Today is Rosh Chodesh Sivan, which means that the holiday of Shavuot is just around the corner. It’s the holiday that celebrates the giving of Torah at Mount Sinai. It’s the holiday that recognizes that Revelation of Torah is an ongoing experience, relived again and again, imparting new wisdom each time we delve into our tradition. But it’s also a holiday that marks what it means to be one People, connected through a shared experience and a shared commitment.
A midrash teaches that God couldn’t give the Israelites the Torah in the moments after they left Mitzrayim because they were at odds with each other. There was strife amongst the people. How could they find the power in Peoplehood if they weren’t connected in unity? So God had to wait, and it was only once they were able to feel that connection, as one People, that they could receive the Torah. The Torah writes in that moment, that the Israelite people “encamped there in the desert in front of the mountain” (Exodus 19:2). Rashi sees that the word ‘encamped’ is in the singular, not the plural, and he explains this oddity: “Israel encamped with one heart, as one person.”
We were one connected group, with a sense of shared identity and shared purpose, with a shared mission of what it meant to be an Israelite, different in comparison to the rest of the world. The Talmud actually extends the notion of Jewish unity, that it’s not only shared with those around us, but that the unity transcends time and space, connecting us to all Jewish souls for all time. We are bound together through the experience at Sinai, through this sacred text we have beautifully inherited.
But there is another teaching that offers a different perspective, that every person at Sinai experienced revelation according to their own ability. That each person heard something different - perhaps what they needed to hear. One Rabbi, Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, wrote that there are 600,000 explanations of Torah, and each person received an interpretation according to the root of their soul.
I find these teachings, together, so powerful. We are shared in our experience of receiving Torah, we are one connected people, and yet, we each glean something different. We are connected to those of generations past who benefitted from Torah, and we also benefit in a different way. We are linked to Jews because of our shared Torah even if we learn it in a different way or glean different things from it. We are connected, yet we are each invited to find our own way. Our connection does not demand uniformity; in fact the opposite - our tradition asks us to explore it enough to find what speaks to us, uniquely.
I hope you’ll join us on Tuesday evening for our Tikkun Leil Shavuot, as we come together with the Temple Israel community to learn Torah through the night. Last year we hosted at Beth Sholom; this year we’ll be at Temple, and you can register here. Abe and I will both be teaching, along with my wonderful friends and colleagues from Temple. Join us, to connect in unity, to be one people, each finding the Torah that speaks to us.
