Rabbi Nick Renner, Congregation Beth Shalom
Happy Shavuot! Although maybe “happy” isn’t totally the right word. If you haven’t celebrated the holiday recently, it marks the revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai. It serves as one of twin moments that essentially make us who we are as Jews—Redemption and Revelation.
Redemption, the first part, is the Exodus from Egypt—the Passover story, and the moment that really transforms us from a loose collection of wandering familial tribes into an Israelite nation. In many ways, it shows us the ways in which we would be defined by our relationship with holiness in the world.
Revelation offers us our end of the bargain. The words of Torah, and how we can live in sacred ways as human beings and as Jews. Jewish tradition holds that this event was witnessed by the entire Israelite nation—an estimated 600,000. The communal nature of Revelation provides an important model within Jewish tradition: rather than being based on the experience of a single prophet, the Torah was received by an entire people.
But here’s the thing—the collective part of Revelation wasn’t only for that entire generation that stood at Sinai. It lives with us too, and the way that we engage with it is through the iterative, evolving process of interpretation, responsa, argument, and exegesis. The whole idea behind Talmud and Rabbinic Judaism is that revelation isn’t a static thing, but rather, that it’s ongoing, and we’re part of it.
If you’ve been at a 13-year-old b’nai mitzvah celebration and heard a young adult chant Torah, you, the student, and everyone in the room was part of this project. If you were present at the naming of a baby and entering them into relationship with Torah and holiness, you were part of it. If you recited the blessing over shabbat candles, or heard kids in our community chant the motzi prayer, then you were part of it as well.
And so Shavuot, the holiday of Revelation, is about the broadest sense of our collective Jewish self. It’s the widest aperture view on our ancestors, our grandparents, and parents, and the entirety of our community today. If you’re part of our Jewish community, you’re part of that chain of transmission that goes back to Torah, reverberates through the generations, and makes us Jewish in Delaware today. So, at Shavuot, we celebrate that Revelation means ALL of us. Rather than “happy” Shavuot, let me wish you an Ongoing Shavuot! That being Jewish today is just the latest iteration of being part of Revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Glad you’re with us!
Rabbi Peter H. Grumbacher
Many of you know my favorite statement, namely, “Never let the facts interfere with the truth.” This is especially true with regard to revelation. The great moment on Sinai is a powerful story, not factual in my opinion. Nevertheless, it is true; that is, somehow we received the Torah. Some believe it was Divinely written while I and most liberal Jews—clergy and otherwise—see it as Divinely Inspired. Forget about the mitzvot that were no longer viable once sacrifices ended with the destruction of the second Temple; those of the ethical and moral kind do indeed have a Divine quality about them. They are powerful and enduring.
If something isn’t factual, how can it be celebrated? Shavuot commemorates revelation, just as Pesach commemorates our exodus from Egypt and our freedom from bondage. Both are part-and-parcel of, I hesitate to say the cliché, tradition. So, we celebrate the gift of those laws that structure society. In Christian tradition there is the view that Judaism is the religion of law while Christianity the religion of love. As I point out to so many, without law there is no society, and God LOVED us so regardless your view of revelation, somehow we became beneficiaries of this priceless gift of Divine love.
In his book—one of my favorites which I recommend to you despite it being over 80 years old—Peace of Mind, the late Rabbi Joshua Loth Liebman wrote, “God is revealed to [us] daily in the humble thornbushes of fine men and women . . . [We] come face to face with the Divine personality which is truth-demanding, love-creating, justice-seeking in its nature.”
If we do not believe in the Torah-description of revelation, the smoke and fire, the absence of a bird’s song, and so many other consequences of God’s masterful power, so be it . . . join the crowd. But celebrate what it is that we have. No other people has such a treasure trove of law and lore which has inspired and moved even those who are not Jewish.
I recall vividly discussions I would have with our 10th-grade students around this time of year. Shavuot meant Confirmation, and when I answered what exactly was meant by “confirmation” as I saw it, I told them, “Best to redefine it as ‘consecration,’ when you appreciate your new maturity and can confront your Jewishness, when you can question anything you like and need not accept the answers of your rabbis and teachers. You consecrate yourself to the search for meaning, and you confirm your determination not to dismiss, rather open your mind, to everything we have found sacred over the centuries.”
