The Phantom Days of Shavuot

ESSAY:
The Phantom Days of Shavuot
Why six-sevenths of the festival of Shavuot is not a festival at all

Yes and No
A doctrine for life in a binary world

You have chosen us from all the nations; You loved us and desired us; You raised us above all the tongues, and You sanctified us with Your commandments

Our sages relate that when the people of Israel stood at Sinai and G-d spoke the Ten Commandments, so overwhelming was the experience that “with each and every utterance, their souls flew from their bodies.”[1]

We can perhaps envision “being blown” away by an utterance such as “I am the L-rd your G-d.” But what of such pedestrian commandments as “Honor your father and your mother” and “Do not steal”? Other than the fact that they were spoken by G-d, there seems nothing divine or transcendent about them. Indeed, need G-d descend upon a mountaintop for us to appreciate the necessity of these laws?

The day we stood at Sinai (the 6th of Sivan, marked each year by the festival of Shavuot) is more than the day we received the Torah from G-d. This was also the occasion on which the Almighty chose us as His people.[2]

What was the significance of this choice? While still in Egypt, G-d already referred to us as “My firstborn child, Israel.”[3] More than 400 years earlier, G-d had “found [Abraham’s] heart faithful before [Him], and entered with him into the covenant” which deeded the Holy Land to his descendants and established them as the bearers of G-d’s word to humanity.[4] What new degree of chosenness did we gain at Sinai?

“Choice” exists on many levels. A person might choose something because of its positive qualities—because it is the most tasty dish on the menu, the most attractive suit of clothes on the rack or the most lucrative job offer. But these are “compelled” choices—the positive qualities of these things have dictated that they be chosen. A true choice is a free choice—a choice that is not influenced by anything, a choice that is a pure expression of the chooser’s quintessential desire.

When G-d chose Abraham because “He found his heart faithful before Him,” this was not a choice in the ultimate sense of the word. Here was a man who, alone in a pagan world, had discovered the One G-d, and had devoted his life to bringing a monotheistic faith and ethos to mankind. Whom else would G-d choose when selecting a man to father a nation that will serve as the harbingers of His truth to the world?

In Egypt, too, we were chosen for our qualities. True, two centuries of subjugation to the most debased society on earth had taken their toll—we had sunk into “the forty-nine gates of impurity,” assuming the pagan mores of our enslavers. But throughout it all, we clung to our identity as Jews and our faith in G-d.[5] Most importantly, we never forgot our promised destiny as G-d’s people, and yearned for the promised redemption with every fiber of our being. Indeed, those who did not wish to be redeemed were not included in the divine choice. The Midrash tells us that only 20% of the Jewish people were taken out of Egypt; the rest, who preferred slavery in a hedonist land to a covenant with G-d in the desert, perished in the three days of darkness prior to the Exodus.[6]

But at Sinai we were truly chosen, in a choice free of all reasons and conditions. At Sinai was established that “A Jew, although he has sinned, is a Jew,”[7] simply because he is the object of G-d’s quintessential choice.

“As water mirrors the face it is shown, so does the heart of one man to another,”[8] and so does the soul of man respond to her Creator. When G-d chose us for our positive qualities, we responded in kind, choosing Him for His “positive qualities.” We appreciated His greatness and His love for us. We understood that a life devoted to serving Him is a life most beneficial to ourselves, both materially and spiritually. We recognized that only our relationship with Him would imbue our existence with purpose and significance.

When G-d chose us at Sinai, we again responded in kind. When there He chose with a choice free of motive or reason, we, too, choose Him thus. Our bond to Him no longer depends on His love for us, or on the benefits of being His people. Our commitment to His laws has nothing to do with the wisdom and righteousness they display. We chose Him as He chose us: because our very self—the quintessential “I” that transcends all reason and calculation—so desired.

So when we heard the divine voice at Sinai proclaim “Do not steal,” we accepted it not merely as a sane and rational law of civilized life, but as the will of G-d. When we heard “Honor your father and your mother,” we embraced it not merely as a dictum of decency and gratitude, but as the will of G-d. We committed ourselves to His commands not for their beneficial qualities, but as a response to His unequivocal, unreasoned choice of us as His people.

This explains two curious things about the festival of Shavuot, our annual re-experience of our chosenness and choice at Sinai.

All other festivals come equipped with a series of observances, or mitzvot, which evoke the special quality of the day. Matzah and the eradication of leaven on Passover, the sukkah and the “Four Kinds” on Sukkot, sounding of the shofar on Rosh HaShanah, kindling the menorah on Chanukah, and so on. The single exception is Shavuot, which has no specific mitzvah to capture and actualize the nature of the festival.

Each of the festivals embody a certain quality of our relationship with G-d: freedom on Passover, unity and joy on Sukkot, the divine sovereignty on Rosh HaShanah, illumination on Chanukah, and so on. Shavuot, on the other hand, is our experience of the essence of this relationship, of our mutual choosing of each other with a choice that transcends reason and qualification. There is no ritual or symbol that can capture and express this essence. On Shavuot, our Jewishness is what we are, not what we do or feel.

This also explains the second curiosity of Shavuot—the fact that more than 85% of the festival is not a festival at all.

The Torah decrees three “pilgrimage” festivals: Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. On these three festivals, every Jew was obligated to journey to Jerusalem and offer korbanot (animal and meal offerings) at the Holy Temple. These offerings could be brought any time during the seven days of the festival. But while Passover and Sukkot are both seven-days festivals, the Torah designates only a single day as the festival of Shavuot.[9]

Nevertheless, Shavuot, too, has a seven day period for its korbanot, which may be brought up to, and including, the 12th of Sivan.[10]

In other words, Passover and Sukkot each have seven days that are defined by the Torah as “callings of holiness”[11]days on which we “call forth” and actualize a divine quality and sanctity by marking the specialty of the day and observing its mitzvot.[12]

Shavuot, however, has only one such “holy” day; the six days that follow are ordinary days, no holier than any other day in the mundane stretches of calendar between the festivals. And yet, these days are an integral part of Shavuot, as attested by the fact that the festival offerings may then be offered. (Indeed, the Talmud cites the opinion of the sages of Shammai, who rule that these offerings cannot be brought on Shavuot itself, but only on the following days.[13])

The six “phantom days” of Shavuot express the quintessential nature of the festival. As the time when the aspect of “choice” in our relationship with G-d is realized, Shavuot is a festival that goes beyond the qualified sanctity of all other festivals, beyond, even, sacredness itself.

In this world, it was a betrothal—as it is written, “I shall betroth you to Me forever”[15] and G-d gave them the moon only, as it is written, “This new month shall be to you...”[16] But in the days of Moshiach there shall be the marriage—as it is written, “Your husband, your maker”[17] and then G-d shall give them everything, as it is written: “And the wise shall shine like the brightness of the heavens, and they who bring righteousness to the many as the stars forever.”[18]

We inhabit a reality defined by two basic states: being and naught. A thing either is or is not, is either manifest or repressed, in motion or at rest, positive (charged with energy) or negative (not charged with energy). Even the most complex phenomena are the sum of so many gradations of presence and absence: after all is said and done, everything boils down to the confluence of so many times “yes” and so many times “no.” The “no’s” delineate the parameters of a thing, establishing what it is not, while the “yes’s” fill the “space” of these parameters with the essence of what the thing is.[19]

The binary nature of creation is a reflection of the fact that the Torah, the “blueprint” into which “G-d looked and created the world,”[20] is divided into positive and negative realms. “I am the L-rd your G-d,”[21] the most fundamental of the positive commandments (mitzvot assei), is complemented by “You shall have no other gods before Me”[22]the essence of all divine prohibitions (mitzvot lo ta’aseh); “Love your fellow as yourself”[23] is the positive counterpart to “You shall not hate your brother in your heart.”[24] The Torah commands to create life[25] and forbids destroying it[26]; it commands to aid the needy[27] and forbids pressing them for their debts[28]; it instructs to eat unleavened bread on Passover,[29] and forbids all leavened foods for the duration of the festival[30]; and so on.

The institution of marriage, as defined and legislated by the Torah, also includes both an “affirmative” and a “negative” component. According to Torah law, a marriage consists of two distinct steps. First comes the kiddushin (“consecration,” also called eirusin, “betrothal”): the groom gives the bride something of value (by common practice, a ring), in return for which the bride consecrates herself to him, with the effect that “she becomes forbidden to the rest of the world.”[31] From this point on, for another man to have relations with her constitutes adultery, and to dissolve the kiddushin requires a get (writ of divorce), as for a full-fledged marriage. Yet the purpose of marriage is not to preclude “the rest of world” from living with her, but to effect a union between two people. This is the function of the nissu’in (“marriage”) —achieved by the chupah (wedding canopy), yichud (private seclusion) and sheva berachot (seven marriage benedictions)—which renders man and wife “one flesh.”[32]

In other words, the kiddushin defines the parameters of the relationship, clearing a “space” in which it might exist, while the nissu’in fills this space with the essence of the relationship itself.

As we said, kiddushin and nissu’in are two distinct phases in the marriage process. Indeed, originally, the kiddushin would be held at an earlier date, after which the bride continued to live with her parents as the couple prepared for the nissu’in, which was usually held one year later. (It was only in recent centuries, when the tribulations of exile undermined the stability of Jewish life and often caused the sudden dispersion of communities, that it was deemed unwise to create a marriage-bond between a man and woman who would not actually be living together. Hence the present-day practice of conducting the nissu’in immediately following the kiddushin, passing through both stages of marriage in a single ceremony.)

Our sages tell us that at Mount Sinai, where G-d revealed Himself to us and gave us the Torah, we consecrated ourselves to Him as His bride. This, however, was only the kiddushin stage of our marriage. Our bond with Him shall be complete only in the era of Moshiach, at which time G-d and Israel shall unite in nissu’in.

This is not to say that our relationship with G-d today is an exclusively “negative” one—as noted above, our commitment to Him includes “positive commandments” as well as “prohibitions.” But today we are only capable of establishing the parameters of the relationship, not of realizing its quintessential content. Today, our relationship with G-d is defined by our commitment to Him and by our striving to unite with Him, but without the tactual experience of the union itself. We yearn for Him as a bride yearns for her betrothed, but whose most rapturous feelings are but a faint intimation of post-marriage love.

For thirty-three centuries, we have been creating the “space” of our marriage with G-d and zealously defending its borders. We have remained faithful to Him in the face of all the cultures and “isms” that have sought to seduce us. We have established our identity as His people, consecrated to Him alone. Now we are ready for the real thing—for an actual experience of the divine as the most intimate truth of our lives.

[2] Exodus 19:5-6; see Magen Avraham commentary on Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 60:2.

[5] Midrash Rabbah, Vayikra 32:5; Yalkut Shimoni, Hosea 519.

[6] Midrash Rabbah, Shemot 14:3. See The Festival of the Child, WIR vol. IX, no. 28.

[9] Outside the land of Israel, where we observe an “additional festival-day of the Diaspora,” Passover is observed for eight days, Sukkot/Shemini Atzeret for nine days (instead of eight), and Shavuot for two days.

[12] See Appointments in Time, WIR, vol. IX, no. 33.

[13] Talmud, Beitzah 19a. Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Orach Chaim 494:19: “In this matter, the sages of Hillel also conducted themselves thus, and many of Israel did likewise.”

[14] Likkutei Sichot, vol. XXVIII, pp. 76-84. See The Thousand Year Difference , WIR vol. IX, no. 23.

[16] Exodus 12:2—the first mitzvah given to the people of Israel; see The First Creation, WIR Vol 10 No 34.

[19] E.g., a three-foot red piece of wood is not three feet and one inch long, not green, blue or yellow, not stone or iron, etc. The “nots” form the “boundaries” of the piece of wood, marking the limits of its being and its distinction from other objects, while the “yesses”—its woodness, its redness, etc.—relate to what lies within these boundaries—the nature and qualities of the piece of wood itself.

[21] The first of the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:2.

[22] The second of the Ten Commandments, ibid., verse 3; see Tanya ch. 20 ff.

[25] “Be fruitful and multiply”—Genesis 1:28.

[33] Torat Menachem—Hitvaaduyot 5711, vol. II, p. 142; Likkutei Sichot, vol. XIX, 215-220; Sefer HaMaamarim Melukat, vol. IV, pp. 237-241; et al.. See Difficult Days, WIR vol. VIII, no. 50.