Tag Archives: Shavuot

Got Torah?

Although we’ve been given the Torah, even now God still has it. He’s the only one who knows the Torah’s core depth, its roads to be walked and how to instill Torah-living into humankind.

How much of the Torah any of us receives is directly related to how much he is willing to sacrifice for it. No pain, no gain. Effort, strain, sacrifice, late nights and early mornings in study. Going the extra mile to attend a minyan and to attend to someone in need.

The more you give of your time, money and body, the more of the Torah you receive and the longer it stays with you. How much do you want the Torah? How much do you want it when it’s going to cost you something? Something precious?

Shavuot is a festival. Enjoying it to rejoice in it is a mitzvah, a way of coming close to God. Celebrate your choseness, that God thinks you’re capable enough, clever enough and responsible enough to dance through life holding His Torah.

agut yom tov!

Chag sameach!

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Chosen Person

We’re on the threshold of receiving the Torah, again. As we wrote earlier, one of the reasons we stay awake all Shavuot night to learn Torah, is to awaken our desire for living Torah, despite any obstacles we may face in life. And face obstacles we will.

Rebbe Nachman talks often of the desire to be a Jew, the desire to live Jewishly, the desire to actualize the desire to daven (pray) more/better, learn Torah more/better, be charitable and kind more/better, have stronger faith and love for God, etc. What’s the starting point for that desire? The starting point is to realize that not only are we Jews the Chosen People, but that you, in your Jewishness, are a Chosen Person. Without your having stood at Mount Sinai at the Revelation to receive the Torah, no Jew, not even Moshe Rabbeinu, would have the Torah.

You were chosen to be there and, like the rest of us, you accepted the invitation and the responsibility. And you’re going to fail. Not all the time, hopefully, but often enough to think about quitting or about moving the goalposts (i.e., lowering your standards of Judaism). But this misguided thinking is based on a lack of humility. Your failures—just like my failures and the other guy’s failures—should give you a clearer picture of what your currently capable of and where you need improvement. Your failures, and the humility they breed, should weaken neither your desire nor your resolve for Jewishness. On the contrary—they should strengthen them so much that your failures become stepping stones to Jewish success.

Have a beautiful yom tov. Don’t forget. Being happy that it’s yom tov is a mitzvah. Don’t get suckered into an argument or a funk because the cheesecake didn’t come out right or the rabbi’s class was too long.

Based on Likutey Halakhot, Hekhsher Keilim 4:18

 

© Copyright 2013 O. Bergman/148West

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Stay Awake!

Why don’t we sleep on the night of Shavuot? Reb Noson of Breslov, Rebbe Nachman’s foremost disciple, gives an answer.

We already received the Torah at Sinai. So what are we receiving each year on Shavuot? A little more revelation of penimiyut, the innerness/essence of the Torah. The Torah’s panim, face, shines on us a little more, so that each of us can awaken from his sleep. We can wake and look more carefully and honestly at our lives, so that we can evaluate how our day to day life is contributing—or not—to a positive destiny.

When the Torah smiles and reveals to us more of her essence, we realize how many obstacles there are that keep us away from her. We realize that she alone is the one who can awaken us to our destined greatness. Receiving on Shavuot this new appreciation of the Torah’s greatness—and ours—is this year’s revelation.

Coming to realize how far we are from actualizing our potential greatness; coming to realize how impermanent things, false visions and values, and other tricks played on our minds keep us away from the Torah which can bring us to our God and our greatness; these realizations are the Torah we receive on Shavuot.

Staying awake Shavuot night is a reaction to these revelations. It is an antidote to the all too common human reaction of giving up and crawling under the blanket, quitting on the Torah when life gets too hard for us to reach the greatness we know deep within that we can achieve. Staying awake Shavuot night is a cry: I want to be a greater Jew! I can be a greater Jew! Even if I cannot achieve my Jewish goals as swiftly as I hoped, I will never ever stop hoping, and trying, to reach them.

Based on Likutey Halakhot, Hekhsher Keilim 4:26

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Worth the Trade

“I threw it all away.” Ruth of Moab

Now, she didn’t really say that, but she could’ve. She was a princess, beautiful and wealthy. She could have had pleasure and power had she stayed in her native land, instead of migrating to the Land of Israel. But she saw something in her late Jewish husband, or in her mother-in-law, Naomi, or in both. When Naomi set out to return home to the Land of Israel and tried hard to dissuade Ruth from joining her, Ruth refused. “Wherever you go, I will go.” Even to poverty, even to risk my life because I don’t yet know everything about being Jewish and may commit a sin. It’s worth all that—and more—to be Jewish.

Ruth never regretted her choice and was never bitter about it. She was such a kind and loving person that anything she looked at became blessed.

So what happened because this woman threw it all away and became Jewish? We ended up with King David and his Tehillim (Psalms). And we will end with tikkun haolam when Mashiach comes, swiftly and soon, in our lifetime. Amen.

© Copyright 2013 O. Bergman

 

long-dusty-road

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