Shavuot -- 5775

 The call went forth in fire and thunder:  I AM.  The people trembled in awe.  All the souls of all the people who would ever be Jewish gathered in awe.  At the mountain’s summit, Moses transcribed furiously.  Thus did the Torah come into the world.

The tale of the giving of Torah by God to Moses at Mt. Sinai is tremendous.  It serves to enforce the text’s sanctity and the eternal bond between God and the Jewish people.  We reenact this story every time the Torah is taken from the ark to be read.  We revel in this account of revelation even though we know that the reality of the Torah’s creation was likely far more prosaic.

The Torah symbolizes the love shared between God and the Jewish People.  Because the festival of Shavuot marks the night that symbol was given (this year, May 23), the Kabbalists taught that Shavuot is our marriage night as well.  We study into the night to achieve a mystical union with God.  Just as Ruth bound herself to Naomi and her tribe, so do we bind ourselves, over and over again, to our God and our Torah.  This is precisely what converts to Judaism do through the choices of their lives, and we honor and learn from their commitment.

For most of us, the idea that God can “marry” a human being or group is bizarre.  It is, I think, actually metaphorical, expressing that we mere mortals can bind ourselves to a Truth that’s larger than ourselves.  We can locate ourselves within a story that makes sense out of a complex mélange of personal feelings and experiences.  The image of marriage declares that we, as individuals, find ourselves within the nation’s sweeping narrative, and that our people’s ongoing story is inherently holy.  No matter how we became Jewish, we see ourselves in the Torah, and declare it to be our story, too.