Shabbat Hol Hamo’ed
Exodus 33:12-34:26
Numbers 28:19-25
Ezekiel 37:1-14
“For lo, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come. And the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land…” (Song of Songs 2:11-12).
This Shabbat of Hol Hamo’ed Pesach, the biblical texts that we read in the synagogue weave together a rich tapestry of themes. Taken together, they bring us a powerful message about rebirth and the possibilities of new life.
Traditionally, the biblical book of Song of Songs (Shir Hashirim) is read on the Shabbat of Hol Hamo’ed Pesach. The text is a powerfully evocative collection of love poetry.
This is the real stuff of human passion; it would surely make a puritan blush. The rabbis debated whether or not the Song of Songs belonged in the biblical canon. Based on the midrashic understanding that the passionate love affair described in the book is the love between God and the people Israel, Rabbi Akiva insisted that this is the holiest book of all. Still, why read Shir Hashirim during Pesach?
First, the Song of Songs is clearly set in the springtime. The text is redolent of the aroma of spring, filled with descriptions of lush gardens and exquisite flowers, playing on the imagery of spring as a time of hope and rebirth.
So, too, Pesach is deeply connected to the imagery of spring. For just as the earth bursts open with new life and new possibilities in the spring, Pesach celebrates our birth as a people. Just as the flowers emerge in their full beauty after the darkness of winter, our people emerged from slavery into freedom and possibility.
The song dovetails with Pesach in another way, as Pesach is the time that our people’s passionate love affair with God began. We did not commit ourselves to God until the giving of the Torah (Shavuot), but the Exodus and the time in the desert — at least as the prophets nostalgically remember it — was the time of passionate love and devotion between Israel and her Beloved.
Reading the Song of Songs, then, is like singing the love songs from the time when our love was young and strong.
After the extraordinary experience of hearing love poetry recited in the synagogue, we read an equally remarkable Torah reading, in which Moses unabashedly asks to see God. Certainly, this passage is chosen because it culminates in the summary of the liturgical calendar.
Yet Moses’ daring demand for intimacy with God — “Let me know Your ways, that I may know You” (Exodus 33:13) and “Let me see Your Presence” (33:18) — also matches the tone of this day, when we believe in the possibility of great love and intimacy between ourselves and God.
Then, the haftarah brings us yet another set of powerful images of rebirth and vitality. It is perhaps best to imagine this as a dream.
Imagine that you are walking in the wilderness, and suddenly you come upon a horrific sight. The valley just ahead of you is filled with dry bones. You have encountered a place of horror, the sight of a massacre or the final stage of a long, hopeless struggle. You are looking at the embodiment of death.
Then somehow, you perceive that, before your very eyes, God brings these bones back to life, first knitting bones and sinews together, then calling upon the four winds to breathe life into the lifeless bodies. Ezekiel understands that he has been given a promise that the apparently hopeless situation of the house of Israel in exile is only temporary and that God will soon bring us back to life.
Clearly, the rabbis associated Pesach with redemption: Just as redemption came in the past in the month of Nisan, so, too, the future redemption of our people will come again in Nisan.
And so, the readings of this day bring us a breathtaking summary of our people’s journey. We recall the times of great love and intimacy between our people and God, we glimpse the horror of what we may experience in history and we breathe in the prophet’s promise that our vitality will be returned to us.
May this time of new life — outdoors and in our homes and communities — bring unseen possibilities for life and love and peace.