Page 22 - Harlem Shavuot Companion 2020

The Holiday of Seven Weeks of Seven
By Isaiah Rothstein, Rabbi in Residence at Hazon

If six represents the need to toil, to work, to
struggle, to serve, seven represents that all
that has been done, must be in the name of
something greater. The Kohein represented
the structure, boundaries and law needed to
cultivate a sense of a relationship with
something beyond the knowledge of
humans, that something greater is God (!).
The Kohein relates to this in the space of
that which is Holy i.e., Jewish law and
ritual, the nation would do this through
sacred moments in time i.e., the Jewish
holiday cycle.

Interestingly the seven holidays listed in the Torah (Leviticus, 24) appear in
seven separate paragraphs on the Torah scroll. (1) Shabbat (2) Passover (3)
Shavuot (4) Rosh HaShanah (5) Yom Kippur (6) Sukkot (7) Shemini Atzeret.

Seven represents a relationship to the Infinite, to the spark of infinity within
each of us. Seven has boundaries, like Shabbos (!), it is time bound. Bound by
the farmers till in the boundaries of their crop. Seven is God’s mandate for a
holy and loving humanity. Seven is safe. Safety engenders love, and love is
what brings people together. It was the Kohein that represented that call of love
(vayikra means to call out with love) that echoes throughout this book and
throughout Jewish history.

Where six days-weeks-months-years of work, one progresses and innovates, for
1/7 - honor the sevens. Where connecting each of us to that holiness is all about
love, for the earth in space, and for the human by Divine Design through spirit
and time there is a place for us to yearn for the magic of what is possible when
we rest, return and start over. All so that we can rise higher toward number 8,
connecting to that which is above seven: The Oneness-Never-ending-Eternal
and Infinite LIGHT of HaShem!(!).

The Holiday of Shavuot is a reminder of what comes after acknowledging the
holiness in time. The experience of counting seven weeks seven times reminds
us of how we are capable of reaching for the most divine and royal of things,
the Torah is only an example of the possibilities. We should be blessed.

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