Somewhere along the way, Shavuot got less fun. Part of it is that staying up all night – or even late – used to feel like getting away with something, and now it feels at best like something to tolerate. But there’s also a seriousness that’s descended on the Torah part of things. Instead of a goofy, giggly, at-some-point-lie-on-the-floor night of Torah with friends field by too much sugar and DEFINITELY sprinkles on my pareve ice cream, it feels like everyone is putting on a serious Yom Iyyun on Important Topics, but at night instead of during the day.
Of course, this makes sense – the whole world feels dire and serious, and Torah is no laughing matter either. But Torah is also fun and even flamboyant. There is a point to the looseness and lightness of late-night Torah learning; it makes Torah feel light and joyful too.
One of my favorite midrashim possibly of all time is one I found when learning Rashi on the parsha. In discussing Avraham’s servant Eliezer giving Rivkah jewelry as part of convincing her to come back with him to marry Yitzchak, Rashi cites Bereishit Rabbah:
וּשְׁנֵי צְמִידִים עַל יָדֶיהָ, כְּנֶגֶד שְׁנֵי לוּחוֹת. (בראשית כד, כב): עֲשָׂרָה זָהָב מִשְׁקָלָם, כְּנֶגֶד עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְּרוֹת
“And two bracelets on her [Rivkah’s] hands, like the two Luchot. “Ten shekels in weight,” like the ten commandments.
Eliezer is literally giving Rivkah sparkly adornments. The midrash, likely understanding these pesukim through their context, in which Rivkah is being invited to join Avraham’s Torah-spreading (forgive the anachronism, I am reading like Chazal), analogizes the jewelry to Torah, both the literal Tablets and the commandments that were inscribed upon them.
This midrash makes the moment of Rivkah meeting Eliezer at the well a mini-Shavuot, or a prefiguration of Shavuot. Rivkah is gifted the Luchot with the Aseret Hadibrot written on them, as it were – alongside a nose ring. (A favorite pasuk for teenage frum girls trying to sell their parents on a nose piercing being okay.)
The analogy of the Torah to jewelry illuminates so many other metaphors for Torah. In Pirkei Avot 4:13, for example, Rabbi Shimon describes the Torah as a tiara. Well, he says “keter,” and that’s normally translated as crown, but this translation puts Torah more in the family of Rivkah’s Luchot bracelets. Torah is an adornment, a shimmering accessory.
Similarly, Rashi interprets the description in Shir Hashirim 3:11 of “מֶּ֣לֶךְ שְׁלֹמֹ֑ה בָּעֲטָרָ֗ה שֶׁעִטְּרָה־לּ֤וֹ אִמּוֹ֙ בְּי֣וֹם חֲתֻנָּת֔”, “King Solomon wearing the crown that his mother gave him on his wedding day,” as representing the day of Matan Torah, when Hashem crowned the Jewish people with the tiara that is Torah.
How can relating to Torah as clinking golden bracelets, as a tiara woven into our collective fancy updo, change how we relate to receiving Torah on Shavuot – and learning Torah all year?
Joan Nestle, in her introduction to “The Persistent Desire: A Butch-Femme Reader” (1992) writes:
Because I am a femme myself, I know the complexity of our identity; I also know how important it is for all women to hear our voices. If the butch deconstructs gender, the femme constructs gender. She puts together her own special ingredients for what it is to be a "woman,” an identity with which she can live and love.
This gets at some of the work of queer femme identity. The “special ingredients” and their evolution in contemporary queer life are elaborated on in, of all places – but of course – an essay in Autostraddle from 2022 by Dani Janae about wearing press-on nails.
For me, being femme is more than just adopting traditionally feminine things as aesthetic. It is a choice and an attitude. It is being wholly embodied in your self-expression, no matter how colorful and loud that is. Being femme is being unafraid. Unafraid of shape, of texture, of color. The long nail as a femme accessory is eye-catching. For me, it signifies fearlessness and an orientation toward the decadent. To be femme is to be decadent.
What if Torah can be about being embodied, unafraid, even decadent? What if on Shavuot we can embrace the Torah as a tiara – glimmering, flamboyant, something to show off and celebrate and play with?
The theorist Rhea Ashley Hoskin writes about the specific kinds of knowledge that a queer femme standpoint can offer:
femme occupies both the center and the margins, and is ostracized within many of the communities that femme might yearn to call home. Consequently, as a means of survival, those located at the social margins must develop an awareness of how their social world is regulated at both the center and the margins; thus, acquiring a dual understanding of their social world. Those occupying the margins must remain cognizant of their subordinated status, while simultaneously wielding knowledge of the center in order to manage their realities.
Embracing femme Torah and Torah as femme is not just a way to add embodiment and loudness to Torah. It also grants us a lens for understanding Torah that is likely to resonate with anyone with a marginalized identity raised loving Torah while also feeling on the outside. Ours is a particular kind of knowledge, one that holds both our “insider” relationship with Torah alongside reading from the margins.
Celebrating this complex relationship is one that will make Torah more shiny, colorful, and embodied for all those who love her. The midrash that Har Sinai was covered in flowers seems to have very few actual sources – but the image is one that makes sense. We can see the moment of getting the Torah as a moment of bright florals and shiny gems. Joy and self and relationship all combined in the prettiest combination.
this is the best thing I've read all month!!!