Reply To: YWN Coffee Room Nightly D’Var Torah

here is a Shavous D’Var Torah from Rabbi Yisroel Miller (from his sefer “A Gift For Yom Tov”

Covenant and Community

A question in political science: If the people of the United States wish to pass a new law or to change an old one, in most cases a majority vote of their elected representatives in both houses of Congress will suffice to effect the change. If, however, the proposed change affects any law in the federal Constitution, then even a unanimous vote is not enough. Changing the Constitution requires a laborious and time-consuming process involving most of the states, a process which may drag on for years, as required by the rules set down in the Constitution itself.

A different approach was suggested by the famous Torah philosopher Dr. Isaac Breuer. His answer was that the Torah was not given to individual Jews, but to the Jewish nation as a whole; and anyone who is part of the nation becomes subject to its laws.

These are deep waters. But even on the simplest level of understanding, Shavuos is a time to remind us that we accepted the Torah as part of a people, all of us in it together. At Sinai, Hashem gave His Torah to a tzibbur, a community, and it is only as a community that the Torah can be fully lived.

We often tend to think of the Jewish community in terms of institutions which provide us with services (shuls, yeshivos, chesed organizations), or who need our help to enable them to provide service for others. But above and beyond the needs of worthy Jewish institutions, the neshamah, the Jewish soul, is incomplete without the community, for many reasons.

One example is the young man or woman from a Torah-observant home who pursues a university education in another state, and who abandons Jewish observance along the way. When this occurs the cause is usually not because the student faced difficult philosophical challenges, but because the student lacked a network of emotional and spiritual support, observant friends and teachers at hand to keep them afloat.

Shavuos, when we reaffirm our personal commitment to the Bris, the Covenant of Sinai, is a time to reaffirm our commitment to the Community of Sinai as well. Whether attending more shiurim or giving more tzedakah, davening with a minyan or showing concern for a neighbor, we should recognize that in building a community, we are truly building ourselves. Saying Yizkor is also a reminder that our community goes back in time, and we are still linked to those who are gone. Their memories are part of us, and we pledge tzedakah at Yizkor to show that they continue to inspire us in the way we act today.

We all wear the hats of our parents and grandparents, and to some extent all of us are wrapped in the clothing of the community in which we live. By focusing on the right memories, and bringing ourselves closer to the right friends and neighbors, we can clothe ourselves in true garments of Yom Tov, garments in which to receive the Torah, and rejoice with it through the year.