OzTorah

A sidra that is called B’har – “On the Mountain” – will inevitably be interpreted symbolically as well as literally.

Mountains play an important part in Biblical and Jewish history. The binding of Isaac took place on a mountain. The giving of the Torah was on a mountain. Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal on a mountain.

Mountains also evoke spirituality. The Psalmist says, “I lift up my eyes to the mountains: from whence comes my help?” It is not that the mountain itself is a source of help, but, as Samson Raphael Hirsch puts it, “There is One Who is higher still and surer” (Commentary on Psalm 121:1-2).

The Talmud tells us that Abraham found God on a mountain, Isaac found Him in a field and Jacob found Him in a house (Pes. 84a).

The references to Isaac and Jacob require a commentary to themselves, but the assertion about Abraham is a remarkable contribution to our understanding of spirituality and holiness. For the mountains are in a way the meeting place of God and man.

The 19th chapter of Exodus, the prologue to the giving of the Torah, speaks of God coming down onto Mount Sinai and Moses ascending. The mountain was the setting for their encounter, as Mount Moriah was the setting for the meeting of God and Abraham.

To understand the spiritual significance of the mountains one must know that for Judaism the way to God is not through theological assertions or philosophical propositions. One cannot truly encounter the Divine by merely mouthing a creed or restating the cosmological, teleological, ontological or any other supposed philosophical “proof”.

The way of Judaism is not to work through what Leo Baeck called “finished statements”; the only finished statement in Judaism is “Hear, O Israel, HaShem is our God, HaShem is one”, and “one” is not simply a number but an acknowledgement that God is unique and cannot be delimited or defined.

So where do we find God?

In the certainty that we are in His presence. And that is where the mountains help. For there is a majesty and mystique about mountains. It cannot and need not be put into words, but it is there nonetheless.

Rudolf Otto, author of “The Idea of the Holy”, sensed a holiness in a simple North African synagogue which he described as “numinous”. The numinous, however, cannot easily be put into words, just as one cannot easily articulate the appeal of a work of art or music.

Berthold Auerbach said of music that it was “a universal language, and need not be translated. With it soul speaks to soul” (“Auf der Hohe,” 1865). Religion too is “a universal language, and need not be translated”.

What a wonderful promise: “You shall eat your bread to satiety and you shall dwell in safety on your land” (Lev. 26:5).

Note that the verse does not say, “You shall eat bread – lechem” but “you shall eat your bread – lachm’chem”.

What is it that qualifies you to live in safety in your land? The fact that you live by the ethics of the Torah.

When we are told, “Do not steal”, it means not cheating other people out of what really belongs to them. When we want to be able to sleep at night, the requirement of Jewish ethics is a clear conscience: “Eat your own bread – the bread you have worked for honestly, the bread that you can rightly call your own, the bread that hasn’t been acquired by questionable means”.

There are countless temptations in business life; maybe no-one will ever find out what you have done: no-one, apart from God and your conscience.

Q. Why do we have flowers and greenery in the synagogue on Shavu’ot?

A. One view is that it recalls Mount Sinai, a little, nondescript mountain which was so excited at being chosen for the giving of the Torah that it sprouted greenery.

Likewise, in every generation the synagogue and the Jewish people are proud and excited to be receiving the Torah anew.

(Note that the Gerer Rebbe points out that Shavu’ot is not called the Time of the Receiving of the Torah, but the Time of the Giving of the Torah; the Torah was given once, but it is up to us to receive it in every generation of history.)

Another opinion says that this is the time of year when God judges the world in relation to the fruit of the trees (Rosh HaShanah 16a), and the custom therefore reminds us of our dependence on the Divine bounty.

The Vilna Gaon opposed the custom as an imitation of non-Jewish usage (Christians bring flowers and greenery into churches), but other authorities disagree and say that the Jewish custom is older and has its own logic.

Q. Why do we have blintzes on Shavu’ot?

A. We read in Ezekiel 3:3, “Eat this scroll … like honey for sweetness”; blintzes are like little scrolls.

Why the cheese filling? Verse 4 says, “Speak My words to the Children of Israel”, and cheese reminds us that Torah is compared to milk – as milk is the basic physical nourishment of a human being, so is Torah the basic spiritual food.

The commentators regard Ezekiel as saying, “Digest the contents of this scroll and take them to heart”.

Q. Why is Shavu’ot on 6 Sivan since no date is given in the Torah for the festival?

A. It was worked out on the basis of hints in the Torah.

The Israelites came to Mount Sinai in the third month after they left Egypt. In that month is Shavu’ot. We have to count seven weeks of the Omer beginning on the second day of Pesach, and the seven weeks bring us to 6 Sivan.

A further significance applies to the sixth day, since the sixth day of Creation is when man was made, and only when man received the Torah on the sixth day of Sivan was the Creation able to be completed morally.

In addition, there were six hundred thousand Israelites (apart from women and children) at Mount Sinai, and the Torah is said to have six hundred thousand Hebrew letters.