To Live by Torah: Shavuot.2024

To Live by Torah: Shavuot

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

June 11, 2024

In Israel today it is the eve of the holiday of Shavuot. Shavuot is a joyful holiday, with deep meaning for many. For school children, it signifies the end of the school year, the beginning of summer; it’s about dripping ice cream cones, cool watermelon slices whose sweet juice runs down your chin and chest, the beach and open swimming pools.

When I was a schoolchild so long ago, the week or two before the holiday, incoming summer air would bring in warmth and dreams of freedom through the windows of our classroom. I would daydream about going to the library, checking out a few books to read on hot summer afternoons, perched in treetops where the shade would provide cover and a cooling breeze… only to be awakened and brought back to reality by the teacher calling out my name, “Boaz!” Only she wouldn’t be referring to me personally, but rather to the noble character in the Book of Ruth, which is traditionally studied at this time of the year. I would groan and think to myself, “only two more weeks, two more weeks till freedom!”

Also called also Chag ha-Bikurim, “Holiday of the First Fruit,” we celebrated Shavuot by bringing in baskets of fruit to school, to be shared with the needy—there were always the needy: new immigrants from Europe, Yemen, Iraq, or just those unlucky ones who never found their calling, never managed to hold a job down, or a family, or a house no matter how cozy and intimate.

Shavuot was the start of the season of contentment, when the ground, once abandoned, arid and rocky, now yielded its plentiful best to us. Traveling by train from Netanya to Tel Aviv (where my grandparents lived) I would stick my head out the open window and breathe in the smell of the fertile earth; I would see the cows in the pastures that passed us by, looking at us with wide eyes while chewing their cud; the sheep and goats herded by Bedouin boys near their spread-out tents on the wide-open fields.

Through the open windows of religious schools, the sounds of Torah study would ring out all around as you walked through Jerusalem or some other, older neighborhoods. Shavuot after all celebrates the giving of the Torah to the Jewish People.

From almost all kitchens wafted the smell of fresh baked cheesecake—a traditional dessert signifying the sweet bounty of life.

Fast forward several decades now, to Erev Shavuot 2024, a day that began with tears: the sad announcement that four more IDF fighters had fallen in the fighting, with several others injured.

The study of Torah is intended to bring peace to the world, a teaching that many of us believe literally—but which life and reality sometimes harshly contradict. Under a constant barrage of missiles and drones, the northern portion of the Galilee is almost vacant of its inhabitants, its fields and orchards burning, with few workers left to pick whatever fruit is still hanging from the trees. Fighting still continues in Gaza, adding even more waste and destruction to the layers of horror and tragedy brought about by the brutal October 7 massacre. It was Simchat Torah that day—like today, a holy day devoted to the celebration of the Torah. Yet now, eight months later, that celebration is still dimmed, the letters of the Torah blurred, its message of peace almost completely wiped out by tears and blood.

It is a mitzvah—a sacred commandment—for Jews to come to the aid of fellow Jews. Moses had permitted the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh to settle east of the Jordan River only on the condition that they would come to help their fellow Israelites if and when they were beset by enemies. In the 12th century, Maimonides, to this day still considered the foremost compiler and interpreter of halakha (Jewish law), ruled that “It is a mitzvah for all Jews who are able to come and help defend their brethren to do so,” going even further to add that “it is forbidden to delay their coming until after Shabbat” (Mishneh Torah 2:23).

For the past 8 months we have been seeing this decree in action, with volunteers rising to help in any way they can, in Israel or elsewhere around the world. 

Not surprisingly, a large number of the IDF fighters come from an Orthodox background, with a disproportionate number of the fallen and injured from among their midst.

Ironically, there are some—Haredi, ultra-Orthodox Jews—who adamantly refuse to serve or help in any way. Their claim is that their highest duty is to study Torah. Some, whose beliefs take them to even further extremes, actually go so far as to engage in activity and talk that aid and abet the enemy. There is no excuse for this phenomenon.

The Torah and all subsequent Jewish texts can be said to have harbored and sheltered, even maintained, the Jewish soul. The laws and traditions derived from these texts have been the backbone and lifeblood of the Jewish People for thousands of years. In fact, the study of Torah is said by the ancient Rabbis to be one of the three pillars upon which the entire world rests (along with worship and acts of righteousness). Without a doubt, the Torah charts a path toward a better world. But claiming that it is of equal—or even greater—importance than fulfilling a mitzvah that Maimonides asserts is worth breaking the Sabbath for, is nothing short of heresy. 

Helping Israel in its fight for survival, doing everything in one’s power to save life, prevent injury, help the needy and free the captives—there can be nothing more sacred than this.

To be sure, there are some ultra-Orthodox who have joined the fight, even at the cost of being ostracized or even disowned by their families and community. Their sacrifice is one we must all acknowledge and show appreciation for, for it truly shows their love and commitment to God, Torah and Israel.

This, for me, today at least, is the highest form of observing the holiday of Shavuot, a.k.a Chag Matan Torah, the holiday that celebrates the giving of the Torah to the Jewish People: To study Torah, to live by its teaching, and to come to the aid and defense of the people who have sworn allegiance to it.

May Israel continue to live by the light of Torah. Adonai ‘oz l’amo yiten; Adonai y’varech et amo ba-shalom. May God give strength to God’s People; may God bless us all with peace.

© 2024 by Boaz D. Heilman