Emes is not about a crashing orchestra, a vision of high drama. Jewish life is the tiny silver chime of truth.

My small, narrow fingers crept down the armrest to rest on Daddy’s large palm. Up front, on a stage dark but for flashes of thunder, King Lear stood in the midst of a desolate moor, wrestling with the loss of his kingship, his daughters, his sanity.

“Blow winds and crack your cheeks!” Lear bellowed into the gale, into the dark cavern where we sat. Daddy closed his fingers around mine and I fixed my eyes on the tragic legend whose grief loomed bigger than the stage.

Maybe it was our annual dose of Shakespeare, taken in the magnificent Swan Theatre in old Will’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon that imbued me with a feel for high drama. Maybe it was just my overactive imagination. But come Shavuos, my mind was filled with visions of thunder and lightning, three million soaring souls, the glint of golden crowns, overwhelming awe as the great stage of the world was plunged into deafening silence.

These images intensified in seminary. Fueled by little sleep but endless ideas, hundreds of us sat pressed together, listening to rabbanim thundering of the shadow of Mount Sinai held over our heads; the wild, formless desolation, tohu vavohu, that reigns in absence of Torah. Every Shavuos, they told us, was our chance to again affirm our commitment to our life Source. It was a day of cosmic significance, of grandeur, of blinding dedication. If I closed my eyes, I could almost see the glowing crowns.

Which made the watermelon fiasco so much worse. One Shavuos, I decided to skip the baking and replace a rich, four-layer cheesecake with healthful, refreshing watermelon. I selected the largest one in the store and congratulated myself at having liberated myself from hours in the kitchen. Oh, there were still plenty of humdrum, mundane chores to do, enough to keep me busy quashing the inner rebellion: Why was I occupied with ironing shirts and dicing salads when … when … In my mind’s eye I was jostled and pushed forward by the crowd, as we headed to Mount Sinai, to declare our commitment, our allegiance, our eternal love.…

“Ima!”

Again I was being pulled away from my thoughts, this time to deal with a dwindling supply of guinea pig food.

“Imaaaa!”

What now?

A little sticky hand wrapped around my own and I was dragged into the kitchen. There, on the floor, lay a decimated watermelon.

A little face looked up at me. “I just wanted to see if I was strong enough to carry it.”

“Oh.” Oh. The watermelon had been sacrificed to a child’s heavyweight championship. My kitchen was covered in dark pink flesh. Light pink juice covered surfaces, cupboards, walls, the fridge. It had been the biggest watermelon in the store.

I needed chocolate. Coffee. The four-layer cheesecake I had scorned making. I needed to clean up the mess.

Serves you right, Leah, I said to myself as I wiped watermelon seeds off chair legs. As those very same rabbanim had taught, emes is not about a crashing orchestra, a vision of high drama. Jewish life is the tiny silver chime of truth. It’s the still, silent voice, barely perceptible in the face of the gale, the thunder, the lightning, but there all the same. It was about Erev Shavuos, exploding watermelons, black pits that must be combed from blonde hair.

When I finally was ready to light the Yom Tov candles, I took a moment and prayed for inspiration, for magnificence. I struck the match and held it to the wick. It didn't catch. I tried again, but the wick capsized into the golden sea of olive oil. I fished it out and, with greasy fingers, tried once again. Nothing. I lit match after match, changed the wicks. Nothing. I grew agitated. I already got the message, G-d. With the watermelon. Why this?

Eventually, I got the candles alight, but what washed-out apologies for flames. The wick barely smoldered. Shavuos stood at the threshold and I battled wicks that wouldn’t light, the flat absence of the majesty I so wanted to usher in.

I was cowed.

And then I straightened my back, fished out all those Kotzker aphorisms and the emes that was there, although quiet, so, so quiet. This was no heavenly slap, I told myself. I don’t need a fire, or even a luminous flame in golden oil to feel the magnificence of Yom Tov, of this cosmic moment in time. I just need to perform a mitzvah, to feel Hashem with me even as the wicks refuse to light.

Those tiny, orange orbs burned all night. In the morning, as I cleaned the watermelon streaks I’d missed on Erev Yom Tov, the flames burned still.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 341)