Pre Shavuot Learning

During our pre Shavuot learning, we learned about the holiday of Shavuot which occurs 50 days after Pesach. I would like to thank David S for hosting and leading the learning and Yaki for bringing back another great book from Israel. This is a summary of what we learned and discussed.

Although today Shavuot occurs on a specific date, it is the only holiday that was not mandated to occur on a specific date. The holiday is mandated to occur 50 days after Pesach regardless of when we would observe the new moon. This is a very important holiday. It is believed that Hashem would have reversed the course of man and returned us to a “wild state” if we had not accepted the Torah. We discussed how we actually waited an additional day before actually receiving the Torah, but we celebrate on the 50th day because this is when Hashem made the Torah available to us.

We discussed how Shavuot is also known as Yom Habikurm , day of the first fruits, and Chag HaKatzir, Harvest festival. This is the beginning of the harvest of the first fruits, and in ancient times we would make sacrifices of this first fruit. And unlike Pesach, we would offer up bread during these sacrifices. Shavuot is also known as Atzeret, which means stoppage. This refers to the fact that we do not work on Shavuot.

Shavuot is known as a “wedding” between Hashem and the Jewish people. We commit to be loyal to Hashem, and Hashem commits to be devoted to us. Shavuot is also a wedding between the physical and spiritual, and between the body and soul. Pesach is known as a holiday of the physical world, we are physically free from Egypt. On Shavuot we learn to view the physical through the lens of the Torah and have a holiday that is also spiritual.

As this is a holiday of applying spirituality to the physical, we go ahead and enjoy ourselves physically. As with other holidays we eat our best food and drink. But we also feed our souls and it is customary to stay up all night learning on the first day of Shavuot. This puts us in a proper state for the day to come.

We discussed how Hashem did create us to have an evil inclination. We discussed how we slept in and were not ready to receive the Torah on time. But there does not have to be a conflict between the spiritual and our physical needs. We can learn how to elevate the physical into spiritual dimensions. The Torah is our guide as to how to do this, and how to use our free will to serve Hashem and do Tikkun Olam, which is to make the world a better place.

It is customary to eat milk and honey on Shavuot. Milk comes from a live animal, and honey comes from an insect.  So it would seem that these would not be kosher.  But milk and honey are kosher. With milk and honey we see that we can take something undesirable, negative and/or unhealthy, and extract from it something desirable, positive and healthy for us. We can turn a negative into a positive. We can apply the same concept to events in our life. Take an event such as a loss, and turn it into a positive by allowing what we lost to inspire us to do some good and Tikkun Olam. This is some of what we discussed at our learning and what the holiday of Shavuot is about.