And that space is there for a purpose. Rashi writes that they were given as space for Moshe to contemplate between one matter and another. And I am stuck in that space right now, wanting to contemplate what I have learned, to sit in silence for a bit, to absorb what has happened in the last couple of months before launching into the next book, the next project, the next idea.

Let me add my voice to the many who wonder if we will be OK, now that so many of our time gaps are filled in. Red light? Check messages. Driving to store? Make phone call. In utero? Learn Chinese.

This is particularly poignant for me as I stand at the end of one job and the beginning of another. Tempting as it is to jump into the next set of tasks with its constituent identities, I am trying to clear out as much space as I can in order to collect the memories of my time here in Boulder, connect with people, and say proper goodbyes.

Rabbi Hoffman told me the way you say goodbye is the way you’ll say hello the next time. Maybe that’s why, when we finish a book of the Torah, we say hazak hazak venithazek - which means, “we will be strong, and we will hold on to you!” And when we finish a tractate of the Talmud, we say, “I will return to you!” and we make a party to celebrate.

The key is that we pay attention to the moment of transition, slow it down, think about it, do a full 360 inside of it and say, “What have a learned?” “What are my successes and failures?” “Are there any loose ends to be dealt with?” But also, “What am I moving toward? Is there any part of my current thinking that I’d like to leave behind? Any skill or perspective I’d like to gain before I arrive?” Such are the benefits of space.

But then, many people fear empty space. The mystical concept of the halal panui - the Empty Space into which Hashem created the world - is a place that many people are afraid of and try to avoid. It is the place where, so to speak, G-d is not, where the clear sense of a moral voice, of an imperative, of a Guide, a Judge, is more hidden. I believe that people are afraid they will entirely lose their way if they open up to the empty space.

It is scary. It takes faith to walk through the empty space. Faith in one’s self, in the Maker.

Shavuot, the culmination of seven weeks of seven days of counting. This year there are two opportunities to join Boulder’s rabbis for community, celebration, and learning around the theme of 7. Seven days of creation, Shabbat, seven Divine attributes, the sabbatical seven-year cycle, and much more. Some classes will run concurrently and are noted by their times.

May 14, 2013 – 9 pm to 5 am (FIRST DAY SHAVUOT)

9 pm Ma’ariv (evening service) and Candle Lighting Led by Rabbi Hannah Laner & Rabbi Marc Soloway at Bonai Sanctuary at Bonai Social Hall

9:30 pm Kiddush and Dinner at Bonai Social Hall RSVP to kit@bonaishalom.org by Thursday, May 9. RSVPs are required for the dinner only!

10:30 to 11:20 pm “Assembling and Disassembling the Mishkan 7 times” Taught by Rabbi Jamie Korngold at Bonai Beit Am

10:30 to 11:20 pm“What Happened at Sinai?” Taught by Rabbi Joshua Rose at Bonai Sanctuary.

11:30 to 12:30 am “Seven Paths to the Tree of Life”: 7 Rabbis Reflect on Preparing for Revelation” A Panel with Rabbis Ruthie Gelfarb, Ori Har, Gavriel Goldfeder, Hannah Laner, Joshua Rose, Marc Soloway, and Morah Yehudis at Bonai Sanctuary.

12:40 to 1:30 am “Transcending Spirit, Penetrating Matter: Torah Beyond 7 Heavens” Taught by Morah Yehudis Fishman at Bonai Beit Am.

12:40 to 1:30 am “Jewish Yoga and Meditation” Taught by Raj Seymour at Bonai Sanctuary.

1:40 to 2:30 am “Let the Fields Rest! What Shmita, the 7th Year, Teaches Us About How We Live Our Lives” Taught by Rabbi Marc Soloway at Bonai Beit Am.

1:40 to 2:30 am “Jewish Meditation and Yoga” Taught by Rivkah Bacharach at Bonai Sanctuary.

2:40 to 3:30 am “The 7 Names of the Yezter Harah” Hevruta Style Learning Led by Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder at Aish Kodesh.

3:40 to 4:30 am “Visions of the Chariot” (Secrets from the Haftorah for Shavuot – Ezekiel Ch. 1) Hevruta Style Learning Led by Rabbis Gavriel Goldfeder & Marc Soloway at Aish Kodesh.

4:40 to 5 am Jewish Meditation Led by Rabbi Ruthie Gelfarb at Bonai Sanctuary.

5 am Dawn Shacharit Service (including reading Revelation at Sinai from the Torah) Led by Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder at Aish Kodesh & Rabbi Marc Soloway at Bonai Sanctuary. Final decisions about shacharit services will depend on how many people are there at 5 am.

May 16, 2013 – 5 to 9 pm (SECOND DAY SHAVUOT)

9:30 am Services at Aish with Yizkor

5 pm Minchah (afternoon service) Led by Rabbi Marc Soloway at Bonai Sanctuary.

5:30 to 6:20 pm “Zohar Study for Shavuot: Come Study Zohar Texts to Engage The Heart & Ignite Your Inner Fire” Taught by Rabbi Tirzah Firestone at Bonai Sanctuary.

5:30 to 6:20 pm “The Mystical Aleph of Anochi: HaShem’s Call from the Sound of Silence” Taught by Rabbi Hannah Laner at Bonai Beit Am.

6:30 to 7:20 pm “Like a Garland of Souls: Returning to Mount Sinai” A Text Study and Guided Meditation Towards Our Sacred Essence Taught by Rabbi Tirzah Firestone at Bonai Beit Am.

6:30 to 7:20 pm “R. Alkabetz’s L’Cha Dodi to Marge Piercy’s Wellfleet Shabbat: Poetry for the 7th Day” Taught by Rabbi Ruthie Gelfarb at Bonai Sanctuary.

6:30 to 7:20 pm “What Happened at Sinai: 7 Opinions About Revelation” Taught by Rabbi Joshua Rose at Bonai Social Hall

7:30 to 8:20 pm “Emboldened Women: 7 Biblical Prophetesses: Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Avigail, Chuldah and Esther” Taught by Rabbi Ruthie Gelfarb at Bonai Beit Am.

7:30 to 8:20 pm “The 7 Names of the Yezter Harah” Taught by Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder at Bonai Social Hall.

7:30 to 8:20 pm “Let the Fields Rest! What Shmita, the 7th Year, Teaches Us About How We Live Our Lives” Taught by Rabbi Marc Soloway at Bonai Sanctuary.

8:30 to 9:00 pm “Embodied Torah” Taught by Rabbi Ori Har at Bonai Sanctuary.

9:00 pm Ma’ariv (Evening Service) & Havdalah Led by the rabbis at Bonai Sanctuary.

The curses – a ferocious response from on high, devastating every aspect of our lives – physical, emotional, psychological, societal. And why? What sin bring this level of response? The Torah answers:

“Then shall the land be paid her sabbaths... even then shall the land rest, and repay her sabbaths.”

All this is for not honoring the Sabbatical year, when we are told to desist from tending the soil or harvesting its yield on every seventh year. Why would violating the Sabbatical year bring such a terrible response? Why wouldn't this response come from, say, not keeping kosher, or not giving charity?

While those other commandments are important to Jewish life, the Sabbatical year represents an essential value, a central point, of the Jewish understanding of the world. It is the behavioral manifestation of the one central pillars upon which all of Jewish life is built: that we are not in charge. This is not our world. We cannot simply do with it as we please. The land is not ours. And the credit for its bounty is not ours, either. We are not as powerful as we think we are. We rest, and give the land rest, to show that well-being and our efforts toward well-being are not as related as we might think. The land is G-d's, and the bounty it yields is because G-d wills it so.

But this is only half the story. Clearly, we are extremely powerful in G-d's world. No species has the impact that we have. No other species has figured out how to farm, how to maximize the impact of a field, or how to genetically modify a crop for maximum yield, or to resist drought. Humanity is the world looking at itself. We are the pinnacle of creation and evolution. Where is the balance between being amazingly human and being only human?

The Psalm reads, “And You have made man slightly less than Divine.” That is where the balance lies – we are powerful, and we are slightly less than Divine. The Sabbatical serves to remind us that there is a gap, that we are not all-powerful, that we cannot guarantee outcomes. We can, and should, work hard, set goals, and make every attempt at reaching them. But we should not delude ourselves that reaching or not reaching our goals is based entirely on us.

From here, we are invited to do so much. To go out and rule the world. But only if this one fact stands front and center in our awareness of reality. When it is absent, even the smallest act is an affront to the Divine. When it is present, we can put a man on the moon, and praise G-d for getting us there.

After a year in the wilderness, Moshe tells the people it is time to celebrate the first post-exodus Passover. Some men, however, were impure, seeing as they had been schlepping Yoseph's bones as per his request to be buried in Israel. Because they are impure from having touched a dead body, they approach Moshe and wonder with him why they should miss out for something that is not their fault. Moshe enters a prophetic trance and asks G-d. G-d answers with Pesach Sheni, Pesach 2.0, to be celebrated one month after the first Pesach. What gave them the courage, or the chutzpah, to ask for a new holiday created just for them? Why didn't they simply resign to their fate? Pesach Sheni was this past Wednesday.

At the end of our Parsha, a man called 'the megadef' blasphemes against G-d. The rabbis explain that his mother had slept with an Egyptian man and had conceived by him. When it came time for the Jewish people to be assigned to particular quadrants of the wilderness camp, it was done patrilineally by tribe. Since this man's father was not a Jew, he didn't have a camp. He cursed G-d. He died, as Rabbi Henoch Dov Hoffman says, 'with his kvetch on his lips.' Why didn't this man have the courage and wherewithal to ask? Why was he resigned, whiled Rabbi Akiva and the bearers of Yoseph's bones did not?

Why do some people find the strength and courage to try, to try again, to seek another way, and others do not? This constellation of stories guides us toward a collective understanding about why some people give up, and others do not. And it is my hypothesis that it has little to do with how much faith a person has, or whether that person is upbeat or optimistic, and has more to do with the particular cause or purpose that person is engaged with.

Rabbi Akiva was involved with a cause that was beyond his own. Though he may have wanted another chance to teach, he was motivated by the need for Torah to continue living through the next generation. He felt a responsibility to ensure that the next generation would understand what Torah is and how it works. His motivation pushed him beyond himself, and this gave him the power to push on even after 24,000 of his students died.

The men who asked for another Pesach were motivated by a strong desire to do the mitzvah. They were genuinely devastated by not being able to do it. They, too, were motivated by something way beyond themselves.

The megadef? It was certainly hard for him. No one would want to be in that position. But his motivation didn't reach beyond himself. He wanted his life to be better, to be easier. He wanted something bad to become good – not for the sanctification of G-d's name, not for the ultimate good, but so his life would be OK. And, somehow, when inspiration to push on and push through was needed, he was unable to gather inspiration from the cause he had committed himself to.

What gives us the capacity to start again is the right 'why'. When the 'why' draws us to something beyond ourselves, it can carry us when our own strength threatens to fail us.