It will soon be the holiday of Shavuot. Shavuot is the anniversary of when G-d gave the Jewish People the Torah at Mount Sinai. The entire Jewish nation heard G-d state the Ten Commandments. Afterwards, Moses ascended the mountain for forty days and nights, to learn all the 613 precepts of the Torah.
This past weekend we celebrated Shavuot, the holiday that commemorates receiving the Torah from G-d at Mount Sinai. The very name of the Mount Sinai has become closely intertwined with the Torah itself. So much so, that the first statement of Pirkei Avot (Ethics of our Fathers) begins with the words, “Moses received the Torah from Sinai.”
There seems to be a strange pattern to Jewish behavior. No matter how much brutality and anti-Semitism we endure, there are Jews that will always believe that it’s our own fault. They reason that our enemies would live peacefully with us if only we would be more compromising and be willing to sacrifice more. Is it that Jews have a low self-esteem?
One of the classic parts of the Passover Seder is the Dayeinu. The Hebrew word Dayeinu means “it would have been enough for us!” The Dayeinu phrase is repeated again and again at the end of a list of kindnesses that G-d did to the Jewish Nation during the Exodus. After mentioning each act of kindness we say, “Even if G-d would not have done any more, that act of kindness alone would have been enough to be forever filled with thankfulness.’
Readers of the Winnipeg Jewish Review will be interested to know that we have had an independent or partnership Minyan running for about the last 6 years. We have a group that...
The Megilla sums up the Purim story by saying, "the Jews gave a lasting commitment and accepted upon themselves to celebrate their victory over Haman, year after year." To what did the Jews commit? If it was to celebrate Purim, then the wording should have been: "the Jews accepted upon themselves and gave a lasting commitment" because it is only after having accepted something that you can give that acceptance a lasting commitment.
"It is a people that shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations". (Bamidbar 23:9)
