The Divine Romance

Week Seven of Counting the Omer/Shavuot 5785

Russ Resnik, UMJC Rabbinic Counsel

When you enter the land that I am giving to you and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the first sheaf [omer] of your harvest to the priest. He shall elevate the sheaf before the Lord for acceptance in your behalf. . . . And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath—you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete. (Lev 23:11, 15 NJPS)

For decades now the UMJC community has been following the custom Sefirat Ha-omer, or Counting the Omer, to trace the days from the offering of the first sheaf, or omer, in ancient Israel to the Festival of Weeks. We don’t count the seven weeks to make sure we celebrate Shavuot on the correct date, since we already know it falls on Sivan 6 every year. Rather, we count the days to express our yearning to relive the encounter at Mount Sinai, when we received the Torah amidst an unparalleled display of God’s awesome presence.

This encounter at Sinai is often compared in Jewish literature to a wedding ceremony, which is a creative expansion on the text of the Torah itself. The same analogy appears in Jeremiah 2:2. “Thus says the Lord: ‘I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal, when you went after me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.’”

Likewise, Midrash Rabbah (a collection of early rabbinic commentaries) portrays the traditional four cups of wine at the Passover Seder as a reminder of the Lord’s four-fold promise of redemption for Israel in Exodus 6:6–7:

I am Adonai;

I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians,

I will rescue you from their bondage,

and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.

I will take you as my people, and I will be your God.

The phrase “I will take you as my people” here reflects the universal language of courtship.

The culmination of this divine romance comes at Mount Sinai, under the cover of fire and cloud, the chuppah, or wedding-canopy, of glory (Exod 19:16–18). The chuppah is an essential element of the Jewish wedding going back to Talmudic times, and it’s natural to read it back into the wedding at Sinai. The chuppah connection is strengthened by Isaiah’s vision of the day of the Lord, when the glory-cloud of Mount Sinai will be resettled over Mount Zion:

Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy (lit. a “chuppah,” Isa 4:5 ESV).

In the same way, another early midrash portrays the Ten Commandments given at Sinai as another essential element of a Jewish wedding, the “document of betrothal” or ketubah:

Documents of betrothal and marriage are written only with the consent of the two parties, and the bridegroom pays the fee. And this we learn from God from His betrothal of Israel at Sinai, as it is written, And the Lord said unto Moses: Go unto the people and betroth them to day and to-morrow (Ex. 19:10). And who wrote this document? Moses. (Midrash Rabbah, Deut. 81)

The word kiddushtem in Exodus 19:10 is usually translated “sanctify them” or “consecrate them,” but this midrash interprets it in the later, rabbinic sense as “betroth them.” In this picture, the tablets of the Ten Commandments are the ketubah, just as the glory-cloud over Sinai is the chuppah. Moses represents God, the bridegroom, in providing the ketubah. Like a marriage, Israel’s encounter with the Lord at Mount Sinai includes a ketubah, a contract of requirements and stipulations, but cannot be reduced to that; it is also an experience of intimate union that promises to endure no matter what comes.

God’s betrothal to Israel is not a marriage of convenience, as it is sometimes portrayed in Christian readings, but of heartfelt devotion. God doesn’t rescue Israel from Egypt to accomplish some task within his divine agenda, but as God tells them, “to take you as my people.” Likewise, the Ten Commandments and the rest of God’s Torah or “Instruction,” which follows in Exodus 20–23, can be seen as “Law,” as a list of rules and ordinances to make Israel fit to be a holy nation. But to understand Torah more fully we must always keep in mind the romance, the union of God and Israel under the glory-cloud at Sinai.

This divine encounter is what we celebrate each year at Shavuot, and this is what we look forward to each year as we count the Omer.

This year’s theme for Counting the Omer in the Union community has been “Renew Us in Your Spirit.” We of course have in mind the great outpouring of the Spirit on Shavuot after the resurrection and ascension of Messiah Yeshua (Acts 1–2). But we’re also thinking of the original Shavuot at Mount Sinai, the unparalleled encounter with God under the glory-cloud, a visible sign of God’s Spirit.

When we call on God to renew us in his Spirit, we’re not asking for a one-time, once-and-for-all divine encounter, just as a marriage is not ultimately about the one-time shebang of the wedding day, as glorious as that might be. Marriage is about the sustained and sustaining life-long relationship of man and woman, a relationship both intimate and fruitful in many ways.

The glory-cloud may not be visible today, but the reality of our union with God through Messiah Yeshua should be. This union becomes visible as we actively seek—and depend upon—the presence of the Spirit, the gift of Shavuot, in our everyday lives. And how do we do that? We could devote a few more teachings to that topic, but our experience of Counting the Omer provides a vital element: yearning or expectation. We can practice eagerness for Torah, the word of God, and eagerness for the presence of God reflected in counting the Omer, not only in the days leading up to Shavuot, but every day. We can actively expect the Spirit to show up in our lives in fresh ways and we can keep ourselves ready to respond.

The promise “I will take you as my people, and I will be your God” isn’t just flowery language or a vision of a far-off future. The presence of the Spirit, the gift of Shavuot, will make that promise real every day as we remain open and responsive to him.