Tomorrow evening we begin the annual celebration of our acceptance of the Torah at Sinai. The Torah is more than a simple code of Jewish law. It is our moral and ethical guide. It is also what has kept us together throughout the millenia as a nation. No matter where we lived or how widely we were dispersed.
In our day some of those ethics have been challenged by modern day concepts of ethical behavior. Some of the Torah’s laws are seen as archaic and even unethical by modern standards – to be rejected as a matter of common decency.
But ethics that are the product of the human condition can change. What was immoral even 50 years ago may be seen as quite moral in our day. And vice versa.
The Torah’s ethics are eternal. They are fixed as our moral guide no matter what the current trends in ethical thinking are. It is by following Torah law and its ethics - which underpin all of human relationships and interaction (Mitzvos Bein Adam L’Chavero) along with Ritual law (Mitzvos Bein Adam L’Makom) that we perpetuate ourselves as a nation. One without the other is not enough.
Throughout Jewish history there have been many attempts by powerful civilizations to destroy us. Ultimately they all failed. We have survived and they have all gone the way of the dinosaur.
The miracle of our continuity throughout history despite the adversity testifies to the eternal truth of our faith. Those of us that are observant not only continue to survive, we flourish and perpetuate ourselves into the future. The latest evidence of that is the oft quoted Pew survey from a few years ago that indicates that it is only the observant Jewish community that is growing in America. The rest of us are in danger extinction. That is what happens when 70% of non observant Jews marry out. The children of a non Jewish mother will not be Jewish. This is the sad and tragic reality.
That should not, however, impede our celebration of who we are, why we are, and why we will continue to be… via the means of following God’s laws and ethics given to us. Which we celebrate annually on the 6thday of month of Sivan. This year on Sunday (and Monday in the Diaspora).
May we all be inspired by studying God’s word on this day as we do every year - while we wait until God fulfills His promise of our redemption.
Good Yom Tov