Words From Rabbi White

Michael Rubin observes yahrzeit for his father Lenny (Arye Leib) this coming Tuesday, 17 Sivan.

The yahrzeit for my sister Muriel Gerofsky (Menucha Sara) is this coming Friday, 20 Sivan.  May their neshamot have aliyot.

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We wish much hatslacha to Rabbi Ellis. “barukhim ha-ba’im.”

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Some of you probably remember my granddaughter, Rosy. Last week, I had the pleasure of traveling to Brooklyn College (well, the lengthy travel over the GW Bridge and the highways is not a pleasure!) to attend the graduation ceremony where she received, with distinction, her Masters in Speech Pathology. As the poet Virgil would have said, “mirabile dictu,” she accomplished this while raising two young children. Her department was most accommodating. At the reception following the graduation, even though there were only a few students who kept kosher, there was abundant kosher food available.

Unfortunately, other branches of the City University system were not as philo-Semitic. You may have heard that at the graduation of the City University law school, the young lady who had been chosen to deliver the grad speech, Miss Fatima Mohammed, used her talk as an opportunity to spew hatred, as she condemned capitalism, the “fascist” NY police department, the US military, and the US legal system, which, she claimed, is geared to white supremacy.

The icing on the cake was Ms. Mohammed’s diatribe against Israel, which she accused of indiscriminately raising bullets and bombs on Palestinians, murdering young and old, settler colonialism, attacking worshippers, funerals, and graveyards. She encouraged the fight against Zionism. Most sadly, her speech was applauded by her fellow grads.

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Shavuot has passed. We all know that Shavuot is the holiday of the giving of the Torah. And that is why most shuls now give the children ice cream on Shavuot, because, according to one tradition after we received the Torah, we saw that our dishes were treif, so we had to eat dairy.

But wait a second: if Shavuot is the holiday of receiving the Torah, why is there no mention of that in the Torah itself?

Of course, the Shulhan Aruch, after the laws of Pesach, tells us that Shavuot is the day of the giving of the Torah, and that’s why the Torah portion read in synagogue is the reading of the 10 Commandments.

But the Torah itself never connects Shavuot with the giving of the Torah. Why not? The Torah connects Shavuot with the wheat crop. (See Shemot chapter 34, Vayiqra chapter 23, BaMidbar 28) The great Spanish commentator Abarbanel explained that the Torah had to emphasize the importance of the harvesting the wheat crop.

My understanding of Abarbanel: You see, nowadays, if you wish a loaf of bread, you can drive down to Kosher Quality, or Kosher City, or even IGA, etc., etc. But in the ancient times, you would have to grow the grain, harvest it, grind it, bake it. Wheat was indeed the “staff of life.” That is why the Torah had to stress the importance of the wheat crop.

But as our tradition teaches. us, besides the physical sustenance of wheat, the Torah is what gives us the strength to survive in this world.

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Menahem White