This Shabbat is Shavuot, the holiday that celebrates the giving of Torah at Sinai. And as is the custom on Shavuot, we read the Book of Ruth.
I have been thinking about something my Bible teacher at Hebrew Union College, Rabbi Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, taught me about this remarkable book. What makes it so unusual and so beautiful is this: every one of the main characters in it behaves decently. Look across the sweep of biblical narrative and you will find great heroes and terrible villains, soaring moments and devastating ones. But it is rare to find a story where people are just good to one another. Some go further than others. Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi is extraordinary and Boaz’s generosity is exemplary. But no one in the story is cruel. No one schemes or betrays. Everyone, at minimum, behaves with basic human decency.
What a vision. And what a gift, to be given this story precisely on Shavuot of 2026/5786.
That gift feels all the more urgent this year. On the eve of Shavuot, a minister in Israel’s government used grotesque, dehumanizing language to attack MK Rabbi Gilad Kariv and, through him, millions of Reform Jews in Israel and around the world. It was painful — painful because it targeted our community in such a disrespectful and hateful way, and painful because it came at this moment, on this holiday, when we are meant to remember that every Jewish soul stood together at Sinai. I’m thankful to Israel’s ambassador to the United States for publicly condemning these hateful remarks.
The rabbis teach:
דֶּרֶך אֶרֶץ קָדְמָה לַתּוֹרָה —
Derekh eretz kadma l’Torah. Basic human decency precedes Torah. As my colleague Rabbi Josh Weinberg wrote this week, “Before revelation comes respect. Before religious authority comes human dignity.” You cannot claim the mantle of Torah while stripping others of their humanity.
And if derekh eretz is where we must begin, Rabbi Akiva teaches us where Torah ultimately leads: Its very heart, he said, is
וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ
— “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). Decency is the foundation. Love of the other is the destination. The whole of Torah, it turns out, is the journey between them.
We live in a moment of profound division — in Israel, in America, seemingly everywhere. Hatred is loud. Cruelty grabs our attention. It can feel as though decency itself is under siege. And yet, here is what I want to say to you this Shavuot: one of the most radical and courageous things we can do right now is simply to be decent to one another. To treat the people around us — our families, our neighbors, strangers, even those with whom we disagree — with basic human kindness and respect.
Not heroism. Not perfection. Just decency.
The Book of Ruth shows us that such a world is possible. Rabbi Akiva reminds us that building that world is, in fact, the whole point.
This Shavuot, let us recommit ourselves, fervently, joyfully, urgently, to that task.
Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach,
Rabbi Yoshi