Shavuot, the holiday of giving the Torah. On Passover, in Nissan, we were redeemed from slavery. In Sivan, we received the Torah and became a nation. And even if you are one of those who maintain that the status of Mount Sinai and the Torah are human inventions such as sliced bread and pistachio ice cream, a primitive mechanism for dealing with the terror of death, you cannot deny the Torah's influence on human consciousness and civilization.
I'm a straw and an eyebrow, a scratch on styrofoam. But Immanuel Kant, the father of the critique of pure reason, said that any attempt to downplay the Bible was a crime against humanity. So it kind of sucks that for most secular Israeli youth, the Bible is the most hated profession. This is a bitter insult and a huge failure of the education system.
One can take some comfort during Shavuot in light of the tremendous and laborious erudition in the streets of Jerusalem. Tens of thousands skip between hundreds of lectures and classes in a huge variety of all streams, all views, the Jewish bookcase is open and spread out to any hunger, just come and eat. Unfortunately, this is not enough. Most of the Jewish public, whether traditional or secular, came into contact with the teachings. Wiped from elementary, basic information.
"I will insist that the Hebrews did more for civilization than any other nation," he wrote in a letter to a friend John Adams, the second president of the United States and one of the authors of the Declaration of Independence.
"Even if I were an atheist who believed in blind eternal fate, I would continue to believe that fate intended the Jews to be the essential and central tool for spreading culture among nations. And even if I were an atheist from the other sect, believing or pretending to believe that existence is accidental, I would continue to believe that the incident intended the Jews to preserve and spread in humanity the view of an intelligent higher power, the omnipotent ruler of the universe, an essential principle that I believe lies at the heart of morality and humanity."
And we are descendants of those ancient Hebrews whom Adams marveled at.
When the famous British scholar John Selden, one of the fathers of the modern state, was sent to prison as punishment for refusing to recognize the right of the King of England to dissolve the debates of the House of Commons, the prison chiefs respectfully authorized him to choose a book that would make his time in the cell pleasant. Selden asked for two: a copy of the Babylonian Talmud and a copy of the Jerusalem Talmud.
And let's face it, most of the Israeli public doesn't know how to open a page of Talmud. Know almost nothing about his immense legacy. The state education system – terrified of a moral debate in a world of political correctness, and fearful of academia that by choice undermined national identity – is raising generation after generation of ignorant students. The generation of Epicurean patriarchs knew the shape of a page of Talmud, the generation of grandchildren would surely assume that terms were clauses in a contract, and Amorais were probably an ancient people. This is not arrogance, it is an unfortunate fact.
Ignorance is one of the main reasons for hatred of the ultra-Orthodox. A complete lack of understanding of the essence of Torah study in the Haredi approach. The Avrachim in the Kollel do not run away from the army or from work or because they are just parasites for their own sake. They live in poverty. They don't fly to The Weekend in Rome, they don't order at Walt, they devote themselves to Torah study because as far as they're concerned, that's their job in the world – to sustain the Jewish people through Torah study. Because according to the ultra-Orthodox, Torah study keeps us going.
This does not mean that it is forbidden to criticize ultra-Orthodox society, to protest, to hold a dialogue about the future. But it is necessary to understand, even absolute epicureans, the importance of the Torah to the Jewish people. Without it, we have no meaning, we have no moral right to live here.
In the national dimension, "If I have no one for me" is the cornerstone of our country. Now the question of identity surfaced: "And when I am to myself, what am I?"
Shavuot falls on a period of calm in the quiet civil war. The protest failed to bring the masses. This is not a bad time for clarifications. Something is stuck in our throats like nausea that doesn't ripen into anything.
In the chapters of the Fathers, the secondary chapters dealing with ethics, Hillel the Elder states: "If I am not for me, who is for me; And when I am to myself, what am I; And if not now, when" (Chapter 1, Mishnah 14).
In the national dimension, "If I have no one for me" is the cornerstone of the State of Israel, the genetic code of Zionism. The Jewish people took their fate in their own hands and returned to history. Now that the material task has been completed, the question of identity arises: "And when I am to myself, what am I?" And the hour is pressing. Who are we, what is our common destiny, if any? And if not now, when?
During the generations and upheavals that the Jewish people have undergone, Shavuot has undergone a change from a primarily agricultural holiday, i.e., the harvest of wheat and firstfruits as commanded by the Torah, to a holiday centered on the giving of the Torah. From the moment the Temple was destroyed and the people of Israel were exiled from its land, from its identity as an agricultural people, the basis of Jewish existence shifted to the book, to the Talmud Torah. The people of Israel survived because of the Torah, because of their intellect. After 2,000 years, with our return to the land, Zionism came and in a time tunnel restored the agricultural aspect of Shavuot. Matan Torah was completely abandoned.
David Ben-Gurion, undoubtedly a biblical figure, skipped over 2,000 years of the Oral Torah to the land of the Bible. Shavuot in young and secular Israel was firstborn processions on the kibbutz. If the founding generation still had a Dinkota version, then their descendants are wiped away from any knowledge or sentiment.
And that's a shame, because even if you try to create an alternative Judaism out of nothing, even if you put a Christmas tree on your porch, remove Bible study from the curriculum and call your children names of Asian foods, even then you won't be able to avoid the fact that what sustained our people for 3,000 years was not technology, architecture or open source developers. What kept us going was the creation, the ideas, the spirit and the book of books.
But the Orthodox side is also not exempt, especially the ultra-Orthodox. The Book of Numbers is also referred to as the "Five Commands" because of the many commanders that appear in it. In his commentary on the book, the Natziv of Volozhin (Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin) asks: Why was the Book of Numbers called the Five Commandments? Were there no more significant events in the book, such as the sin of the spies or Korach and his flock? And the Natziv replies that there are two main commanders in this book: one in the portion Bamidbar, when the Israelites leave Egypt and their entire existence is miraculous, and the other in the portion of Pinchas - the Israelites are about to enter the land, and from then on the water, food, wars and existence will depend on them themselves and they will no longer receive gifts from heaven. Nu Mor Man For You.
The Book of Numbers describes the change that the people of Israel are undergoing from dependence to independence, and Shavuot symbolizes the beginning of accepting responsibility with the bringing of your firstfruits! That you raised with your own hands!
Happy holiday.
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