3
Our house was ready for the holiday. Everything about the house said: Shavuot.
The sun shone down on the outside of the house; inside, on the walls, we had hung cypress, pine, and laurel branches, and flowers. Every beautiful flower and everything with a sweet smell had been brought in to decorate the house for the holiday of Shavuot. In all the days I had lived in the Land of Israel, our house had never been decorated so nicely as it was that day. All the flaws in the house had vanished, and not a crack was to be seen, either in the ceiling or in the walls. From the places where the cracks in the house used to gape with open mouths and laugh at the builders, there came instead the pleasant smell of branches and shrubs, and especially of the flowers we had brought from our garden. These humble creatures, which because of their great modesty don’t raise themselves high above the ground except to give off their good smell, made the eye rejoice because of the many colors with which the Holy One, blessed be He, has decorated them, to glorify His land, which, in His loving-kindness, He has given to us.
4
Dressed in a new summer suit and new light shoes, I went to the house of prayer. Thus my mother, may she rest in peace, taught me: if a man gets new clothes or new shoes, he wears them first to honor the holiday, and goes to the synagogue in them. I am thankful to my body, which waited for me, and did not tempt me into wearing the new clothes and shoes before the holiday, even though the old ones were heavy, and hot desert winds ran through the country. And — if I haven’t reached the heights of all my forefathers’ deeds — in these matters I can do as well as my forefathers, for my body stands ready to fulfill most of those customs which depend upon it.
5
I walked to the house of prayer. The two stores in the neighborhood were shut, and even the bus, which usually violates the Sabbath, was gone from the neighborhood. Not a man was seen in the streets, except for little errand boys delivering flowers. They too, by the time you could look at them, had disappeared. Nothing remained of them except the smell of the flowers they had brought, and this smell merged with the aroma of the gardens in our neighborhood.
The neighborhood was quietly at rest. No one stopped me on the street, and no one asked me for news of the world. Even if they had asked, I wouldn’t have told them what had happened to my city. The days have come when every man keeps his sorrows to himself. What would it help if I told someone else what happened to my city? His city surely had also suffered that same fate.
6
I arrived at the house of prayer and sat down in my place. I kept the events in my city, as they appeared to me, hidden in my heart. A few days later, when the true stories reached me, I saw that the deeds of the enemy were evil beyond the power of the imagination. The power of the imagination is stronger than the power of deeds, except for the evil of the nations, which goes beyond all imagination.
I opened a Mahzor and looked at the evening prayers for the first night of Shavuot. People outside the Land of Israel generally add many liturgical poems, especially in those ancient communities that follow the customs of their forefathers. Although I think of myself as a resident of the Land of Israel in every sense, I like these piyyutim, which prepare the soul for the theme of the day. Our teachers, the holy writers of the piyyutim, are good intermediaries between the hearts of Israel and their Father in heaven. They knew what we need to ask of God and what He demands of us, and they wrote hymns to open our lips before our Father in heaven.
The people who come to the house of prayer began to gather. Even those whom one usually doesn’t see in the synagogue came, to bring their children. As long as a child is a child, he is drawn after his father and draws his father with him. That is, he is drawn after his Father in heaven and draws with him the father who gave him birth. In my town, all the synagogues used to be filled with babes like these. They were good and sweet and healthy; now they are all dead. The hand of the enemy has finished them all. There is no remnant, no one left. And if a few of them do remain, they’ve been captured by Gentiles and are being educated by Gentiles. Let’s hope that they too will not be added to our enemies. Those about whom it is written “I shall bear you on the wings of eagles and bring you unto Me” are given over to others and are trampled under the feet of human filth.
7
Although on the Sabbath and festivals one says the evening prayers early, on Shavuot we wait to say Maariv until the stars are out.
For if we were to pray early and receive the holiness of the festival, we would be shortening the days of the Omer, and the Torah said: “There shall be seven full weeks.”
Since they had already finished Minhah and it was not yet time for Maariv, most of the congregation sat talking with one another, except for the children, who stood about in wonder. I know that if I say this people will smile at me, but I’ll say it anyway: The same thing happened to those children at this season of the giving of our Torah as happened to them when their souls stood before Mount Sinai, ready to receive the Torah the following day.
While the adults were sitting and talking, and the children were standing about in amazement, the time came for the evening prayer. The gabbai pounded on the table and the leader of the prayers went down before the ark. After a short order of prayers, including neither piyyutim nor “And Moses declared the festivals of the Lord,” they greeted one another and went home in peace.
8
I came home and greeted my wife and children with the blessing of the holiday. I stood amazed to think that here I was celebrating our holiday in my home, in my land, with my wife and children, at a time when tens of thousands of Israel were being killed and slaughtered and burned and buried alive, and those who were still alive were running about as though lost in the fields and forests, or were hidden in holes in the earth.
I bowed my head toward the earth, this earth of the Land of Israel upon which my house is built, and in which my garden grows with trees and flowers, and I said over it the verse “Because of you, the soul liveth.” Afterward I said kiddush and the blessing “Who has given us life,” and I took a sip of wine and passed my glass to my wife and children. I didn’t even dilute the wine with tears. This says a lot for a man; his city is wiped out of the world, and he doesn’t even dilute his drink with tears.
I washed my hands and recited the blessing over the bread, giving everyone a piece of the fine challot that were formed in the shape of the Tablets, to remember the two tablets of the Covenant that Moses brought down from heaven. The custom of Israel is Torah: if the bread comes from the earth, its shape is from the heavens.
We sat down to the festive meal of the first night of Shavuot. Part of the meal was the fruit of our soul, which we had turned with our own hands and watered with our own lips. When we came here we found parched earth, as hands had not touched the land since her children had left her. But now she is a fruitful land, thankful to her masters, and giving us of her goodness.
The meal was good. All that was eaten was of the fruits of the land. Even the dairy dishes were from the milk of cows who grazed about our house. It is good when a man’s food comes from close to him and not from far away, for that which is close to a man is close to his tastes. Yet Solomon, in praising the woman of valor, praises her because she “brings her bread from afar.” But the days of Solomon were different, for Solomon ruled over all the lands and every man in Israel was a hero. And as a man’s wife is like her husband, the women of valor in Israel left it for the weak to bring their bread from nearby, while they would go to the trouble of bringing it from afar. In these times, when the land has shrunk and we all have trouble making a living, bread from nearby is better than that which comes from afar.