This week we celebrate Shavuote the holiday commemorating the giving of the Torah to the Jewish People on Mt. Sinai. What is our Torah? I asked my congregants last Friday night at services. I am happy to note that we came up with the “right answers”.
It is a history of the Jewish People, a road map for leading a righteous life and a description of our relationship to God. Some say that the Torah is over 3000 years old. What has always struck me is that human beings have not changed and the issues we dealt with in biblical time are the same issues we deal with in modern times. We are all plagued by familial problems, community dissatisfaction and apathy. These are the issues dealt with in the Torah.
God says if you follow the advice given in the Torah these problems will be ameliorated. The problem is that each generation has to figure out the Torah themselves. We do not learn from past mistakes made by past generations, we have to learn it ourselves. That is why we must study the Torah in each generation and then follow its teachings. I suppose it ultimately is not a bad thing to learn the lessons of Torah personally. We must embrace our teachings in our own way. The important thing is to understand the value of Torah and follow its ways.