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Jewish Culture

The Holiday of Shavuos

Moshe Unger
Posted 6/3/22

I want to thank the readers for the very nice feedback, I received after the article two installments ago. In the last few weeks, it has been difficult for me to write, the good words that the …

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Jewish Culture

The Holiday of Shavuos

Posted

I want to thank the readers for the very nice feedback, I received after the article two installments ago. In the last few weeks, it has been difficult for me to write, the good words that the readers offered helped to keep it going. Hopefully it will be easier henceforth. 

There’s only one thing to talk about now as we are approaching the holiday of Shavuos this Sunday and Monday and that is “the Torah”. Shavuos is translated into “holiday of the weeks”. It comes after a period of counting from Passover 49 days – seven days for seven weeks. 

The day marks the receiving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai and the counting up to it is the counting of anticipation for the day and for the Torah. 

What is the Torah? This needs a separate article to explain. In short, the main two text of the Torah are the Bible and the Talmud.

The Jewish people have been in love with the Torah ever since. If the Jewish people are known for their emphasis and love for education that is only a recent version of the old love. The study of Torah has the power to overtake a person and elevate them into something else. 

After a long exhausting day at work, you come home, open a Talmud, and delve into a discussion of, let’s say, the legalities of a boss dismissing a worker. Are you allowed or not? (Providing the worker does his or her job) It can depend if there are other work available at this hour, it can also depend if there was other work available in the first place when the worker was hired. You come to ask what are the obligations that a boss took upon him or herself when hiring? And is the obligation similar to a guarantor of a loan or is this a new specific kind of obligation that the Torah puts on a boss? This has differences in certain cases, etc.

I can’t explain it. Somehow delving into the details of these laws makes so much sense and it gives you a clarity in your life. It refreshes you and puts you at ease. Why is that so? Is it a mental reaction when our minds put things in the right place? Is it a feeling of accomplishment? Is it something Divine beyond regular psychological orders? I’m not sure. I suspect all the above and other reasons too. However, I see it happen every day.

The Talmud is not only legal moral discussions, but there are also theological discussions, Biblical exegesis, stories, and much more. And of course, everything comes with a dose of arguments. As Rabbi Sacks of Blessed Memory put it in his way:

“Judaism is unusual in that virtually all its canonical texts are woven through with arguments. In the Bible, Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah and Job all argue extensively with God. In Midrash, rabbis argue with one another on the basis of the principle that there are seventy ‘faces’ or interpretations of every text. In the Mishnah the rabbis argue about Jewish law…In the twelfth century Moses Maimonides did the most daring thing of all: he wrote a code of law with all the arguments removed. This generated more arguments than any other text for the next eight hundred years until today. Other people have conversations. Jews have arguments.”

If you are interested in tasting a bit of Talmud email me: moshe@mosheunger.com

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