The great Torah debate
What role does Torah play in the State of Israel? Two opinions
| Ruth Calderon |  | Avihai Boaron | | | | |
The end of the Torah, Moses' farewell speech on Mount Nebo, is read festively, and immediately upon finishing it we again start with Genesis, the creation of the world. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish communities hold the symbolic ceremony, which represents the Jewish people's endless return to its story.
This year I seek to name this holiday differently – as the holiday of the Torah's joy, and ask: Is the Torah indeed joyful? Is it happy that it was given to us on Mount Sinai? Have we "invested in the relationship" and are we worthwhile partners who are making sure to keep it refreshed, well-groomed, excited, and appreciated? I think we are.
Today, we, the Israeli public, are good enough partners. It appears that in this relationship that has lasted for thousands of years between the wonderful text and the generations of its readers, interpreters and creators, we are finding ourselves in a good period. A period of arousal, a new vision and new passion that exists among us.
And size doesn’t matter. Today, thousands of students are taking part in the Jewish renewal in the secular community. The cultural trend of recent decades, which can be dated back approximately to the 1967 war, reached thousands of participants in about one hundred places of study: Places of Torah study, colleges, preparatory schools etc.
A mosaic that is partly dealing with studying Torah, partly taking part in rituals in houses of prayer that are not rabbinical, partly through social justice, and another one part through education. Even if this cultural movement has no central leadership, the process is strengthening because those who follow it gain strength from each other.
It is too early to predict the process' future. A cultural change requires first of all time, devotion, and dedication to the goal. And still, it appears to me that it would be wrong to count the number of those participating in the process as if they constitute the extent of its influence. As we recall, our sages of blessed memory did not number more than a few hundreds. Even the Gush Emunim settlement group at first could fit into a bus.
Just like a partnership that is reflected in the mental strength of the children, we can examine the Israeli public arena and see what the state of the Torah is. We can listen to pop music, watch television, examine the street, and read books. There's still much we can expect, and still, the Israeli arena was never so rich with the presence of the Torah. T
he "Jewish bookcase" has expanded and invaded the street. Religious poems are seeing music composed to them and recorded at studios. The names of children are also going back to Hebrew and Aramaic. The weekly Torah portion is found on our television screens, and Talmudic heroes are peeking out of contemporary dramas.
The general public is freely using the holidays (the Shavuot Tikkun, for example); prayers and ceremonies, weddings, bar mitzvahs, mourning ceremonies – all those have been appropriated from the rabbinical monopoly and are given many new faces by those who require them. More than one hundred places of study that are not rabbinical are qualifying more and more partners to dialogue.
Again there are those who can recite the prayer for deliverance from danger after returning from Lebanon, who understand a text written by Bialik, who laugh because of bitter Agnon jokes, and who know that a Tikkun ("repair" in Hebrew) does not only refer to a flat tire. May both them and us have a happy holiday.
The writer is the founder and director of the Alma College
Once, when I returned home from my Yeshiva, an older neighbor asked me in which military unit I was serving. I told him that I'm stills studying at the Yeshiva, and that once I enlist I'll inform him. "And what will you gain from studying at the Yeshiva?" he wondered, "you'll get some kind of diploma, you'll become a rabbi or something?"
No, I did not get a diploma, but back then already I recognized a fundamental mistake made by my friendly acquaintance and many like him. Torah is not a type of science! As opposed to mathematics, history, or philosophy, where the success of studying is measured by the acquisition of knowledge, the goal of studying torah is to bring about the student's spiritual development to the point of creating "communication" with God. Until the prophecy.
Any person who studies a little connects with God a little. How does it work? Well, Torah is like a giant spotlight that reflects endless light in straight lines, while the person (the Jew of all people) is like a winding, hollow pipe.
The moment the person "straightens himself out" in the direction of this spotlight, he is filled with endless light, characterized as "eternal serenity" by singer Ehud Banai in a song written by Meir Ariel. And how does a person straighten out himself, his body, soul, and spirit? Through following the 613 mitzvahs, which affect his 613 body parts.
And if we already mention Meir Ariel, may he rest in peace, when actor Shuli Rand was asked how he started the process of become religious, he said that he would study Gemara with Meir Ariel every week, "just like that…in a non-obligatory way." And then, he continues, "slowly I started asking myself, if this is the truth, then what am I doing? That's how my journey to Judaism started."
This is precisely the problem with the various "students of the text." Fondly connecting to the inalienable assets of our culture, while ignoring their obligatory rulings, reflects blatant cynicism and a lack of honesty. What would we think about a lawyer that does not abide by the law? No, God is not interested in our refined mind.
God does not give the right of way to the one who better grasps the material, but rather, to the one who worked harder. God wants our heart, wants us to be touched by it and connect to it.
The sages already told us that Torah will emerge from the sons of poor families. Why them of all people? Because the poor are not occupied with a pose of artificial study, they have no starched suits, and they don't look good in photographs. They are not bursting with self-importance. So what do they have? They have modesty of the type Judaism respects, the kind that is reflected through eating bread and salt, drinking water, and working to study the Torah.
The sages also taught us that using the Torah is of a higher order than studying it. That is: Observing the conduct of the sages is more useful than memorizing the Torah texts. Theoretically, we can study everything wrong, but when we see how Torah is applied in life by wise people, then we will know with certainty how to conduct ourselves.
And after all, we want to get closer to God, not to its texts. They are not the goal, but rather, merely the tool for achieving spiritual accomplishments by living in a guided manner. Those who stick to the text as nothing but learning material can also make pork kosher, because they are not connecting the Torah's internal code, the one that is passed on from one generation to the next through subtext that is hidden from view.
The writer is an attorney and the director general of a group dedicated to spreading Judaism and to becoming newly religious
