A few important lessons..

I hope everyone feels spiritually renewed after a meaningful Shavuot. I had quite a good experience at my favorite shul in Cape Town. It was a very nice way to bid farewell to the wonderful community of Sea Point and to have an opportunity to really reflect on what I have gained in a Jewish context while being abroad, to once more appreciate the amazing hospitality of the people I have met and to begin to think about how all of this has been internalized and perhaps changed my perspective on certain things, on both a micro and macro scale.

I would like to share a few of the interesting ideas that I learned over Shavuot that somehow have factored into this whole process. One of the shiurim I went to explored the identity of Moshe through the lens of his forgotten name. His name which refers to having been drawn out of the water by Pharaoh’s daughter was only bestowed upon him when he was incorporated into the royal family of the Egyptians. So then what was the Jewish name (which reflects the true essence of he or she who possesses it) of this most famous leader of the B’nei Yisrael? The midrash says that the answer can be found in the pasuk that states that when the child was born, he was seen as “good.” There is further discussion about what this means (either in the midrash or in the gemarah, I don’t remember) that relates this statement back to the days of creation when God would use the same word to describe what was created on each day. That interpretation of good had a dimension of perfection attached to it. So was this good here, this tov that perhaps may have been his name, implying the same features of Moshe’s identity? The Rabbi discussed that this was a different good, a good that was not necessarily inherent but rather one that was bestowed upon Moshe by God, a good that did not stand on its own but was rather the result of a specific decision made by God to make this being good and allow that good to develop through a relationship with God. Thus Moshe’s name was not tov, rather it was tuvia, which means “good of God.” Moshe was not a being whose goodness could be separated from God but was rather dependant upon this link which teaches the lesson that our inherent qualities do not define what we are but can rather be improved upon and transformed so that we can utilize them correctly through a relationship with God. If this is the case in the development of Moshe, than kal va’chomer, all the more so, we can channel our qualities into some sort of spirituality that can strengthen and transform the characteristics that make up who we are.

Wow I feel like I have started to sound so frum from all this Jewspeak. I suppose I am ok with that. Continuing on a similar vain, another really interesting topic that was discussed was the reason why Har Sinai, the mountain at which the Jewish people received the ten commandments, possesses that name. The Gemarah records a conversation pertaining to this question. One rabbi says that perhaps it is because the word Sinai is similar to nisim, miracles, which refers to the great miracles that God performed for the Jewish people at this location. But this idea is rejected because for the generations that followed those physically present for z’man matan torateinu, (though we were all spirituall present apparently), this is not a name to which we can relate, for we did not experience those miracles first-hand. So another rabbi suggests that perhaps it is called Sinai to reflect the siman tov, the good sign, that this event represented for the future of the Jewish people. This suggestion is also rejected because the receiving the Torah was not just a good sign for the Jewish people, but is an ethical system that has the potential to benefit the entire world. The dismissal of these two ideas hints at the Gemerah’s purpose to create a system of law and legend to which every generation of Jews can understand and incorporate into their lives. The Torah and all of the processes that followed its giving, are supposed to construct a framework that continually provide guidelines for how to operate in a changing world. In the spirit of this idea, the final suggestion of the root of the name Har Sinai is found in the word sina, hatred. This seems quite strange since hatred is negative and receiving the Torah is one of the defining highlights of Jewish history. Rashi elaborates on this idea by saying that Har Sinai is the place where the non-Jewish hatred of the Jews was born. Still this seems quite negative, but the Rabbi said that the hatred is a result of the goodness and wonder of the Torah. All of the other nations of the world, which all supposedly rejected the Torah, developed a jealousy directed toward the Jews for possessing such an invaluable, remarkable system of rules. Thus the sina that developed at Sinai both communicates the morality that the Torah can potentially create for each generation as well as dictate how it can, and needs to, be used to activate these ethics in relationship to the rest of the world and implement the torah in all parts of life, both Jewish and secular, to transform this hatred into appreciation and demonstrate how this system can benefit other nations instead of being a source of hatred and conflict. This idea is at once an affirmation of Jewish life, a suggested explanation for the constant threats that confront Jewish life and maintenance and a challenge to positively implement it within the world at large.

While I suppose this idea is linked with a Jewish elitism (that has the potential to generate other issues) I personally often find very problematic, I think that this dialogue, accompanied by an extensive summary of the Talmudic process by the Rabbi, really reflected the various positive dimensions of torah study. Engaging in this activity is not just maintaining a link with our past but it is allowing that past to be relevant to the present and understanding the true timelessness of the amazing gift of the torah; an entity that offers necessary meaning, accountability and connection. Both of these discussions really expose the Jewish value placed upon the practice of looking deeper, elevating the profane to a level a sacred, and understanding the complicated nature of identity. Throughout Shavuot these were three themes that continued to present themselves which allowed me to start developing a deeper understanding of why tradition and the texts related to it are so necessary to preserving the wonders of Judaism. I say all of this a little hesitantly because I personally am extremely confused and conflicted over the balance between stagnancy and fluidity within Jewish law, text and life. I constantly ask myself, is it necessary to feel the need to uphold all of these things for the sake of Jewish endurance if they do not comply with a code of ethics that I feel committed to? However I have become more and more optimistic that the only way to explore and perhaps answer this question is by continuing to learn and to struggle.

The three themes listed above that I believe are intrinsically linked with Torah study also happen to be important lessons that have extended into so many other parts of this experience and ways of thinking. Looking deeper, elevating the profane to a level a sacred, and understanding the complicated nature of identity, are three practices that I believe are necessary to a variety of different experiences. As you may have noticed, I have tried to incorporate these into my classes, volunteering, general exposure to South Africa and the people who inhabit this wonderful, complicated and troubled country, developing a relationship with the Cape Town Jewish community and general exploration of how all of these things can influence my own identity. In doing so I have often, made mistakes, contradicted and confused myself, but I have also discovered significant truths about myself and the world that I never knew. And the most valuable lesson I have learned is to continue to learn (cliché number 623). I like to think that I have always been an avid consumer of the different resources that the world has to offer, but looking back on my introduction to the practical context of my surroundings, I admit is something I have only begun to develop since being here. I think this new process perhaps can explain why I have jumped from topic to topic, opinion to opinion overwhelming myself and perhaps you. I have been wrong about things, I have changed my standing on certain issues and feel like over the past few posts have taken what seems to be a more right wing position on certain things than I may have intended, but I suppose this is all part of the learning process. I want to know about the world in a new way, I want to understand economic policy, military strategy, the life paths of world leaders, dimensions of poverty, wealth and the spectrum that lies in between. I am hungry for all of this in all of its forms, not just through lenses that I adopt as my own, but I need to welcome voices that challenge what I think is true and just and lave me feeling like I know less than I did before being exposed to these opinions.

Another idea that was presented over Shavuot that I think sums a lot of this up was that our Jewish lives and identities strike a balance of that which is inherent and that which is created through free will. Being Jewish is something that we cannot escape, but it is our choice to define what that means to us, what kind of responsibilities and burdens that places upon each of us. We choose whether or not to receive the Torah, we choose what that means to each of us. It is up to us to decide what to do with the resources presented to us. It is also up to us to understand that we all have access to different resources and thus our decisions are a product of very different circumstances.

With a few days left in the city, country and state of mind, I will continue to sift through all that I will be leaving and all that I will be leaving with. But something tells me I will just end up more and more confused and in an ideological no-man’s land. I suppose for now though, at my young age and limited base of knowledge, that is not such a bad thing.

South African…Afrikaans Ulpan: ( I seem to be running low on cultural terms so…)

Biblioteek – library

Cheers!