Shavuot in strength and pride
Shavuot is the festival of receiving the Torah, our religious tradition. It cannot be ignored the weight with which we receive the Torah this Shavuot. Torah is our ethical guide, our guidebook of our day to day, from the moment we wake up from the moment we close our eyes again.
‘עֵץ חַיִּים הִיא לַמַּחֲזִיקִים בָּהּ’, it is a tree of life to those who hold tight to it [Proverbs 3:18], ours is a tradition of power, of empowerment, of life, of richness. I am emboldened by it and life is good!
‘וָחַי בָּהֶם’, this jam, this (not so) secret sauce is one which we ‘live by’ [Leviticus 18:5], not a faith of extremism but one of moderation which is designed to embellish and sanctify life.
This is my true story, through cancer and bereavement at a tender age, I have over the years found this Judaism, this Torah to be a Torah of life, a Torah that has held me up and shown me the way. I know I am not alone - our Judaism, our Torah is magic, uplifting, enlivening, enriching, powerful, bringing joy to my family and my people. These are the stories we must tell, the pride we hold as we lift up the stories of our Torah.
And yet on this day, even after four hostages in Gaza were liberated over Shabbat, the weight of our tradition, the weight of the affairs of the day hold very heavy over me.
One image from the Midrash has been playing on my mind ‘וַיִּתְיַצְּבוּ בְּתַחְתִּית הָהָר’ [Exodus 19:17], the reading of the story of the revelation is that the people ‘waited at the foot of the mountain’ for Moses. The rabbis invert the story, ‘שכפה הקב"ה עליהם את ההר כגיגית’, made this Torah one of force, not of consent - if you accept this Torah, great, if you do not this place will be your graves.
The midrash, the rabbinic play, has been rattling in my brain; partly this is a representation of who we are as a people. One of my good friends once told me in clear terms, “you can run but you can’t hide”; we can jolly ourselves with shiny things but in reality our fate catches up with us. Human beings are prone to escapism but one of the great braveries of life is seeing our story through, staying in the pain and coming out the other side in strength.
Being Jewish is tough right now, it feels like the eyes of the world are upon our tiny nation.
I want it all, I want safety for our people, I want our blessed hostages home. I want peace in our region and an end to the bloodshed. I want the end to zealous extremism which is taking our nation to the edge and threatens the whole Middle East region.
I also want our friends and neighbours in Europe and the US, including some of my closest Jewish and non-Jewish friends to understand a thing or two: we are a traumatised people, it's not made up, trauma is in my DNA, in the DNA of Jews from the Middle East as well as from Europe, we’ve been turned out and our lives turned upside-down more times that we can actually count. We want to sit amongst the nations of the world and be counted as right and just but it ain’t so simple. Come with us, give us a chance, understand the region we operate in and the odds that are stacked against us.
Please don’t side with radical Islam, with a fundamentalist regime, not in Gaza, not in Iran. We can do better, the democratic, free world can do better, you gotta come with us!
Our people have survived this far, we will get through this but our relationships across the breadth of our Jewish community are under strain and too our relationships with the community outside don’t look great at this time. It will take a lot of hard work for these wounds to be mended, I believe in us!
Our Torah is and will continue to be our strength, yes these days are weighty, close to impossible but our tradition is not one we can or should try to escape but rather one for which we must continue to hold in resilience and pride. The miracle of Shavuot is that we received a tradition several thousand years ago and this year too it will continue to hold us, shape us, enliven and strengthen us. We got this!
Hag Samayach.
