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The Time of the Giving of the Torah – Shavuot 5773: Baruch Cohen, CIJR, May 14, 2013 —The holiday of Shavuot has multiple names: Chag Z’man Matan Toratenu – The Time of the Giving of our Torah; Chag HaKatzir – The Harvest Festival; Chag HaBikurim – The Day of the First Fruits.
Shavuot: The Politics of Revelation: Eli Kavon, Jerusalem Post, May 13, 2013—On Shavuot, Jews celebrate God’s revealing of the Torah at Sinai to Moses and the Israelites. The covenant so central to the Sinai experience was as much a political drama as a theological one. The Sinai revelation moved the Israelites from the margins of ancient political and religious life to the center of history.
The Reasons Behind the Customs of Shavuot: Rachel Avraham, United With Israel, May 14, 2013—There are numerous Jewish customs for celebrating Shavuot. However, each and every one of these customs has symbolic reasons behind it.
The (Successful) Politics of West Bank Water: David Shamah, Times of Israel, January 31, 2013—While politicians in Israel and the Palestinian Authority continue their on again/off again posturing and peacemaking, some facts on the ground are bringing Israelis and Palestinians closer together — notably when it comes to environmental issues. “Water in the Middle East is becoming scarce, even more scarce than oil. Already, in the past, it has sparked war in the region.”
SunDwater Offers Sun Power to Purify Polluted Water: Abigail Klein Leichman, Israel 21c, April 16, 2013—Thousands of years ago, sailors would spread seawater in flat beds aboard ship to let the sun evaporate it to separate out the salt. The same principle is behind a modern Israeli technology that relies on sun power to distill clean water for drinking and agriculture.
Shavuot (Pentecost) Guide for the Perplexed 2013: Yoram Ettinger, Algemeiner, May 14, 2013
Shavuot, The Day the Judaism Shook the World: Israel Video Network, May 13, 2012 (Video)
Gleaning Just Like Ruth Would Have, if She’d Had Google Maps: Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel, May 14, 2013
Challenges of Water Management in Israel, Palestine, and Jordan: Jay Famiglietti, National Geographic, May 13, 2013
THE TIME OF THE GIVING OF THE TORAH : SHAVUOT 5773
Baruch Cohen,
CIJR, May 14, 2013
In loving memory of Malca. Z”l
The holiday of Shavuot has multiple names:
– Chag Z’man Matan Toratenu – The Time of the Giving of our Torah
– Chag HaKatzir – The Harvest Festival
– Chag HaBikurim – The Day of the First Fruits.
During the festival of Shavuot, it is customary for us to sit all night and read excerpts from the Bible and/or Rabbinic texts. This custom has Kabalistic origins. For me, the most meaningful of the readings is the “The Book of Ruth”, a superb love story. The Book records a story which took place at the time of the harvest, which is why it is read on Shavuot.
The touching story of Ruth and Boaz is set in the time of Judges, circa 11th century BCE. Elimelech of Bethlehem (in Judea) migrated to Moab (Jordan) with his wife Naomi and their sons in an effort to escape a famine which had beset the land. Unfortunately, Elimelech died in Moab along with his two sons, Nahlon and Khylion leaving Noami a widow, alone. So, when she heard that the famine in Bethlehem had abated, she decided to return home to Judea.
Her two sons’ widows, the two Moabite women Oprah and Ruth, wished to settle in Judea with Naomi. However, Naomi asked the two women to remain in Moab, their homeland. Oprah agreed to stay, but Ruth vowed that she would rather share the fate of her mother-in-law than remain in Moab,
“For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you lodge, I will lodge, your people shall be my people and your G-d, my G-d.”
Naomi, reached Bethlehem accompanied by Ruth, at the beginning of the barley harvest. Ruth went to the fields to gather the leftovers of the harvest and her gleaning brought her by chance into a barley patch belonging to Boaz, a well-to-do relative of her late husband. Noticing her modesty, Boaz told Ruth to glean only on his fields and instructed his workers to leave her be.
Boaz fell in love with Ruth. He praised her, saying that all Bethlehem knew she was a virtuous woman and did not go after other young men, rich or poor, but he was unsure if he was a worthy “redeemer” for Ruth. As the story relates, Boaz and Ruth were married in the presence of ten elders who served as witnesses. The Lord’s blessing for the union was recited: “May the Lord make the woman who is coning into your house be like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built up the house of Israel.”
Ruth just happened to choose Boaz’s field, but that choice turned out to be the decisive act that ultimately resulted in the birth of David, King of Israel. Ruth gave birth to a son Obed whose son Jesse fathered David. Ruth, the Moabite girl was thus the great-great-grandmother of the great Melech of Israel, King David.
Chag Shavuot Sameach!!
SHAVUOT: THE POLITICS OF REVELATION
Eli Kavon
Jerusalem Post, May 13, 2013
On Shavuot, Jews celebrate God’s revealing of the Torah at Sinai to Moses and the Israelites. The covenant so central to the Sinai experience was as much a political drama as a theological one. The Sinai revelation moved the Israelites from the margins of ancient political and religious life to the center of history. The Torah paints a picture of the Israelites as God’s treasured people. The Hebrew Bible relegates great empires to the status of being God’s tools to chastise the Israelites. The Sinai covenant established the Israelites as the only true power in the world, standing at the center of history. God focused all of His energy on the promotion or demotion of the people He chose.
Readers of the Hebrew Bible assume that the Israelites were at the center of Middle East politics and theology. But the archaeological record tells a different story. The first reference to the Israelites outside of the Hebrew Bible is one of defeat. In 1209 BCE, the Pharaoh Merneptah commissioned a monument in which he celebrates his repression of a rebellion against Egyptian control of the Land of Canaan. The Egyptian king boasts that “Israel is laid waste and his seed is not.”
Ancient monuments discovered by archaeologists often indicate that the Israelites were the losers of history, forced to bring tribute to the kings of powerful states. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah are never fully in control of their destiny. Yet, the Sinai covenant assured the defeated and marginalized that they were the most powerful people on earth due to their status as the chosen people of God. This was a denial of geo-politics – but it succeeded brilliantly as a defense mechanism that would enable the people of Israel to survive to this day despite the long-gone Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Hellenists, and Romans. This Israelite movement from the margins of the world to its center is a central part of a belief system that Jews celebrate on Shavuot. The Jews may be inferiors to the dominant Christians and Muslims on a political level, but they never abandon Judaism – they are the chosen people of God bound by the Sinai covenant.
The Jewish martyrs during the First Crusade could never imagine converting to Christianity – they killed themselves and their children in the name of the God of Israel. Jews never gave up the belief that the bond between God and His people could never be broken. Jewish centrality in history was a powerful force in the life of the Jewish people. Yet, the theological concept of a marginalized people moving to history’s center is also dangerous. By ignoring the reality of politics and investing their belief in their theological transformation at Sinai, the Jews became passive. Theologically, the Jews and their God were the center of the universal drama.
The political reality, however, was one of powerlessness. The Jews did have long periods of sovereignty in ancient Israel and did succeed economically and religiously in the Diaspora, but eventually the political realities have overtaken theology. Despite all their influence and success, Jews have never been all-powerful. We would like to believe that, as a people, we are at the center of history. But seventy years ago the theology of the Sinai covenant failed our people. The covenant remained alive but has to be recalibrated.
The theology that the enemies that destroyed us in Babi Yar and Auschwitz were actually tools of God to punish us is a theology that most Jews can no longer accept. We must revise our understanding of Sinai centrality in the post-Holocaust epoch.
With the emergence of the Zionist revolution, the notion of centrality of the Sinai covenant has shifted. Zionism moved the Jewish people toward a new understanding of the Jews’ place in the world and the relation of the people of Israel to God. The Zionists replaced the empowerment of theological centrality with a new idea rooted in the realities of geo-politics and history. This shift did not mean that Jews were no longer at the world’s center nor necessarily meant a rejection of God. In the modern, post-Holocaust epoch, however, the traditional answers of Jewish theology no longer work.
While in a world of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas there is still a place for calling on God’s protection for a vulnerable Israel, Jewish understanding of power must be based on the realities of politics and history. We do not need to deny the importance of the Sinai covenant and should celebrate revelation on Shavuot. We are at the center of history, contributors to the cornerstone of Western civilization. We owe that to the God of Revelation. Yet, at the same time, we must always keep our eyes on the reality around us, a reality quite different than that espoused for centuries by Jewish tradition.
The writer is rabbi of Beth Ami Congregation in Boca Raton, Florida.
THE REASONS BEHIND THE CUSTOMS OF SHAVUOT
Rachel Avraham
United With Israel, May 14, 2013
There are numerous Jewish customs for celebrating Shavuot, and each of these customs has symbolic reasons behind it. For example, when Jews remain awake all night studying the Torah, they do so because on the day that G-d gave the Torah to the Jewish people, the Jewish people did not awaken early to receive the Torah. To the contrary, that day was tainted by the Golden Calf sin. So, to compensate for that, Jews traditionally stay awake all night studying the Torah during Shavuot, in order to demonstrate their devotion to G-d and to Judaism.
Additionally, Jews usually eat two meals on Shavuot, one is a dairy meal and one is a meat meal. These two meals are supposed to represent the bread offerings that used to be given in the Temple. One of the reasons for the dairy meal is that the Torah is often compared to milk. As Song of Songs 4:11 states, “Like honey and milk (the Torah) lies under your tongue.” The reason why the Song of Songs compares the Torah to milk is because just as milk sustains the human body, the Torah sustains the Jewish soul.
Moses spent on Mount Sinai before the Jewish people were given the Torah. Furthermore, until the giving of the Torah, Jews were permitted to eat meat without ritually slaughtering the animal. However, after the Jews received the Torah, they could not eat meat without a ritual slaughter and since the first Shavuot occurred on Shabbat, no ritual slaughter could take place, implying that the Jews ate milk products on the first Shavuot. This is one of the reasons why Jews to date continue to eat dairy for Shavuot.
Libyan and Moroccan Jews have a custom to spray each other with water on Shavuot. The reasoning for this tradition is that the Talmud likens the Torah to water because just as water quenches the thirst of the human body, the Torah satisfies the thirst of the Jewish soul. Thus, is very fitting that on a holiday celebrating how G-d gave the Torah to the Jewish people, Jews would spray each other with water.
In addition to these traditions, Jews usually read the Book of Ruth on Shavuot because the story took place during the barley harvest and because one of Ruth’s descendants, King David, was born and died on Shavuot. The Shavuot story has a lot of parallels to the story of Ruth, for the story of Shavuot is the journey of the Jewish people accepting the Torah from G-d, while the story of Ruth speaks about her personal journey to leave behind her nation, the Moabites, and embrace the Jewish religion.
THE (SUCCESSFUL) POLITICS OF WEST BANK WATER
David Shamah
Times of Israel, January 31, 2013
While politicians in Israel and the Palestinian Authority continue their on again/off again posturing and peacemaking, some facts on the ground are bringing Israelis and Palestinians closer together — notably when it comes to environmental issues.
Quietly, Israel and the PA have been cooperating extensively to preserve the environment of the entire land mass west of the Jordan River, according to a top water engineer from a large Palestinian-controlled city in the West Bank. The PA needs and wants Israel’s help in keeping water clean, expanding agricultural opportunities for farmers, and ensuring safe disposal of waste and trash, the engineer said.
Attending the 17th annual International Cleantech Business Forum in Tel Aviv this week along with about a dozen other PA engineers and municipal officials, “Amar” (who asked that his real name and employer’s name not be used in this article) told The Times of Israel that everyone in the PA, without exception, had nothing but admiration for Israel’s accomplishments in technology, especially water and agricultural tech. “We want and need the advanced systems that Israel has developed to preserve the environment and to enhance agricultural output. We are neighbors, and we share the same environment, so it is to both our advantages that we cooperate on these issues.”
Far from the limelight, said Amar, Israel and the PA have developed numerous joint projects to tackle environmental problems. “For example, this June a new sewage treatment facility in Emek Hefer will come on line, which will be connected to sewage flow from Tulkarm, Jenin, and other West Bank towns.”
The project is actually the completion of a long-standing effort by officials on both sides of the Green Line to do something about the wastewater from PA cities which had for years choked and threatened to destroy the Alexander River, which flows near Netanya. The project required extensive cooperation between Israel and the PA, with contractors building cesspools, pipes, and other infrastructure. “Even during the wars [Operation Defensive Shield in 2002-2003, Operation Pillar of Defense last year] the cooperation continued,” Amar said. The more, and higher quality, water available, the more West Bank farmers will be able to plant, and the higher their incomes and living standards will be. “That’s good for everyone as well,” Amar added.
Amar’s comments presaged those of outgoing Water and Energy Minister Uzi Landau, who spoke a few minutes later at a symposium on water and energy at the Cleantech Forum. “Our neighbors are in great need,” said Landau, citing the severe and chronic water shortage in Jordan, and the longstanding erosion of water resources in Syria that has forced many farmers off their land. “Water in the Middle East is becoming scarce, even more scarce than oil. Already, in the past, it has sparked war in the region.”
While the water situation around Israel deteriorates, Israel, said Landau, has found the solution to its own water problems — and is ready and willing to export its knowledge and experience to any who seek it, include its long-time enemies. “Within a few years, there will be a 70% to 80% chance that the water coming out of your tap will be desalinated.” Thanks to technology, Landau said, “Israel’s water supply is now stable.” Already, Landau said, about a quarter of Israel’s water economy is based on desalinated water, a figure that will reach 50% within two years; the goal is to raise that to 75% by 2020.
But desalination isn’t the only area Israel excels in. “Already 75% of the water supplied to agriculture comes from recycled sewage and waste water. According to the UN, which has declared 2013 ‘The Year of Water,’ there is no ‘waste water,’ only water that has not been recovered. The UN has called on nations around the world to aim for a 50% recovery rate of wastewater by 2025. In Israel we have a 95% recovery rate.” Israeli companies, concluded Landau, are the world leaders in desalination and sewage recycling. “And if our neighbors choose to seek our help, we will gladly provide it,” Landau added.
For Amar, that invitation is nothing new. “We are just as interested in preserving water resources and having a clean environment as Israel, and we have done our share to preserve resources as well.” For example, Amar said, the PA has stopped drawing water from the badly-depleted Jordan River, even though it is entitled to a share, along with Jordan, according to the Oslo Accords. Instead, Israel has been compensating the PA with water from the National Water Carrier, which draws from the Kinneret, the Coastal Aquifer, and increasingly, from desalination plants.
Of course, no discussion of issues involving Israel and the PA can avoid politics, but for Amar, politics takes a distant second to practicalities, at least in the area of environmental cooperation. “It is true that we are still under occupation,” he said, somewhat apologetically, hesitant to offend the sensibilities of an Israeli in the heart of Tel Aviv. “One day the political issues will be worked out, but no matter what happens, we must continue to cooperate as equals,” a situation, Amar added, that for the large part prevails right now.
In fact, as far as he is concerned, politicians should stick to their jobs and not get in the way of the water professionals. “Cooperation in these areas is good, and we have respectful relations with our Israeli colleagues on the basis of a common concern. Personally, I have no use for politicians, and I don’t trust them, neither yours nor ours,” said Amar. “I trust scientists and specialists. That’s why I’m at this show.”
SUNDWATER OFFERS SUN POWER TO PURIFY POLLUTED WATER
Abigail Klein Leichman
Israel 21c, April 16, 2013
Thousands of years ago, sailors would spread seawater in flat beds aboard ship to let the sun evaporate it to separate out the salt. The same principle is behind a modern Israeli technology that relies on sun power to distill clean water for drinking and agriculture.
“About 97 percent of the world’s water is saltwater or polluted water,” says Shimmy Zimels, CEO of Jerusalem-based SunDwater. That is why some 750 million people in 45 countries need to drill expensive wells, buy bottled water or even use contaminated water despite the huge health risks.
SunDwater’s solar-powered distiller, about to hit the market, is targeted at these populations — particularly in Africa, South America and parts of Asia. It’s a “green,” low-cost, low-maintenance system that converts dirty or salty water into potable water without any need for infrastructure or an external energy source.
The water is pumped into the unit, which is outfitted with a four-square-meter (43-square-foot) round photovoltaic dish that concentrates the sunbeams for fast evaporation. The water vapor flows into a cylinder where it gets condensed back into freshwater.
The device was invented by Zimels’ childhood friend, product developer Shimon Ben-Dor, during the Israeli drought of 2009. A pre-market operational unit, set up in a sunny industrial park not far from the Dead Sea, produces 400 liters of clean water per day — five times the rate of similar systems. Several units could be linked to create a water farm, and a much larger version also is planned.
“This concept took several directions before Shimon decided to try getting heated water to evaporate and go back to its original molecular structure, which is what happens when it rains and the water evaporates up to the clouds,” Zimels tells ISRAEL21c. “His concept was to replicate what nature does.”
New water is constantly pumped back into the closed system as the water evaporates, Zimels adds. “There is no need for electricity. We are just using nature to improve nature itself, not creating new environmental problems.”
While in Israel the chronic shortage of freshwater has mostly been addressed with desalination plants, this expensive solution is not practical for larger countries with spread-out populations. Accordingly, customers in India, Madagascar, Nigeria and other African countries have expressed interest in the product.
SunDwater is working with WaterWays, an Israeli water consultancy for rural regions, to get the technology to areas of need in the most efficient manner. “We believe in the long run the unit could be manufactured in the country where it will be installed, offering an added financial advantage to those countries,” says Zimels. SunDwater would provide installation and training for local operators. “Now we need capital to start building the whole supply chain, to train the communities in need how to operate the unit and to continue the development and improvement of our solution.”
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Shavuot (Pentecost) Guide for the Perplexed 2013: Yoram Ettinger, Algemeiner, May 14, 2013—Shavou’ot (Pentecost) was, originally, an agricultural holiday, celebrating the first harvest/fruit by bringing offerings (Bikkurim-ביכורים) to the Temple in Jerusalem. Following the destruction of the second Temple and the resulting exile in 70 AD – which raised the need to entrench Torah awareness in order to avoid spiritual and physical oblivion – Shavou’ot became a historical/religious holiday of the Torah.
Shavuot, The Day the Judaism Shook the World: Israel Video Network, May 13, 2012—The most important intellectual development in human history – the giving of the Torah!
Gleaning Just Like Ruth Would Have, If She’d Had Google Maps: Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel, May 14, 2013—
The new open-source website maps fruit trees and other edible plants available for free harvesting in urban environments all over the world. Anyone can download its data, and all are welcome to update and add more sources of potential bounty.
Challenges of Water Management in Israel, Palestine, and Jordan: Jay Famiglietti, National Geographic, May 13, 2013—
If water management is a chess match, then it is already clear who the winners and losers are in the Middle East. At the core of this geopolitical game is the basic distribution of freshwater resources, and frankly, there are vast differences between the naturally available water resources in the region.
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