Dear B’nai Shalom members, families, and friends:
As you are reading this bulletin, we will be about halfway between the joyous festival of Shavuot, (behind us) and the sadness-filled fast day of Shiva Asar B’Tammuz, coming up in just a few weeks. There is ALWAYS something happening on the Jewish calendar for which we prepare ourselves and contemplate its purpose, meaning, and reasons for observance.
That is part and parcel of what it means to be a Jew. We are always being commanded to perform scores of mitzvot (commandments) or directed to desist from certain behaviors or activities. This is the essence of Judaism. Often people mistakenly characterize Judaism as a religion, no different in definition from religions such as Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, or others.
The nineteenth century German thinker and Torah scholar and commentator HaRav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch when referring to Judaism in his writings always placed the term “religion” in quotation marks as a sign that Judaism is truly something else, not just another religion. This was based on the principle that other faiths are philosophical ways of approaching our Maker, growing out of thought and religious concepts. Judaism, on the other hand is a G-d given way of life based on comprehensive laws, rules, and commandments. In response to those who might claim that Judaism is no less man-made than other religions, one must ask the question: would we really create an all-encompassing doctrine of systematic regulations for ourselves with which we fail in every generation? Would we knowingly design a way of life too difficult for us to keep? This is not likely and certainly not logical.
Having recently celebrated Shavuot — the holiday of the giving of our Torah — the concept of our dual Torah guidelines was conspicuously underscored. We have in our possession TWO Torahs. There is the written Torah with which we are all familiar (known as the Chumash, the Pentateuch, or the Five Books of Moses), which are the double-rollered scrolls kept in the Aron HaKodesh (the Holy Ark). We also have our Talmud – the combined texts of the Mishna and Gemara which is the written-down form of the original Oral Torah as taught to Moses on Mount Sinai four thousand years ago. All evidence points to the Oral Torah having been given to the Jewish people even prior to the written Torah document. One form of Torah cannot exist without the other.
The explanations, interpretations, further detail, and clarifications are embodied in the relationship between the Torah and the Talmud. One cannot discern or understand the precise manner in which specific commandments are meant to be fulfilled without a true sense of authentic scholarship of Torah-Talmud knowledge. In addition, one cannot fully be in true compliance with the letter and spirit of the judgments and ordinances of our people without our willing conformance to the authentic rabbinical authorities in every generation who, in fact, have that requisite Torah-Talmud expertise and the G-d-given license to decide the practical manner in which G-d’s commandments are to be observed. To do otherwise is to be inadvertently creating our own religion or emulating the example of the historical Karaites who rejected outright the divine nature of the Oral Torah.
The first of the Aseret HaDibrot, the Ten Commandments, states “I am the Lord, your G-d who took you out from the Land of Egypt.” One could come to the conclusion that this appears not to qualify as a commandment; that we are not being commanded to do anything at all with this statement. But if we recognize that Judaism is, in fact, the aforementioned ocean of laws and rules, then it is clear that our obedience in following the teachings of our teachers and rabbis is predicated on the principle that it is G-d – directly or indirectly — commanding each and every rule, principle, instruction, and detail that Judaism espouses.
It is our hope and prayer that G-d Almighty give us the strength, resolve, and inspiration to accept the lessons of our forefathers and modern-day decisors of Jewish law to best protect, preserve, and perpetuate the legacy of our way of life, our Torah, for future generations for all time to come.
B’Shalom Rav,
Rabbi Dr. Yaacov Dvorin