Shavuot: Preparing for Revelation
2020-May-29, Friday 11:14![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorchadas
Usually I have a party for Jewish holidays, like how last year I had a cheese party, but obviously I couldn't do that this year. The other tradition of Shavuot is to stay up all night studying and learning Torah--called תיקון ליל שבועות (tikkun leil shavuot, "Repairing the Night of Shavuot," or if in Aramaic, "Adorning the Night of Shavuot"). I didn't do that for the whole night, but I did start the night with learning.
The highlight to me was the very brief random bit of chevrutah I did when one of the rabbis threw us in with a random partner and had us all look at Degel Machane Ephraim on Parshat Yitro in this source sheet. When the Children of Israel were around the mountain and the thunder and the lightning were raging and the smoke and flame were on the mountaintop, in Exodus 20:15 (20:18 in the Christian Bible), the Hebrew text reads:
There are more of the sages' commentary on this verse collected here.
After that I went to a breakout session on heresy in Judaism (source sheet here), which was interesting, but sadly not as interesting as I thought it would be. We only had thirty minutes so any real depth was impossible, but it mostly dealt with the general definition of heresy in Judaism and then the specific examples of Baruch Spinoza, Flavius Josephus, and the modern groups Breaking the Silence, of whom the presenter was a member, and the Haredi whistleblowers who inform secular authorities about problems in the community like breaking coronavirus restrictions. We barely had any time for the last two, sadly, and there was no coverage at all of historical movements that rabbinic Judaism considers heretical like the Samaritans or the Karaites, which is really what I was hoping for. The problem with studying is that there's always too much to learn!
There was one final interesting bit at the end, about how much the Children of Israel heard at the mountain. Rabbi Joseph Karo wrote that they only heard the first two commandments, the ones that begin with "I am," because those are the only commandments in first person--the other commandments were related by Moses later, hence why they're in third person. Other commentators suggested that even just hearing אנכי (anochi, "I am") was enough for the Children of Israel to draw back in fear. The Hassidic Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Horowitz wrote that merely the first aleph was enough, which is especially intriguing because an aleph by itself has no sound. And all of this relates the famous phrase נעשה ונשמה (na'aseh v'neeshma, "We will do and we will hear"), where the hearing/understanding comes after the doing. Like with learning to cook or an instrument or some other skill, sometimes you need to go through the steps first and trust that eventually they will all make sense. Morality is the same.
Part of me thinks I should have taken the day off to learn more, but I don't know if I could have done a whole night of Zoom learning. It's not the same as learning in person. Here's to next year, when hopefully I'll be able to study face to face!
The highlight to me was the very brief random bit of chevrutah I did when one of the rabbis threw us in with a random partner and had us all look at Degel Machane Ephraim on Parshat Yitro in this source sheet. When the Children of Israel were around the mountain and the thunder and the lightning were raging and the smoke and flame were on the mountaintop, in Exodus 20:15 (20:18 in the Christian Bible), the Hebrew text reads:
וְכָל־הָעָם֩ רֹאִ֨ים אֶת־הַקּוֹלֹ֜ת וְאֶת־הַלַּפִּידִ֗ם וְאֵת֙ ק֣וֹל הַשֹּׁפָ֔ר וְאֶת־הָהָ֖ר עָשֵׁ֑ן וַיַּ֤רְא הָעָם֙ וַיָּנֻ֔עוּ וַיַּֽעַמְד֖וּ מֵֽרָחֹֽקThe people saw the sounds--what does that mean? The Hebrew is very clearly the verb ראה (ra'ah, "to see"). Was it because G-d's voice was manifest in lightning and flame? Was there some miracle of letters of fire appearing in the air, or divine synesthesia? I like that interpretation, honestly.
vechol-ha'am ro'im et-hakolot ve'et hallappidim, ve'et kol hashofar, ve'et hahar ashen; vayareh ha'am vayanu, vaya'amdu merachok
"All the people saw the sounds and the lightning, the voice of the horn and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they fell back and stood at a distance."
There are more of the sages' commentary on this verse collected here.
G-d from the Mount of Sinai, whose gray topWe also talked a bit about Hassidic value of experience, of how feelings themselves can be important without knowledge, and how that's a valuable perspective. I brought up pushing through the early frustrating part of learning something when you don't understand it, trusting the process to work out.
Shall tremble, he descending, will himself
In Thunder Lightning and loud Trumpets sound
Ordain them Laws
-John Milton, Paradise Lost
After that I went to a breakout session on heresy in Judaism (source sheet here), which was interesting, but sadly not as interesting as I thought it would be. We only had thirty minutes so any real depth was impossible, but it mostly dealt with the general definition of heresy in Judaism and then the specific examples of Baruch Spinoza, Flavius Josephus, and the modern groups Breaking the Silence, of whom the presenter was a member, and the Haredi whistleblowers who inform secular authorities about problems in the community like breaking coronavirus restrictions. We barely had any time for the last two, sadly, and there was no coverage at all of historical movements that rabbinic Judaism considers heretical like the Samaritans or the Karaites, which is really what I was hoping for. The problem with studying is that there's always too much to learn!
There was one final interesting bit at the end, about how much the Children of Israel heard at the mountain. Rabbi Joseph Karo wrote that they only heard the first two commandments, the ones that begin with "I am," because those are the only commandments in first person--the other commandments were related by Moses later, hence why they're in third person. Other commentators suggested that even just hearing אנכי (anochi, "I am") was enough for the Children of Israel to draw back in fear. The Hassidic Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Horowitz wrote that merely the first aleph was enough, which is especially intriguing because an aleph by itself has no sound. And all of this relates the famous phrase נעשה ונשמה (na'aseh v'neeshma, "We will do and we will hear"), where the hearing/understanding comes after the doing. Like with learning to cook or an instrument or some other skill, sometimes you need to go through the steps first and trust that eventually they will all make sense. Morality is the same.
Part of me thinks I should have taken the day off to learn more, but I don't know if I could have done a whole night of Zoom learning. It's not the same as learning in person. Here's to next year, when hopefully I'll be able to study face to face!
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Date: 2020-May-29, Friday 17:41 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-May-29, Friday 19:17 (UTC)