What a question.
Look up and see the alternative.
'Course we just woke up, having overslept a bit. Definitely a "wake up call."
Wouldn't it have been more convincing if, rather than having a mountain held over our heads, HaShem had just whispered in our ears: "Shall we share the Torah."
No threats.
No "MY" Torah possessiveness.
After all, when the Torah came down to us, it became OUR Torah.
One of the Shavuot articles I read made note, as many do, of the story of us oversleeping on the day we were to receive the Torah.
The author suggested that perhaps we put ourselves into a deep sleep because of fear.
Fear of G-d's presence?
Fear that we couldn't or wouldn't measure up? (We're still working on it; thank G-d that G-d's patient.)
When we lived in Holon we had neighbors who had two children.
The parents fought a lot.
One day the young (maybe 7 years old) daughter came to visit us.
Somehow, The Spouse and I got into a spirited conversation. It must have seemed to our visitor that we were behaving like her parents.
So our little visitor shut it out and ... went to sleep.
'Course, when asked if we would accept the Torah, we replied in a very extraordinary way: We will do and we will hear.
-
"Hey, son, I need your help."
"OK, Abba; here I am."
It could have been different.
-
"Hey, son, I need your help."
"To do what?"
Since G-d had been feeding us for all those years - OK, so it was the same thing day in and day out except for those birds that "dropped in" - as we wandered around in the wilderness (not "desert," thank you; where do you think we got material for the sukkot; we didn't make sand castles, you know!), you'd think we'd be like the first response; G-d's not really asking us to DO a lot - at this point, mostly keep Shabat and get rid of those foreign gods.
That's another point. G-d tells us to have "no other gods" before HaShem.
Someone suggested that could mean G-d "admits" there are other gods. I don't think so; I think it means what other people considered to be gods . . . maybe like many of us treat money as a god.
I don't know that we really needed the "threat" of a mountain over our heads. On the other hand, we often behaved like two-year-olds (the "terrible twos"). Whining because all we had was manna; whining if the well was a little distant; whining because we were not all cohanim (frankly, Scarlett . . . ) - maybe the mountain-over-our-heads was appropriate.
Final thought.
Shavuot means halavie - dairy - foods.
I love dairy foods.
Dairy foods for Shavuot are like liquor for Purim. (I'm fond of arak and Bourbon.)
But we know that while it's a tradition to get so inebriated we don't know Mordecai from Hamas - sorry, Haman - we also know getting to that stage is as foolish as a Purim spiel.
For some of us, it's "ditto with dairy." High cholesterol means controlling consumption of the dairy delights. But, with an eye on the labels (kashrut and cholesterol), most of us should be able to at least nosh a nibble.
Shabat shalom, hag Shavuot samach, and b'tayavon
Yohanon
Yohanon.Glenn @ gmail.com
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