{"id":2956,"date":"2019-06-07T00:00:26","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T04:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mainesynagogue.org\/wp\/?p=2956"},"modified":"2020-01-22T09:07:49","modified_gmt":"2020-01-22T14:07:49","slug":"bamidbar-shavuot-5779","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mainesynagogue.org\/wp\/bamidbar-shavuot-5779\/","title":{"rendered":"Bamidbar Shavuot 5779"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Rabbi Yitzchak said \u201cEven that which the prophets will\nlater prophesy, they all received it from Sinai. From where do we know this? As\nit is written (Deut. 29:14) \u2018all who stand present with us today.\u2019 This refers\nto he who already prophesied. \u2018Present\u2019 means one who is in the world now. \u2018And\nthose who are not with us today\u2026.\u2019 refers to those who will prophesy, but have\nnot yet. \u2018With us today:\u2019 it is not written \u2018standing with us\u2019 but \u2018with us\ntoday,\u2019 as this refers to the souls that have yet to be created.\u201d (Midrash\nTanchumah, Yitro, siman 11)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The momentous event that is Sinai is what binds Jews\nacross time. Just as God is the creator of time, and therefore beyond time, the\nTorah stretches across generations, binding those who died long before our\ngrandparents were born to those who will come generations from now, to bring us\ncloser to the One that lies beyond time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A life of Torah is a life not just of study, not just a\nlife of cultural identification and solidarity with the Jewish people, although\nit is these things. It is a life of devotion to the One that constantly speaks\nthe world into being. It is a life of constant reorientation from ourselves as\nthe center of existence to the fountain and foundation of existence. It is the\nenterprise of constantly acknowledging and paying homage to the infinite while\nbeing finite beings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our understanding of Torah is inevitably limited. Our\nknowledge of the natural world is limited. So is our self-understanding. How\nmuch more limited must our knowledge of anything beyond this world be? How\nskewed and foggy our vision must be when we approach the Limitless God through\nour imperfect prayers! How many well-intended blunders must we commit as we try\nto do mitzvot to the best of our abilities and our understanding! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This Saturday night, we will move from Shabbat into\nShavuot. We will go from the day that acknowledges the world coming into being\nto the day that acknowledges the revelation of the Torah. We say that Shabbat\nis a taste of the World to Come. Torah is meant to instruct us to bring\nawareness of that which is beyond this world into this world. Shabbat, as a day\nimbued with holiness, is a temporary departure from the mundane. That departure\nis accomplished through delighting in the mundane, especially through food and\nthe company of others. If we can fully experience Shabbat in all its holiness,\nwe may be that much more prepared to receive the holiness of Shavuot and the\nrevelation of Torah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shabbat Shalom, and moadim lesimchah!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rabbi Yitzchak said \u201cEven that which the prophets will later prophesy, they all received it from Sinai. From where do we know this? As it is written (Deut. 29:14) \u2018all who stand present with us today.\u2019 This refers to he who already prophesied. \u2018Present\u2019 means one who is in the world now. \u2018And those who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,43],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-2956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rabbi_blog","category-weekly-drasha","tag-44"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mainesynagogue.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mainesynagogue.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mainesynagogue.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mainesynagogue.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mainesynagogue.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.mainesynagogue.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2957,"href":"http:\/\/www.mainesynagogue.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956\/revisions\/2957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mainesynagogue.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mainesynagogue.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mainesynagogue.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}