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.

B’midbar, this week’s Torah portion begins the fourth book of the Torah. It is not only the name of the parsha of the week but it is the name of the entire book. The custom is to the name the entire book from the name of the first portion. The book of numbers recounts the story of the 40 year wanderings of the Jewish people in the desert.

It is the name however which really describes the journey of our people. They are in the wilderness spiritually, emotionally and literally. Wilderness is a time, place or feeling without orienting landmarks or structure. The Israelites must find their way and become a people connected to each other, God and tradition.

We, too must always find our way. We are all on this journey in the proverbial wilderness, always looking for meaning and structure. The ancients eventually used Judaism as their guide, let us too explore our tradition to find our way.

B’chukotai, my laws, is this week’s Torah portion and the last Torah portion in Leviticus. The entire book is filled with the laws that govern the Children of Israel. If followed the Children of Israel will be blessed and if not followed they will be cursed. The laws are those given to Moses on Mt. Sinai and then told to the Israelites, thereby entering in to the covenant with God. God’s half of the agreement is that the Israelites are God’s Chosen people to bring Torah to the world, they will be numerous and they are promised the Land of Israel. The Israelites’ part of the agreement is that they must keep the mitzvote and be a Kingdom of Priests bringing God’s word to the world.

It has not been a smooth path, as the Children of Israel have suffered throughout their history. The Rabbis say we should never despair because the covenant will never be broken. We may have terrible things happen to us but ultimately God is always with us.

This week’s Torah Portion is usually a double portion Behar/Bechukotai.

This week we only read Behar because we have an extra month this year to reconcile the lunar calendar, therefore all double portions are split up. In Behar the laws concerning the observance of the sabbatical and jubilee years are proposed. The Israelites are commanded to give their fields and vineyards ” a complete rest” every seventh year, eating only what grows from uncultivated ground.

After seven Sabbaticals, that is, in the fiftieth year the Israelites are commanded to “Proclaim Liberty throughout the Lands for All Its Inhabitants”. On Yom Kippur of that year the shofar is sounded, announcing the Jubilee, “the year of release” during which all tribal lands are to return to their original borders and all slaves are freed. This says that the land ultimately belongs to God and no one should be a slave forever and there should not be a permanent underclass.

The words proclaiming the Jubilee appears on the Liberty Bell. It says in our prayerbook that our children are on loan to us. We can expand that and say all that we have is on loan to us so we must treat all we have with respect and reverence. The concept of conservation comes from this Torah portion as well as the concept of ultimate freedom for all. Ancient words still waiting to be fulfilled.