Yitro 5773 - English

By Rabbi Joshua Kullock

Comunidad Hebrea de Guadalajara

A few months ago, I launched a project called Daph Yomi, which consists of reading a page of Talmud per day.  The idea is to cover, in this manner, this awesome work in its entirety throughout seven and a half years.  The purpose is to expand the knowledge of our sources, as well as to build up discipline. In times when immediacy comes first, embarking in a study program that will take years and will have no grades or accreditation is a way to tell the world that the Jewish people has other ideals in mind, different from those which involve running around in order to gain a degree as quickly as possible, and thereafter, to never again open a book in our lives.  It is not by chance that Torah scholars are called, in our tradition, Talmidei Chachamim, sages who keep on studying, sages who study the sages.

One of the most beautiful things of studying Torah is that you enter into a world of free associations and all kind of interpretations.  Perhaps the main subject is Shabbat, to take on the example of what I’m reading these days, but that does not prevent the Talmudic sages from including in their reflections subjects as diverse as Brith Milah regulations, medical advice for the treatment of different conditions, or stories which bequeath us different morals and messages.

Actually, in the Tractate Shabbat we can find a set of rabbinic homilies concerning the day the Torah was delivered at Mount Sinai, the main subject of this week’s parashah.  Then, taking advantage of the thematic connection between the Talmudic pearls and the content of our weekly portion, I’d like to share with you some creative brushstrokes from our sages.  Perhaps I will not only interest you in the reading of this commentary, but maybe I’ll inspire you to open the Talmud and pore over it on your own.

In page 88b of the Tractate Shabbat, Rabbi Abdimi tells us that, at the time of the revelation of the Torah, God “overturned the mountain upon them like an [inverted] cask, and said to them, 'If ye accept the Torah, 'tis well; if not, there shall be your burial.'”  Then, according to our sage, it is not so strange that the people unanimously accepted the deal.

Nevertheless, the Talmud acknowledges the problem of Rabbi Abdimi’s approach, for if the acceptance of the covenant was the direct result of a divine threat, what would be the validity of such a commitment?  Consequently, the sage Raba comes forward to teach us that what was accepted in the wilderness by force, was later on ratified from the heart and by absolute free will in the days of Esther and Mordechai (cf. Esther 9:27).

Adding his voice to this millenary dialogue, Resh Lakish tells us that God based the feasibility of the entire universe on the fulfillment of the Torah on the part of the Jewish people.  So, the threat is no longer shaped as a mountain: the bet is now doubled, to let us know the wellbeing of creation depends on our commitment.   In this lesson we recognize, on the one hand, seeds of guilt spread all over the place (who would dare to transgress the laws, if they knew that their failure to comply would bring about the end of the entire humanity?).  But on the other hand, in Resh Lakish’s reflection, we see the central place occupied by the Torah in the life of the Talmud authors.  The issue, then, is not that the world will explode if Jews do not obey the Torah; to the contrary, the message is that Jews who have no relation whatsoever with Judaism would be deemed as orphaned from a profound symbolic world or, as Rabbi Akiva affirmed in another Talmudic tractate, would be like a fish out of water (cf. Berachot 61a-61b).

The last of the thoughts related with the day the Torah was delivered that I’d like to share with you today, deals with the words of Rabbi Simla, who tells us that when the people of Israel committed to fulfill the Torah, 600,000 angels descended from the heavens to crown each and every person for their choice.  In return, when later on they built the golden calf, they were stripped of those crowns.  But even so, Resh Lakish – whom we quoted earlier – affirms that God will bring back those crowns at some time in the future.

At first level, this last teaching would seem to anchor the fulfillment of the Torah to a theology of rewards and punishments: if we behave well, we earn crowns; if we misbehave, the crowns are removed.  However, I in particular prefer to delve somewhere else.  I like Resh Lakish’s hopeful vision that the future will be better, and that past mistakes will not necessarily and unavoidably condemn us.  Somehow, this sage reminds us that if we are interested, we can work together to improve the world step by step.

To sum it up:

1. That which we have done at some point, just because we felt forced to do it, can become a proactive commitment that comes from our own free will, if we wanted it to happen.
2. We live in symbolic worlds that we must nurture and sustain.  The Torah is the water wherein we Jews move, the means where we breathe.  This does not mean that there is only one way to understand the Torah, but it implies that we must find our own way to embrace and grasp the legacy of our tradition.
3. We all aspire to build a better world.  Past mistakes should not enclose us in a spiral that will finally evict us, with no possibility of rectification.  We can always choose again, and in fact, we are called to do so every day of our lives.

All these in just one page of Talmud. Not bad as a first approach, right?

Shabbat Shalom u’Meborah!