Illustration by Noteh Kozlovsky
By Miriam Udel
May 27, 2025
When Jews disagree, it’s a family quarrel. That’s the premise underlying this story of two cousins at odds, drawn from Zina Rabinowitz’s 1958 story collection Der liber yontef (Our Precious Holidays). Raphael and Michael, who are surely as angelic as their names suggest, prize two different aspects of the early-summer holiday of Shavuot or Shavuos.
The Biblical Feast of Weeks is an agricultural festival commemorating the bringing of the bikkurim — the first fruits of the barley harvest to the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. Raphael, in emphasizing the “splendor” of parading with produce he grew himself, echoes the pre-state Zionists who created elaborate bikkurim festivals to celebrate the renewal of agriculture in the Holy Land under Jewish auspices.
Michael, on the other hand, identifies with the Rabbinic-era understanding of the holiday as commemorating the Torah’s revelation at Sinai. While Michael emphasizes labor and the visual spectacle it can yield, Raphael eagerly anticipates the reminder of God’s covenantal relationship with the Jewish people throughout centuries of exile. Significantly, Rabinowitz doesn’t tell us where the story is set — whether in Israel or the Diaspora.
Although the boys’ conflict is sharp enough to disturb their sleep, they heal the breach by literally dreaming each other’s dreams. Raphael, the farmer in the making, sees before his eyes the unfolding of the famous midrash (a story that interprets a Biblical passage) in which God offered the Torah to other nations, who refused to accept it. The nearness of thundering divinity has shaken Raphael out of his disdain for his scholarly cousin. Meanwhile in his slumber, Michael has glimpsed the magnificence of the bikkurim parade. He ends the story trying to recall whether he saw, in his mind’s eye, Raphael mounted on a horse or a donkey — the latter image presaging the possibility of messianic redemption.
Jewish communities, and even individual Jewish families, contain multitudes, Rabinowitz suggests. And so do our ancient, multilayered holidays.
There’s No Fighting Before Shavuos!
From the very minute Michael arrived at his cousin Raphael’s house, the two boys started to bicker.
Over what, do you suppose, did fighting break out between these two cousins?
Over Shavuos!
And don’t think, God forbid, that these boys disliked Shavuos!
Just the opposite! Both of them loved the holiday at the start of summer best of all.
Well then, what was it?
Raphael loved Shavuos because it was the holiday of bikkurim, the first fruits, while Michael loved Shavuos because it was the holiday of the Torah.
Raphael couldn’t stop praising the bikkurim parade, which was to take place on the afternoon before Shavuos.
“You’ve never seen anything so magnificent, Michael!” he shouted. “Crowds of people like the waves of the sea! All dressed up in blue and white! Flags by the thousands also blue and white! Flowers and garlands by the millions! Colorful fruits hanging every which way you turn, and I’m gonna ride a horse with my basket of bikkurim the fruit I’ve raised in my very own garden. You’ll see soon enough how splendid the bikkurim parade is! That’s why I love the holiday of Shavuos!”
“And me?” Michael exclaimed. “I love Shavuos because that’s the day the Torah was given!”
“The Torah?” Raphael laughed at his cousin. “Well, do you march around with the Torah on Shavuos the way you march around with the bikkurim right before Shavuos? Nah, the Torah stays hidden away in the ark.”
“All precious things stay hidden away,” Michael said.
“And how many people see the Torah, if it’s hidden away, Michael? Thousands will see my bikkurim what am I talking about, thousands? tens of thousands!”
“You’re thinking of your thousands!” Michael shouted over him. “When the Torah was given, it was also seen by tens of thousands! What am I talking about — sixty times ten thousand! Did you forget what it says in the Five Books of Moses? Six hundred thousand stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and heard the voice of God….”
“Heard! Were! Saw! All in the past tense!” mimicked Raphael. “But my bikkurim parade happens now, every year, and each year, it gets bigger and better!”
“So you think the Torah should be given on Mount Sinai this year too, just for your sake?” Michael yelled so loudly that Raphael covered his ears.
The cousins fought right up until the moment they fell asleep… and because they’d fought so bitterly, they couldn’t sleep peacefully.
In the middle of the night, Raphaelhopped out of bed and ran over to his cousin, nudging him awake and saying, “You’ll never believe what I just saw, Michael! It’s still standing right there before my eyes….”
“Who’s still standing?” replied Michael groggily.
“Your Mount Sinai, Michael! So high it was scary! Its peak all the way up to the sky! And the summit was still smoking! And suddenly we heard God’s voice: ‘Children of Esau, will you accept the Torah from Me?’
“‘What’s written in your Torah?’ asked the Children of Esau.
“‘It says, ‘Thou shalt not murder,’” thundered God’s voice.
“‘We can’t accept your Torah!’ replied the Children of Esau. ‘After all, we live by the sword.’
“After that, it got quiet. Suddenly, there was another clap of thunder.
“‘Children of Ishmael!’ rolled a voice from the mountain. ‘Would you accept My Torah?’
“‘What’s written in it?’ asked the Children of Ishmael.
“‘It says, thou shalt not steal!’”
‘But we live by theft!’ replied the children of Ishmael. ‘How can we accept your Torah?’
“‘Children of Israel!’ thundered God’s voice once more. ‘Would you accept My Torah?’
“‘We will accept it and obey it!’ answered the children of Israel.
“And thunder suddenly rolled over the whole of Mount Sinai, and from the midst of the thunder, God’s voice could be heard: ‘I am the Lord thy God….’”
“Is that why you’re trembling so much, Raphael?” Michael said, concerned about his cousin.
“If you had heard His voice, you’d tremble too.”
“I had a strange dream too, Raphael! You know what I saw in mine? Your bikkurim parade! I’m telling you, Raphael, what splendor! Flags by the thousands! Baskets of fruit by the tens of thousands… And you were riding a horse….”
“You saw me riding a horse, Michael? And my basket of fruit, from my garden?”
“Wait, Raphael, it’s all just coming back to me. Why did you wake me up in the middle of my dream?”
***
When the boys awoke in the morning, they were no longer arguing over Shavuos. Both lay there quietly, thinking. Raphael could still see Mount Sinai before his eyes, and Michael was trying to recall whether, in his dream, he’d seen Raphael riding on a horse or on a donkey.
And when they came into the kitchen for breakfast, they were smiling at each other and at their mothers.
“What happened?” their mothers asked, surprised.
“Happened?” grinned the two cousins.
“Why aren’t you bickering today, the way you were yesterday?”
“There’s no fighting right before Shavuos: there’s no time! We have to get ready for the bikkurim parade and then go to synagogue. After all, it’s a double holiday!”
