Lisa Lepson, the Executive Director of the Joshua Venture group, writes in her piece Where Yesterday Meets Tomorrow:

The Judaism that is evolving before our eyes isnt really new or innovative. In fact, the whole concept of evolution is at the core of Judaism. What our social entrepreneurs are doing is making tradition relevant to us once more, fusing them with contemporary values and bestowing upon them new life. They are leading a vibrant re-generation of our cultural and spiritual heritage

The holiday of Shavuot, a pillar in the Pilgrimage Festival series that also includes Passover and Sukkot, illustrates the Jewish dance between innovation and tradition, and embodies the concept of making tradition relevant to us once more.

The holiday has multiple names, revealing its multiple identities. Shavuot, which means weeks, refers to the fact that the holiday takes place seven weeks after the beginning of Passover (Deuteronomy 16:9 12); the Torah tells us to count from the time of the barley, or Omer, harvest, until the time of the wheat harvest, which we celebrate on Shavuot. The holiday is also called Chag HaBikkurim (Numbers 28:26), the Festival of the First Fruits. This time of year marked the ripening of Israels first fruits, and the Mishnah in Tractate Bikkurim describes how people from all over Israel marched to Jerusalem with their fruits in beautiful baskets to give to the priest in the Temple. Shavuot is also known as Chag HaKatzir, the Festival of the Harvest (Exodus 23: 16), since Shavuot marks the summer harvest in Israel.

In an article in a recent The New York Times Magazine entitled "Does Your Language Shape How You Think," Guy Deutscher writes about a remote Australian aboriginal tongue, the Guugu Yimithirr. He explains that while English speakers use "egocentric coordinates," using our physical selves as the reference-point to describe the space around us, pointing left, right, in front, and behind us, a Guugu Yimithirr speaker uses "cardinal directions" - fixed geographic directions, north, south, east, and west - even in intimate spaces. "For example," Deutscher writes, if they want you to move over in the car to make room, they'll say move a bit to the east.'" He continues,

"If you saw a Guugu Yimithirr speaker pointing at himself, you would naturally assume he meant to draw attention to himself. In fact, he is pointing at a cardinal direction that happens to be behind his back. While we are always at the center of the world, and it would never occur to us that pointing in the direction of our chest could mean anything other than to draw attention to ourselves, a Guugu Yimithirr speaker points through himself, as if he were thin air and his own existence were irrelevant."

This awareness of the transience, even irrelevance, of the self, is a very Jewish idea. A Hassidic saying teaches that in each individual's pocket, at all times, there should be a little slip of paper that reads: anokhi afar va'efer - I am earth and ashes. This is a reminder that we are not at the center of the universe, that we are but a speck in a wide world, and that we should learn to speak and think accordingly, like the Guugu Yimithirr, in cardinal directions, more aware of how ultimately insignificant we are. And generating this awareness is one of the primary purposes of the High Holidays.