The days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are days of repentance, and I ask what is the value of this "return" in a secular world, a world where there is no Halacha or God who examines all our actions, and where should we even return?
Franz Rosenzweig talks about returning to our origins.
A return that includes accepting responsibility for the Jewish cultural treasure.
In a speech for the opening of the Free Jewish Beit Midrash in 1920, he read: "May the hours you spend in this house be not only hours of reminiscing about the past... but hours of internalization, of returning from the outside to the inside... in terms of 'and your return to His estate and a man to his family shall return! Let him return to your own being, to your own life!".
The answer that Rosenzweig describes does not involve observing Halacha or mitzvot, but rather returning to the cultural roots we have abandoned, in order to search within them for a renewed meaning relevant to our identity.
In my opinion, we must make this return to the Talmudic legend.
It is easy to ignore the Talmudic legends.
They are hidden among laws that may be irrelevant, written in incomprehensible Aramaic, and rooted in a world that existed more than a thousand years ago.
At first glance, the Talmud seems foreign, disconnected and not suitable for our lives today.
It is possible to understand why the thinkers of the beginning of Zionism specifically returned to the Bible, which is entirely written in the Hebrew language, and takes place in the familiar Israeli landscapes.
But the Talmud has another charm.
Not a secret bunch, photo: Ila Dekal
It is written in the language of life and everyday life.
He has desires and passions, thoughts and feelings.
He is concerned with every detail of life.
It does not present a utopian or imagined world.
It is authentic, touching and yes.
That is why the legends in it are relevant to this day.
For many generations the literature of the legend was neglected.
The secular world has abandoned the Talmud because it is loaded with mitzvot grammars and petty disputes.
The traditional world focused on studying the halachic issues, and chose to skip or skim over the legend.
Those who worked to redeem the Talmudic legends were Bialik and Rabnitsky, who created the "Book of Legends".
They believed that the Talmudic legends have value even in a non-religious world, that they have meaning even outside the Talmudic atmosphere.
Bialik claimed that the legend contains materials taken from life itself, and therefore it is still relevant from a cultural, identity and literary point of view.
"There is no great iron partition between the literature of the legend and the literature of our time," he claimed, "and there are many bridges that lead from this literature to the literature after it, and to this day they have not been disqualified for the use of life."
I want to take another step together with Bialik, and argue that there is no need to wait until old age to learn Talmud.
This connection should be started at a young age.
When the children take their first steps in the cultural world and get to know the holidays, dates and characters surrounding the calendar.
Sages speak of a Dinkuta version, the Western world will call it mother tongue - but the meaning is the same. It is the primary, basic language. The one that I understand even beyond words, and master it without thinking.
This is how I believe that we should meet the Talmudic legend for the first time.
Without high words, without being great intellectuals.
Just a close, almost intimate encounter with the ancient legends.
With the fascinating characters, with our Talmudic mythology.
A meeting that will introduce the legend into the hearts of children and girls.
A meeting that gives a balm to the soul, and also makes our children members of a family in our culture.
For those who speak the cultural language and can bravely march the Jewish-Israeli identity to the next challenge.
"I am sure, it is possible to revive the hearts of our children, it is possible to put great love into the Hebrew legend, to make them like this book as their forever book" - Haim Nachman Bialik.
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