On Shavuot, the Almighty granted the people of Israel the Ten Commandments. This ancient and most sacred text has accompanied our people for 3,337 years and serves as a compass of morality, guidance and instructions for life.
But who actually determines what is right? And what is moral? Israel's government? Emmanuel Macron? Or perhaps the UN?
The Lubavitcher Rebbe once said that "there are two types of laws – laws that create life and laws created by life. Human laws were created from life, therefore they differ in every country according to the country's conditions. God's Torah is a divine constitution that creates life. The Torah is equal in all places and at all times, an eternal Torah. There is no value to justice and righteousness when these are built only on laws established by people."
The most basic codex of humanity's laws was received at Mount Sinai. Commandments such as "I am the Lord your God," "Honor your father and mother," and "You shall not murder." From those Ten Commandments emerged and continue to reach us today thousands of laws and regulations that create life. They are not pragmatic, they do not rise to a second, third, or fourth reading, and they do not change back and forth according to political weather or poll results. They primarily ensure, like a compass needle, that we will always find the true north – and also the compass in our hearts.
Often, one of the things that demonstrates to us more than anything else the dimensions of hatred and evil directed toward us from Gaza is found in footage of local children. Whether in dreams about "killing Jews," in educational materials, or in terror camps. And this is far more distressing and disheartening than seeing such adults. Why? Because children are a preview of what is still buried in the ground – of the seeds that contain the blossoming of the future.
Like a perfect mirror image, the Midrash tells that when God wanted to give the Torah to Israel, He requested guarantors, as before signing a loan. The children of Israel offered various distinguished guarantors, but only when it was suggested that "our children will be guarantors for us" did the Holy One agree and give the holy Torah to the people of Israel.
And why specifically the children? Because when God wanted to give the Torah, He essentially made a trade – He gave the Jewish people His most precious possession ("Your Torah is better to me than thousands of gold and silver"), and expected to receive something in return. A win-win situation. Precisely millions of children of the people of Israel, the future of the Jewish people at any given moment, are the reason that convinces God that the investment in us will always be quite worthwhile.
May we merit a joyful holiday, and may we receive the Torah this year with joy and inwardly together with all IDF soldiers, the hostages and their dear families, and feel as we did then, beside Mount Sinai – one united people.
Rabbi Moni Ender is the head of Chabad's public relations
