4 | MAY 18 • 2023
essay
Revelation that Changed the Jewish People
W
ith the conclusion
of Passover last
month, we now
find ourselves in the period
of the Jewish calendar known
as the Omer,
the 49-day span
between the
Exodus from
Egypt marked
on Passover and
the giving of the
Torah celebrated
on Shavuot,
which begins this year on
Thursday evening, May 25.
Jewish tradition considers
these two holidays inextricably
linked, the seven weeks between
them seen as an incremental
process of purification from the
defilement of slavery to a state
in which the Israelites were able
to receive the Torah. In this
sense, Passover and Shavuot are
bookends, each representing a
stage in the process of freedom.
But what if Passover and
Shavuot are actually opposites
— not compatible but in
tension with one another? This
is what Rabbi Shimon Gershon
Rosenberg, known as Rav
Shagar, argues in his homily
“In the Name of the Father.
”
Rav Shagar was a student of
Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook and a
widely read spiritual leader in
the religious Zionist movement
focusing on postmodernism
and traditional Judaism. He
died in 2007 at the age of 57.
Shagar’s essay is built on the
work of French philosopher
Alain Badiou, and specifically
his notion of the “event” — an
occurrence so unprecedented
and revolutionary it changes
everything. Shagar wants to
contrast the event that is the
giving of the Torah with the
mere “enlightenment” (he’arah)
of Passover. The enlightenment
that is the Exodus might be
extraordinary. It might even
be miraculous. But it is not
unique. Nothing new came into
the world with the Exodus; it
merely rearranged what already
existed.
A UNIVERSAL EVENT
Revelation, however, is an
event. The giving of the Torah
introduces something that has
never before existed, and thus
shakes the very foundations of
existence.
For Shagar, the event of
revelation introduces the
universal into the particular.
Passover is about the particular
— the formation of ethnos, or
the Jewish family. This is why
the Passover seder is framed
around the relationship between
parent and child. Shavuot is
categorically different — it is
not about the experience of
a particular people emerging
from slavery but about the
encounter of that people with
the Divine.
As I understand Shagar, he
is suggesting that revelation
changes everything. But while
Badiou suggested that the
event changes everything by
destroying what came before,
Shagar suggests that what
existed before the event is not
destroyed but transformed by
it. Put another way, Passover
can survive Shavuot. But for
that to happen, Passover must
incorporate the universal into
the particularity of the Jewish
story of freedom from slavery.
For Shagar, failing to do that
would be a failure of the Jewish
covenant with God. If all Jews
bring to the word is that they
are a distinct people, they have
introduced nothing new.
In some ways, this is
the perennial challenge of
Judaism: how to incorporate
the universal nature of God’s
revelation at Sinai within the
particularity of the Jewish story.
Judaism, according to Shagar,
must embrace the universality
of the event by absorbing it
into the past. But the past will
always be reluctant to comply.
The familial home where the
story of the Exodus is annually
retold is comforting. The event
of revelation is discomfiting.
It rips the familial from its
roots and demands more than
retelling the story of a people.
It demands moving beyond the
ethnos.
This is only possible with the
introduction of something that
is totally new. This may be what
the Midrash meant when it
taught that the ultimate purpose
of Sinai is not the giving of
the Torah, but the subsequent
giving of a “new Torah.
” That is
how the sages understand the
prophetic view of redemption.
Thus, Shavuot is not (only)
the culmination of Passover,
but (also) its subversion. The
danger (or perhaps hazard) of
Passover is remaining mired
in the ethnos, in the familial
comfort of the Exodus, without
the event in which God enters
the world and introduces that
which is utterly new. This is
the moment where everything
changes irrevocably, where the
tradition is both introduced and
overcome: That is matan Torah
— the giving of the Torah.
Shaul Magid is the Distinguished Fellow
in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College.
A version of this essay appeared in My
Jewish Learning’s Recharge Shabbat
newsletter.
JWV Memorial Day
Cemetery Services
On Sunday, May 28, honor our
Jewish War Veterans of blessed
memory. The Jewish War Veterans
Department of Michigan will hold
a service in the Veterans Sections
of Machpelah Cemetery on
Woodward, south of Nine Mile, in
Ferndale at 10:30 a.m. led by Rabbi
Michael Moskowitz of Temple Shir
Shalom, and at Hebrew Memorial
Cemetery on Gratiot, north of 14
Mile, in Mount Clemens at 1 p.m.
led by Rabbi Jennifer Kaluzny of
Temple Israel.
PURELY COMMENTARY
Shaul Magid
JTA