Sun, May 31

The Jewish Festival of Shavuot was celebrated this past Friday and Saturday. Shavuot traditionally commemorates Moses and the Israelites receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai.

Whether one considers the Biblical narrative a factual account or a metaphoric aspiration of a people’s relationship with God, the story is poignant and pivotal.

The Ten Commandments received by Moses and the Israelites at Mt. Sinai is incorporated into the three Abrahamitic faiths in different ways. But neither archaeologists, historians nor theologians know for certain which of the hills in the Sinai Peninsula is Mt. Sinai. Jabal Musa (Arabic for Mt. Moses) is reputed to be the mountain Moses climbed.

Before the Sinai Peninsula, which was captured in 1967, was returned to Egypt, I used to take groups of teenagers and adults to Israel every two years. Part of the experience was climbing Mt. Sinai at sun-up and camping in the desert wilderness for four days. It was a challenging experience for American teenagers — and even more so for adults. The purpose of this segment of the Israel trip, especially for the teenagers, was to see places they had only read about. But there was more to be learned.

The thing about the desert: sleeping under the stars in thinly cushioned sleeping bags on rough ground; carrying your own packs; preparing food; keeping hydrated in the dry heat — all this was to be experienced. The enduring parts of the challenge were the life-lessons that every hiker in the desert assimilates without learning them from a book or in a classroom.

From my perspective, survival in the desert mandates three essentials: water (and it doesn’t need to be cold), food (and it doesn’t need to be tasty) and, of greatest importance, cooperation.

The luxuries and extravagances to which we too often become accustomed and upon which we depend are of no use in the desert. Climbing Mt. Sinai took strength, a level of fearlessness, stamina and, very often, a helping hand for each other. It was not a matter of who reached the summit first. Our common goal was that everyone made it to the top without injury.

For most of our teenagers the return home was unsettling. So much of what they imagined they needed to be happy had become irrelevant. And many friendships formed in the heat of that shared experience have endured.

Our past months during this pandemic have given us a taste of a different kind of wilderness. So much which we thought necessary for happiness was stripped away. We’ve been compelled to simplify our lives and the essentials are fewer. What we need are physical sustenance, health, cooperation, family, friendship and, perhaps, a dependable internet connection. Hopefully, as we leave this pandemic “wilderness,” we take some of these lessons with us.