Shavuot

The Gift of Torah-in Whatever Doses We Receive it

Jenny R. Labendz, 5763

Shavuot is probably the most easily and frequently passed by of Jewish holidays. On Pesah we have the seder, on Sukkot we have our big sukkot to sit in, on Purim we have costumes, on Hanukah we have hanukiot, and on the high holidays we have shofarot, fasting, and very long tefillot. What do we have on Shavuot? Cheese cake. The most well-known custom regarding Shavuot is to eat dairy.

Why are there so few laws and customs about Shavuot? In halakhic codes, the laws of Shavuot are so brief that they generally do not even have a section all to themselves; they're just tucked away as an appendix to the laws of Pesah.

Shavuot is "זְמַן מַתַּן תּוֹרָתֵינוּ", the holiday of the giving of our Torah. Sixteenth century Kabbalists developed a custom called "tikkun leyl shavuot", in which we stay up all night learning Torah. More than wandering in the desert, and even more than being liberated from slavery in Mitzrayim, the giving of the Torah is the most central memory we have in terms of what has shaped us as Jews and as a people. Torah, in the broad sense, is the source of our wisdom, our ritual, our language (i.e., the set of images and expressions that we commonly use to convey ideas), and our liturgy, not to mention that which we spend SO much of our time studying. Of course Shavuot doesn't have a ritual like the other holidays; what ritual could capture something so enormous and all-encompassing???

The main thing we can do to mark the significance of the giving of the Torah is to study Torah. Learning is the first step toward the Torah being of any use to us; we have to know what's in it. But how frustrating that endeavor can be when we consider its vital importance: What if I don't really understand what I'm learning? What if I'm getting it all wrong? What if I'm just no good at this? I want to have a relationship with Torah and with Judaism, but I don't understand what I'm learning! Hopefully, we do not fall into this flawed hole too often. But even those of us who spend every day in a beit midrash occasionally get to that point of feeling that we're not doing it well enough, that we haven't REALLY understood. When that humble realization collides with the knowledge of how preciously important learning is, it can produce a very difficult feeling.

The Talmud in Massekhet Eruvin 13b says:

These two statements appear to be in contradiction. First we said that no one could understand him, and then we said that he was the great enlightener!

Perhaps they are not contradictory after all. The language of the first statement in Hebrew is "שלא יכלו חביריו לעמוד על סוף דעתו" -- his colleagues could not understand his logic to its end. They did not understand him 100%. But when they left his classroom, did they know more than they did coming in? Absolutely. R. Meir is called the enlightener based on whatever proportion of his Torah that his students and friends could understand.

So if a teacher is called the enlightener even though not EVERYTHING he said was understood, how much the moreso must we as students be happy (not just complacent, but happy) with whatever amount of Torah we walk out of a room with that we didn't have when we walked in.

As we approach Shavuot and relive the giving of the Torah, celebrating it with vigorous learning in our leyl tikkun, may we all be blessed with insights and understanding. And in those inevitable moments when insights and understanding seem so far away, may we be blessed with a healthy and happy perspective on whatever Torah we receive, in whatever small or great doses it comes.