Shavuot: Whispers Of Sinai In A World Of Swords

The struggle to settle our sacred homeland continues. Nearly eighty years after the founding of Medinat Yisrael, and despite our yearning to live in peace with our neighbors, many still deny our rightful presence in this land. The Simchat Torah War of the past year and a half is not a new chapter, but a continuation of the War of Independence, a painful reminder that our national legitimacy remains under attack and that violent antisemitism still fiercely burns.

Yet something fundamental has shifted in that the ideological foundations of this conflict have changed. In 1948, opposition to our return was driven by pan-Arab nationalism, a political vision seeking to unify all Arab peoples under a single identity, both cultural and territorial. In their eyes, the emergence of a Jewish State in the heart of the Middle East was an alien intrusion, a colonial trespass on a land that they imagined was exclusively theirs.

Eighty years later, our adversaries have adopted a different narrative. The fiercest resistance to Am Yisraelis no longer fueled merely by nationalism, but by religious extremism. We are no longer viewed simply as political interlopers, but as heretical invaders defiling Muslim spaces. Our presence in Yerushalayim provokes their fury, for they regard it as a desecration of what they consider exclusively theirs.

This is no longer just a territorial struggle or a contest of national ideals. What began as a clash between Arab nationalism and Jewish Zionism has evolved into a confrontation over faith, theology, and religious destiny.

For religious people, this battle is more intelligible. We have returned not just to soil, but to historical mission. Our return is a stage in the unfolding of a Divine drama: the restoration of Hashem’s Shechinah to this fractured world. Our national mission to bring Hashem’s presence into human history is now openly challenged by those who desecrate His Name, draping hatred in false religious rhetoric, and distorting emunah into cruelty. Now that the conflict has assumed religious overtones, it more seamlessly joins the long saga of Jewish history: a continual contest over the presence and meaning of Hashem in our world.

Radical Islam has grotesquely distorted the foundational truths of emunah and of the Ribbono Shel Olam. As we celebrate Shavuot and relive the moment when Hashem descended upon Har Sinai to gift us His Torah, we are summoned to reassert the truths of Torah and the principles of authentic monotheism. In a world confused by false faiths, we must clearly and courageously defend Torah against the spiritual darkness of counterfeit religion.

Avraham Avinu was the first to reveal a G-d of compassion and kindness. Before him, humanity bowed to violent forces: cruel deities who ruled with terror and delighted in human despair. Avraham introduced a revolutionary vision: a Creator who loves humanity, who desires justice and kindness, and who charges mankind with moral responsibility. To affirm this truth, the first halachos delivered at Har Sinai focused on building a just and moral society, one that protects the vulnerable and defends the downtrodden from exploitation and harm.

Likewise, one of the great pillars of halachah is pikuach nefesh, the idea that virtually every mitzvah is set aside to preserve life. Only three cardinal sins: shfichut damim, avodah zarah, and arayot—are never overridden, for they so deeply corrupt the soul that life itself becomes spiritually hollow. Every other mitzvahyields before the sanctity of life. The Torah was not given to trample life but to uplift it. When life is endangered, halachah is deferred.

This is the image of Hashem that Avraham introduced and that Matan Torah reaffirmed—a G-d of rachamim, of mercy, justice, and deep moral concern.

By contrast, the deity envisioned by radical Islam is a terrifying distortion. They invoke a deity of vengeance, who rejoices in bloodshed, and sanctifies murder. Though they speak of one G-d, their vision is so far removed from the truth that it borders on heresy. To deny the ways of G-d is to deny G-d.

This theological corruption has driven many people away from faith altogether. Religion, instead of being viewed as ennobling the human spirit, becomes synonymous with violence, cruelty, and death.

Every human being is created b’tzelem Elokim—in the Divine image—and endowed with dignity, free will, and moral agency. Unlike other creatures, humans possess free will to build, to create, and to ascend spiritually. But that same freedom can be tragically misused.

There are no evil nations condemned from birth. No human is fated to sin. Every person—Jew and non-Jew—possesses free will and bears responsibility for their choices. Judaism does not demonize the nations of the world. We do not believe in a cosmic war between the forces of light and the forces of darkness.

True, there was once a mitzvah to eradicate Amalek, but over time this command has faded from practical halachah. There is no eternal command to annihilate entire peoples or wage religious war.

Every human life is a Divine gift. Every person is deserving of dignity, respect, and protection. There are no races or groups branded as infidels destined for annihilation. Every human being is judged individually, by the choices he makes and the paths he takes.

Judaism has no missionary impulse. We do not seek converts; we discourage them. Our vision of redemption includes a world that acknowledges Hashem, but not a world in which every person must become Jewish. Am Yisrael was chosen to live lives of kedushah, mitzvah, and covenant, to model moral nobility so that all of humanity can embrace the seven universal mitzvos. We do not impose faith or religion through conquest or violence.

By contrast, extremist Islam often embraces coercive conversion, at times using violence to impose belief. Its roots lie in an era of conquest and military expansion, where spreading faith by the sword was tragically common.

But Hashem does not desire coerced faith. He seeks hearts that freely choose Him. True emunah can never be forced—it must arise from within.

The Torah makes little mention of the afterlife. Even at Har Sinai, the focus was on how to live in this world. Hashem does not ask us to ignore the beauty of life or to sacrifice this world in the name of the next. A life of mitzvot and yirat Shamayim is valuable not because of what follows death, but because it reflects Hashem’s will in this world. Even if there were no Olam Haba, a life of Torah would remain the highest ideal.

Judaism deliberately avoids focusing on the afterlife. By doing so, it preserves the religion’s moral center in the here and now. When the afterlife becomes an obsession—as in the case of terrorists who murder for heavenly reward—faith becomes corrupted, and any crime can easily be justified. Torah, in contrast, sanctifies life as the stage upon which Hashem’s presence is revealed.

On Shavuot we stood beneath Har Sinai and received a Torah of light, truth, and moral clarity. In an age where faith is misused and religion is desecrated; we must defend the voice of Har Sinai. 

On Shavuot we are challenged to protect faith from those who corrupt it. n

Rabbi Moshe Taragin is a rabbi at the hesder pre-military Yeshivat Har Etzion/Gush, was ordained by YU and has an MA in English literature from CUNY. His most recent books include “Reclaiming Redemption: Deciphering the Maze of Jewish History” (Mosaica Press) and “To be Holy but Human: Reflections on my Rebbe HaRav Yehuda Amital” (Kodesh) are available in bookstores and at wwww.mtaraginbooks.com.