Members of six area congregations gathered for learning sessions at Tifereth Israel Congregation in celebration of Shavuot June 1 to 3.
Some of the 200 attendees stayed for educational sessions from the evening to 5 a.m. for the joint Tikkun Leil, including members of Fabrangen Havurah, Ohev Sholom Congregation, Minyan Segulah, New Synagogue Project and Shirat HaNefesh. To help them stay up through the wee hours of the morning, attendees had cheesecake, snacks and coffee.
“The highlight [of the event] was bringing together six communities of various Jewish backgrounds for beautiful learning and community,” Rabbi Michael Werbow of Tifereth Israel said.
These six Washington, D.C.-area congregations also came together in 2024 for Shavuot at Tifereth Israel, marking a years-long tradition predating the pandemic.
The joint Tikkun began at 10 p.m. with a rabbis’ panel consisting of Werbow and fellow D.C.-area rabbis Arlene Berger, Yosef Berman, Elizabeth Richman, Lauren Tuchman and David Wolkenfeld. The six spiritual leaders discussed Shavuot, faith and connection during a “time of questions” for the Jewish community.
“The rabbis’ panel was a chance for some of the rabbis of the neighborhood to reflect on what it means to be a rabbi at this time and how we’re trying to guide our communities and stay grounded ourselves during turbulent times,” Wolkenfeld of Ohev Sholom Congregation said.
“I think there’s a lot of value in being together with others, whether they are others across the spectrum of Judaism or the interfaith setting,” Werbow said. “One of the questions of the panel of rabbis was about pluralism and what’s gained and what’s lost in pluralistic settings.
“I shared that there are different [ways] of navigating issues in terms of bringing together communities, but what is almost always gained is a better understanding of one another and even a better understanding of yourself coming out of the interaction.”
Afterwards, sessions ranged on topics from modern-day applications of ancient texts to a discussion on artificial intelligence.
Werbow said he led a session on conscientiously being in community. Drawing from the Torah, he discussed covenantal relationships: “What does the individual bring? What does the community bring? What does God bring versus the people?”
He said the focus should be upon what people bring to each other.
Rabbi Tracy Nathan, Tifereth Israel’s director of lifelong learning, led a session on using the wilderness as a “vessel for personal and collective transformation” — the Torah portion read on the Shabbat before Shavuot is about the desert.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld of Ohev Sholom Congregation led two sessions: one explaining the tradition of removing knives from tables and another around the concept of “nullifying the Torah to uphold it.”
Wolkenfeld traced the origins of removing knives from tables, a custom some Jewish people practice before reciting Birkat Hamazon, or the “Grace After Meals.” According to medieval codes in Jewish law and books, a table represents an altar, or the lengthening of life, while a knife resembles a sword, a symbol of warfare and shortening of life, according to Orthodox Union Torah.
Wolkenfeld, who led that 45-minute session at 3 a.m., said he hopes to teach this topic again at a “more conventional hour” to reach a broader audience: “I found [it] to be really interesting.”
During his second session, Wolkenfeld led a group in reading a short essay by the 20th-century thinker Rabbi Yitzchok Hutner on the third-century transition from the Oral Torah to the written version, the Mishnah.
“This moment was a significant, necessary moment for saving the Torah and survival throughout Jewish history. I found it really profound, really inspiring, thought-provoking,” Wolkenfeld said. “Some of the audience stayed awake.”
Wolkenfeld was glad to get the opportunity to celebrate Shavuot in community, standing up in a room of both familiar faces and others he didn’t know.
“We’re really fortunate to have [Tifereth Israel] right across the street, so it just makes sense to collaborate again,” he said.
The gathering was made even more meaningful amid the fear and grief many in the Jewish community have experienced following the recent D.C. shooting and the attack in Boulder.
“This is a very hard week to be Jewish in so many ways,” Wolkenfeld said. “We can’t solve [these issues] just with our synagogues together, but … just the fact that hundreds of people were celebrating Shavuot and enjoying community, that is a source of tremendous strength and encouragement.”
Both Werbow and Wolkenfeld look forward to a joint Tikkun Leil next year, hopefully with some additional support for programming.
“We’re hoping to be able to get some funding from [the Jewish] Federation [of Greater Washington] in the future, as this is a really beautiful community event,” Werbow said.
