Emor
Leviticus 21:1-24:23
Ezekiel 44:15-31
In Parashat Emor we are commanded to count each day for 49 days, starting from the second night of Pesach leading up to the holiday on which we received the Torah, Shavuot. We do this with great anticipation as we struggle with self-improvement so that we may be worthy of the precious gift of Torah.
Yet it is interesting that the Torah does not specifically state in this parashah or any other parashah that the Torah was actually given on Shavuot.
We learn that information from our fathers and our tradition as well as from the suggestion in Exodus 19:1 describing the giving of the Torah with the words, “In the third month” (i.e., Sivan).
In the Torah, Shavuot is referred to only as a harvest holiday when the first fruits (bikkurim) were brought up to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The commentators point out this absence and offer reasons for it.
The Akeidah suggests that the receiving of the Torah unlike other mitzvot does not depend on time. The Torah is received at all times as it states in Joshua 1:8: “This book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth and you shall meditate in it day and night.” The words of the Torah must always feel new and invaluable to us as if we had just received them, according to Deuteronomy 26:16: “This day the Lord your G-d is commanding you.” Therefore the Torah does not designate a special time for the receiving of the Torah and refers only to the bikkurim in regard to Shavuot.
Abarbanel holds that the link between Shavuot and the giving of the Torah is coincidental.
We read in our parsha (Leviticus 23:21) “And you shall proclaim on the same day that it may be a holy convocation unto you.” Although it is the day when the Torah was given, the day receives its holiness from the harvest and the bringing of the bikkurim. There is no need to make a special day to remember this exalted historical event.
Torah and prophecy are the ongoing testimony and remembrance of this occurrence.
Abarbanel goes on to explain the connection between Pesach and Shavuot. On Pesach we brought an omer of barley as an offering. Barley is a grain normally used for animal fodder. When we left Egypt we lacked Torah and culture, making us close to animals. On Shavuot we received the Torah and acquired intelligence and understanding. We were then commanded to bring a minchah chadashah, a meal offering of the new crop. This symbolized G-d putting a new spirit into us.
The minchah consisted of two loaves of bread, the food of civilized and cultured people. The counting between Pesach and Shavuot is also symbolic, suggesting our longing to receive the Torah and to elevate ourselves to be a holy nation and a kingdom of priests.
Rabbi David Zvi Hoffman offers this explanation for the lack of a specific mention of the giving of the Torah on Shavuot. He says that the vision of Sinai was never to be made into a physical symbol.
The Jews were to inscribe on their hearts that they did not see any picture on the day G-d spoke to them out of the fire lest they fall into the trap of creating graven images. The Jews must simply remember the great event and celebrate the harvest on the day the Torah was given. The reason there is not even the slightest mention of a link between the giving of the Torah and Shavuot is that there were to be no material symbols of the event in which the Divine Presence revealed itself.
Hoffman teaches that essentially Shavuot is to be seen as the conclusion of Pesach. The giving of the Torah was the completion of the freedom the Jews acquired on Pesach. Pesach is the beginning of the harvest and Shavuot is its end just as Pesach is the beginning of the process of liberation of the Jewish people and we count 49 until Shavuot, its culmination.
Without our receiving the Torah at Sinai on Shavuot, the liberation from Egypt would have left us a free people, but without the necessary tools to rise to our potential of becoming a great moral nation.
Shabbat Shalom.