From The Bimah: Jewish Lessons For Life

This Shabbat is the second day of Shavuot—a good time to think about our relationship to the Torah as a source of law (halakhah) that is supposed to shape how we live every day.  Problem: For most of us, it doesn’t.  The Torah says: keep kosher. Many of us don’t.  The Torah says: observe Shabbat. For many of us, Saturday is not Shabbat but another weekend day, not particularly distinguishable from Sunday.  The Torah (as the rabbis interpret it) says: we are obligated to pray daily. Many of us don’t. Perhaps we come to shul when we have a Yahrtzeit, or when we are invited to a Bar/Bat Mitzvah or an auf ruf. But few of us actually believe we are required to pray every day. Witness that in our congregation of almost 4,000 souls, we average 20 to 40 people at our daily minyanim.  The Torah we received at Sinai posits a commanding God whose commands we are obligated to observe.  Few, if any of us, believe in that commanding God.  There is a disconnect between the commanding God we are supposed to believe in and th