A Call for Sacred Community
Rabbi Tom Samuels
Professor Aviva Zornberg beautifully describes the rabbinic method of exegesis, Midrash, as the “art of inquiry for discovering hidden meaning in and between the lines.” One of my favorites tells of Moses breaking the Torah to teach about the centrality of community and of relationship-building to the human condition.
Upon descending from Mount Sinai with the Torah, written by the Hand of God, Moses witnesses the Episode of the Golden Calf. The Midrash imagines that Moses turned around, the Torah tablets in hand, and proceeded back up the mountain:
חזר לאחוריו וראו אותו שבעים זקנים ורצו אחריו הוא אחז בראש הלוח והן אחזו בראש הלוח חזק כחו של משה מכולן שנא׳ (דברים ל״ד:י״ב) ולכל היד החזקה ולכל המורא הגדול אשר עשה משה לעיני כל ישראל. (נסתכל בהן וראה שפרח כתב מעליהן אמר היאך אני נותן להם לישראל את הלוחות שאין בהם ממש אלא אאחוז ואשברם שנאמר (שם ט) ואתפוש בשני הלוחות ואשליכם מעל שתי ידי ואשברם)
“So Moses started to go back up the mountain. The seventy elders saw him and ran after him. He was holding on to one end of the tablets, and they grabbed on to the other end. But Moses’ strength was greater than all of theirs."
The Midrash continues with the most fantastical image of the Divine letters literally flying off of the stone tablets:
"Then Moses looked and saw that the writing was flying off of the tablets, and he said: ‘How can I give these tablets to Israel? For there is nothing on them!’ So instead, Moses took hold of the tablets and smashed them. (Avot D’Rabbi Natan, Ch. 2)
Moses, Rabbi Adina Lewittes teaches, realized there could be no Torah without a community to follow its teachings. “Those blank tablets” she writes, “are a metaphor for a Torah that derives its value in its living form.”
Look carefully at the words in the Torah (Leviticus 18:5):
וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֤ם אֶת־חֻקֹּתַי֙ וְאֶת־מִשְׁפָּטַ֔י אֲשֶׁ֨ר יַעֲשֶׂ֥ה אֹתָ֛ם הָאָדָ֖ם וָחַ֣י בָּהֶ֑ם
“You shall keep my rules and my laws. A person shall do them, and Chai BaHem, live by, through, and with them.”
For the Torah, it is important not just that all Israel be present at Sinai. That, to riff on Woody Allen’s line, ‘showing up is definitely not 80 percent of life’. Rather, they needed to be there, together, in a state of fellowship. In relationship.
I love the Hassidic story, told by Rabbi Rami Shapiro, about a Rebbe who loved studying Torah so much that he prayed to God, “God, let me alone. Let me not have all of my Hassidim, all of my congregants, who bother me with their personal problems. I want only to study, only to learn.” And his prayer was granted. No one bothered him because they knew that he was impatient, that he wanted only his books. And it came too before the celebration of Succot and he asked people to help him to build the Succah. No one would help him. Finally, he built it himself.
According to the Kabbalah, Rabbi Shapiro continues, each night of Sukkot we invite in the Ushpazin, the seven great biblical Jewish personalities who also represent both different human traits as well as the lower seven of the Ten Sefirot, Divine Personalities.
The first night the Rebbe invited in to his Sukkah Abraham. But Abraham came to the Rebbe that night in his dreams refusing to enter the Rebbe’s Succah. “I will not enter any home in which my children are not welcome,” said Abraham. And the Rebbe was alone.
“Sometimes we come to believe” Dr. Yehudah Kurtzer teaches, “that Torah takes place on a mountain. If only we could live on the mountain then everything will be perfect.” But the central idea of Sinai, of the Torah itself, is not about a mountain, about a single euphoric moment. It is about leaving the mountain.
Immediately after the Revelation at Sinai, God tells Moses to tell the people to go back to their tents. Back to their everyday lives (Deuteronomy 5:27): שׁוּבוּ לָכֶם לְאָהֳלֵיכֶם
As the Rebbe discovered, and as God in the Midrash agrees with Moses and erases the laws from the tablets, the Torah, our sacred covenant with HaShem, is at its core about creating communities of deep, interpersonal connections. In community.
B’Shalom,
Rabbi Tom Samuels, MCJC
May 2020
Rabbi Tom Samuels
Professor Aviva Zornberg beautifully describes the rabbinic method of exegesis, Midrash, as the “art of inquiry for discovering hidden meaning in and between the lines.” One of my favorites tells of Moses breaking the Torah to teach about the centrality of community and of relationship-building to the human condition.
Upon descending from Mount Sinai with the Torah, written by the Hand of God, Moses witnesses the Episode of the Golden Calf. The Midrash imagines that Moses turned around, the Torah tablets in hand, and proceeded back up the mountain:
חזר לאחוריו וראו אותו שבעים זקנים ורצו אחריו הוא אחז בראש הלוח והן אחזו בראש הלוח חזק כחו של משה מכולן שנא׳ (דברים ל״ד:י״ב) ולכל היד החזקה ולכל המורא הגדול אשר עשה משה לעיני כל ישראל. (נסתכל בהן וראה שפרח כתב מעליהן אמר היאך אני נותן להם לישראל את הלוחות שאין בהם ממש אלא אאחוז ואשברם שנאמר (שם ט) ואתפוש בשני הלוחות ואשליכם מעל שתי ידי ואשברם)
“So Moses started to go back up the mountain. The seventy elders saw him and ran after him. He was holding on to one end of the tablets, and they grabbed on to the other end. But Moses’ strength was greater than all of theirs."
The Midrash continues with the most fantastical image of the Divine letters literally flying off of the stone tablets:
"Then Moses looked and saw that the writing was flying off of the tablets, and he said: ‘How can I give these tablets to Israel? For there is nothing on them!’ So instead, Moses took hold of the tablets and smashed them. (Avot D’Rabbi Natan, Ch. 2)
Moses, Rabbi Adina Lewittes teaches, realized there could be no Torah without a community to follow its teachings. “Those blank tablets” she writes, “are a metaphor for a Torah that derives its value in its living form.”
Look carefully at the words in the Torah (Leviticus 18:5):
וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֤ם אֶת־חֻקֹּתַי֙ וְאֶת־מִשְׁפָּטַ֔י אֲשֶׁ֨ר יַעֲשֶׂ֥ה אֹתָ֛ם הָאָדָ֖ם וָחַ֣י בָּהֶ֑ם
“You shall keep my rules and my laws. A person shall do them, and Chai BaHem, live by, through, and with them.”
For the Torah, it is important not just that all Israel be present at Sinai. That, to riff on Woody Allen’s line, ‘showing up is definitely not 80 percent of life’. Rather, they needed to be there, together, in a state of fellowship. In relationship.
I love the Hassidic story, told by Rabbi Rami Shapiro, about a Rebbe who loved studying Torah so much that he prayed to God, “God, let me alone. Let me not have all of my Hassidim, all of my congregants, who bother me with their personal problems. I want only to study, only to learn.” And his prayer was granted. No one bothered him because they knew that he was impatient, that he wanted only his books. And it came too before the celebration of Succot and he asked people to help him to build the Succah. No one would help him. Finally, he built it himself.
According to the Kabbalah, Rabbi Shapiro continues, each night of Sukkot we invite in the Ushpazin, the seven great biblical Jewish personalities who also represent both different human traits as well as the lower seven of the Ten Sefirot, Divine Personalities.
The first night the Rebbe invited in to his Sukkah Abraham. But Abraham came to the Rebbe that night in his dreams refusing to enter the Rebbe’s Succah. “I will not enter any home in which my children are not welcome,” said Abraham. And the Rebbe was alone.
“Sometimes we come to believe” Dr. Yehudah Kurtzer teaches, “that Torah takes place on a mountain. If only we could live on the mountain then everything will be perfect.” But the central idea of Sinai, of the Torah itself, is not about a mountain, about a single euphoric moment. It is about leaving the mountain.
Immediately after the Revelation at Sinai, God tells Moses to tell the people to go back to their tents. Back to their everyday lives (Deuteronomy 5:27): שׁוּבוּ לָכֶם לְאָהֳלֵיכֶם
As the Rebbe discovered, and as God in the Midrash agrees with Moses and erases the laws from the tablets, the Torah, our sacred covenant with HaShem, is at its core about creating communities of deep, interpersonal connections. In community.
B’Shalom,
Rabbi Tom Samuels, MCJC
May 2020