Rabbi 360

I know its a little late for Shavuot, but I wanted to share this reflection I wrote for the newsletter of the Jewish Coalition for Immigrant Justice NW on the themes of Shavuot and immigration. It was published in their May 19, 2023 newsletter.

Shavuot, which we observe this month, is the festival of Torah, a remembrance of the story of Sinai when God revealed the Torah to Moses and the Israelites, thus providing this once-enslaved people a foundation and framework for a new community. As the inheritors of that foundation, we celebrate the moment of revelation as the moment we affirmed, and continue to affirm, our commitment to our sacred texts and traditions, and each other.

The location of Mount Sinai was a curiosity to our ancient sages, the rabbis of the Talmud. Why was the Torah given in the middle of the wilderness as part of the journey? Why was it not given in the Promised Land, for example? In examining the first verse of the Book of Numbers, the rabbis teach:

“And God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Wilderness” (Numbers 1:1). Why the Sinai Wilderness? From here the sages taught that the Torah was given through three things: fire, water, and wilderness…. And why was the Torah given through these three things? Just as fire, water, and wilderness are free to all the inhabitants of the world, so too are the words of Torah free to them, as it says in Isaiah 55:1, “Oh, all who are thirsty, come for water… even if you have no money.” (Bamidbar Rabbah 1:7)

The Torah was given in the wilderness because it was “free”—in the open, where all can access it, where it is available to all who desire it. In other words: the Torah was given in a place without borders.

The verse from the prophet Isaiah that the rabbis use to prove this point is also poignant. On the one hand, the rabbis are reading “water” as a metaphor for Torah—both sustain life and should therefore be freely given. On the other hand, the text speaks to providing for everyone’s most basic physical needs.

In describing revelation, therefore, the rabbis teach that we are to both to care for one another by providing life’s necessities, and to lower or eliminate the barriers that create separation. And, we are reminded with this midrash, that to welcome and advocate for those who seek to flee hardship and find a better life in a new land, and fight for immigrant justice in general, is not only remembering our ancient and modern stories, but living into the essence of Torah itself.