This Shabbos we discussed the upcoming holiday of Shavuos, including commentary from Rav Malamed. We also discussed Parsha Bamidbar, including commentary from Rav Males and Rav Yeager. David Schlesinger led discussion.
Rav Males shared his thoughts on the parsha, and how we were asked by Hashem to do a census. He brought up an interesting question, which is why did Hashem need us to do a census, when Hashem already knows everything? There were several answers to this question that Rav Males brought up. First, the census gave us an opportunity to meet personally with Moshe, or at least with the leaders of the tribes. Secondly, this census gave us a chance to be more than just numbers, but to be names as well, which is something that Rav Yeager also brought up.
Franco pointed out another interesting reason for the census, which is that it gave Moshe the opportunity to hear something positive, other than all the complaints and arguments he must have had to listen to up until this time. The census gave everyone a chance to see how our numbers had grown, and hopefully to see the role that Hashem had played in our success as a nation. One of the ideas we have discussed at our learning a lot, is that although Hashem is capable of doing everything, such as doing a census, he wants us to do this type of work on our own and not rely on him for everything, which is why he asked us to do it.
We discussed the upcoming holiday of Shavuos. We discussed how Shavuos has many meanings, one of them is that historically it was the time of the first wheat harvest. The perhaps most well known meaning of Shavuos, is that this holiday commemorates the time of our receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai. We discussed how today without a Temple, there is no Torah mandated mitzvah on this holiday, other than following the usually halakuh for Yom Tov, which includes work prohibitions.
We discussed how Shavuos represents the height of the fundamental idea of Judaism, that our purpose is not to reject physicality, but to bring spirituality to the physical world. David spoke about how we can elevate the most mundane objects. One of the questions I asked is how we could possibly elevate un-kosher food. We discussed how the purpose of unkosher food, is to bring more significance to that which is kosher. If unkosher food did not exist, and we could eat any food, we would not have the same significance in elevating kosher food to a spiritual level.
Dave W pointed out that we read the Book of Ruth every year on Shavuos. He spoke about how Ruth first came to Israel during the time of this holiday, and her acceptance of the Jewish faith being analogous to our acceptance of the Torah, which we commemorate on this holiday. This all shows us that the acceptance of the Torah does not only take place on Mt. Sinai, but can take place at different times, as it did for Ruth. Everyday we all hopefully accept the Torah.
There are several customs that we do on Shavuos, that we discussed. One of these is to study all night, or as long as we can without significantly affecting our ability to function the next day. It is believed that this custom, comes from the Zocar and Kabballah. Another custom is to consume dairy and honey on this holiday. We discussed that this doesn’t mean we forego our normal consumption of meat on Yom Tavim. We may be able to start off eating dairy, and then finish up later with a meat meal.
A very interesting idea that was brought up, is that by having dairy and honey, we symbolize making “good” out of something that initially would seem like an undesirable thing. Milk comes from a live animal, which normally would not be considered kosher, and honey comes from a bee, which is an un-kosher insect. However, honey and milk are considered kosher. This is a lesson for us that we can apply to our everyday lives, that we can often make "good" out of "bad", and turn negatives into positives. David’s father, Rav Dr. Geroge Schlesinger, shared this idea many times with his articles and work on the problem of evil and virtuous response to suffering, that we can often make good out of our reaction to something negative and/or undesirable.
We discussed how Shavuos is the only holiday that historically did not have a fixed date on the calander. Once Pesach was determined, Shavuos would occur after 49 days, regardless of which day this fell. Of course today, we don’t have judges determining the new month based on witnesses accounting of the moon, so we know the date of Shavuos without having to count, but we still go through the process of counting the days in the Omer.
We discussed how Shavuos is to Pesach, as Shemini Atzeras is to Sukkot. However the reason why Shavuos can not occur immediately after Pesach, is because it takes time for us to raise ourselves spiritually to a level in which we are ready to receive the Torah. We count the Omer between Pesach and Shavuos, so we are aware of how far away the receiving of the Torah is to occur, and can measure our progress in getting ready for this event which will be soon occurring.
We discussed how with Shavuos we are at a very high point. This is why we were able to bring bread into the temple as a sacrifice. With Pesach, we commemorate freedom from slavery, and becoming aware of Hashem's existance. With Shavuos, we commemorate the reason for our redemption, which is to receive the Torah at Mt. Sinai, and use it as a blueprint for how to bring spirituality to the physical world we live in.
Dave W pointed out that we read the Book of Ruth every year on Shavuos. He spoke about how Ruth first came to Israel during the time of this holiday, and her acceptance of the Jewish faith being analogous to our acceptance of the Torah, which we commemorate on this holiday. This all shows us that the acceptance of the Torah does not only take place on Mt. Sinai, but can take place at different times, as it did for Ruth. Everyday we all hopefully accept the Torah.
There are several customs that we do on Shavuos, that we discussed. One of these is to study all night, or as long as we can without significantly affecting our ability to function the next day. It is believed that this custom, comes from the Zocar and Kabballah. Another custom is to consume dairy and honey on this holiday. We discussed that this doesn’t mean we forego our normal consumption of meat on Yom Tavim. We may be able to start off eating dairy, and then finish up later with a meat meal.
A very interesting idea that was brought up, is that by having dairy and honey, we symbolize making “good” out of something that initially would seem like an undesirable thing. Milk comes from a live animal, which normally would not be considered kosher, and honey comes from a bee, which is an un-kosher insect. However, honey and milk are considered kosher. This is a lesson for us that we can apply to our everyday lives, that we can often make "good" out of "bad", and turn negatives into positives. David’s father, Rav Dr. Geroge Schlesinger, shared this idea many times with his articles and work on the problem of evil and virtuous response to suffering, that we can often make good out of our reaction to something negative and/or undesirable.
We discussed how Shavuos is the only holiday that historically did not have a fixed date on the calander. Once Pesach was determined, Shavuos would occur after 49 days, regardless of which day this fell. Of course today, we don’t have judges determining the new month based on witnesses accounting of the moon, so we know the date of Shavuos without having to count, but we still go through the process of counting the days in the Omer.
We discussed how Shavuos is to Pesach, as Shemini Atzeras is to Sukkot. However the reason why Shavuos can not occur immediately after Pesach, is because it takes time for us to raise ourselves spiritually to a level in which we are ready to receive the Torah. We count the Omer between Pesach and Shavuos, so we are aware of how far away the receiving of the Torah is to occur, and can measure our progress in getting ready for this event which will be soon occurring.
We discussed how with Shavuos we are at a very high point. This is why we were able to bring bread into the temple as a sacrifice. With Pesach, we commemorate freedom from slavery, and becoming aware of Hashem's existance. With Shavuos, we commemorate the reason for our redemption, which is to receive the Torah at Mt. Sinai, and use it as a blueprint for how to bring spirituality to the physical world we live in.
This is a summary of what we discussed. No halachic rulings are intended or should be inferred.
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