We are entering the month of Sivan, which holds within it the end of the counting of the Omer and the holiday of Shavuot. In this month’s Sacred Time podcast, I spoke about Shavuot as a time of Revelation, of receiving the Torah. It is a time of connecting to wisdom, connecting to sacred experience – ideally in a way that is authentic to you.

In preparing for Shavuot, I offer a passage from the Gemara, Tractate Shabbat 88a. In a brief but poignant discussion, our sages connect Revelation to Creation, two fundamental components of Jewish tradition. In order to explore their intention with you, I invite you to ponder these questions along with me:

What is the connection between Shavuot and Creation?
What does it mean that G-d created a condition with the earth concerning creation?
Who is involved in this relationship?

The passage: Shabbat 88a (Translation with some Explanation from Sefaria)

דְּאָמַר רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ, מַאי דִּכְתִיב: ״וַיְהִי עֶרֶב וַיְהִי בֹקֶר יוֹם הַשִּׁשִּׁי״, ה׳ יְתֵירָה לָמָּה לִי? — מְלַמֵּד שֶׁהִתְנָה הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא עִם מַעֲשֵׂה בְרֵאשִׁית וְאָמַר לָהֶם: אִם יִשְׂרָאֵל מְקַבְּלִים הַתּוֹרָה — אַתֶּם מִתְקַיְּימִין, וְאִם לָאו — אֲנִי מַחֲזִיר אֶתְכֶם לְתוֹהוּ וָבוֹהוּ.

… Reish Lakish said: What is the meaning of that which is written: “And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day” (Genesis 1:31)? Why do I require the superfluous letter heh, the definite article, which does not appear on any of the other days? It teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, established a condition with the act of Creation, and said to them: If Israel accepts the Torah on the sixth day of Sivan, you will exist; and if they do not accept it, I will return you to the primordial state of chaos and disorder.

Bluth’s Mystical Musings:

The sixth day of creation stands out among the other days of creation. In the Gemara text above, the Rabbis suggest that this is a signal to a different sixth day: the sixth of Sivan, when the Torah was given at Mount Sinai (the day we celebrate Shavuot). In this way, the Rabbis not only connect, but imbed Revelation – of Torah, of Godliness – in the process of the creation of the world.

In fact, for the Kabbalists, Creation itself is revelation. It is the manifestation of the Infinite Oneness, Ein Sof, into the physical world. As the Chassidic bumper sticker says, Ein Od Milvado. There is none other than The Divine. As Hebrew College’s Rabbi Art Green explains in Radical Judaism, “G!d is to be sought and found everywhere and in each moment… our response to this deeper truth is both a daily practice and a lifelong adventure, and that our ongoing discovery of G!d can uplift and transform both soul and world.”

In our mystical tradition, the universe is ever unfolding and we humans are co-creators of the world with G!d. The Rabbis remind us that Revelation is perhaps the ‘icing on the cake’ of Creation. Our relationship with the Divine, our collective encounter with the sacred, our attempt to live a life that amplifies that, and our commitment to creating civilization based on the wisdom, ethics, revelation of Torah – is deeply integral to Creation. During creation, the world itself was imbued with sacredness. On Mount Sinai, the sacred became manifest through the hebrew language and stories, through the Torah. Through this, we were invited into a living relationship. And so, humanity sustains the earth. Just as the earth sustains us.

A lovely wordplay I once noticed supports this thought: – If you take the letters of the tetragrammaton that represents the name of G!d – YH/VH, the divine unspeakable name that is Being itself, the past present and future combined into an Eternal verb – and exchange the yud and vav with the aleph & bet (the building blocks of language), what do you get? אהבה (ahava), the word for LOVE.

This is the Love of Shir HaShirim, and the intimate metaphors within our mystical tradition:
G!d as our beloved.
Shavuot as a wedding.
Torah as our teacher, as our path for encountering mystery, and our guide for sustaining and loving the living world.

As always I hope you can make time, this month of Sivan, to lovingly connect with your spiritual selves, and to our collective heart.