One day, my teenage daughter told me that she heard a story of a boy who turned to a girl on a date and asked, “Why do you believe in G-d?”
“That is such a weird question!” my daughter shouted. “If that ever happens to me on a date, I’m going to leave right there and then!”
I told her that I disagreed. I think that’s a great question.
It’s a great question, I believe, because so much of our religious observance is superficial. So much of what we do is because of what we see other people doing.
I would venture to guess that some 70 or 80 percent of newly married couples in our community buy a Mercedes or BMW. Many of them, I am sure, cannot really afford it, and if they could, they should be putting that money away for things like tuition, a home, and all other family expenses. But they buy a luxury car anyway. Why? Because that’s what’s done. It’s not a normal or rational thing to do, but they do it – because they see other people doing it.
And I’m afraid the same is true about religious observance. Much of what we do is done because “that’s what’s done,” and not because of a deep-seated commitment to Hashem, because we truly believe in Hashem and want to connect with him.
The Beep in the Waiting Room
An experiment was once done in a doctor’s waiting room. Ten people who knew about the experiment sat in the room, and then a woman – who did not know about the experiment – walked in and sat down.
About 30 seconds later, a “beep” was sounded. The ten people involved in the experiment all stood up.
The woman looked around, puzzled. She had no idea what was going on.
Then, 30 seconds later, there was another beep, and again, the ten people stood up. After this happened a number of times, this woman started standing up at the sound of the beep. She saw everybody else in the room doing it, so she figured she would do it, too, even though she had absolutely no clue why they were standing.
The doctor then started calling the ten people into his office, one by one. Eventually, this woman was sitting alone in the waiting room. She again heard a beep – and she stood up. Although she had started standing for the beep only because of the other ten people, who were no longer there, she still stood up.
Then, other people walked into the waiting room. When the beep was sounded, the first woman stood up – as she had grown accustomed to doing. After this happened a few times, the others started standing up, because they saw this woman stand up.
And so you had a room full of people standing up every time they heard a beep – even though they had no idea in the world why they were doing this!
A similar experiment was done in a certain prestigious college, which invited a prominent guest lecturer to speak. The auditorium was filled with some 200-300 students. The lecturer began delivering an eloquent, fascinating talk…but then he suddenly started talking absolute nonsense. He said things which were completely nonsensical. He talked about things like the moon turning into a tangerine. It was utter nonsense. And he spoke with passion, waving his hands and raising his voice, as if he believed everything he was saying with all his heart.
When he finally finished, two people – who were part of the experiment – stood up and clapped wildly. Within just a few seconds, the rest of the room stood and clapped, too.
They had no idea why they were clapping. The man had spoken nonsense. But they clapped because other people were clapping.
I’m afraid that for many of us, this is what religion is. We do what we do because this is what people do, even though we have no idea what it’s about.
Shavuot, I believe, is the time when we are to address this problem.
The Altars of Sinai
As we know, Shavuot, celebrates the event of Matan Torah, when Hashem revealed Himself to the Jewish People at Mount Sinai, and gave them the Torah.
One aspect of Matan Torah which does not generally receive too much attention is the sacrifices which the Jews brought at the time the Torah was given. The Torah tells that Moshe built a mizbe’ah – an altar – and also twelve matzevot (“monuments”), corresponding to the twelve tribes.
In other words, there were two kinds of altars at Mount Sinai – a mizbe’ah, and a matzevah.
The Rabbis explain the difference between these two structures: a mizbe’ah is made from many different stones assembled together, while a matzevah is just a single stone. Both were erected at Mount Sinai at the time the Torah was given.
The significance of these two structures cannot be overstated.
The mizbe’ah and the matzevah represent the two ways we serve Hashem – collectively, and individually.
We serve Hashem as a group, and also as individuals.
The altar, a collection of stones assembled together into a single structure, represents our collective observance of Torah. It is not a bad thing that we “follow the crowd,” that we have accepted norms and standards that we are expected to follow. These norms and standards are our community’s “altar” – this is how we serve Hashem together as a group, which is very important.
But we must also observe the Torah as a matzevah – as individuals.
This means that we need to build our own, personal connection to Hashem. It’s not good enough to just stand when we hear the beep because this is what everyone else does. We need to be devoted internally, within our beings, and not just by acting the way the people around us expect us to act.
נעשה ונשמע
One of the most famous pesukim in the Torah tells of the people’s reaction when they were told that Hashem was about to give them the Torah. They exclaimed, נעשה ונשמע – “We will do and we will hear.”
This is commonly explained to mean that the people expressed their commitment to observe the Torah even before knowing what it entailed. They made no conditions, and were ready to accept the Torah without first hearing what it requires of them.
But in light of what we have seen, נעשה ונשמע might also mean something else.
The people were saying נעשה – we will act together, collectively, as part of the nation, as part of a group, but also נשמע – we will internalize the Torah and make it part of our beings.
נעשה means doing the things that we are all expected to do as part of the Jewish Nation. נשמע means doing the things that we feel in our hearts is what we need to do, because of our deep, inner connection to Hashem.
Both are important. We serve Hashem as part of the community, and as individuals with a personal connection to Him.
The Gemara teaches that when the people proclaimed נעשה ונשמע, angels descended from the heavens and placed two crowns on the head of every Jew – one for נעשה, and one for נשמע. They received these crowns because both elements are vital. Accepting the Torah means we commit to be part of the Jewish Nation and serve Hashem together with the rest of the nation, and we commit to serve Hashem personally, attaching ourselves to Him with our inner beings.
The Key to Education
This concept is so important not only for ourselves – but also for the way we relate to other people.
Rabbi Manis Mandel was one of the most legendary educators in the United States. His son once told me a number of stories about his father that exemplify his unique approach to education.
After Rabbi Mandel passed away, a man told Rabbi Mandel’s son that he had attended Rabbi Mandel’s school for seven months when he was in second grade. After those seven months, the family moved away, and so he had to switch schools.
Nearly 45 years later, when this fellow was fifty, he happened to meet Rabbi Mandel. He approached the Rabbi and introduced himself, saying his name and mentioning that he had spent seven months in his school.
“Yes, of course!” Rabbi Mandel exclaimed, and called him by his full name by which he was known back in second grade. This included the middle name that he had not used since.
This boy was in Rabbi Mandel’s school for seven months – and the Rabbi remembered him 45 years later!!!
Another story the son told me was about the time when the Rabbi was walking in the hallway and saw a six-year-old girl crying. He went over to her and asked why she was so upset.
The girl explained that she had an assignment due that day, and she hadn’t done it. The assignment was to cut out pictures from newspapers and magazines about the four seasons.
The Rabbi right away got into his car, drove to the nearest store, and bought some newspapers and magazines. He then brought the girl into his office, borrowed some materials from the secretary, and he and the girl sat there together cutting pictures and pasting them on cardboard.
How does a person become this kind of educator, with this kind of devotion to each and every student?
He does this by understanding the meaning of נעשה ונשמע, by realizing that a school is not just a group of students, but several hundred individual students, each and every one of whom must build a personal connection to Hashem.
A good educator – and parent – understands that it’s not enough to teach all the kids to do the things we are all expected to do. We must also try to build each child individually.
Preparing for the Experience
There is something baffling about the entire celebration of Shavuot.
That is – we are celebrating an event which…failed. And failed miserably!!
On Shavuot, G-d revealed Himself to the Jewish People, and then called Moshe up the mountain to give Him the luhot, the stone tablets with the commandments written on them. Forty days later, Moshe came down the mountain with the luhot, and threw them to the ground. He saw the Jewish People worshipping the golden calf, and he realized they could not receive the holy luhot which had G-d’s writing on them. And so he shattered them.
It was only several months later, on Yom Kippur, that G-d accepted the people’s repentance, forgave them, and gave Moshe a new set of luhot.
Why, then, do we celebrate Shavuot? True, this is when the Torah was given – but the process failed, and finally succeeded only on Yom Kippur. So why is this event worthy of celebration?
The answer might be found, strangely enough, in the Haggadah.
We are all familiar with the song Dayenu, in which we go through the great kindnesses Hashem performed for our ancestors from the time of the Exodus until the building of the Bet Ha’mikdash, and after each one, we exclaim, דיינו – “It would have been enough,” even if Hashem had not done anything else for us.
One of the stanzas reads: אלו קרבנו לפני הר סיני ולא נתן לנו את התורה, דיינו – “If He had brought us to Mount Sinai, and had not given us the Torah, it would have been enough.”
What?! That would have been enough?!?!
What would have been the point of coming to Mount Sinai if we hadn’t been given the Torah? Wasn’t that the entire purpose of coming to Mount Sinai?
The classic answer is that the experience of preparing for Matan Torah was just as valuable as Matan Torah itself.
As glad as we are that we received the Torah, even just encamping at Mount Sinai – without receiving the Torah – would have been immensely valuable. The internal preparation, making ourselves ready to hear Hashem’s voice and to make the commitment to the Torah, was precious.
This is why we celebrate Shavuot, even though the tablets were shattered – because the experience was itself so meaningful, despite what happened afterward. It was a moment of great holiness, and that moment is worth celebrating. We celebrate what we became on that special day, that we stood there in a state of kedushah, proclaiming our commitment to Hashem.
And this commitment includes both נעשה and נשמע – serving G-d as a group, and serving G-d individually.
The נעשה part, generally speaking, is less of a challenge. Just by living in the community, we live a certain way in order to meet the expectations that the community has of us. But the greater challenge is נשמע – building our internal connection to Hashem. This requires thought and preparation. This requires us to spend time thinking about how to make Hashem a real part of our lives, how to connect to Him, how to build a real relationship to Him.
Shavuot – and the days leading up to Shavuot – is the time to make this commitment, the commitment to not only ACT as a religious Jew, but to truly BE a religious Jew, with our all heart and soul.
Everyone Can Connect!!!
Lest we think that we are not capable of this commitment, that we cannot make a connection to Hashem, let’s consider the following remarkable story.
One day, a Russian immigrant in New York entered a Jewish school, and knocked on the Rabbi’s door. The Rabbi invited him to come inside, and the man introduced himself as Viktor.
“My friend, Dmitri, works in the school’s kitchen, and he tells me you have a job opening,” he said.
The Rabbi spoke to Viktor for a short while, got a very favorably impression, and gave him the job.
Sometime later, the Rabbi was talking with Dmitri and Viktor, and he asked them about their lives in Russia. Dmitri said he was a soccer coach, and Viktor said he was a soccer player.
“But not just a soccer player,” Dmitri interjected. “He was a SUPERSTAR!!!”
The Rabbi rolled his eyes with skepticism.
The two friends went ahead and brought the Rabbi old newspaper clippings with pictures of Viktor in a soccer stadium holding a trophy. The Rabbi was very impressed, and he asked Viktor to tell more of his story.
Viktor explained that he was an outstanding player, and began achieving national prominence in the Soviet Union. But when the government realized that he was Jewish, they started giving him trouble. Specifically, they demanded that he officially change his name, because his middle name had the word “Israel” in it. The Soviet government was not prepared to have a celebrity with a name that made reference to the country they despised.
Viktor refused to change his name, and ended up having to emigrate.
The Rabbi was stunned. This man was barely observant, yet he sacrificed everything, including a future of great fame, in order not to change his Jewish name.
“Why did you refuse to change your name?” the Rabbi asked.
“My parents told me that I had a cousin with this name, and he was a very important Rabbi. I did not want to give up my name.”
Overcome by curiosity, the Rabbi asked what his cousin’s name was. To his astonishment, the name was Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky – the famous Steipler Gaon, father of Rav Chaim Kanievsky. This was Viktor’s cousin!
This Russian soccer player’s name was his connection to Hashem, and he wouldn’t let go of it, not at any cost.
Every Jew has a connection. And it is up to us to build it and make it stronger.
Rather than just stand when everyone else stands, and sit when everyone else sits, let us work to build our special connection to Hashem, in a very real and genuine way. As we enter Shavuot, we should commit to being devoted both collectively and individually – as a member of this great community, but also as individuals, with a unique, personal bond with our Creator.