REVISITING SINAI
Avi Katz Orlow


avi&torah Recently I was reminded of the joke about two Jewish forty-somethings who run into each other on the street. They seem to recognize one another from somewhere, but neither can remember from where. After an unsuccessful run at Jewish geography, one of the m asks the other if it may be that they had met at Woodstock. The other responds, "No, I've got it! I remember you from Sinai." Even if you have not heard this joke or of its forms, you might have heard the myth from which this joke originates: all the Jewish souls which have ever existed, and will ever exist, were at the giving of the Torah.

This Midrash symbolizes the familiarity each of us is expected to have for the Mosaic tradition and it attempts to include all Jews within the wealth of this tradition. If we were all present at Sinai, at the revelation of God, then surely we must all f eel a deep and fundamental connection to the word of God. And if there was a united group of souls at Sinai, surely we can see beyond issues that divide us today. Through this myth, everyone apparently already has a home in Judaism. The story enables eac h Jew to step out from behind the shadows of thousands of years of Jewish thought and to feel a personal relationship with the moment of revelation: I was there.

The story creates some difficulty. The implication is that each of us is already closely familiar with the tradition and indeed has already, along with those physically present at Sinai, found faith. I am captivated by the idea of a Jewish n'shamah, a person's eternal soul. But this conception has not done much to enable us to create a stronger community. Focusing on one moment of revelation may be too narrow to deal with issues such as gender, race, socio-economic status, the choices and identities o f one's ancestors, observance, theology, and last but not least, education. Especially education.

Even if the Sinai story can be used to try to create an inclusive community under the law, it misses the mark in terms of actually including people. The Sinai myth lends itself to a misleading sense of entitlement, leaving out those who do not already fe el endowed with the wealth of tradition. Surely being Jewish means that we all should already understand the tradition: of course we should, were we not all at Sinai? But many of us do not feel as if we know the Torah, and as we get closer, that mountain of books that we are supposed to already understand looms larger. Rather than scale the mountain or even stand humbly at its feet and be reminded of what we do not know, it is often easier for us to remove ourselves from the situation. And when we do so, we remove ourselves not only from the classrooms of Jewish education, but also from many positive Jewish experiences which might create a connection which has not already been established. I am at times in this situation. I fear the lack of equal access to the tradition, and it is intimidating. Accessibility to the tradition is essential to any community: what we have access to we can develop.

But why do we need the texts? It is not just another Columbia University game of identity politics. We need not find our identification only through books; looking to our own campus, however, we find that a single curriculum has helped create a larger Columbia community. I believe that a similar discussion of the essential texts is required within Judaism if we hope to maintain all of its elements. The absence of many Jews in this discussion is a concern to me. Having served a term as president of Col umb ia's Jewish community, I understand the necessity of an expansive view of our community. We need to benefit from numerous people engaging in numerous discussions with our texts. People who exclude themselves from the study of our books exclude themselves from the larger Jewish community. This is an absence which cuts into our collective understanding, our collective attempt to feel present at Sinai.

Upon reflecting on my Columbia career I realize how much I respect the people who have felt that the world of Torah was inaccessible, but nonetheless found their way to study it. We all come from situations in which we know what happens around us; we are smart, educated people. Columbia's Wednesday Night Learning Program is a model of how students can come to study our books, in English or in Hebrew. For many of the participants, it is the first attempt at Jewish study. Study is always a struggle; stu dying within a community means admitting to a peer that your education is missing something. But all education means an acknowledgement of ignorance. We get back to Sinai when we get back to the texts.

I also want to offer anther model. For the past three years, I have held a peer study group that addresses many of the issues of challenging the "Jewish Core." Each week another person presents a text that expresses an issue of importance to his or her personal understanding of Judaism. While the presenters might not be experts on the text, they are definitely experts on how their chosen text informs their Judaism. The whole group reads the selection and discusses the relevance of the text to the canon of Jewish literature. The texts range from a page of Talmud to selections from Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. While this model runs the risk of never scaling the heights of classical Torah learning, we all become giants. A community develops in which everyone is involved in one central conversation, a collective understanding developed over centuries.

To continue this conversation in the larger community we need to see beyond a monolithic vision of revelation. We need to let more people into the conversation of Judaism, and more people need to choose to be in that conversation. We can all participate from where we already stand, as far from Sinai as it seems.

Avi Orlow is a Columbia College senior.

Comments?