“Naaseh v’Nishma”

-Am Yisrael

There’s a famous midrash that talks about how G-d went to all the nations of the world and offered them the Torah, and they all asked, “well, what’s in it?”

This seems like a reasonable reaction, right? You should read a contract before you sign it. But after they found out what was in the Torah, they all said, “oh, this will cramp our style, we’ll pass on it. Thanks so much.”

But when G-d came to the Jewish people, they said, “oh the Torah? It’s from You? Okay, we’ll do it, whatever is in it.”

A leap of faith, if you will, on a national level.

And now, tonight, we will celebrate this exciting moment, when we went from a band of refugees in the desert to a nation with a tradition that has spanned thousands of years and multiple expulsions and has sustained us through our very eventful history.

Chag Sameach.

-Feature Photo by Anton Mislawsky on Unsplash