Every year, Jews around the globe celebrate receiving of the gift of Torah, that transformative moment 3,338 years ago when a bunch of freshly freed slaves—amid some awesome lightning, thunder and swirling clouds—were given the Torah to treasure and follow. A covenantal deal that committed all future generations, “whoever is here standing with us today before our God and with whoever is not here with us today.” (Deuteronomy 29:14).
On Sunday night, June 1 through Tuesday, June 3 (except in Israel, where it’s only the first day), Shavuot comes to celebrate the moment our ancestors stood at the foot of that mountain and experienced nothing less than the voice of God, a revelation so intense that we are still wowed by it thousands of years later.
These days, the holiday is marked by confirmation ceremonies of young people in many congregations and all-night learning (tradition says that since we overslept that morning at Sinai, we’re making up for it now by staying up late and learning Torah, while consuming vast quantities of cheesecake and strong coffee).
All these generations later, there are echoes of this Divine revelation in our individual lives—powerful moments of Godly presence made all the more intense for Israelis more than a year and a half into a war with no end in sight.
“Like what we experienced at Sinai, with each of our encounters, we know they’ve come to us from above, and the messages are often delivered through the people we are meant to meet and learn from on our journey,” says Rabbi Yakov Nagen, who heads the Bickle Institute for Interfaith Dialogue and the Ohr Torah Interfaith Center in Jerusalem, and has written books that include God Shall Be One: Reenvisioning Judaism’s Approach to Other Religions.
Sometimes, these revelations occur when we are at our lowest moments of despair.
For Lior Vainer of Ashkelon, it came after his grandmother received a frightening diagnosis.
“In our family, no one believes in God—we’re Russian—but when my grandmother was feeling really bad and the doctor said she had cancer, I knew I had to do something,” explains Vainer.
He began putting on tefillin and praying every morning, learning Torah and asking God to heal his grandmother.
“My family thought it was stupid, but when she went back to the doctor, he said her cancer was gone. That’s when I knew God had been with me,” he says. “It’s been two years, and she’s still feeling good.”
After three sons, Ronit Braham finally had a daughter; the baby, however, arrived two months early and was tiny at birth, weighing a little more than a kilo (2.2 pounds). It was touch-and-go for a while, Braham says, and the newborn spent weeks in the hospital before she was given the green light to come home to their Jerusalem apartment.
“It was so stressful, but the whole time I was in the hospital with her, I kept feeling God with me,” says Braham, smiling at the curly-haired toddler in her arms. “I knew God was watching over her.”
Ary Nabet of Ra’anana felt the Divine in the cemetery on Mount Herzl at the funeral of a family friend who was killed in the line of duty in Lebanon.
“He was such a good person. He had four children, and it was so sad, but I felt God in that place,” says the 17-year-old, who is getting ready to start his army service next year. “It’s been months since the funeral, but I can still feel it.”
And sometimes, these moments of God’s presence come when we are at our highest moments, too.
For Noa Tapiro, it was the Friday afternoon last November when her husband, Uria, took her by surprise after four months serving in the Gaza Strip.
“After so much worrying and praying, at that moment, I felt God’s presence so strong,” says the 26-year-old from Pardes Hanna in Israel.
“When I told him how much I resented our neighbors going to the beach and having a good time while all the soldiers were in so much danger, he asked me not to feel that way since everything they’re doing is so we can be free to go to the beach and enjoy our lives. That’s what makes their sacrifice worth it, he said, so we can live normal lives.”
Odelia Veissman of Hashmonaim can point to one specific moment of joy. “It happened two months ago, when he asked me to marry him,” she says, gesturing to the smiling young man beside her at a cafe in Tel Aviv’s Azrieli Mall. “And when I said, ‘Yes.’” A summer wedding is planned for Veissman and fiancé Ben Shimoni of Ashkelon.
And these moments of grace can come in the most private moments or public ones.
“I feel God every minute of every day,” says 13-year-old Yinon Mekone, also of Pardes Hanna.
“But the time I felt Him the most was at my bar mitzvah last November,” he offers. “As soon as I started reading from the Torah, I could feel He was with me.”
Avraham Ben-Tov of Modi’in reports powerful religious experiences in some of Israel’s holiest public places, but even more so in one very private moment: “I know I’ve felt God very strong at the Kotel [Western Wall] and whenever I’m in Tzfat, but if you ask me when I felt God the strongest, I would say it was right before my back surgery two years ago. I was pretty worried about it, when suddenly I felt God with me.”
But, he adds, “He was telling me I was going to be OK. And I was.”
And some are treated to revelation while immersing (quite literally) in Divine humor.
The year: 1978. The location: Sydney, Australia. Helen Davis and her family were in mid-move from New Zealand to Israel, having stopped in Sydney to complete her conversion with her little ones in tow.
“What a scene: the three rabbis behind the screen, the mikvah lady coaching me, and my husband and our two small children also immersing,” says Davis, now 79.
But she was seven months pregnant, and every time she tried to dunk, the buoyancy of her belly kept popping her back up.
“I kept thinking, ‘What if I can’t fully immerse, and I can’t finally become a Jew?’ But even at that early stage on my Jewish path, I knew for certain that this absolute imperative to be fully Jewish wasn’t just something I wanted. It had a higher purpose that was meant to be, and this was the final test to get me there.”
There’s also compelling evidence that, like at Sinai, a single moment of Godly revelation begets another and another and another.
“When we become more open to these possibilities, these messages, little by little, we begin to see that God is there all the time,” says Nagen. “When we really open our eyes, that allows us to see the Divine in every piece of our lives.”