Today is Memorial Day in the United States. We have to acknowledge and respect those who gave their lives for us and the Constitution. The two are intertwined.

Now for a quick devar Torah.

Today is Memorial Day, and we should take stock of the fact that we are living in the United States and are able to enjoy freedoms that countless others throughout history never had. Memorial Day is a day to remember the men and women who died defending this country.

What is interesting is that when someone enters the United States military, they do not take an oath to defend a particular leader, nor even simply the land itself. Their oath is to defend the Constitution of the United States — the system of law and liberty upon which the country is built.

That is actually a very Jewish idea.

For us, the central idea is the Torah. In many ways, you could say the Torah is our constitution. The Jewish people did not leave Egypt merely to escape slavery. God did not take us out of Egypt because He had nothing better to do that day, nor simply because we were suffering slaves — there were many slaves in the ancient world. God took us out for a purpose: to receive the Torah at Mount Sinai and to build a society based on justice, morality, and holiness.

That is why the Torah repeatedly reminds us: “I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt.” Freedom alone is not enough. A free society must have principles, laws, and responsibilities. We are not truly free until freedom is tied to moral purpose.

The founders of the United States understood this idea very well. Many of them were deeply influenced by the Bible. In fact, scholars have often noted that the Book of Deuteronomy — Sefer Devarim — was among the most influential biblical books during the founding era. The founders looked carefully at the Torah’s description of limited government, especially the laws concerning the king in Parshat Shoftim. Even the American presidency was shaped by the idea that no ruler stands above the law.

After the Constitution was completed, Reverend Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale College, explained the Constitution in biblical terms, comparing aspects of American government to the system described in Sefer Shoftim, the Book of Judges. The founders were not Jewish, but many of them believed that the Bible was the foundation of liberty and moral government.

There is a reason why throughout the United States you find so many biblical place names. The Bible shaped the moral imagination of early America.

There is a famous story about the last surviving veteran of the Battle of Bunker Hill. In the 1840s, people asked him what inspired him to fight. Was it John Locke? Montesquieu? The philosophers of the Enlightenment? He answered, “Never heard of them. It was my Bible.”

That answer says a great deal.

In the United States, the oath is to defend the Constitution — not a king, not a president, not a political party. The idea is to defend a system of liberty under law. That concept has deep biblical roots.

And so on Memorial Day, as we honor those who gave their lives defending this country, we should also remember what they were defending: the ability to live freely, to worship freely, and to build a society based on law, responsibility, and moral purpose.

As Jews living in America, we especially should appreciate that freedom — the freedom to live openly as Jews, to pray, to study Torah, and to contribute to society in accordance with our beliefs.

Something to think about.

We read the Book of Ruth on Shavuout because it ties in all the aspects of the holiday. It concerns the harvest, which begins at this time. It shows that Ruth is the ancestor of King David. And of course, it shows that Ruth accepts the Torah from the outside.

Now for a quick devar Torah.

This Shabbat, we read the Book of Ruth, and it’s interesting that of all the books in Tanach, Ruth is the one chosen to be read on Shavuot. But when you look closely, Ruth ties together almost everything that Shavuot represents.

First, Shavuot is the anniversary of receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. But it is also a harvest festival, one of the great agricultural holidays of the Jewish calendar. And the Book of Ruth takes place right in the middle of the harvest season.

The story also reflects how the Torah is supposed to shape society. We see Boaz allowing the poor to glean in his fields, following the Torah’s agricultural laws. To him, helping the poor is not something extraordinary — it is simply normal behavior. And that is an important lesson. Many things we take for granted — giving tzedakah, helping others, caring about the vulnerable — feel natural to us because the Torah trained us to think that way. Not every society in history viewed these things as obvious obligations.

The story of Ruth also teaches another powerful lesson. Naomi’s husband leaves the Land of Israel during a difficult period and goes to Moab. Yet from that seemingly bad decision comes an unexpected blessing, because Ruth enters the Jewish people.

When Naomi tells Ruth that she does not need to return with her to Israel, Ruth refuses to abandon her. And finally Ruth makes that remarkable declaration:

“Where you go, I will go. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

In a sense, Ruth accepts the Torah before fully knowing everything it will demand of her. That parallels what the Jewish people said at Mount Sinai: “Naaseh v’nishma” — “We will do, and we will hear.” First we committed ourselves, and then we learned the details.

And of course, the Book of Ruth concludes with the lineage of King David, because Shavuot is traditionally associated with both the birth and death of King David. Ruth becomes the ancestress of the Davidic dynasty.

In fact, there’s an old joke that both the House of David and the old Yankee Stadium were “the house that Ruth built.”

But the deeper point is this: Ruth shows us that Torah is not just about private belief or ritual observance. Torah shapes how we treat workers, the poor, strangers, family, and society itself. It affects economic life, social life, and political life.

And in a certain sense, we are all converts at Mount Sinai. The Jewish people collectively accepted the covenant and took upon themselves a new way of living.

That is really the message of Shavuot: Torah is not only something we believe. Torah is something we live.

Something to think about.

The Torah is to keep all within due bounds, from the most powerful in society to the least. Otherwise, there would be no society.

Now for a quick devar Torah.

As we know, Thursday night and Friday we celebrate Shavuot, the anniversary of receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. The importance of this event in human history—not just Jewish history—cannot be overstated.

One of the great struggles throughout history has always been the struggle between rulers and the ruled. In many societies, the king made the rules. As the saying goes, “It’s good to be king.” The ruler decided what was right and wrong, and often placed himself above the law.

The Torah comes along and says something revolutionary: the king does not make the rules.

That is one of the reasons dictators throughout history have often opposed religion—at least religions that place morality and law above the ruler. Ancient idol worship was different. In many pagan societies, the king himself was considered divine. And if the king is a god, then the king can do whatever he wants.

The Torah rejects that idea completely.

The king is not above the law. In fact, the Torah places even greater obligations on kings, judges, and priests because leaders set the moral tone for society. If the leadership is corrupt, society becomes corrupt. And once people believe their leaders are corrupt, they lose trust in the entire system.

This idea appears in the opening of the Book of Ruth, which we read on Shavuot. The book begins, “In the days when the judges judged.” But the phrase can also be understood as “in the days when the judges were judged.” In other words, the people no longer respected the judges because they believed they themselves were corrupt.

You see this throughout the First and Second Temple periods as well. At certain points, the priesthood lost the respect of the people because of corruption. The same happened with judges and political leaders.

The Torah in Sefer Devarim makes the responsibility of judges very clear: a judge must not favor rich or poor, powerful or weak. The only thing that matters is justice and the facts of the case.

That is one of the Torah’s great contributions to civilization: everyone, including the ruler, is subject to a higher law.

Interestingly, even modern constitutional systems preserve echoes of this idea. At the coronation of King Charles III, one of the central moments was when he was presented with a Bible and reminded that it represents the foundation of the law and moral order of the kingdom.

The Torah goes even further. It commands that the king write his own Sefer Torah and carry it with him at all times, so that he constantly remembers that he too has limits.

Imagine if every political leader carried a constitution with them everywhere they went.

But the lesson is not only for leaders. It is also for the people. Freedom does not mean doing whatever we want. A just society exists only when everyone understands there are moral limits, responsibilities, and laws that apply equally to all.

That is one of the enduring messages of Sinai—and one of the reasons the giving of the Torah changed the world.

Something to think about.

We learn the Torah all night on Shavuout to emphasize that Torah scholarship is a meritocracy. It does not matter your background, what is important is what you do with the he gifts that God gave you.

Now for a quick devar Torah.

As we know, Thursday night begins Shavuot, and many people have the custom of staying up all night learning Torah. It’s actually a very strange custom when you think about it. You stay up all night, and by Friday you’re exhausted. So where does this custom come from, and what is the point behind it?

The custom of Tikkun Leil Shavuot really develops in the 16th century in Safed among the kabbalists. It is based on a Midrash that says that on the very morning the Jewish people were supposed to receive the Torah at Mount Sinai — the most momentous event in human history — the Jews overslept. Moshe had to go around waking everybody up to prepare to receive the Ten Commandments.

So the kabbalists said: we are going to show our excitement to receive the Torah by doing the opposite. Instead of sleeping, we stay awake all night learning Torah.

But there is something much deeper going on here.

When Jews gather to learn together, they are building community. People go from synagogue to synagogue hearing different classes, meeting friends, discussing ideas, arguing, debating, learning. Torah is not meant to be isolated. Judaism is a religion of study, discussion, and community.

And it also teaches another very important idea: Torah is a meritocracy.

Kingship is inherited. Priesthood is inherited. But Torah belongs to everyone. A person can come from the humblest background and still become one of the greatest Torah scholars. Hillel was so poor that he sometimes could not even afford admission to the study hall, so he listened from outside — and he became one of the greatest sages in Jewish history.

I once heard a rosh yeshiva from Tels say that he did not grow up religious at all. He even joked that pork was a major food in his home growing up. Yet he became a major Torah scholar and eventually a rosh yeshiva. Torah does not ask where you started. It asks what you did with the tools God gave you.

That is one of the great messages of Shavuot: the Torah belongs to every Jew.

And there is another lesson. Judaism is not supposed to be mechanical. The ideal is not simply doing mitzvot automatically because “that’s what we do.” The Torah wants us to learn, to understand, to ask questions, to know why we do things. Because if we understand the mitzvot, then we can pass them on to the next generation in a meaningful way.

When a child asks, “Why do we do this?” the answer should not simply be, “Because that’s what we do.” We should be able to explain the meaning, the values, and the purpose behind it.

That is really the importance of staying up all night on Shavuot. We are showing that receiving the Torah matters to us, that learning matters, that understanding matters, and that God gave us the Torah so we could become better people and build a better society.

Something to think about.

On Shavuout we celebrate receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai. The importance of the Torah is that it shows us that morality is objective. There is no such thing and individual morality. That goes for leaders as well as followers. We are all called upon to be moral.

As we know, Thursday night, Friday, and Shabbat is the festival of Shavuot. Traditionally, Shavuot marks the anniversary of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. And this is an extremely important event — not only in Jewish history, but in the history of civilization itself.

Before the giving of the Torah, the world was filled with idolatrous societies. Every nation had its gods, its rulers, and its customs. What made the Torah unique was not merely monotheism, but ethical monotheism. The Torah established the idea of objective morality: that something is moral or immoral not because a king says so, not because society votes on it, and not because it is politically convenient, but because God says so.

That was revolutionary.

Throughout history, rulers have often disliked religion precisely because religion places limits on power. The great totalitarian movements of the twentieth century — whether communist or fascist — were deeply hostile to religion. Why? Because religion not only constrains the population; it also constrains the leaders. It tells rulers: “You are not above the law.”

The Torah insists that kings, judges, priests, and prophets are all subject to the same divine law.

That is why the story of the prophet Nathan confronting King David is so remarkable. Nathan goes directly to the king and tells him: “You have sinned.” In most ancient societies, that conversation would have ended very quickly — and very badly for the prophet. Kings were treated as semi-divine figures. They were above criticism.

But not in Judaism.

The Torah teaches that no human being is above God’s law.

Even today, you can still see remnants of the old idea of absolute kingship. The Shah of Iran’s official title was “King of Kings.” Think about that title for a moment. The Torah rejects that concept entirely. A Jewish king carries a Torah scroll with him precisely to remind him that he is not supreme.

Years ago, when I would give tours in Safed, Israel, people would notice the large picture of the Lubavitcher Rebbe hanging on the northern wall of the yeshiva. They would ask about it. I would point out something important: when the students prayed, they faced away from the picture. They were not praying to the Rebbe. He was respected, admired, even loved — but he was not God.

Then I would ask them: “What do you think would happen if tomorrow morning people discovered that the Rebbe publicly violated Shabbat?”

The answer is simple: he would lose almost all of his followers immediately. Why? Because the basis of his authority was not that he stood above the Torah, but that he lived by the same Torah as everyone else — only on a higher level.

That is one of the Torah’s greatest lessons: the law applies equally to everyone, from the greatest leader to the simplest person.

This idea even influenced American political thought. In 1799, President John Adams wrote that the Constitution was “made only for a moral and religious people” and was inadequate for any other. In other words, a free society only works when the people — and the leaders — accept moral restraints upon themselves.

That is one of the great messages of Shavuot.

At Mount Sinai, God did not simply give us rituals or ceremonies. He gave us a moral framework for society. The Torah teaches that there is a law higher than kings, higher than governments, and higher than human ambition.

And that law applies equally to all of us.

Something to think about.

We have entered the month of Sivan. In a few days we will be celebrating the holiday of Shavuot. This is the traditional day that we received the Torah at Mt. Sinai. We celebrate because we realize that the Exodus story is leading to this moment.

Now for a quick devar Torah.

This is Rosh Chodesh Sivan, and in just a few days we will celebrate Shavuot, traditionally the time when the Jewish people received the Torah at Mount Sinai.

Sivan is a very important month because it represents the culmination of the journey from slavery to nationhood.

Throughout the Torah, God repeatedly says, “I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt.” The Torah is emphasizing something very important: God did not take the Jewish people out of Egypt simply to free a group of slaves. Freedom alone was not the final goal. God took us out with a purpose — to create a nation based on Torah, law, morality, and responsibility.

The Jewish people were chosen not because of race or superiority, but because God saw the potential to build a special society founded on justice and holiness. A nation where freedom would be tied to obligation and moral purpose.

What is fascinating is that even before Sinai, the Jewish people already began receiving mitzvot in Egypt. The very first national commandment given to the Jewish people was the mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh — the sanctification of the new month.

Why was that the first mitzvah?

Because a free people control their own time and their own destiny. Slaves live according to someone else’s clock. Free people determine their future. God was telling the Jewish people: you now have the power to elevate yourselves or lower yourselves. You can become a great people, or simply another nation in history. The choice is yours.

Now, as we approach Sinai, we are about to receive the Torah — the laws and values that would shape the Jewish people into a nation.

And the Torah makes a remarkable point when the people arrive at Sinai. It says, “Israel encamped there opposite the mountain” — in the singular. The commentators explain that the Jewish people stood there “as one person with one heart.”

Unity was necessary before receiving the Torah.

That may be one of the great lessons of this season. Freedom alone is not enough. A nation also needs shared purpose, shared values, and a sense of responsibility toward one another.

Hopefully, we can find our way back to that kind of unity again.

Something to think about.

Today is the anniversary of the liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem during the Six Day War. Before this Jews were forbidden from praying at Jewish holy sites there. We celebrate the reunification of Jerusalem and the ability of people of all faiths to pray at their holy sites.

Yom Yerushalayim: Seeing God’s Hand in History

Today is Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day — more fully, the day we mark the liberation and reunification of Jerusalem.

Some people say, “Why celebrate it? It’s a new holiday.” But that misses something very important. Chanukah was also once a new holiday. It is not biblical. It was added because the Jewish people recognized God’s hand in history.

We do not believe that God created the world, gave us the Torah, and then disappeared from human events. We believe God is present in the world every day. The question is whether we have the eyes to see it.

Those who remember 1967 remember the fear before the Six-Day War. Israel expected terrible casualties. In Tel Aviv, they were preparing mass graves. The situation looked desperate.

And then came events that can only be described as miraculous. Jerusalem was liberated. The Old City returned to Jewish hands. The Kotel, from which Jews had been barred under Jordanian rule, was open again.

Rabbi Shlomo Goren, then Chief Rabbi of the IDF, understood the meaning of the moment. At the Kotel, he blew the shofar. He also brought a chair and sat there, because for centuries Jews had been forbidden to sit at the Western Wall — sitting symbolized ownership. By sitting there, he was declaring: we have returned.

And then there is the story of Chevron. Rabbi Goren and his driver entered before the army had arrived. The mayor came to surrender. Rabbi Goren told him: “In this place, you do not surrender to me. You surrender to God.”

That is the message of Yom Yerushalayim.

We celebrate not only a military victory, but the ability to recognize God’s hand in history. If we cannot see the miracles of those days, then we are missing something profound.

Yom Yerushalayim reminds us that Jewish history did not end with the Bible. God’s presence is still in the world. Our responsibility is to notice it, give thanks for it, and live up to it.

Something to think about.

Two of the greatest people in our history were not born Jewish but joined the Jewish people. One was Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, and the other was Ruth. They chose to join the Jewish people in spite all the obstacles that they would face.

Greatness From The Outside

We weave together two powerful “outsiders” who became foundational insiders: Yitro (Jethro) and Ruth. Both entered the Jewish story from the outside and left permanent imprints.

Yitro – The Wise Gentile Advisor

In parshat Yitro, right before the giving of the Torah at Sinai, Moses’ father-in-law (a Midianite priest) watches his son-in-law exhausting himself judging every dispute. Yitro doesn’t just sympathize — he gives practical, organizational wisdom:

“What you are doing is not good… You should select capable men… and let them judge the people at all times.” (Exodus 18)

This system of delegated courts becomes the backbone of Jewish jurisprudence. The Torah records Yitro’s advice in detail and even names the parsha after him. A non-Jew taught the future lawgiver how to build a sustainable legal system. That’s humility on Moses’ part, and it’s a powerful message: wisdom can come from anywhere.

Ruth – The Convert Who Became Royalty

We read Megillat Ruth on Shavuot, the anniversary of the entire Jewish people standing at Sinai and accepting the Torah with “Na’aseh v’nishma.”

Ruth’s famous declaration is the classic model of conversion:

“Where you go I will go, where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” (Ruth 1:16)

She chooses Naomi, the Jewish people, and the Torah at a moment of total loss — no husband, no children, no security. Pure chesed (kindness) and conviction. And yes, the Moabite prohibition (Deut. 23:4) creates real halachic tension that is ultimately resolved in her favor, allowing her into the congregation. From her line comes King David — and ultimately the Messiah.

Two people who were not counted in the census of Bamidbar (this week’s parsha), yet they counted enormously.

A Deeper Layer

The census in Bamidbar is about klal Yisrael — the collective, the numbered community. But Judaism has always had this fascinating tension: the collective and the individual soul who chooses to join. Abraham was the first “convert” in a sense. The mixed multitude left Egypt with us. Converts have always been part of the story.

This point lands perfectly: being “counted” in a census is one thing. Making a real difference — through wisdom, loyalty, kindness, and legacy — is another. Ruth and Yitro remind us that Jewish destiny has always been enriched by those who chose us, even when we didn’t (or couldn’t) initially count them.

It’s also a Shavuot message: every year we re-accept the Torah. Born Jews get to renew that acceptance. Converts show us what a fresh, conscious “yes” looks like.

May we all be blessed to recognize the “Ruths” and “Yitros” around us — the people who aren’t yet “counted” but who truly count.

We count the Omer up and not down. Usually, we count down in anticipation of an event. The reason for the counting up is that we are preparing to become a people.

Now for a quick devar Torah.

We are now 41 days into the Omer. Every night we count upward — one day, two days, three days — until eventually we reach Shavuot and the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.

But it raises an interesting question.

Normally, when people are anticipating something important, they count down, not up.

At Cape Canaveral there’s a countdown for a rocket launch. On New Year’s Eve we count down to midnight. If someone is finishing a prison sentence, he counts down the days until release. When I was in the army and getting close to getting out, I was counting down the days too.

So why during the Omer do we count upward?

One answer is that we are anticipating receiving the Torah. But there is something deeper going on. The counting is not merely marking time. It is a process of building.

The Jewish people had just come out of Egypt after centuries of slavery and subjugation. Freedom is not automatic. You cannot take a slave people one day and expect them to become a free nation the next.

In fact, the Torah itself tells us this.

When the Jews left Egypt, God did not take them directly into the Land of Israel through the land of the Philistines because, as the Torah says, they might see war, become frightened, and run back to Egypt. Physically leaving slavery is easier than mentally becoming free.

Freedom requires preparation.

That is what the counting of the Omer represents. Every day the people are building themselves up internally — spiritually, morally, and nationally — preparing to receive the Torah, which in many ways functions as our constitution.

You can even see this idea reflected in political history.

The The Conservative Sensibility and other writings by George Will discuss how constitutional liberty did not suddenly appear in America overnight. The ideas behind limited government developed gradually through English history — from the Magna Carta to the Glorious Revolution — establishing the principle that even kings are subject to law.

Only after generations of developing those ideas could the United States Constitutional Convention produce a constitution in which power was limited and authority balanced.

The Torah is teaching something similar.

To become a free people, authority must be limited, but the people must also be united around a mission and a moral purpose. That is why the Mishkan — the Tabernacle — stood in the center of the camp. It reminded the people why they had been taken out of Egypt and what freedom was supposed to mean.

Freedom is not merely the absence of slavery. Freedom is having a higher purpose.

And that is why we count up during the Omer.

Every single day we are building ourselves higher — building ourselves into a people capable of receiving the Torah and capable of remaining free.

Something to think about.

The reason that the Mishkan, or Tabernacle was in the center of the Israelite camp in the wilderness was to teach the Jews that the Torah is their constitution. That they are on a mission from God.

Now for a quick devar Torah.

This week’s parsha, of course, continues with all the counting in the wilderness. Every time we turn around there’s another census. And the obvious question is: why all the counting? Doesn’t God already know how many people there are?

But the counting is not for God. It’s for us.

The Torah is teaching that every individual counts. Nobody is extra. Every person matters. Every tribe has its role, every family its mission, every individual their contribution.

But at the same time, the Torah is teaching something equally important: individuality alone is not enough. A nation cannot survive if it is only a collection of individuals with no common purpose.

And that is really the challenge facing the Jewish people in the wilderness.

Remember, these are former slaves. They lived for generations in Egypt under a system where human beings were expendable. If a slave died, nobody cared. You simply replaced him with another slave.

God takes these former slaves out of Egypt, but now they must become a nation. And you cannot simply take people out of slavery and instantly expect them to know how to build a free society. Freedom requires education. It requires responsibility. It requires a mission.

History shows this problem very clearly. In the early nineteenth century, there were movements to return freed slaves from America back to Africa, in places such as Liberia and Sierra Leone. But many of the societies they established ended up imitating the plantation systems they had known in America. People often reproduce the systems they grew up under.

The Torah is trying to prevent exactly that.

The Jewish people are not supposed to recreate Egypt in another form. They are supposed to build something entirely different: a society where every human being has value because every human being is created in the image of God.

That is why even an eved — often translated as a slave — still possesses rights in Jewish law. In fact, the Hebrew word eved can also mean servant. The Torah does not accept the Egyptian idea that human beings are disposable property.

And that brings us to the structure of the camp itself.

The Mishkan, the Tabernacle, stands in the center of the camp. Why?

Because the Torah is teaching that while every tribe is unique, and every individual matters, the nation must still revolve around a common center. The center is not power. It is not wealth. It is not a king. The center is God, the Torah, and the covenant.

That shared covenant is what turns a group of former slaves into a nation.

Interestingly enough, you can even see a similar idea reflected in the Hebrew name for the United States. In Hebrew, America is not literally called “the United States.” It is called Artzot HaBrit — “the Lands of the Covenant” or “the Lands of the Agreement.” It’s a conceptual translation emphasizing the constitutional bond that unites the states.

And remarkably, that Hebrew term already appears in the 1790s.

That is essentially what the Torah is doing in the wilderness. God is creating a constitutional people. The Torah functions as the constitution, the covenant that binds the tribes together into one nation.

Everybody counts. Every tribe matters. But the nation survives only when all those individuals unite around something higher than themselves.

Something to think about.