麻豆约拍

The Jewish community has just finished the short festival of Shavuot.听听It鈥檚 the least well-known of the three great annual festivals, which in ancient times were celebrated with a pilgrimage to the holy city of Jerusalem.听听For many Jews, Shavuot is about decorating our synagogues with flowers, as well as eating dairy foods like cheesecake and blintzes, but not much more.

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Shavuot听is听a mystery as the Bible says little about it.听听A clue lies in the name itself 鈥� it means 鈥榳eeks鈥�, because it comes at the end of a seven-week count.听听In English, it鈥檚 Pentecost鈥� the fiftieth day.听听Jews count each day from Passover, the celebration of the Israelite exodus from Egypt.听听And day after day, week after week, the tension builds towards the denouement fifty days later, when God announced the 10 commandments to Moses and the Israelites on Mount Sinai.

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Shavuot then, is the anniversary of the moment of revelation.听听Many people stay up all night studying Jewish texts in anticipation of the great moment, which we replay by reading the 10 commandments early in the morning.听听The flowers recall the beauty of Mount Sinai.听听And the cheesecake?听听Well, no-one really knows, but one suggestion is that it gives us indigestion to keep us awake!听听At home, we had a lovely late family meal then after a wonderful night, left the synagogue at 6am to empty roads, chirping birds and a real feeling of accomplishment.

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So, it turns out that Shavuot is about renewing our relationship with the Torah 鈥� the Jewish Bible 鈥� and placing it at the centre of our experience.听

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A Jewish teaching explains that the Torah was delivered with three things: desert, fire and water.听听A desert is a wide-open space with no observable boundaries; it represents open-mindedness to a spiritual message.听听Fire always means passion and enthusiasm and, of course, water quenches our thirst.听听The prerequisites for a spiritual encounter are open-mindedness and a willingness to change, a thirst for knowledge and a passion for real experiences.

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I believe that spirituality 鈥� the ability to commune with a higher plane of existence 鈥� is not the exclusive property of any one group or religion.听听It鈥檚 part of the human condition, the heritage of every one of us, even those who aren鈥檛 sure if they are believers.听听But it takes open-mindedness, passion and a thirst for knowledge to get started.