Recap for Thursday night learning, 4 Sivan, (discussion of Shavuos)

I want to thank David for hosting learning at his house last night.  We discussed the coming holiday of Shavuos, including commentary by Rav Malamed.

We discussed that there are 4 different names for the holiday.  They refer to Shavuos, the harvesting, the first fruits, and Hatzeret.  In particular, we discussed how the name, Hatzeret, is analogous to Shemini Hatzeret which occur on the 8^th day after Sukkot.  Both these days occur immediately after we have counted days and/or weeks to 7.

We talked about this number 7 and how it is common in Judaism and in the world around us.  For example, an object has 6 directions, top, bottom, right, left, up, and down, plus a 7^th dimension which indicates its essence.  We discussed how Hashem created the world in 7 days.  And we discussed how we have 7 days to our week. 

We discussed that when we add an 8^th day, for a Brit Milah, Shavuos, or Shemini Etzeres, this represents getting above nature.  We talked about how we count numbers up, rather than down, especially when counting the Omer.

We discussed how Shavuos is the only holiday that historically did not have a fixed day in the calendar.  We count 49 days after Pesach, and then the 50^th day is Shavuos.  Today, we do not use observers and judges to determine the new moon, so the day is fixed on the 6^th of Sivan, but historically it was not.

We discussed how we go through Pesach to get to Shavuos.  The exodus from Egypt meant to us that there is a God who is interested in human affairs, and this laid a foundation for us.  However in order to build on that foundation, it was necessary to count the Omer until the day we arrived at Mt. Sinai, to understand what God wanted us to be.  Today, we continue to count the Omer.  Each year we experience increasing spiritual growth, which is our foundation that we build on the following year.

This is a summary of what we discussed.  No halachic rulings are intended or should be inferred.