by rabbi shefa gold
Shavuot is one of the three ancient pilgrimage festivals. The holiday reflects the essence of journey: in the trek from Egypt to Sinai; in the counted steps through the 49 days of the Omer; in Ruth’s painful pilgrimage from Moab to Bethlehem, and in the progression from alienation to belonging.
In 1980 I hitchhiked through Europe with a guitar, change of clothes, tent and sleeping bag. I set out to learn the “art of the road.” I traveled without a set itinerary, determined to open to a new adventure each day. Each day I was forced to let go of expectations, making plans only to see them dissolve in the face of unforeseen encounters.
As I stood at the tip of the Greek mainland, I heard the call of Jerusalem. I decided to make my journey into a pilgrimage. I imagined standing before the Western Wall with so much love that all the walls between myself and God might be shattered.
In that moment of intention, my journey was transformed. I had become a pilgrim, granting each step of my journey the power to strip me bare, so that I might finally stand before God and know myself.
It was a wonderful, dangerous journey. Turkey, Syria and Jordan were tense with political upheaval. I learned about the subtle arts of survival, bargaining and bribery. I had, for the first time, stepped completely out of the “western” world-view.
Meanwhile, I kept a meticulous journal of my inner life. I knew that each strange scene I confronted reflected some aspect of my inner landscape I had ignored. I was determined to use each step of my pilgrimage as a vehicle for self-discovery. I was determined to see each person I met as a messenger with an essential teaching for me.
I arrived at the Wall in the middle of the night in the pouring rain. Although tired, I felt more alive than ever.
Each outward step toward Jerusalem had been an inward step of uncovering the complexities of my own heart.
As I approached that ancient holy wall, I tried to keep my heart steady with compassion. Then I heard a voice say, “Hey, baby, come here and kiss me.” I could not believe it. The voice came from a guard-booth where a bored but insistent Israeli soldier beckoned me.
I sighed and thought, “I can’t believe you’re ruining this moment!”
I tried to compose myself. I attempted to focus my intention to be whole-hearted before God. The whole time I stood there in the rain, the soldier kept yelling, “Kiss me, kiss me!” And I couldn’t help but laugh.
Many years later I studied the Song of Solomon. The opening line reads, “Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth, for your sweet loving is better than wine.”
Stunned, I was finally able to receive the hidden message of my earlier pilgrimage. That obnoxious Israeli guard who knew only a few words of English was my messenger, my angel, come to tell me:
God is calling you to intimacy with the reality before you. “Kiss me,” life says. “Open to the truth of God in this moment. Open to the fullness of pleasure and pain. Every time you turn away, I will call you back to me through a simple yet profound engagement with life. Your sweet loving is better than wine, better than an abstract ideal, better than fame, better than knowing a lot, better than success. Kiss me, kiss me!”
Embarking on a pilgrimage means leaving behind our familiar comforts, habits, addictions and self-definitions, and walking straight into the truth of who we were meant to be.
As we approach the Shavuot, our time of pilgrimage, we can remember to make each day a journey toward revelation. Each day is an opportunity to open to the divine message written in the Torah of our lives.
Rabbi Shefa Gold is author of “Torah Journeys: The Inner Path to the Promised Land.”
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California