Studies in the Meaning of Judaism (JPS Scholar of Distinction Series)

9 / On Celebrating Sinai

9 / On Celebrating Sinai The past century and a half of Reform Jewish thought should have taught us, it seems to me, that observances remain more meaningful than our analyses of them can disclose. Liturgy and ritual are a significant language of their own and not merely a primitive substitute for the philosopher or social scientist or theologian’s self-consciousness. We ought not try, therefore, to limit our religious practices only to those whose message can be framed in verifiable propositions. The validation of the observance must come in the practice itself, not in its abstract discussion. Yet the elucidation of the meanings implicit in our religious activity has an important place in our lives: we are morally obligated to increase the responsibility of our decisions by knowing what we can know, for our knowledge may shape, even if it does not determine, our decisions as we seek to live our faith. This discussion, then, does not seek to exhaust or to delimit the meaning of Shavuot but, in accordance with this heuristic understanding of the theology of ritual, to expose and elucidate it. Our starting point is phenomenological, the reality of the given situation . It has the advantage of preventing that continuing regress to basic assumptions which soon undercuts every attempt to analyze a complex, synthesizing theological symbol, such as Sinai. To be sure, the phenomenological basis chosen will necessarily seem arbitrary to some and may therefore appear to provide a skewed or perverted sample of experience to be analyzed. Such subjectivity is not to be avoided, and with apologies to those included or excluded against their will, the following is the foundation for this discussion. (1) We celebrate the Festival of Shavuot essentially in a communal, liturgical manner, and though its observance does not resolve all our questions concerning it, 101 1966 we know it expresses the truth of our relation to our God. (2) We observe Shavuot in our way as a continuation of a traditional observance of the Jewish people. Our Reform movement did not originate this day, neither did it reject it as it did certain other Jewish practices. Such institutional guidance as exists commends the celebration of this traditional festival on its traditional date.1 (3) At the same time, it is precisely the Reform innovation in the commemoration, the Confirmation ceremony, which gives the day it greatest meaning. We seek to clarify, insofar as we can, the meanings we find as we solemnize this traditional festival, particularly in this new way. It may help if we clarify what we are not celebrating on Shavuot day. We do not celebrate the legendary associations of the revelation at Sinai. Here already the tradition was quite clear. The halachic regimen for the observance of Shavuot does not obligate the Jew to affirm the historicity of every aggadic hyperbole on matan Torah, i.e., that the world was silent or that the Decalogue was heard in seventy different languages around the world when God spoke.2 The authority of the halachah does not extend to such details despite the occasional efforts of zealots to turn aggadah into dogma. Such midrashic allusions occur only in the piyyutim and not even in all of them, for these hymns are far more concerned to stress the greatness of the Ten Commandments and the Torah than the legends which surround the day.3 Since the legendary is limited to this poetic context it should be clear that they need not be taken literally . Reform Jews, whose passion for the chronological is well developed, should have little difficulty distinguishing rabbinic elaboration from Biblical account. The problem of Shavuot for Reform Jews is both the biblical story itself and the halachic discipline which claims to derive from it. The question is hardly whether the mountain was on fire, a horn sounded or the people “saw” thunder.4 The Bible reports and the holiday service celebrates God’s giving words of instruction to His people. Some He himself said for all the people to hear; the rest He spoke to Moses to say to them. The rabbinic tradition authorized itself by saying that He also gave Moses either in principle or detail, the teaching which was to be handed down orally but authoritatively from generation to generation by the teachers of the law. Shavuot celebrates God’s giving of the words of the Torah, both Written and Oral, and I cannot celebrate that. With all the love and respect I have for the...