I TORAH PORTION
AMERICAN-ISRAEL
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
OF MICHIGAN
iiiyilcs non to a special cycnina
lo honor
Why We Stay Awake
All Night On Shavuot
THOMAS J. KEENAN, PRESIDENT
TELEDYNE CONTINENTAL MOTORS, Ge ► oa/ Prodirck
— !KEYNOTE SPEAKER —
SHLOMO RISKIN
AMNON NEUBACH
Economic mi ► ister to the U.S
HPF-x_1 \I_ \\V \RI) PRI
Special toThe Jewish News
T
.
\ I \ 110\ I
GOV. JAMES J. BLANCHARD
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 1990
6:00 P.M. reception • 7:00 P.M. dinner
HYATT REGENCY HOTEL
Fairlane Town Center
Dearborn, Michigan
Iry Nusbaum, Dimity 0 ./(1.1 . 111(11/ Charles Nauman,
Co-Chnir ►a►
Wallace C. Williams, vice President. menthe/ship
Steve Zack, co-chair ► an. menthe/shit)
For reservations and further information, call
Shelly Komer Jackier at the Chamber office:
PmasonicA
(3 1 3) 661 1948
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he third major festival
of the year, Shavuot,
requires none of the
physically exhausting and
detailed preparations of
Passover or Sukkot; no mat-
zoh or sukkah alters the way
we eat our meals and live our
lives for eight days.
What it does involve — stay-
ing up all night to study
Torah — not only reenacts
when the Israelites received
the revelation at Sinai
thousands of years ago, but it
alerts us to the secret of
Jewish survival.
Although staying up the
night of Shavuot to study
Torah is a custom, I believe it
to be an especially meaning-
ful one — since, after all,
Torah study is the only real
symbol of this festival.
Because staying up all night
is resisted by the body, a sub-
tle nuance of learning Torah
is a battle against the pull on
sleep and all that sleep sym-
bolizes — apathy, assimila-
tion, indifference. The
message of Shavuot is not just
that we received the Torah on
Mt. Sinai, but that to
guarantee its survival as our
inheritance we have to be
willing, on occasion, to sacri-
fice precious sleep for the
sake of Torah, as we do so
readily for our own small
children.
Seen in this light, the
public reading of the Book of
Ruth during the morning
service reveals an additional
poignancy to Shavuot. We can
approach the tale of the
woman who leaves behind her
Moabite kin to become part of
the Jewish people in a
number of ways — from the
simple story of a deep tie be-
tween mother-in-law and
daughter-in-law to a leap
right into the heart of Jewish
history. For Ruth is the
ancestress of not only King
David, but also the entire
house of David through whom
the eventual Messiah is to
emerge.
But after all is said and
done, Ruth is the first convert
to Judaism, and her life anti-
cipates the historical evolu-
tion of a nation unraveling its
destiny.
The Book of Ruth is not just
a tale for King David buffs
curious about the roots of
Shlomo Riskin is dean of the
Ohr Torah Institutions of
Israel, and chief rabbi of
Efrat.
Israel's most popular king; it
is the classic guidebook on
how intermarriages should
work. In saying goodbye to
her Moabite past, Ruth re-
veals that some issues cannot
be compromised. Ruth's
pledge that "Your people
shall be my people, your God
my God" is the very anti-
thesis of, "We'll let the
children decide what they
want to be."
The truth is, it is difficult in
America not to intermarry.
The very word intermarriage
is a misnomer, because Jews
are not marrying Christians;
Americans of Jewish descent
(to whom their Judaism hard-
ly played a significant role)
are marrying Americans of
Shabbat Bamidbar:
Numbers 1:1-4:20,
Samuel I 20:18-42.
Christian descent (to whom
their Christianity hardly
played a significant role) and
after all, is not the Great
American Dream assimila-
tion into the melting pot,
without racial or ethnic
encumbrances?
The problems begin when a
parent who attends
synagogue a few hours a year
attempts to tell his child
whom to marry, often for in-
choate and sentimental rea-
sons. Very few independent
minded people are willing to
let a one-day-a-year religion
determine whom to live with
the other 364 days.
In sharp contrast to nights
when the partying never
stops, the night of Shavuot
teaches priorities without a
word being said. When a child
sees what a parent is willing
to lose sleep over, he quickly
learns what's really import-
ant.
Our survival as a nation
could not have been possible
without a living, uninter-
rupted relationship with the
Torah given on Sinai. As long
as we study Torah, we remain
Jews, whether we're perse-
cuted and trapped into ghet-
tos or extolled and sought out
as friends and advisers.
But if we treat the Torah
like an ornament to be worn
as a mezuzah adornment —
and to be featured and dis-
played when strangers seek a
glimpse of our wonderful
Jewish heritage, but which
we're always too busy to look
into ourselves — then we're
not going to remain Jews for
very long.