Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection is the one-stop shop for the Torah inspiration shared by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe in one simple feed. The Jewish Inspiration Podcast, Parsha Review Podcast, Thinking Talmudist Podcast, Living Jewishly Podcast and Unboxing Judaism Podcast all in one convenient place. Enjoy!
You're listening to Ravi Aryeh Wolbe, Director of TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.
All right, welcome back everybody to the Jewish Inspiration Podcast. We are now going to begin a short and sweet segment about the holiday of Shavuot, the incredible holiday of Shavuot. So, Shavuot is a two-day holiday that commemorates the date when the Jewish people received the revelation from God at Mount Sinai over 3,300 years ago. Now, there are three names given in the Torah for this holiday,
and one name given in the Talmud for this holiday. In the Torah, it says Chag HaShavuot, which is the festival of weeks, Chag HaKatzir, festival of reaping, of harvesting, Yom HaBikkurim, the day of the first fruits, and Atzeris in the Talmud, it says Atzeris, which means refraining or holding back, referring to the prohibition against work on Shavuot, and also to the conclusion of the Passover holiday season as Shavuot brings Passover to its actual close.
According to many of our sages, the beginning of Pesach is when Pesach begins, but the end of that holiday is one long holiday going all the way over the days of the Omer, all the way till Shavuot, and Shavuot is sort of the bookend for the holiday of Pesach, which is a very powerful time for us to realize that what started off with the Exodus now continues all the way till the Jewish people receive the Torah at Mount Sinai on this incredible day of Shavuot. So, Shavuot is the
second of the three festivals. We have Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot, and Pesach, we know, was the time when the Jewish people were redeemed from the land of Egypt, and then Shavuot is when we received the revelation at Mount Sinai, and then Sukkot is when we were camping out in the desert and we celebrate that incredible time when the Jewish people were living in the wilderness and had nothing to rely on but on the Almighty. So, this year, in 2023, Shavuos begins on the evening of
Thursday, May 25th, Thursday night, candle lighting will be at 7 55 p.m. Houston time, and then it ends Saturday night, Shabbos evening, on May 27th, 2023, at 8 53 p.m. Houston time. On Friday night, however, we are going to light candles for the second night and for Shabbos, and that should be done before 7 56 p.m. Houston time. So, that's just some of the technical stuff. Now, what's the background? So, the background of Shavuos, Shavuos means weeks, is celebrated at the completion of the
seven-week Omer counting period between Pesach and Shavuos. Shavuos also means, Shavua means oath. On this day, Hashem swore eternal devotion to us, and we, in turn, pledged everlasting loyalty to Hashem. So, it's not only the weeks, but it's also the oath, the promise that we made to keep our relationship with Hashem. Aside from the offerings, Shavuos was also a time when people would begin to bring their Bikurim, the first and choicest fruits, to thank Hashem for Israel's bounty.
Additionally, Shavuos is a time of the revelation at Mount Sinai. We committed to Hashem, and Hashem committed to us, that we're going to have a relationship just like a bride and groom commit to each other on the day of their wedding, that they're going to be with each other, care for each other, love each other through thick and thin, through good times and bad, through ups and downs, through health and sickness. We're always going to be there committed to Hashem.
And the revelation that we have at Mount Sinai, we need to understand, my dear friends, is not like any event that happened in the history of the world. Every history of every nation is based on an individual's claim. Yeah, Muhammad claims to have had a dream, and ironically, before he died, there were already 400 different versions of the Quran. Christianity has who knows how many versions of the New Testament, of the tale of what happened to their gods, did have happen, didn't happen. Nobody knows because nobody witnessed it.
Everyone got a different claim coming from this prophecy or this revelation. But every single Jew was there at Mount Sinai. There was no Jew that didn't experience that revelation at Mount Sinai. This was a public revelation where God spoke to each and every Jew, where each and every Jew combined the 600,000 men between the age of 20 and 60, and the women, and the children, and the adults, and the oncomers from Egypt who said, we realize that there must be a God of the Jewish people
and of the entire world, and we want to be with that God. And whatever it takes, we're going to be. And those were the Egyptian converts who came to join the Jewish people. We're talking about millions of people. This revelation happened in front of everyone. And what's interesting is that the Christians recognized that the Jews had a revelation at Mount Sinai. And the Muslims admit that the Jewish people had a revelation at Mount Sinai. Every nation, every religion believes that the Jewish people had this revelation at Mount Sinai
because it wasn't only a revelation that the Jewish people experienced, the entire world saw it and heard it and witnessed it. And that's something you can't deny. Public revelation is why we need, it's so important for us to stress this every year again and again, every day really, because a public revelation cannot be disputed. An example of this would be, imagine if I come to you right here today and I say, me, I'm your God because I took you out
of the woodlands and brought you to Galveston and we flew over the clouds and we split the waters at Galveston Beach. And therefore keep my commandments in every seventh year, don't touch your grains of your land and don't touch, and I give you all these commandments of things to do and not to do and keep this book because I brought you from the woodlands to Galveston. So there's a big trash bin right at the end of this torch center and I'm going to give you this
book with all these commandments and what are you going to do? You're going to turn around, you're going to say, thank you very much lunatic, we're out of here. Why? Because if everything I give you in this book is dependent on that revelation of me bringing you from the woodlands to Galveston and splitting the water and this and that, all these sort of, what? I don't know what you're talking about, never happened. The only way for the Jewish people to accept a Torah,
all of its commandments, all of its documentation, is only if it actually happened. And therefore it needs to be a public revelation. And if you look very carefully, other religions have a technique in how they get people to believe in it. Eternal damnation. Very Christian idea. Eternal damnation. If you don't believe in the Lord and Savior, then what happens? Eternal damnation. You're going to hell. They threaten you. Oh, I don't want to go to hell. I don't want eternal
damnation. So I must believe in this. And you take that leap of faith and you're good to go. In Islam, if you don't believe in the Quran, in the teachings of Muhammad, you're an infidel. And we put you to death. In Judaism there's no such thing. On the contrary, when someone comes to convert, what do we tell them? No, are you crazy? Are you crazy? Why would you want to convert to Judaism? Are we going to have 613 restrictions? No way. Why would you come convert to Judaism?
Someone really, really, really desperately needs to want and desire becoming Jewish. Because we say you have a perfect place in heaven by observing the seven Noahide laws. You don't need all 613. We're just the opposite of all the other nations. That's why the revelation at Mount Sinai is so important. It's so crucial for us to understand and to internalize this to ourselves, for ourselves, and to internalize this for our children. Internalize it into the bones of your children that they should know
God gave us a Torah at Mount Sinai. In front of le'ein e kol ha'edah, in front of everyone, everyone witnessed it. Our sages tell us even more that each one of us can visualize that revelation on Shavuot and we can hear that proclamation, as it was given at Mount Sinai. Those waves, those sound waves are still reverberating in the world and we can get it if we make ourselves a vessel worthy of accepting that revelation.
And then the last piece is that Shavuos, the holiday of Shavuos commemorates the wheat harvesting of the land of Israel, a culmination of the 49 days Omer count. So what are some of the laws? So firstly, Shavuos is observed like Shabbos. There's no driving or other creative labors. However, food preparation is permitted from an existing flame. Now, we know that you're not allowed to prepare from Shabbos to weekday. When someone comes to you, you know, there's a joke
that's told, this guy comes to shul on Shabbos and he says to his friend, he says, you know, you see my Lexus right out there? He says, Nishtav Shabbos, Gerret, let's not talk about it on Shabbos, but I'm selling it. He says, Nishtav Shabbos, Gerret, not to be discussed on Shabbos, how much do you want for it? He says, Nishtav Shabbos, Gerret, I'm asking for, you know, this and this amount of money. He says, oh, Nishtav Shabbos, Gerret, not to talk about it on
Shabbos, I might be interested. So he comes back to him a little while later. He says, you know, Nishtav Shabbos, Gerret, I think I'm gonna put an offer for your car. He says, Nishtav Shabbos, Gerret, not to be discussed on Shabbos, it's sold. So the idea is that we're not really supposed to do things on Shabbos. We're not supposed to conduct business on Shabbos. We're not supposed to plan for after Shabbos. The same law applies on holidays. You're not
supposed to plan or prepare from the holiday to the weekday. But what's about holiday to Shabbos? Like this year, Shavuos is going to be Thursday night, Friday, and then Shabbos as well. So we're going from weekday into holiday into Shabbos. Can we prepare on holiday to Shabbos? So there's a special mitzvah that our sages give us. It's called Eruv Tavshilon. Eruv like we do in Eruv, which combines the neighborhood into one domain. What we do is we make an Eruv Tavshilon, a
combination of the holidays. We take the holiday of the Shavuot and we take the holiday of Shabbos and we make it into one holiday, so to speak. And when we do that, we're allowing ourselves to prepare from Shavuos to Shabbos. So that's another thing is that in this year, if an Eruv Tavshilon is done, preparation for Shabbos is permitted on Yom Tov. If we don't do this Eruv Tavshilon, then it would be prohibited. Now, no creative labor is permitted on Shabbos, even though it's
also Yom Tov, even though it's also Shavuos, you're not allowed to do creative labor on Shabbos. And then carrying without an Eruv is permitted on Yom Tov only. Okay, so what are some of the customs, what do we do on this holiday of Shavuos? First is, we light candles. Just like we do every Shabbos, we usher in the Yom Tov like we do on Shabbos. And we gave, earlier we gave the exact candle lighting times. Again, Thursday we'll light at 7.55, on Friday at 7.56, before 7.56,
very important, because then it's going to go into Shabbos and we can't light it on Shabbos. And then, Saturday night, Shabbos and Yom Tov end at 8.54 p.m. Houston time. Okay, the second thing that we do that is very special on Yom Tov is that we have a festive meal and we celebrate with good foods and fine wine and we bring out the luxury foods. Why? Because this is a time where we're celebrating us together with the Almighty. We're celebrating and we're bringing this unity
of the Jewish people and God on this holiday of Shavuos. And therefore, we go all out and buy the finest meats and get the finest wines so that we can enjoy this time with the Almighty. That is four meals on the holiday. Thursday night, Friday day, Friday night, and Shabbos day. And Shabbos, anyway, we do that, so it's just an added bonus. Then there is a special mitzvah to learn Torah. The essence of the day is celebrating Torah. So we learn Torah. We take every opportunity
we can during the holiday of Shavuos and learn Torah. Now, we know that there's the custom, the age-old custom, to study Torah all night. But what happens is that many times people study Torah all night and then during the day they're all sleepy and they neglect to learn Torah during the day of Shavuos. That's a terrible disgrace for the holiday. A person should make it their business to learn at night, all night, but not to neglect the learning of Torah during
the day as well. So staying up all night, this shows excitement and anticipation. We can't wait. We're so excited. Imagine if you're about to go to Disneyland as a little child. You can't wait. You can't sleep the night before because, oh, I'm about to go to Disneyland. It's so exciting. I'm going on this vacation. It's going to be incredible. It's much greater than Disneyland. Lecha Avdolos, not to compare between holy and unholy, celebrating the Torah is the greatest
gift in the world. We are the luckiest people on earth that we have this manual that God gifted us in the Torah. Additionally, staying up all night is correcting previous mistakes because as the Israelites were preparing to receive the Torah, the night before they actually received the Torah, they overslept in the morning, the morning of that they were supposed to receive the Torah. So staying up all night fixes that missed opportunity. And we know that in
Judaism, Teshuvah is a big theme. Repentance. You can always correct your ways. And therefore, we take every Shavuos as an opportunity. Well, way back then, 3,300 plus years ago, the Jewish people overslept the morning of Shavuos. We're not going to do that anymore. We stay up all night. And Ed, you've been with me many years, learning all night. I'm expecting it again this year. And we learn all night and till the morning because we're so excited and so
pumped up about receiving the Torah that day. Now, there's an age-old custom to eat dairy on Shavuos. Now, my rabbi always said this is a mistaken custom because all you need is to drink a cup of coffee and you're good to go, right? You don't need to have cheesecakes and cheese platters and make all of these, you know, charcuterie boards with cheese and all of that stuff. It's not necessary. However, there is good source for it. So one of the explanations is that the
Torah is compared to milk and honey. And dairy foods symbolize the sweetness and richness of the Torah. That's number one. Especially Zahava's dairy meals are just second to none. Additionally, with the giving of the Torah, the Jews became obligated to observe the laws of kosher. The laws of kosher were not previously commanded upon the Jewish people. By the way, just interesting to note, when we stood at Mount Sinai and we said, Nas Evanishmo,
we will do and we will hear, that's when we became Jews. The Jewish people became a people at Mount Sinai. This is our birthday as a people. We became a people at Mount Sinai. Till then we were called Israelites, we were called the Hebrews, but now we're Jews. So we weren't commanded to the laws of kosher. As the Torah was given on Shabbos, no cattle could be slaughtered, nor could utensils be koshered on Shabbos, and thus on that day they were only able to eat dairy. So to commemorate that
commitment to the Torah and its laws, and not mixing milk and meat, and not having meat that's not kosher, and not having unslaughtered meat, and not having pots and pans that are koshered, they ate dairy, and therefore we do the same, we do the same in the holiday of Shavuos. The Torah is also likened to nourishing milk. Also, Hasidic twist on this is that the Hebrew word for milk is halav, which is chet lamed bet, which is eight, thirty, and two, which equals forty,
which totals the days that Moshe went up the mountain. So to commemorate Moses going up the mountain for 40 days, we eat that milk, that dairy. And since, so now we read the Ten Commandments in synagogue, it's also a custom that we do, we read it as part of the morning services on the first day of Shavuos. Since so many children come to that service to hear the Ten Commandments, and it's a custom, many people even bring little, little babies so that their ears can absorb the
sounds of the Ten Commandments. Many synagogues often have the custom to give the children after the reading of the Ten Commandments an ice cream party. Many synagogues do that. I never knew why they did it till I did the research on this, because ice cream generally is dairy. And like this, it's like a dairy candy that you're giving the children out, giving out to the children on Shavuos. Now another custom that we do is that we read the Book of Ruth. And we know there are
five Megillos, there are five scrolls as part of the writings, a part of the Ketuvim. And the Ketuvim is the third major category of Tanakh. We have the Torah, the Nevim, and the Ketuvim. The Torah, which is the Torah, the five books of Moses. We have the Nevim, which is the books of the prophets. And then we have the writings. And in the writings, we have the five scrolls. We have the Shir Hashim, the Song of Songs, which is read on Pesach. We have the Echa Lamentation, which is read
on Tish'abav. We have Koheles Ecclesiastes, which is read on Sukkot. And then Esther, the Book of Esther, which is read on Purim. And then finally, we have the Book of Ruth, which is read on Shavuot. Shavuot is harvest time, like we mentioned previously. And the events of the Book of Ruth occur during harvest time. But that's not enough of a reason. Shavuot is the day of the giving of the Torah. And the entry of the entire Jewish people into the covenant with Hashem is the theme
of the day. Ruth's conversion into Judaism and the consequent entry into that same covenant is described in this book. And therefore, it's so important for us to read this Book of Ruth, for us to be inspired, just like Ruth was not ready to go back and be a Moabite. She says, no, I'm all in on this commitment with Hashem. So, too, we should make that proclamation again every year on Shavuot. We read the Book of Ruth to tell us how important it is for us
to recommit ourselves, just as Ruth did. Additionally, we know that the descendant of Ruth was King David, whose genealogy appears at the end of the Book of Ruth. He was born and passed away on Shavuos. So that's another reason why we read the Book of Ruth. Additionally, the gematria, the numerical value of Ruth is 606. 606. We have the taf, we have the resh and the vav, which is 606, plus the seven Noahide laws that she was already observing equals the 613 commandments. It's
beautiful. Another central theme of the Book is loving-kindness, which is the cornerstone of Judaism. The cornerstone of the Torah is kindness. And Ruth teaches us to cherish our closeness with Hashem and to never give up. She never gave up. She's an example to each and every one of us that through thick and thin, we keep our commitment and we keep our promise to the Almighty. Now, there's an age-old custom to say Akdamus Milin. Akdamus Milin is an Ashkenazic custom. It was
actually, it is a 90-line poem in Aramaic in the order of the Aleph Bet. Now, interestingly, the liturgical poem extols the greatness of Hashem, the Torah, and Israel. Each line ends with the syllables ta or sa, which is the taf and the Aleph, the last letter and the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, alluding to the endlessness of the Torah. The Torah is so deep. The Torah is so wide. There is no limit to the Torah. It is wide as the earth, as deep as the ocean.
It spans everything. There's no limit to the Torah. It's like saying, when will torch run out of material of Torah to do podcasts and teach Torah? Never, ever. Like we have an endless material of Torah. That's how great the Torah is. And that's why at the end of each of those lines in this Akdamus Milin poem, it ends with sa telling us the beginning, the end, there's no beginning, no end. It's just so vast. It's so deep. It is incredible. Also,
the traditional melody that accompanies the poem conveys a sense of grandeur and triumph, which is the royalty of this day. Another great custom is that the homes and shuls are decorated with greenery, flowers, and sweet-smelling plants. So number one is the sweetness of the Torah. This resembles the Talmud explains that from each and every utterance of the Ten Commandments that emerged from the mouth of the Holy One, Hashem, the entire world was filled with incredible fragrance. It was just a delicious smell and aroma that emanated from Mount Sinai,
from these revelations. Additionally, Moshe had an incredible miracle on this day. We know that Moshe was born on the 7th of Adar. Moshe's mother put him into a reed basket in the Nile, in the reeds, three months later. What day was that? The 7th of Sivan, the day of the receiving of the Torah. So this day actually commemorates a great miracle. And because he had that greenery protect till Batya found him the daughter of Pharaoh, we celebrate that greenery and we thank Hashem for
that miracle by dressing up our homes and our synagogues with that greenery as well. Additionally, Bikurim, we mentioned previously that this was the harvesting festival. Additionally, Shavuot marked the start of the session for bringing Bikurim, the first fruits to the Holy Temple. We therefore decorate with greenery and flowers in remembrance of the custom to adorn the baskets of the Bikurim, as well as the oxen leading the procession with flowers and greenery. Now the synagogues, some
synagogues decorate the bima with a canopy of flowers. They have like an entire canopy like a chuppah over where the Torah is read, filled with flowers and plants so that it resembles a chuppah. As Shavuos mystically, our sages tell us, refers to the day of the matchmaker, Moses, when he brought the bride, the Jewish people, to the chuppah, Mount Sinai, to marry the bridegroom, the Almighty, and the ketubah was given, which is the marriage contract, which is the Torah. Now many communities
read a special ketubah between God and Israel. I have a copy of it here in my book right in front of me, which was written, this was written by Reb Yisrael Najara, who was one of the great Kabbalistic sages, who wrote this incredible ketubah talking about the relationship between God and Israel. Now the Vilna Goan did not like this custom of the greenery. He said it too much was similar to other religions and how they celebrated certain holidays, so therefore the
Vilna Goan was against it. The custom today is that we do flower up our synagogues and many synagogues, if you go to the Sephardic synagogue, Beit Rambam, they have beautiful bouquets of flowers all around this synagogue. It really is incredible. Another custom is that we say Yizkor. Yizkor is the memorial service which is recited as part of the morning service on the second day of Shavuos, the first day in Israel, where we implore Hashem to remember the souls of our relatives and friends
that have passed on. Yizkor is recited in the synagogue four times a year, following the Torah reading on the last day of Pesach, the second day of Shavuos, Shemini Atzeros, which is the last day of Sukkot, and on Yom Kippur. Now, we know that the Torah was given at Mount Sinai on Shavuot, but the truth is the Torah was not given on Shavuot. Our sages tell us that what was given on Shavuot was the revelation at Mount Sinai. That was given on Shavuot, not the actual Torah, meaning
the revelation of the Ten Commandments carry in them, in those Ten Commandments, the entire Torah. Everything of the Torah is encapsulated in the Ten Commandments, and everything in the Ten Commandments is encapsulated in the First Commandment. And our sages tell us everything in that First Commandment is encapsulated in the first letter, the letter Aleph. The letter Aleph is the word Aleph, which means master, where we're saying that if we understand our relationship with God, we understand the First Commandment and the Ten Commandments and all of the commandments of the
Torah that are derived from it. All its purpose, its essence, is the relationship with Hashem. So we mentioned previously that there's nothing tangible on this day. We have no shofar, we have no four species, we have no sukkah, we have no menorah, no matzah, no four cups. Every holiday has some character. It has something tangible. Where is the tangibleness of Shavuos? Our sages tell us Shavuos is an internal holiday. It's a holiday that demonstrates our deep connection with Hashem
through His Torah. We need to feel that deep connection with Hashem. It's not about having a shofar. It's not about exercising our external functions. It's about our internal connection with God. We become that item of Shavuot. Not the shofar. Me, each individual, becomes that vessel, becomes that item, that tangible item that we celebrate on this holiday. It's a special mitzvah to enjoy, like we mentioned, with good food and good wines on the holiday because God says we're now family, we're husband and wife.
This is a union of the Jewish people and our Creator. Hashem should bless us all that this should be the most incredible Shavuos ever. We should merit to receive that Torah anew, that it should be fresh, it should be rich in our lives, rich in our children's lives. And like we bless, we ask Hashem every single morning, make the words of your Torah sweet in our lips. That for us, our descendants, and for our children's children's, all the way to the end of the generations, the Torah should always be reverberating in their lips, in their homes, in their communities. We should always feel that closeness and that connection with the Torah. Have a beautiful Yom Tov, my dear friends. I look forward to celebrating many more holidays together. Amen.