Weekly D'var Torah

Did you know that the original plan for Judaism was for each month to feature a different joyful holiday?  That’s right.  Instead of our holidays coming bunched together or scattered through the year, they were originally intended to come once a month at the full moon.  Nice, right?  But it all went wrong.

In fact, Rosh HaShana was supposed to be next week.

Fifty days out from Egypt plus forty days, Moses went up to Sinai telling us he’d be back in forty days.

Unfortunately, there was a small miscommunication.

Moses meant forty full days, the night and the day, the way we Jews count the calendar.

But the Children of Israel, us, thought that Moses would be down forty days from the ascent which was in the morning.  So those twelve hours didn’t count.  Moses arrived, right on schedule, on the morning of the forty-first day.  This was to be the new beginning; Rosh HaShana.  Presenting the original Torah in all of its pristine glory and power.  It was going to be a good day-

But what Moses found was shocking.

When Moses didn’t return on what the people thought was the fortieth day, they panicked.  In the middle of a howling wilderness with no leader, like people do when under stress, they reverted to old,

familiar behaviors.

In other words, idolatry: build a Golden Calf and have it lead us back to Egypt.  Back to slavery.

When Moses descended on the morning of the 41st day, he saw more than a wavering people who needed to be reminded of who they were.  He saw a nation that had set themselves on a course of dissolution and self-destruction.

I have seen this nation - they are a stiff-necked people, says G-d.  Odd term- stiff-necked.  What does it mean?  It means that they can’t - or won’t - turn their necks and see any other direction besides the one they are taking.

Only the shock of seeing the Tablets of the Covenant smashed at the foot of the mountain shook the nation out of their self-imposed spell of brainwashed certainty that the only way forward was back to slavery.

The day of joy and the new beginning that was supposed to be the 17th of Tammuz became instead the Fast Day of Tammuz, a day of broken faith.  The same day that hundreds of years later became the day that the Wall of Jerusalem was breached by the Babylonian invaders.

But we don’t fast out of ancient sorrows.  We fast as a curative to the spiritual malaise of stiff-neckedness, the conviction that our current direction and way is the way, that it must be the way.

Being able to change direction is a Jewish superpower.  It’s called Teshuvah, repentance.  On the Fast Day of Tammuz, when we don’t eat from morning star to evening star (but even taking on a part of the fast is worthwhile and meaningful), we are called upon to re-align our lives and values, to seek out our weaknesses and faults and to redouble our efforts for self-improvement.

Someday, may it be soon, the calendar will be set right and the brokenness of the world repaired in partnership with G-d and each other.  Until that day, let us remember that experience at the foot of Sinai and keep our ability to self-reflect, to “turn our necks” strong and limber!

Note: the 17th of Tammuz falls this year on Tuesday, 7/23 and begins the 3 Weeks of semi-mourning before the Black Fast of the 9th of Av.  During these weeks, we minimize joyful celebrations and increase reflection and repentance.

Shabbat Shalom