Have you ever met someone who keeps every Jewish law perfectly, but you can tell they’ve never thought for themselves? Have you ever met someone who questions everything, who finds new meaning in every text, who makes Torah feel alive, yet you sense they’re building on quicksand?
Shavuos is essentially the Jewish answer to this tension.
The Gemara tells a remarkable story. Moses ascends to heaven and finds G-d tying tiny crowns onto the letters of the Torah. Moses asks: why the decorations? G-d answers: there will be a man, named Akiva ben Yosef, who will derive mountains of Jewish law from every single one of these crowns.
Moses says: show him to me.
He’s transported forward in time and sits in Rabbi Akiva’s class. He didn’t understand what was being taught. Moses, who received the Torah directly from G-d, couldn’t follow the class?! Moses was sad, “His strength waned”.
A student asks Rabbi Akiva: where does this law come from? Rabbi Akiva answers: it’s a halacha transmitted to Moses from Sinai.
Moses’ mind was put at ease.
Since Torah tells us that Moses was the most humble person who ever lived, this can’t be about ego. Something much deeper is going on.
The Mishna uses two Hebrew words to describe two kinds of people: a bor and a be’er. A bor is a cistern, it holds water put in from the outside. A be’er is a well, it generates water from within. Both contain water. However, only the well is alive.
Rabbi Akiva didn’t learn to read until he was 40. He then became the greatest be’er of his generation, a living spring of Torah insight. How? Because even his most creative, mind-bending interpretations were ultimately rooted in what Moses received at Sinai. The creativity and novelty were real for the foundation was unshakable.
G-d wants that from each of us. Not just to carry Torah but to live it. Wrestle with it. Ask what it’s actually saying to you, in your life, right now.
However, creativity without a solid Torah foundation is not everlasting.
When we only go by what feels right, what resonates, what seems meaningful in the moment, we’re not discovering truth. We’re just hearing our own voice echo back at us. The ego is very good at disguising itself as spiritual insight.
That’s not be’er. That’s still just a bor being filled with your own thoughts instead of anyone else’s.
What kept Rabbi Akiva’s genius honest? The same thing that reassured Moses: a transmission, a chain, a foundation that doesn’t shift based on how you’re feeling that day. Moses was worried that maybe Akiva was just making things up until he realized Akiva traced everything back to the same source. Real creativity in Judaism isn’t about replacing the foundation. It’s about going deeper into it.
You are meant to question, push, explore, and find new meaning. But every time you do, you check: does this connect? Is there a Sinai at the root of this?
Practically, this means two things.
First: don’t coast. Ask questions. Figure out what the Torah is actually saying to you, now. If a mitzvah feels hollow, that’s not a reason to drop it, it’s an invitation to go deeper.
Second: keep coming back to the foundation. When you feel strongly that something is spiritually true, run it against the tradition. Not to suppress your insight, but to verify it. The best insights always hold up.
Be a be’er. Find your own water. Discover your own depths.
And make sure you know where Sinai is.
Chag Sameach and Good Shabbos,
Rabbi Kushi Schusterman