National Unity Shavuot Options

One people,

one mountain,

one book,

many voices.

Since we say "I was a slave in Egypt" during Passover, then why don’t we say "I was free at the foot of Sinai" on Shavuot?

On Shavuot, we celebrate the moment when we stood at Sinai and became a people.

This year CLAL is initiating the third annual National Unity Shavuot, bringing together Jewish people throughout North America for a night of learning and celebration.

Gathering with others, we will reenact the time we stood at the foot of the mountain. We will celebrate our unity as we ask questions that we can’t answer alone. In sacred conversation, we will challenge each other to see ancient text anew.

There are three ways to participate in the CLAL National Unity Shavuot.

You can engage Jews from across America and around the world in an on-line study of the texts of revelation.

Click here to browse the holy texts and to join the on-line conversation.

Or, if you prefer, you can download and use the study texts from this website with your friends and family.

Click here to review and print CLAL's National Unity Shavuot resource card.

Click here to review and print additional Shavuot study texts.

If you are a rabbi, a Jewish communal professional or a lay leader and want to organize a pluralist Shavuot gathering in your own city, click here to browse and download CLAL's National Unity Shavuot Planning Guide.

"Why are the words of Torah like fire? A fire is built by many logs and the words of Torah survive only through many minds." –adapted fromTalmud,Taanit 7

A Shavuot Reflection:

"Don't I recognize you from Sinai"?

We've heard that a Jew shouldn't have to say "nice to meet you" to another Jew. Rather, we should say "nice to see you again!" -meaning: "weren't you one of the 600,000 souls at the base of Sinai, didn't I see you in the crowd when all that thunder started to rumble?"

At some level, all of us were there at Sinai. But since we say "I was a slave in Egypt" during Passover, then why don't we say "I was free at the foot of Sinai" on Shavuot?

Passover has an immediate power of re-enactment. The seder's symbolic foods, storytelling, and ritual transform us to another place and time. Though Shavuot does not have a seder (what would we eat anyway, a mountain of Jello?) it does have another experience with equally transformative power. On Shavuot, we celebrate by opening the books that comprise the intellectual soul of our people.

During that night of learning, we try to understand on both a communal and personal level the experience at the foot of the mountain. And we ask ourselves the questions of that time-- "What do these words mean to us?" "What do we know about the One who speaks them?" "What is expected of us?" "What happens when we don't agree with the words?" "How do we build our society with them?" "How do we enrich our lives with them?"

On Shavuot, we return to the ultimate questions that characterize the People of the Book. Gathering with others, we begin to answer questions that we can't answer alone. Gathering with representatives of the entire Jewish people, reenacting the diverse crowd who stood at the foot of Sinai, we challenge each other to see Torah anew.

This on-line publication is a collection of sacred texts that point us back to Sinai. Through stories that span centuries of Jewish learning we will begin a new journey to an ancient place.

We hope that this guide nourishes you and enhances your holiday celebration.