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By Rabbi Tuvia Bolton, Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim, Kfar Chabad, Israel

Shavuos is the most important of all the Jewish Holidays.

It celebrates the Giving of the Torah 3337 years ago and without the Torah, there probably would be no Judaism or Jewish people (G-d forbid).

A famous Chabad Chassid called Rabbi Mendel Futerfass told me that in Communist Russia he once saw a Jew coming out of the “Shamos” room (the room where scraps of holy books are kept before they are buried (because it is forbidden to throw them away) with a handful of torn pages.

“What are you doing?” Asked Reb Mendel.

“I take them home and sew them together and make a book!” He answered. (There was a great shortage of holy books in Russia because of Communist censorship).

“But what kind of book will that be?” Reb Mendel asked. “There will be no beginning and no end, just unrelated pages! How can you read a book like that?”

“Well” his friend calmly replied, “In the Torah there are three things; learning Torah, understanding Torah, and the holiness of the Torah. The first two depend on wisdom and understanding. But the Holiness of the Torah is in the LETTERS of the Torah, and that’s what my book will be about; not for learning or understanding but for the holy letters.”

Shavuot is the most important day in the history of the world!!

The Midrash (Rashi Bereishit 1:31) assures us that if the Jews hadn’t accepted the Torah, the world would have ceased to exist!

But if we examine what really happened, we see that the Jews did not receive much on that day!
Only ten simple commandments.
One would think that after suffering 210 years in slavery, ten plagues, splitting of the sea, Manna from heaven, water from a rock, clouds of glory, Mount Sinai shaking amidst fire and thunder, and more, they would get something a little more impressive or mystical than “Don’t kill, Don’t steal” – laws which can be found in even the most primitive of cultures!
But the answer is that on that day, G-d, the Almighty Creator, gave … Himself.
King Solomon in his “Song of Songs” compares it to a wedding day between G-d and the Jewish people. The Jews are the bride and G-d Himself is the groom. Israel became a “HOLY nation” (Ex. 19:15) [The Hebrew word for ‘holy’ and ‘to marry’ are the same (M’kadash)]

The first word of the Ten Commandments sums it all up: I (“ANOCHI”) am G-d etc.
G-d has many names and according to Kaballah each name corresponds to a different facet of G-d’s infinite ‘personality’. But ANOCHI is not one of them. ANOCHI refers to the essence of G-d himself. And this is what the Jews received at Mount Sinai; Pure G-d!
The experience was so unique that no religion, (even those that claim to replace Judaism) has ever CLAIMED that such a thing happened to them!
To them, it is incomprehensible that the Creator would reveal Himself to an entire nation of millions of ordinary people here in this world when He could have just given spiritual inspiration to one person like they claim happened in their religions.

But the reason that G-d did it, is that with that first Commandment; “Anochi Elokecha”, G-d united Himself with EACH and every Jewish soul for all time!
“”Anochi” became “ELOKECHA” lit. “YOUR G-d”” (The word “YOUR” here is not plural but singular.)
What this means to us is that when any Jew opens up a Torah book and learns any aspect of the Torah, (especially if he says the words aloud) or does a commandment, he can feel a little bit of what was revealed at Mount Sinai 3337 years ago! Namely that the Almighty Creator is closer to us than we are to our own selves!
It’s called “The Jewish Feeling” or, the G-dly Soul (Tanya chap. 2).
This feeling was what made the Holy Temple special, (The Ten Commandments were kept in the Holy of Holies). It is what draws people to the Western Wall today, and has been keeping Jews and Judaism alive and vibrant through almost two thousand years of oppression.
In the blessing after reading the Torah we call it “CHAYAI OLOM”: Infinite life.
It is the G-dliness of the Torah, the “Joy” (Simcha), the “Light” (M’or), and the “Dew” (Tal) of the Torah that has the power to enliven the dead, completely above any human understanding.

That is what we received and are celebrating on Shavuos.
I want to illustrate with a story:
I once used to put tefillin on Jews in the central bus station of Tel Aviv. (For those unfamiliar with Chabad Tefillin campaign it goes like this: You take at least one pair of good Tefillin, one folding table, situate yourself on some busy street and ask Jews if they want to put on Tefillin. In countries other than Israel, you have to first ask people if they are Jewish)
One Friday I ask a non-religious-looking soldier if he would like to put on Tefillin, and he suddenly turned all red with anger, and began shouting at me:
“Because of you maniacs, I sat in Military prison for two months, who needs your Mitzvot (commandments) or your Tefillin, leave me alone!!!”
So I innocently asked him what he meant, (while keeping an eye on his right arm, because he was pretty mad).
“Four months ago I was AWOL (Away without leave) from the army. I was running away and I had a whole weekend of fun planned out. But as I got off the bus, I stopped to put on Tefillin at one of your guys’ Tefillin stands.”
He paused for a second. He was standing a bit too close for comfort, leaning over yelling at my nose like it was some sort of microphone. He took a few quick deep breaths and continued.
“And WHILE I was putting on the Tefillin, the Military police saw me and arrested me, and I HAD TO SIT IN JAIL FOR TWO MONTHS BECAUSE OF YOU NUTS!!!”
I saw that he was really angry and I didn’t know what to do, so I looked him back in the eye and as calmly as possible asked him…
“So? Nu? Want to put on Tefillin?”
He looked at me, looked at the Tefillin, and looked back at me one more time. Without changing his expression he took one step back, rolled up his sleeve and said “Lama Lo?” (lit. Why not?)
And he put on Tefillin.

Therefore the Torah is called “Torat Chiam”, the “Teaching of Life”; it awakens our soul, gives us life and teaches us what life is. Not like the various other “Bibles” that are products of human life.
{There is a Midrash that says that before G-d gave the Torah to the Jews, He offered it to all the other nations. When they asked what it says, G-d told them exactly what they didn’t want to hear; to the murderers He said “Don’t kill” etc. so they refused. That is why, when they later started making their own “torahs”, they omitted and even glorified what the Torah forbids.}
Another thing happened on the day of Matan Torah – Heaven and earth
exchanged places:
The deepest of all Kaballisic secrets (“I am your G-d”) was revealed down here to the most mundane people (Don’t Kill, Don’t steal); G-d came “down” and they went “up”.
In other words, since Matan Torah, G-d is now easily accessible to everyone; all the spiritual channels and roads are open to ascent.
This is why the Torah is called the “Tree of Life”. (See Tanya end of Chap. 36) Because the G-dliness in it can transform and purifiy everything in the entire mundane world, even death.
This is the light of the Moshiach, which will eventually raise the dead.

The following emphasizes this:

Moses, King Dovid, and the Baal Shem Tov. All three are connected to Shavuot; King David and the Besh’t passed away on Shavous and Moshe gave us the Torah on Shavuot.
All three are connected to Moshiach and the Raising of the dead.
Moshe is called the “first redeemer” and the “last redeemer”.
Dovid was the first “Moshiach” and the final “Moshiach” (ben Dovid) (Rambam, Melachim 11:1)
And the Baal Shem began the teachings of (Torat) HaMoshiach.
Similarly all three defied death: The Gemora tells us (Sota 13b) that Moshe did not die, similarly (R”H 25a) that Dovid Hamelech is still alive, and the Besht claimed that if he wanted, he could go to heaven alive like Elijah the prophet.
This is because at Sinai death ceased, as it was before Adam sinned, until the sin of the Golden Calf. And Moshiach will bring this again.
Namely that the G-dliness in the Torah will be revealed not just temporarily as it was on Mount Sinai, but permanently to the entire world; like Moshe, Dovid and the Besht felt it.
May we SEE all this immediately (the Hebrew word for ‘immediately’ is “MiYaD” the initials “M”oshe “Y”isroel (Baal Shem) and “D”ovid)

And the Lubavitcher Rebbe says this will happen at any moment. We are standing on the merits of thousands of years of Jewish hopes, prayers and suffering.

Now it could be that just one more good deed, word or even thought can make it happen.

Wishing all our readers a Happy and meaningful Shavuot BSimcha U’Pnimiut with … Moshiach NOW!!

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