Shavuot
It was only in the 2nd and 3rd C that the rabbis associated Shavuot with God's giving Torah at Sinai, and our acceptance of that revelation. The events at Sinai, indeed the descriptions throughout Scripture of God's awesome and miraculous Presence in our natural world, should be understood as metaphor and imagery describing God, and God's relationship with us. Indeed, accepted scholarship says that Torah was written for the Israelite community centuries after their sojourn in the desert. The question before us is not whether the described events of Sinai are factually, historically, empirically true, but rather-- 'what does this extended metaphor teach us about the relationship of the Jewish people to that higher reality we identify as God?'
It seems clear to me that something happened in the early stages of our people's history that changed their destiny, and ours, forever. At some point, a different awareness of God's presence transformed the way they perceived their covenant with Adonai/Elohim. Perhaps that 'new awareness' happened as they fled Egypt, making their way back to the homeland they believed God promised to their ancestor Abraham. I presume that after some kind of experiential encounter, the Israelites responded by re-committing their communal identity to God, eventually transcribing that commitment in the text that became "Torah".
And so, in our community, we understand "Torah" as the response of our people to their experience of God. We do not understand Torah as divinely delivered to Moses on a mountain, transmitted perfectly letter for letter, word for word into our scrolls today. Torah is the written record of our response to God as it was affirmed 3000 years ago. Our tradition calls the events at Sinai, commemorated on this Shavuot, both matan Torah, the giving of the Torah, and also kabalat Torah, the receiving of the Torah. It is our response in the "give and take" that describes our covenant with God. Torah is therefore the beginning of our historical, generational interaction with God, and interaction that continues to this day.
If Torah is the product of how we then understood our covenant with God, an expression from our ancestors of what they believed God expected and commanded of them-- then we, the inheritors of that tradition, are responsible to continue that conversation. Torah was and is both "given" and "received".
Our task as Jews, every day of our lives, is to live in the Presence of God and to bring that Presence into the larger world through our behavior and conduct. Each of us, like Torah, is a combination of divine expression and human perception, the product of God's inspiration and our dedication. And on Shavuot we confirm the active participatory relationship of Divine and human in dynamic partnership-a relationship described nicely as matan Torah, God's giving of Torah, and kabalat Torah, our receiving of the Torah.
It was only in the 2nd and 3rd C that the rabbis associated Shavuot with God's giving Torah at Sinai, and our acceptance of that revelation. The events at Sinai, indeed the descriptions throughout Scripture of God's awesome and miraculous Presence in our natural world, should be understood as metaphor and imagery describing God, and God's relationship with us. Indeed, accepted scholarship says that Torah was written for the Israelite community centuries after their sojourn in the desert. The question before us is not whether the described events of Sinai are factually, historically, empirically true, but rather-- 'what does this extended metaphor teach us about the relationship of the Jewish people to that higher reality we identify as God?'
It seems clear to me that something happened in the early stages of our people's history that changed their destiny, and ours, forever. At some point, a different awareness of God's presence transformed the way they perceived their covenant with Adonai/Elohim. Perhaps that 'new awareness' happened as they fled Egypt, making their way back to the homeland they believed God promised to their ancestor Abraham. I presume that after some kind of experiential encounter, the Israelites responded by re-committing their communal identity to God, eventually transcribing that commitment in the text that became "Torah".
And so, in our community, we understand "Torah" as the response of our people to their experience of God. We do not understand Torah as divinely delivered to Moses on a mountain, transmitted perfectly letter for letter, word for word into our scrolls today. Torah is the written record of our response to God as it was affirmed 3000 years ago. Our tradition calls the events at Sinai, commemorated on this Shavuot, both matan Torah, the giving of the Torah, and also kabalat Torah, the receiving of the Torah. It is our response in the "give and take" that describes our covenant with God. Torah is therefore the beginning of our historical, generational interaction with God, and interaction that continues to this day.
If Torah is the product of how we then understood our covenant with God, an expression from our ancestors of what they believed God expected and commanded of them-- then we, the inheritors of that tradition, are responsible to continue that conversation. Torah was and is both "given" and "received".
Our task as Jews, every day of our lives, is to live in the Presence of God and to bring that Presence into the larger world through our behavior and conduct. Each of us, like Torah, is a combination of divine expression and human perception, the product of God's inspiration and our dedication. And on Shavuot we confirm the active participatory relationship of Divine and human in dynamic partnership-a relationship described nicely as matan Torah, God's giving of Torah, and kabalat Torah, our receiving of the Torah.