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. 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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.