We are entering the Hebrew month of Sivan – ראש חדש סיון. Since the last month had 29 days it is celebrated only one day this month which has 30 days. Sivan is the third month of the year as Torah describes it. The first day of Sivan the people encamped at Mt. Sinai preparing to receive the Torah. The verb form of encamped is singular pointing to the fact the people behaved as one, not fragmented by contention.

For Torah to be merited and received the people were as one; united as husband and wife are in marriage when it is healthy. The first bringing down of Torah is at Shavout. Moshe’s seconding bringing down of Torah comes later at Yom Kippur. The Torah being given is compared to the instrument of betrothal of husband and wife (legal binding agreement between the spouses and the husband’s responsibilities toward his wife). Rosh Chodesh Sivan is considered to be a propitious time for covenanting harmony and peace among Israel, mankind and the Most High.

Families are taking a beating today. Rosh Chodesh Sivan gives back to parents, children, families and their relationships. In the 17th century, the chief rabbi of Jerusalem wrote a prayer that religious schools in Israel send home to their families still today. It is a prayer for parents to offer to the Most High for their children. This prayer is a practical ways for people to enter into the meaning of Sivan and it’s connection to relationships, harmony, covenants. It illuminates where one can stand with those who came before them and those who will come after. The prayer will be at the end of this essay in Hebrew and English.

The sixth day of Sivan is the receiving of the Torah. The first days of the month are the period which the people are preparing. There is a rabbinical understanding that the Promise of the Father is to be received on Shavout. This common thread is why the all night studying with morning prayer welcomes Shavout each year. In the diaspora Shavout is marked on the sixth and seventh days of Sivan.

The year the Torah was given R. Yosei’s opinion was Rosh Chodesh Sivan was on the first day of the week (Sunday), then Shavout (Torah being given) falls on Shabbat. On Sunday they reached the wilderness and camped as a people. The next day, Monday, it is understood that Moshe gave the people a summary of Torah so they understood accepting and hearing Torah from the Most High on Mt. Sinai. (Shemot, Ex. 19:4-6) The third day (Shemot 19:8) the people were told the boundaries where they could and could not go. The fourth day the mitzvot or commandment to sanctify and purify themselves, their clothing, as individuals and as couples. Moshe extended the commanded three days of purification and one of sanctification. The Shechinah (Holy Presence, Ruach/spirit, palpable Glory) came upon Mt. Sinai with the giving of the entire Torah.

Following the summary when the people heard the today they understood Torah’s spirit, essence and it’s function as wedding them to the Most High. The whole Torah was given on Shavout. It meant accepting a mission as people to the world in addition to accepting the betrothal and the Yoke of Torah. Taking on the Yoke of Torah means hearing and doing the mitzvot. This is the picture of what righteousness walked out by mankind as a reflection of the Most High’s righteousness. The people are called to be a holy priesthood and nation.

Sivan, Shavout and waiting for the Promise of the Father is a time of preparation, and setting ourselves apart so we are ready to do and hear the Most High as the ones before us did. Accepting the Yoke of Torah sets us apart today in our culture as it set the Israelites apart from the cultures of their day. The mitzvot (commandments) are practical reminders of our betrothal to the Most High and a way of life with His People in community that reflects HaShem in our world. Our life is the book others will read and see the Most High through if they have not read the Holy One’s words that we heard and see on Mt. Sinai.

Below is the Prayer for Children, translation by http://www.shemayisrael.co.il/ The prayer was located on the web blog of Reb Akiva at Mystical Paths.

English Translation – click on the image to read the Hebrew prayer.

You have been the Eternal, our God, before You created the world, and You are the Eternal, our God, since you created the world, and You are God forever. You created Your world so that Your Divinity should become revealed thorugh Your holy Torah, as our Sages expounded on the first word therein, and for Israel, for they are Your people and Your inheritance whom You have chosen from among all nations. You have given them Your holy Torah and drawn them toward Your great Name. These two commandments are, "Be fruitful and Multiply" and "You shall teach them to your children." Their purpose is that You did not create the world to be empty, but to be inhabited, and that it is for Your glory that You created, fashioned, and perfected it, so that we, our offspring, and all the descendants of your people Israel will know Your Name and study Your Torah.

Thus I entreat You, O Eternal, supreme King of kings. My eyes are fixed on You until You favor me, and hear my prayer, and provide me with sons and daughters who will also be fruitful and multiply, they and their descendants unto all generations, in order that they and we might all engage in the study of Your holy Torah, to learn and to teach, to observe and to do, and to fulfill with love all the words of Your Torah’s teaching. Enlighten our eyes in Your Torah and attach our heart to Your commandments to love and revere Your Name.

Our Father, compassionate Father, grant us all a long and blessed life. Who is like You, compassionate Father, Who in compassion remembers His creatures for life! Remember us for eternal life, as our Forefather Avraham prayed, "If only Yishmael would live before You," which the Sages interpreted as "…live in reverence of You."

For this I have come to appeal and plead before You, that my offspring and their descendants be proper, and that You find no imperfection or disrepute in me or them forever. May they be people of peace, truth, goodness and integrity in the eyes of God and man. Help them to become practiced in Torah, accomplished in Scriptures, Mishnah, Talmud, Kabbalah, mitzvot, kindness, and good attributes, and to serve you with an inner love and reverence, not merely outwardly. Provide every one of them with their needs with honor, and give them health, honor and strength, good bearing and appearance, grace and loving-kindness. May love and brotherhood reign among them. Provide them with suitable marriage partners of scholarly and righteous parentage who will also be blessed with all that I have asked for my own descendants, since they will share the same fate.

You, the Eternal, know everything that is concealed, and to You all my heart’s secrets are revealed. For all my intention concerning the above is for the sake of Your great and holy Name and Torah. Therefore, answer me, O Eternal, answer me in the merit of our holy Forefathers Avraham, Yitzchak, and Ya’akov. For the sake of the fathers save the children, so the branches will be like the roots. For the sake of Your servant, David, who is the fourth part of Your Chariot, who sings with Divine inspiration.

A song of ascents. Fortunate is everyone who fears the Eternal, who walks in His ways. When you eat of the toil of your hands, you are fortunate, and good will be yours. Your wife is like a fruitful vine in the inner chambers of your home; your children are like olive shoots around your table. Look! So is blessed the man who fears the Eternal. May the Eternal bless you from Zion, and may you see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life. May you see your children’s children, peace upon Israel.

Please, O Eternal, Who listens to prayer: May the following verse be fulfilled in me: "’As for Me,’ says the Eternal, "this My covenant shall remain their very being; My spirit, which rests upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth nor from the mouths of your children, nor from the mouths of your children’s children," said the Eternal, "from now to all Eternity." May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing before You, Eternal, my Rock and my Redeemer.