Last week’s Torah was full of drama as the entire people stood together at Sinai and received the divine revelation of the Ten Commandments. This week’s Torah portion seems to be a litany of very specific and potential boring laws. But it is in the details that holiness is found, for example here, “You must not carry false rumors; you shall not join hands with the guilty to act as a malicious witness: You shall neither side with the mighty to do wrong — you shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute so as to pervert it in favor of the mighty — nor shall you show deference to a poor man in his dispute.” (Exodus 23:1-3) Fairness and honesty in word and deed, refraining from gossip, these behaviors establish and maintain a moral society. Ultimately, we do not spend our lives standing before God at Sinai. We spend it with one another. The small, and potentially boring, ways we treat each other that ultimately bring holiness in the world.

~Rabbi Dean

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