In The Shadow Of Sinai
by Velvel "Wally" Spiegler

Shavuot, one of the three major festivals, has a way of slipping by us almost unnoticed.  In the book of Exodus (chapter 23), God commands the Israelites to hold three festivals a year—Pesach, Succot and Shavuot—when all males shall appear before the Lord with sacrificial offerings. The festivals required long and tedious journeys by foot from all parts of ancient Israel to the Temple in Jerusalem, and on Shavuot the pilgrims were to offer the first fruits of the harvest.  What was originally an agricultural holiday evolved through the centuries to become a festival of great spiritual significance.

The sacrificial offerings enumerated in Leviticus 23:17 were specific: you shall bring from your settlements two loaves of leavened bread, as bikkurim (first fruits) and a designated number of bulls, goats and lambs. Then the tone of Shavuot is set in Deuteronomy with the mandate that each Israelite brings a freewill contribution according to the abundance of produce that God granted him. It was the leavened bread, however, that set Shavuot apart from the other holidays. Sacrifices had always consisted of domesticated animals, grains and fruits. But leavened bread is the natural product from the land combined with man’s effort of mixing, kneading and baking; a cooperative venture between God and man.

The sages of the Talmud, during the compilation of the Mishnah, sought a special occasion in which to honor the awe-inspiring event of receiving the Torah on Sinai. Since the Revelation seemed to coincide with the seven-week period of counting the Omer after the exodus from Egypt, the “Giving of the Torah” was assigned to Shavuot. Without the opportunity for further agricultural celebrations after the destruction of the Temple, Shavuot came to be identified primarily with  “Matan Torah” the giving of the Law on Sinai.

How do we account for the majestic awe attributed to the events at Sinai, with thunder and lightening, with smoke engulfing the mountain and the voice of God breaking through the blast of the horns?  What does it mean to us in this day and age?  Rabbi Zalman Schacter once put it this way, “While the giving of the Torah is what God does on Shavuot, our role is to receive it. During the Omer we prepare by forming ourselves into vessels to receive the Torah. Each of us creates a receptacle made of our needs and questions. This process precipitates the drawing down out of a universe saturated with blessings just those things that your vessel requires. This is each persons Torah”.

Rabbi Schacter prevails upon us to realize that each one of us is a unique individual with unlimited possibilities for spiritual growth. Just as Pesach ushered in springtime accompanied by the rebirth of nature, Shavuot, analogous to summer’s ripening produce, suggests our own personal growth. Pesach is not the culmination of our liberation; but it’s the inception, to be fostered every day of the year. By the same token, Shavuot expresses our on-going potential for spiritual fulfillment.

After the Shavuot evening services, especially among the more observant communities, there is a custom of sitting up all night to study passages of the Torah and its related writings.  This ritual, developed by the 16th Century mystics of Safed, is known as Tikkun Leyl Shavuot, the repair of the night of Shavuot.  It speaks to us of healing, repair and how it is to come about. Shavuot means “weeks” or the Feast of Weeks; it falls out just seven weeks after the second day of Passover. The morning services proceed according to the order any other festival liturgy including the recitation of Hallel, specified songs of praise to God. Sometime during the service, a period is reserved for the chanting of the book of Ruth, much like Song of Songs is recited on Pesach. No one is certain of the reason why we include “Ruth” on Shavuot.  Some say that King David was both born and died on Shavuot, and he was a descendent of Ruth.

What we need now to emphasize the significance of this festival is some new meaningful approach, in which we can all participate. Not many would sit all night immersed in intellectual analysis, but all of us could select several relevant verses of Torah, and bring some personal meaning into it as our way of receiving the Torah on Sinai. The source of Jewish inspiration is to be found in the Torah. In one view, Torah is the mediation point between God and the Jewish people. “The Pentateuch”, writes Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, “is God’s Torah; each one of us is our own Torah whose purpose in life is to align our Torah to His Torah. The reading for the first morning of Shavuot is Exodus 19 and 20, which encompasses the drama portraying the Giving of the Law. We could create such scenarios, for example, as—imagine yourself as one of the Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai at the moment of the revelation. How do you picture the scene at the foot of the mountain? What sounds can you hear?  What does this all mean to you? In the second Commandment, God tells you not to worship sculptured images. Why is He so concerned about this injunction? Why does idolatry seem to have such a negative connotation in Jewish tradition? What do you think sculptured images represent? Have you ever made sculptured images in the past? Will you make them again? From some of our responses, we could hopefully envision just what it means to receive the Torah

One final note of interest: the festivals and holidays debated in the Talmud are probed in the second of its Six Orders, Mo’ed (Appointed Times) that deal with the laws of Sabbath and the Festivals. Shavuot is the only festival included in the first order, Zera’im (Seeds), that deals with the laws of agriculture. There is something uniquely different about Shavuot, something that we should perhaps pay closer attention to.