regularly as support groups, as friendship circles, and as JEWS. As we continue to lose the habit of regular attendance, people may find other things to do on Shabbat and stop participating.
Closed for the foreseeable future??? Let us not walk to the figurative gas chambers of captivity, but rather let us take up figurative arms as in the Warsaw Ghetto and free ourselves from tyrannical government bodies, embrace the First Amendment to the Constitution, and congregate normally.