Becoming ourselves is a process. We learn what our family or friends find funny or valuable, and shape our identities accordingly, either to conform to, or in opposition to those norms and expectations. Teachers help us acquire skills, the basics of contemporary education, text analysis and interpretation. If we are lucky, our teachers don’t just teach at us, but learn with us, validating our instincts toward personal interpretation and endorsing multiple possible readings instead of just one definitive one.
But for many who might never have felt free, or qualified, to interpret holy texts, Torah study remains daunting, incompatible with our hectic daily pace, or inconsistent with the personal convictions that guide our actions. Some of us have been lucky enough to find Limmud events, in Los Angeles and around the world, which position diversity of voices as a primary value. But the contemporary celebration of Shavuot is the one that most brings us the chance to see the text through our own eyes, and to share those visions with the community, as I saw last month, at Temple Beth Am’s all-night study program, or Tikkun Leil Shavuot, which featured a “Sermon Slam.”
The night included eight different perspectives (including one from this writer) on two short texts. Each of us wrote and delivered an original 3-5 minute “sermon” in the “story slam” style known to those who frequent “The Moth,” or other storytelling and performance nights.
The night wasn’t just about the eight voices – it was about providing the entire assembly with access to the texts that were under our microscope. Outgoing Ziegeler School Dean Rabbi Aaron Alexander (only two weeks before he and his family relocated to Washington D.C. for a position at Adas Israel) taught the texts to the entire audience, giving them the background to understand the performers.
So what happens when eight Jews stop being polite about text study and start being real? They interpret from their own education, influences, politics, passions and sensitivities, taking something uniform and transforming it entirely.
WATCH: Esther Kustanowitz: “Brokenness” a Shavuot sermon slam
Rachel Salston, a soferet (scribe for Jewish texts) and a rabbinical student, shared her perspective on broken Torah as an opportunity to fix it. “Moshe Rabbenu was also Moshe Sofrenu. Celebrating the brokenness in revelation. I get to help just like he did.”
Michael Salonius, Clinical Chaplain for the Wounded Warrior project, took a different approach, calling upon his ancestors to “release me from Jacob’s sin…and the outcome of his deceit,” and invoking the rebellious spirit of Resh Lakish, the rabbi – and former bandit – who had been quoted in the text we’d been given. “Only the outliers know the cruelty of the crowd,” he said.
Josh Warshawsky, artist-in-residence at Temple Beth Am and Pressman Academy and a rabbinical student, spoke of music’s power in piecing together broken fragments: “Song heals… Song enables us to open ourselves up to the melody of another. To infinitely feel their note by note and match it to our own.”
The Sermon Slam ended with musician Nachum Peterseil teaching a song, then participants moved forward into the rest of the program, with offerings that continued the evening’s commitment to different perspectives.
It is this diversity of voices, the application of modern and creative formats to long-held beliefs and ancient stories that annually renews my interest in these texts. I am lucky enough to have had a solid Jewish education, but traditional programs of text study don’t stir my soul: while rabbis can inspire, it’s the insights of my peers, colleagues and strangers – now granted access to text and given a pulpit for interpretation – that invigorate my connection to tradition.
Such events reinforce what we’ve always been told, that all Jewish souls (including those born into non-Jewish families) were present at Sinai, and that the Torah belongs to all of us. We try to find our modern selves in ancient texts, narratives and characters, to imagine our emotional responses to things we’ll never experience, and to use our contemporary experiences to increase our understanding of our past.
“We will do and we will listen,” the Jews promised at the base of Mount Sinai. Many interpretations say that this speaks of extreme faith, to promise to do something even before you’re told what it is. But my reading is a little different: na’aseh, we will actively engage in the text, making it our own, and “nishma,” as others offer their wisdom, we will also listen.
