What are we supposed to do with the Torah we learn? Are we supposed to preserve it exactly how we received it? Or are we supposed to engage with it in a way that might significantly alter it?
A memorable Midrash makes a case for the latter:
There was a king who had two servants. He loved them completely. He gave each of them a measure of wheat and a bundle of flax.
The wise servant – what did he do? He took the flax and wove it into a tablecloth. He took the wheat and made it into the finest flour. He sifted it, ground it, kneaded it, and baked it [into bread]. Then he arranged it on the table and spread the tablecloth over it. He left it until the time the king should return.
The foolish servant did nothing at all.
In time, the king came home and said, “My children, bring me what I gave to you.” One brought out the bread on the table covered with the tablecloth. The other brought out the pile of wheat with the bundle of flax on top.
Oh how embarrassing for him! Oh how shameful for him! You must know that the one that brought the table and the bread upon it was preferred.
When the Holy Blessed One gave the Torah to Israel, G-d gave it to them as wheat from which to produce fine bread, and as flax from which to produce cloth. (Seder Eliyahu Zuta, Ch. 2).
This Midrash teaches us that G-d desires that the Torah we learn not remain static. That we engage with it. That we – in the words of my student last week – weave it into the fabric of our lives.
Tonight we celebrate Shavuot, which marks the anniversary of Revelation, of receiving the Torah. This teaching reminds us that Torah is not something to download and keep classified somewhere in our brain. The opposite! It’s for us to chew on, question, wrestle with, and find expressions in our daily lives.
Chag Shavuot Sameach!
