Shavuot is the anniversary of our singular experience at Sinai, when God “chose us from amongst the nations and gave us His Torah.” That choice remains the source of our identity, our faith, and our strength, while making us the object of millennia of Jew-hatred. Even the name Sinai, as the Talmud notes (Shabbat 89a), is closely related to the Hebrew word for hatred, sinah. Our chosenness has generated generations of hostility from those left out.
It did not have to be that way, as others had the same opportunity to be chosen. The Talmud (Avodah Zara 2b) describes how when God appeared in the desert to give the Torah to the Jews, He began by offering it to all the nations of the world. This universal invitation was underscored by God’s choice not to give the Torah in Israel where all its laws would ultimately apply, as that was the land of just one nation, but to give it instead bamidbar, in the no-man’s-land of the desert. Torah was available to all and could have been everyone’s, but it is not.
What happened? If everyone was invited, why did we end up being the only ones at Sinai?
Sinai represents the lasting, steadfast, firm, and absolute. Sinai was where the unchanging and eternal word of God was given to the unchanging and eternal people who can never forsake their individual Jewish identity, as “even a Jew who sins remains a Jew” (Sanhedrin 44a). Sinai was the place for the stiff-necked people, the stubbornly perseverant, the ones who have responded to religious persecution throughout the ages with the mantra “oh Yehudi oh tzaluv, either we remain loyal Jews, or we accept to be nailed to the stake” (see Ramban on Devarim 7:8). Standing at Sinai, we made an unconditional and everlasting commitment to God, na’aseh v’nishma, declaring that we would be His no matter what He would ask of us and what would happen to us. Of all the nations of the world, the Jews were the only ones ready to accept God’s invitation unconditionally and eternally and to make that unbreakable commitment.
Nevertheless, the invitation remains open to any individual ready to accept it unconditionally. We emphasize this on Shavuot in reading the story of one such person, Ruth, who became the model of conversion by serving as the paradigm of steadfast loyalty.
“Orpah kissed her mother-in-law farewell, but Ruth clung to her… “Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back and not follow you, for wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. This and more may Hashem do to me if anything but death parts me from you.” When [Naomi] saw how determined [Ruth] was to go with her, she ceased to argue with her.”
To be Jewish means to be a child of Sinai and to never turn your back on your God, your faith and your people. To become Jewish means that even as the prospective convert realizes that “the Jewish people at the present time are anguished, suppressed, despised, and harassed, and hardships are frequently visited upon them,” he or she remains unfazed and faithful and feels privileged and even unworthy of joining the Jewish people and sharing in their sorrow (Yevamot 47a). The Jew of Sinai is there for keeps.
Mark Twain concludes his essay “Concerning the Jews” by posing a question:
The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?
That secret is Sinai. The enduring, unbreakable, and unconditional commitment of Sinai. As we approach Sinai again this Shavuot, that enduring reality should push away the clouds of uncertainty created by the unpredictability and instability that surrounds us and help us recognize the enduring faith and strength of our people that will b’ezrat Hashem continue to move us forward. Na’aseh v’nishma.