Day 35: Malchut in Hod, Leadership in Glory/Humility
One of the things that I find really meaningful about counting the days between Passover and Shavuot is how it connects them so intentionally and concretely. If Shavuot was just given to us as a date on the calendar, instead of a day that needed to be counted up to daily, it would be so easy to lose the relationship between the two holidays.
Think of it this way: this year, Thanksgiving will be on November 28, and then 50 days later is January 17 (the Friday of MLK weekend). By the time it's MLK weekend, are you still thinking at all about Thanksgiving? On Thanksgiving, we are grateful for family, friends, and food. We are grateful for the helping hands of strangers who get us through hard times (if we have thought at all about the traditional story of the Pilgrims and the American Indians). But by MLK weekend, does that gratitude inform how we commemorate MLK's legacy? Probably not. We're in a different season by then and, to be fair, Thanksgiving and MLK Day are not meant to be connected, like Passover and Shavuot. But even connected as they are with a daily count to remind me of that connection, I'm still distracted by other things. It's the end of the school year, my tomato plant needs daily watering, the pool has opened, I need to submit summer camp paperwork, and we're making summer vacation plans. If these two holidays weren't explicitly connected, I wouldn't be thinking of it at all anymore.
What does this mean for leadership in glory/humility? It's important to remember where we have come from as we move forward. Recall our humble roots, be grateful for our advantages. On Shavuot, we will celebrate the Torah and being chosen (again) by God to be God's people. And on that day, we must also recall that we made it to Sinai after a long journey, through slavery, after God took us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Our journey should make us humble, but also make us proud of all that we have accomplished to get to this moment.
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