The Bagel: Revolving revelation. When the Torah was revealed to Israel on Mount Sinai it was a spectacular scene. Both the glory and the dread of G-d were revealed in a dark cloud and with a crash of thunder. Israel trembled in fear. Sinai was a declaration of the way things ought to be. Israel agreed and concorded a mutual contract with G-d.

Hopes were high. Israel had been delivered from Egypt. They were on the way to their own homeland. The revelation of the Torah was the apex of Israel's glory. But things went awry, Israel didn't live up to her part of the deal. After many failures (sins) on Israel's part G-d still delivered on His part of the bargain. He brought them into the land under Joshua. But the downward trend was virtually unstoppable. The preaching of the prophets and the making of miracles only slowed the process, but didn't halt it.

Enter the time when Judah was near to the return to exile, the context of the Haftarah reading. Ezekiel's vision presented an irony. It was a sort of reverse to the Torah revelation in Exodus. Israel had departed from slavery in Egypt and was about to enter into her freedom in the land, when Sinai exploded with the Divine Presence and Torah. Contrasted with that is Ezekiel's vision. In the lonely valley of an ancient-Iraqian irrigation district, Ezekiel alone received a Divine visitation. This vision, in all its glory, was sandwiched between Judah's increasing loss of freedom and the approaching entrance into exile with a slave-like existence.

Ezekiel's encounter was also designed to be a vision of hope. The Times of the Gentiles, the time of Gentile dominion over the people and land, was near at hand. But a remnant of believers carried the day in the exile and sustained a godly life in an adverse environment.

In the readings thus far, the pattern of revelation went from the mountain top to the valley, and from slavery-into-freedom to freedom-into-slavery. Both revelations gave hope to those who trusted in Adonay. But the story gotten from the readings so far, leaves us in the valley.

In the First Century of the Common Era, another tale of exile began. The Romans had destroyed the Beit HaMiqdash, Jerusalem's Holy Temple. The people were scattered from the land. The Romans had it in with the Jews, because of the Jewish War (66-70 CE). They also were persecuting the movement of renewal, the Jesus' movement. One of His disciples, John, had been imprisoned on a lonely island off the coast of Anatolia (modern Turkey). From the Isle of Patmos John was taken by vision right into the presence of G-d in heaven.

The reading of the Brit Chadashah tells what he saw when he arrived. The book of Revelation is about things that were, are, and things to come (Rev 1:19). John's vision, like Sinai and the Work of the Chariot (Ezekiel's vision), also gives hope for the present. The Times of the Gentiles is still in force in our day, because the Beit HaMiqdash is not retored and because Israel's national salvation hasn't yet occurred. Yet the glory that John beheld should cause us to trust that in the end the way of G-d will win out (This vision has a sequel in the next Shavuot reading - day 2).

The glorious visions of G-d traveled full-circle, from the heights of Sinai, down to the depths of Mesopotamia, and then soaring up to the highest station, into heaven itself. This supersession by the highest vision should remind us that what G-d begins He will bring to completion. We just better be on His side for that to be personally effective.


Cream Cheese: "All aboard, fiery chariot's bound for heaven!"

The holiday reading for Shavuot - 1st Day of 6 Sivan, 5763 - 6 June, 2003 Parashah: Exodus 19:1 to 20:23(26); Haftarah: Ezekiel 1:1-28; 3:12; Maftir: Numbers 28:26-31; Brit Chadashah: Revelation 4:1-11