Freedom at its finest

With all due respect to cheesecake recipes, I’d like to dwell on another aspect of the upcoming Shavuot holiday, ‘Matan Torah’.  

The people of Israel were liberated from slavery in Egypt.

49 days later they received the Torah. 

To the onlooker it would seem that after finally being freed from Egyptian slavery, they were switching one form of bondage for another by accepting the Torah and binding themselves to a greater power. 

That’s so far from the truth!  The Torah was given not as a form of subjugation, rather as a tool to implement the newly acquired freedom successfully.  

Freedom doesn’t just mean not being enslaved.  The new status they achieved requires taking responsibility to ensure a functioning social system.  Otherwise anarchy ensues.  When anarchy reigns no one is really free, just messed up! 

So the people of Israel received the ‘blueprint’ on how to take responsibility to build a healthy and productive society, down to the finest detail.  It’s worked pretty well for a few thousand years, so well that the world in general has adapted the spirit of the Torah laws to their governing formats. 👍

What’s the connection to parenting?

The family has been the primal social system since the beginning of time.  

There too, if anarchy reigns it becomes dysfunctional, i.e., messed up!

The antidote for that situation is: Everyone being aware of and filling his/her role, place and responsibilities.  

The word in Hebrew for ‘parent’ is “Horeh”, which means teaches, guides and leads.  That’s the natural (G-d given) role of the parent.  

We can thereby infer that if someone guides and teaches, someone else should be following and learning.  

You know who that ‘someone’ should be.

It’s natural, it’s logical, it’s functional.  It’s the way to go! 

Happy and meaningful Shavuot!

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