Taste of Torah
2 Sivan 5786 / May 20, 2026

Shavuot
Standing at Sinai?
Torah Portion: Deuteronomy 14:22-16:17
​Maftir Portion: Numbers 28:26-31
Haftarah Portion: Habakkuk 3:1-19
Megillah: Ruth 1:1-4:22 [i]

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This week’s Taste of Torah is offered in honor of Matan Koch z”l, a disability rights activist known to many of the ISJL staff who last month passed away from cancer at the age of 44.

Tomorrow evening is Shavuot, the holiday where we celebrate the receiving of Torah at Mount Sinai. One of the traditions of the holiday is to stay up all night learning Torah; the community study session is termed a Tikkun Leil Shavuot.

About a decade ago, a synagogue in Boston hosted a “sermon slam” during its Shavuot celebration. The theme was “Standing at Sinai”– the metaphor drawn from the description in the Torah of the Israelites positioning themselves at the foot of the mountain in anticipation of revelation. 

Matan Koch, a wheelchair user, responded to the prompt:

I can’t stand. Can’t stand for a minute. Can’t stand briefly. Never could, never will.

I. Can’t. Stand.

And yet we all apparently stood at Sinai. All of us, past, present, and future, stood to receive our revelation. What does that mean for me? Was I not there? Was there no place for me who could not stand? Have I built an entire theology around a revelation where I wasn’t allowed in?[ii]

The Center for Disability Rights defines ableism as “a set of beliefs or practices that devalue and discriminate against people with physical, intellectual, or psychiatric disabilities and often rests on the assumption that disabled people need to be ‘fixed’ in one form or the other.”[iii] The idea that “we all apparently stood at Sinai,” as Koch points out, is ableist: It suggests that only people who have easy use of their legs were privileged to receive Torah that day. The idea limits the scope of who is included in this seminal communal moment that is meant to be one of radical inclusion. The theology is imperfect.

There are many ways to respond to the fact of this ableism in Torah, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that we should entirely dismiss the idea that we were all together at this moment. It most certainly doesn’t mean that we accept the notion that disabled people weren’t present at revelation. We can, however, look more closely at the language used in the Torah to describe this moment.

In a more traditional translation, we’re told of the preparation for matan Torah (“the giving of Torah”): “Moses led the people out of the camp toward God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain” (Exodus 19:17, emphasis added). The word translated as “stood” in Hebrew is vayit’yatz’vu, from the root yud-tzade-bet. It is not, in fact, the more common and literal word in Hebrew for “standing,” from the root ayin-mem-dalet (as in the amidah, sometimes referred to as “the standing prayer”). The root of the Hebrew word used in our verse means “to set or station oneself, to present oneself, to take one’s stand.”[iv] 

The connotation, therefore, is more about being grounded and ready than it is about literally resting on one’s feet. Indeed, more contemporary translations render vayit’yatz’vu as “they took their places,” or “they stationed themselves.”[v] That is something that everyone can do.

And so we make our way back to the radical inclusion intended by the well-meaning, though problematic, understanding that “we all stood at Sinai.” This week and this Shabbat, as we celebrate at Shavuot the incredible gift of Torah, may we do so knowing that all of us – disabled and able-bodied – are the rightful recipients of that gift. Matan Torah from Matan Koch: Torah truly belongs to all of us.

Shabbat Shalom!
Salem Pearce
Director of Spirituality

[i] In some communities, this Shabbat is the second day of Shavuot, which has special Torah, maftir (“additional”), and haftarah readings, plus the recitation of the book of Ruth. In North American communities that only celebrate one day of the holiday, the Torah reading this week is the first half of Parashat Naso (Numbers 4:21-5:3) and the first half of the parashah’s haftarah (Judges 13:2-12); the second half of both will be read next week.
[ii] Matan Koch, “Standing at Sinai: Sermon Slam,” May 28, 2015, accessed at https://www.matankoch.com/blog/2015/05/28/sermon-slam-standing-at-sinai.
[iii] Center for Disability Rights, accessed at https://cdrnys.org/blog/uncategorized/ableism/.
[iv] יָצַב, Brown-Driver-Briggs Dictionary, accessed at https://www.sefaria.org/BDB%2C_%D7%99%D6%B8%D7%A6%D6%B7%D7%91?lang=bi.
[v] A range of translations accessed via Sefaria.org at https://www.sefaria.org/Exodus.19.17?ven=english|Metsudah_Chumash,_Metsudah_Publications,_2009&lang=bi&with=Translations&lang2=en.

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