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March 22, 2010
Yossi Klein Halevi: Was Obama's confrontation with Israel premeditated?
JWisdom.comWhy Hollywood and Timelessness don't flash-back, flash-forward or mesh with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (7 minutes)
Kevin Baxter: Boxer has a will to win, and to worship
March 19, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: The Divine is in the details
JWisdom.com Stewards of sacrifice with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama is waging war on Israel
March 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Israel's New Enemy: America?
JWisdom.com Love me not? with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes)
Jonathan Rosenblum: Washington Throws a Tantrum
March 17, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Orwell, Santayana, and Me
Jonathan Tobin: How Many Lives Is Biden's Pride Worth?
March 16, 2010
Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare
JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes)
Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel
March 15, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT
March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk

Jewish World Review May 25, 2004 /5 Sivan, 5764

Shavuos: The eternal vow

By Rabbi Yonason Goldson

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http://www.jewishworldreview.com | What is marriage?


To the romantic, it is the consummation of true love. To the pragmatist, it is a contract for mutual responsibility and procreation. To the gold-digger, it is the key to the vault. To the philanderer, it is a legal fiction. To the seven-year-old, it is unimaginable.


In today's world of moral relativism, we have redefined marriage as whatever we wish it to be. But not so very long ago people shared a common view of marriage as an institution built upon foundational vows of mutual commitment "for as long as you both shall live." Divorce existed, but only as an option of last resort, not the likely conclusion of every second marriage.


What happened to commitment? What happened to vows? When did the definition of marriage become so random and so negotiable?


The Talmud describes Passover and the Exodus from Egypt as the betrothal of the Almighty and the Jewish people. But while Passover remains the most widely observed of all Jewish holidays, it is Shavuos, perhaps the most neglected Jewish holiday, which the Talmud compares to the marriage between the Jews and their Redeemer. It is sad but not surprising, therefore, that the declining attention to the holiday of Shavuos mirrors society's devaluation of the institution of marriage.


The kesuvah — the wedding contract — for this metaphysical union was engraved both upon hearts of the Jewish people and upon two hewn tablets. They were not called the "Ten Suggestions." In truth, they were not even called the "Ten Commandments." They were the Aseres HaDibros, the "Ten Statements" defining the relationship between the bride — the Jewish nation — and her Groom on high. They comprised the commitments, the responsibilities, and the obligations, as well as the affection, the privilege, and the intimacy of the relationship.


They defined the ultimate marriage as eternal and immutable. They made no allowances for annulment, no-fault divorce, "open-marriage," or renegotiation of pre-nupts. They were, both literally and figuratively, carved in stone.

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After 3,316 years, a portion of the Jewish people still regard those vows as sacrosanct. Jews who live in the modern world of computers and cell phones and transatlantic flight and cyberspace still define their relationship with the Divine according to its original terms. They find nothing outdated, nothing unfashionable, nothing anachronistic in the generations-old dictates of those original "Ten Statements." Just the opposite, the vows their ancestors swore and the ethereal marriage those vows protect provide a safe harbor for the modern Jew against the ceaseless winds of social fad and the relentless tide of moral anarchy.


Tragically, there are other Jews who have either abandoned or reinterpreted the original vows of Sinai, who discard the moral clarity of their own eternal heritage in favor of the conventional wisdom of a society that defines exhibitionism as entertainment, pornography as art, and partial-birth abortion as the "right to choose." For them, marriage means no more than a contract of mutual gratification, to be brokered or broken at the whim of either partner. Their vision of relationship is blurred by their investment in an amoral culture where everything must be accepted and no judgments are allowed.


To them, everything may be sanctified, since nothing contains intrinsic sanctity.


Similar ideologies have sprouted like weeds through the cracks of time. But they have never lasted long, and have certainly not outlasted the original vows of Sinai, the same vows that have preserved the Jews and their Judaism, that have safeguarded the relationship between Jewish man and wife, as well as the relationship between the Jews and their Creator.


The Egyptians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans not only sanctified every corruption of human morality but sought to impose their own "morality" upon the Jews who lived among them. Some Jews embraced those nations and joined them on their path to oblivion. Indeed, nothing remains of the Hellenists, the Saducees, and the Karaites except a lesson that others like them refuse to learn: that spiritual revisionism leads only to spiritual extinction.


But some Jews have kept their vows and survived, cherishing the values and the commitments of their ancestors. And so shall it be until the final renewal of our vows at the end of days.

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JWR contributor Rabbi Yonason Goldson teaches at Block Yeshiva High School and Aish HaTorah in St. Louis. Comment by clicking here.

© 2004, Rabbi Yonason Goldson