From the Rabbi's Desk

Life can feel so hard sometimes. There are moments in the day when we’ve just had enough and really want to take a break from everything around us. At the same time, there are days where we’re coasting and feeling all of the greatness of the world we live in. These days fuel us and help us to see the beauty of life. These two polarities exist side by side. We can feel blessed and cursed. We can feel at ease and burdened. We can feel both of these and have no disconnect.

This week, we read about the incredible time we stood at הר סיני/Har Sinai/Mount Sinai and received the תורה/Torah from God. On that day, the world changed forever. We have two very different understandings from our rabbinic tradition about what happened at הר סיני.

The first understanding comes from a Midrashic work called the מכילתא/Mekhilta and is also referenced in the תלמוד/Talmud. It explains that when God gave us the תורה, the mountain was picked up and flipped upside down while God told us: “Accept the תורה or I will drop this mountain on you and it will be your grave.

Another understanding comes from פסיקתא רבתי/Pesikta Rabatai, also a Midrashic work, that describes a very different vision. God went to each nation and asked them to accept the תורה and nation after nation turned God down. The reasons for the rejection was they were unable to live by the תורה because it directly conflicted with their practices and culture. When God came to עם ישראל/Am Yisrael/The people of Israel we said yes without asking any questions.

These two different visions are both accurate even though they’re inconsistent with each other. Is the תורה forced upon us or is it an act of love? Is תורה a burden or is it a treasure? We need to become more comfortable living in a world where multiple truths exist side by side. We need to become more comfortable in a world where something might resonate with us one moment and be completely at odds with who we are as people at another point.

Our heritage is, in fact, a special treasure that provides us with great fulfillment and joy. Being Jewish has so many blessings to discover on a daily basis. At the same time, we need to recognize sometimes being Jewish is a struggle. Sometimes this is because of the difficulties in observing our Jewish practices. At other times it’s because the world around us seems to have a problem with us. To truly love our people and our heritage is to embrace both of these visions of סיני/Sinai at the same time. To truly be in a relationship with Judaism and the Jewish people, is to be aware we have so much to be thankful for and so much to rejoice about. At the same time, it’s to be constantly aware that, in the words of the beautiful Israeli song, דרכינו/Darkenu/Our Path: לא קלה היא לא קלה דרכינו – It is not easy, our path/way is not easy. What makes it all worth it is finding moments of joy and moments of hardship coexisting in our lives. We can overcome hardship to live more often in the world where Judaism gives us so much.