 | The approach of Shavuot, our festival of receiving Torah anew, cues us to ask what it means to receive Torah at all, much less anew. How does one receive Torah anyway. And whether or not Torah was given at Sinai thousands of years ago, how to we receive anew what we already got... or are we to receive something else? These are no idle or mere academic questions. They go to the heart of who we are, and how we walk in the world. Put another way, they go to the heart – full stop. |
By Rabbi David Evan Markus
Parashat Bamidbar 5784 (2024)
This dvar Torah draws from materials R. David wrote in 2016.
Next week (June 11-13, 2024) is Shavuot, the "Festival of Receiving Our Torah" (z'man matan torateinu). Around the world, Jews will metaphorically stand together at Sinai as if receiving anew the wisdom we call Torah. Typical Shavuot observances include joyful learning, heart-opening ritual, Yizkor for loved ones and, of course, the sacred cheesecake (for the sweetness and life-giving "milk" of Torah's endless nourishment).
But how to receive Torah anew? Do we mean receiving anew the Torah we already have, or receiving something new for the first time? Fittingly for Jewish life, folks will disagree based on whether one believes in "revelation" and, if so, whether "revelation" is one and done (at Sinai) or continuous (in our day).
My personal answer is both, but before reaching that question, we need to ask a more basic question: how does one "receive" Torah at all?
In this week’s portion that opens the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar / “in the wilderness”), our ancestors found deep wisdom that receiving Torah is less an historical event than a fertile and magnetic quality of heart and mind that comes from "the wilderness." The lesson, it turns out, is about wilderness itself.
Torah recounts that “God spoke to Moses in the 'wilderness' of Sinai,” (Num. 1:1). At first blush, Sinai would seem no place for sacred revelation. Sinai was (and still is) wild and waste. The Sinai of Torah was a desert of death but for miracles of manna and water that sustained our wandering ancestors.
Most of all, wilderness is open to all and owned by none (in Hebrew, hefker). Wilderness is naturally pure and literally un-human – remote from civilization’s structure, noise, materialism and hubris. Anyone who's experienced true wilderness knows its transformational power to restore the spirit and open the soul.
We learn that Torah was given in wilderness exactly for these reasons – less because of how wilderness is, and more because of how we naturally are in it. If we pay attention, we notice that wilderness blasts away all illusion of human control, replacing ego and materialism with natural purity, a sense of the world's immensity, transcendence and unity.
As Dr. Yair Barkai put it, the wilderness of Sinai evoked human capacity “to listen to their inner voice, to their true feelings, to honesty at its best, and also [gave] them the ability to be open and receptive to what filters into the soul of the person contemplating the infinite expanses of the wilderness.” In that state, the wisdom we call Torah naturally flows and evokes awe and wonder.
Put another way, to receive anew the wisdom we call Torah, “we too must make ourselves like the wilderness – hefker, open to all” (Num. Rabbah 1:7).
How to do that? How to make ourselves like the wilderness, open to all?
Tradition’s ancient ways smack of austerity. Pirkei Avot 6:4 offers: “This is the way to acquire Torah – eat a morsel of bread with salt, drink only bits of water, sleep on the ground and live a life of asceticism all while toiling in Torah – so you will be happy...." If you’re reading this post, odds are that you don't live an ascetic life for the sake of spiritual openness.
Shavuot rituals offer another way designed to shift our usual ways of awareness. A tikkun leyl shavuot (overnight learning), singing, wine and cheesecake all seek to harness the power of focus, community, music, alcohol, sugar and sheer exhaustion to push through our usual ways of thinking and feeling – and beyond our usual limits and defenses – so that we can think and feel differently. If you're reading this post, odds are good that you haven't pulled an all-nighter of learning for a long time, and probably won't try one this year either.
But maybe try this: Cast off routine. Ditch usual clothes and usual foods. If you can, go somewhere rural. Look up at a night sky full of stars. Let your gaze soften until mind and heart open so far beyond yourself that an innocent childlike wonder surges in – or better yet, lose yourself entirely. Know instinctively Viktor Frankl's truth that in the infinite expanse, even “the angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”
This wow quality of mind-heart-soul we call awe is a natural portal of discovery. Through that portal, we can receive anew the wisdom we call Torah – a quality of wisdom that inspires us to do good in the world. It might even be that awe itself is the wisdom we call Torah,
The world has so much to teach us, which we symbolize with the seemingly infinite sea of Torah and sacred text. Perhaps that's why some imagine that a bat kol (heavenly voice) sounds from Sinai not just once but always, constantly pressing us to renew our souls, Judaism and the world – if only we'd listen.
If only we'd listen. That's how we receive Torah. All the rest is commentary.
Parashat Bamidbar 5784 (2024)
This dvar Torah draws from materials R. David wrote in 2016.
Next week (June 11-13, 2024) is Shavuot, the "Festival of Receiving Our Torah" (z'man matan torateinu). Around the world, Jews will metaphorically stand together at Sinai as if receiving anew the wisdom we call Torah. Typical Shavuot observances include joyful learning, heart-opening ritual, Yizkor for loved ones and, of course, the sacred cheesecake (for the sweetness and life-giving "milk" of Torah's endless nourishment).
But how to receive Torah anew? Do we mean receiving anew the Torah we already have, or receiving something new for the first time? Fittingly for Jewish life, folks will disagree based on whether one believes in "revelation" and, if so, whether "revelation" is one and done (at Sinai) or continuous (in our day).
My personal answer is both, but before reaching that question, we need to ask a more basic question: how does one "receive" Torah at all?
In this week’s portion that opens the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar / “in the wilderness”), our ancestors found deep wisdom that receiving Torah is less an historical event than a fertile and magnetic quality of heart and mind that comes from "the wilderness." The lesson, it turns out, is about wilderness itself.
Torah recounts that “God spoke to Moses in the 'wilderness' of Sinai,” (Num. 1:1). At first blush, Sinai would seem no place for sacred revelation. Sinai was (and still is) wild and waste. The Sinai of Torah was a desert of death but for miracles of manna and water that sustained our wandering ancestors.
Most of all, wilderness is open to all and owned by none (in Hebrew, hefker). Wilderness is naturally pure and literally un-human – remote from civilization’s structure, noise, materialism and hubris. Anyone who's experienced true wilderness knows its transformational power to restore the spirit and open the soul.
We learn that Torah was given in wilderness exactly for these reasons – less because of how wilderness is, and more because of how we naturally are in it. If we pay attention, we notice that wilderness blasts away all illusion of human control, replacing ego and materialism with natural purity, a sense of the world's immensity, transcendence and unity.
As Dr. Yair Barkai put it, the wilderness of Sinai evoked human capacity “to listen to their inner voice, to their true feelings, to honesty at its best, and also [gave] them the ability to be open and receptive to what filters into the soul of the person contemplating the infinite expanses of the wilderness.” In that state, the wisdom we call Torah naturally flows and evokes awe and wonder.
Put another way, to receive anew the wisdom we call Torah, “we too must make ourselves like the wilderness – hefker, open to all” (Num. Rabbah 1:7).
How to do that? How to make ourselves like the wilderness, open to all?
Tradition’s ancient ways smack of austerity. Pirkei Avot 6:4 offers: “This is the way to acquire Torah – eat a morsel of bread with salt, drink only bits of water, sleep on the ground and live a life of asceticism all while toiling in Torah – so you will be happy...." If you’re reading this post, odds are that you don't live an ascetic life for the sake of spiritual openness.
Shavuot rituals offer another way designed to shift our usual ways of awareness. A tikkun leyl shavuot (overnight learning), singing, wine and cheesecake all seek to harness the power of focus, community, music, alcohol, sugar and sheer exhaustion to push through our usual ways of thinking and feeling – and beyond our usual limits and defenses – so that we can think and feel differently. If you're reading this post, odds are good that you haven't pulled an all-nighter of learning for a long time, and probably won't try one this year either.
But maybe try this: Cast off routine. Ditch usual clothes and usual foods. If you can, go somewhere rural. Look up at a night sky full of stars. Let your gaze soften until mind and heart open so far beyond yourself that an innocent childlike wonder surges in – or better yet, lose yourself entirely. Know instinctively Viktor Frankl's truth that in the infinite expanse, even “the angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”
This wow quality of mind-heart-soul we call awe is a natural portal of discovery. Through that portal, we can receive anew the wisdom we call Torah – a quality of wisdom that inspires us to do good in the world. It might even be that awe itself is the wisdom we call Torah,
The world has so much to teach us, which we symbolize with the seemingly infinite sea of Torah and sacred text. Perhaps that's why some imagine that a bat kol (heavenly voice) sounds from Sinai not just once but always, constantly pressing us to renew our souls, Judaism and the world – if only we'd listen.
If only we'd listen. That's how we receive Torah. All the rest is commentary.
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