This week as we read about God giving the Torah to the Jewish people at Sinai, it struck me that the Torah doesn’t seek a separation of church and state. The opposite is true. The Torah speaks to all aspects of life. If the separation of church and state relies on an understanding that some matters lie outside the scope of religion, the Torah, particularly as interpreted by the rabbis, sees all aspects of life as religious. There is nothing that is secular. Of course, the Torah was written in ancient times when the notion of secularism was non-existent. The Jewish Publication Society Torah Commentary says it well: “Another extraordinary Israelite innovation is the amalgamation of what in modern times would be classified separately as “religious” and “secular,” or social, obligations. This distinction is meaningless in a biblical context, where both categories alike are accepted as emanating from God.”

       In the modern world, ritual, rather than legal aspects of Torah have been emphasized because we live by American law. Even in the State of Israel, Torah is not the law of the land. If it were,  any Israeli Jew who violated the traditional Shabbat laws would be liable for capital punishment. Torah and Jewish law is a discipline that Jews take on voluntarily.. The JPS Torah commentary continues: “The idea of the covenant is a self-enforcing document. The motivation for fulfilling its stipulations is not fear of retribution but the desire to conform to divine will, reinforced by the spiritual discipline and moral fiber of the individual.”

       This outlook explains why we can favor the separation of church and state and yet think that all of life is part of Torah. How we seek to live our  lives does not require the imposition of our values and practices on everyone around us. We can see our responsibility to create a compassionate society as part of the legacy of having been slaves in Egypt. We can rest on Shabbat/Saturday without needing  everyone else in society to do the same. While observing Judaism, we can also appreciate that others make different choices.
      That is why the Torah portion about the most important moment in Jewish history—the receiving of the Torah at Sinai—is called after Moses’ non-Jewish father-in-law, Yitro. Yitro instructs Moses how to establish a judicial system. Torah exists in the context of a much larger universe. It is in a diverse context that it continues to grow---being a tree of life/eitz hayim.