A common practice when Jews meet one another is to play “Jewish geography,” a process in which we find people we know in common.  On the face this may seem like a Jewish version of 6 degrees of separation, but it goes deeper.  It is a means of finding connection.  The game often succeeds, but even when it doesn’t we sometimes have the feeling that we have met before.  When we cannot figure out how we know one another, we say that we saw each other at Sinai.

Jewish tradition teaches that all Jews throughout time stood at Sinai thousands of years ago and received the Torah.  Tomorrow night we begin celebrating Shavuot, the day G-d gave the Torah to our people.  Each of us stood there and experienced this great gift .  In remembrance of the gift of Torah (and the teaching that our people overslept the morning we received it) we will study all night tomorrow night.

I invite you to think about the place of Torah in your life.  Perhaps Torah resonates in ideas, in family, in friends, in your work, in your life decisions, in your passion to change the world or in your religious practice.  Where is Torah today and where might it be tomorrow or the next day?

Tomorrow night, wherever you are, I look forward to seeing you at Sinai.