Deep Dive May 17th 2023 with Rabbi Simcha Barnett

thanks Elisa okay thank you so much everybody for joining us so tonight's learning program is focusing on the upcoming holiday of shibuous which is next week and um our speaker tonight is Rabbi Simka Barnett who's the educational director at project Inspire um and he also puts together all the modules for all these Deep dive programs so I'm very excited to have him here speaking for us tonight and Rabbi Barnett I'm going to go ahead and pass it over to you thank you Danielle thank you Eliza and everybody putting this wonderful program together it gives me a lot of Naches to uh finally actually get on and to be with you and I hope you enjoy it uh so the holiday of shavuas is a real Enigma I mean you'll see as we get into the sort sheet um and I it Harkens me back to when I was a young boy actually and I grew up um on Long Island and I I wasn't uh in a in an observant family and um I did go to Hebrew school but my knowledge of different holidays and occasions was some someone of a patchwork which many of you might relate to and but I got into Hubert school I did go to reform you know Hebrew school you know until bar mitzvah you know I kind of I kind of got a little more of a skeleton on the on the body you know of Judaism a little bit and it kind of went along with the school year went along with the calendar Hebrew school and you know I I remember right away you know I learned about the apple and the honey and Rosh Hashanah with the chauffeur that was uh you know kind of interesting thing at those in those days my parents we went to a little bit of the high holiday Services um that didn't last too long but that was a nice start of the year and then Hanukkah was something that everybody sort of celebrated you know in my house we did it we did it with uh electric lights I didn't really like the electric light so much it was good teaching I would have liked the candles but my mom had these curtains she didn't want to burn the house down so we didn't do the uh we didn't do the actual panels and uh Purim was really we didn't do we didn't really know much about that um that holiday Passover you know was a good good holiday you know that was a as they say in the vernacular today it was a good chill you know we uh we went over to some of our relatives I had some very nice formative Jewish experiences uh on Passover and obviously like many of you I learned um a lot about Passover and and really the giving the Torah uh with the movie The Ten commands I mean that was sort of my go-to and the generations go to about what the events were all about gave me a bit of a context so light Passover a lot of good stuff seder matzah they started you know shaboos over there I didn't know it was your Boost at the time when we got the torrent Mount Sinai during the movie but fast forward a bunch of years later when I went to YouTube I Heard Aisha Torah in the old city of Jerusalem I heard there was this holiday coming up really important holiday called Trevor's and I was like I never heard of that holiday before like they just like had they slipped that holiday in and then and then kind of realized I thought about it well I hadn't heard it before and it's because it's a very uh under the radar holiday now this is one of the questions I really didn't put this in the sheet because there were so many questions I couldn't get to every single one of them but it's probably the most important holiday in the entire Torah because it's when we got the Torah I mean you would say if you have to pick the epicenter of Judaism I think it would be I think everybody would agree it was the giving of the Torah Mount Sinai so you would think it would be surrounded with a lot of Pomp and Circumstance a lot of mitzvos you'd think it would be at least as Central as Passover was in the telling of the story and in the holiday itself but it's really not the case it hardly exists you have to like dig very deep to figure out what's even going on on the holiday of sugar was in many of these questions you're going to get to in the in the uh in the module but I kind of I kind of realized that the biggest reason I had never heard of chivalas before was because Hebrew school was over when shavu was happy you know it was usually in June even school's over and I was like my best theory of why I never heard about it before but think about it there really are no major mitzvokes if you think about sheruo it's all the things that we do you know like that newspick isn't in the Torah you know even learning all night isn't in the Torah um adorning mature with Greenery all the things we do are called men hugging they're Traditions they kind of Adorn the holiday but the Halloween is no real Mitzvah I mean we do have the Mitzvah of bringing the two loaves of wheat which we'll talk about you know later on but that seemingly is coming at it from the side you know it but chavoos itself and the giving the Torah it doesn't seem to be any major Mysteries it's also only one bet so you can like link and you know it passes so it's very easy to understand that there wouldn't be you know I didn't know what the holiday was about and when you'll you'll get into this as well the name doesn't give you a whole lot of Clues as well I know some of you know Hebrew you can you you can say and there'll be a question in the in the module what is an Ashkenazi pronunciation what does it really mean and that'll be a further puzzle further Enigma because it doesn't seem to say much about the giving the Torah and obviously all the different things which surround this holiday this mysterious holiday really do point to the giving of the tone so these are some of the questions we're going to talk about um I'm gonna there are a lot of questions this module it's a little different because I usually answer all the questions that I write in a module and I usually do in a pretty linear fashion I try to do it as well over here but you're going to find there were just so many questions and so many different angles to taking the answers and I'm going to leave some of them I'm going to leave a business for the actual wrap up in the end but I do hope uh you enjoy it and again my answers are suggestions this is a lifetime of of digging that's what the beauty of Torah is really all about that you have a question means you're bothered by something it's sort of like an analogy to digging a hole to put a seed in the ground you can't grow anything if you don't have a hole so the whole Jewish Consciousness represents is represented by a question that's why Passover is all about questions right because the beginning of getting satisfying meaningful answers is digging deep digging these holes we're going to dig a lot of holes tonight I hope we'll have some answers but you'll develop more and better answers throughout the years throughout the decades and let's get started uh without any further Ado we'll go and we will learn the group so Danielle I'm going to pass it back to pass back to you so that everybody can start learning there's a lot of material to cover tonight and we'll get on a little bit later to do a wrap up okay great thanks so much for the intro ride Barnett um everybody we are we're going to break out for about a half an hour and we will call you back to wrap up enjoy the learning hey everybody um I hope you enjoyed the the module um there I hope you know there are a lot of questions uh you saw probably the most question we've ever had in one of the modules and I hope you got some answers but as I said before some of the answers you got tonight some of the answers you'll get maybe at the end of this mini lesson and some you'll get on shavua some of you might get back there for a year five years or ten years that's the beauty that's the beauty of Torah learn stay at it and you'll get your answers your answers is always the best answer so like any good Rabbi I'm just going to ask more questions can I ask this that's just what we do so um there's just so many questions I couldn't even contain it to a module so I'm going to ask you another question that always bothered me now I have a great answer for for it this was the question I put on one of my first question I really had if you read through the Torah and you're reading about Passover archa it's a few parts show but oh the partial Bo really tells the guts of this story like the conclusion of the story the end of the tenth phase the last plague with the blood smearing on the door sacrificing the lamb God delivering us it really goes through everything and then at the end of that story it gives us the Eternal decree that we're going to celebrate this holiday forever we're not we're going to have matzah we're not going to get plummets it's right there meaning the story leads right into the observance forever now you would think that's exactly what would happen in terms of giving the Torah precious ISRO death row ISRO which is a few partial later but we actually get the Torah Mount Sinai and we get the Ten Commandments you would expect it's incredible narrative moving narrative uh with all these different themes and that culminating in the Commandment to keep this holiday and probably you'd expect a name like that's what the rabbi is called the time of the giving the Torah who would think it would have had something with Torah in the name now I didn't give it away to you before but it's this name it means weeks as we saw in the module and it begs explanation like you have to ask yourself like why in the world would this holiday be called that so the first question is was it doing not in the Parsha in which it should be have been recorded then I think secondly right so when is it in the Torah mentioned for the first time I didn't give you the first mentioning of the holiday I gave you vayicura which was the count of the Omer and later all the way later the fifth uh Deuteronomy we talked about it again but where it's mentioned the first time is actually in the context of another mystery you may know that there's a mixed with Torah to It's called The Schloss regali right it says the Torah and this is the Parsha after the giving the Torah right direction leader it says three festivals you shall celebrate for me during the year and then it mentions the festival the first one is hagamatsos right that's the Festival of Passover and that's exactly what you would expect now the next Festival as we know as we know it is going to be shavuo but that's not what the the portion says here it calls it they called it katsir vikore it's the um reaping Festival the Harvest Festival of the first fruits of your hand right it's called Yom bikuru the day of the first fruits and then the last Festival which we know to be uh sagot is called haga Asif is the holiday of the Gathering right now if you look at the biblical commentator Rashi because you want to know what are these holidays we never heard we we know about suko we heard about that already before we also know about Passover but what about this middle holiday this is the Rashi says from the oral tradition that this is the holiday of sugar let me flip through my Torah and get like more understanding more explanation now just like kind of to follow on what I what I said in the introduction one of the reasons why I never knew about this holiday is because it's one day now if it's going to be grouped in the three kilogram festivals right it's one of the big three you would call it The Big Three all of them have a name that means something about the holiday so that's one difference this should go out number two they all have a date in the Torah they all have a date in which you celebrate them the 15th of titrate for sagot right the 15th of Nissan for for PESA doesn't have its own day we know it's the sixth of Sivan The couple months after Nissan but it doesn't have its own name the Torah also very peculiarly it's one day and not seven days all the festivals are seven days like this is supposed to be about Revival we go to Jerusalem we eat and drink and be merry-like oh one day you know How's that gonna really satisfy anything so the ramban the Commodities you know from uh the 1100s so he notices he notices that Passover and shuguos are connected we brought that out of the module I think very eventually Passover and shuru are connected by this Mitzvah of counting the Omer so he the wants to say that just like there's a Seven Day Festival of and there's another holiday episode you probably remember what's the name what's that other holiday many people mistakenly believe it's the Eighth Day of sagot really isn't it's its own holiday one day holiday now the commodity says Passover is the first holiday of the first cycle then there's a ho hamoi there's a not a seven day a break before the last day there's a 49 that's super set seven times seven which is the quote unquote the intermediary days of the holiday and the last day of the holiday of Passover is really Shavuot so it's Passover this intermediate period of Koh and then there's this Festival of Shavuot so it's connected and we see bicycled it follows the same kind of structure where it has so go seven days the the intro I'm sorry one day of the first holiday of Sugo where we don't work and there's the whole ha Moe there's the intermediary days we go have fun we go on to ulim we go all around Israel and the United States and the last day the eighth day is now chips and refuel Hersh also builds upon the commodity in a more fact with more questions and he comes up with a beautiful uh answer to a lot of what we've been working on tonight and this is what he says he introduces one more name of the holiday that I didn't let you guys in on before I was saving it okay there's one more name of the holiday and I didn't let you in on and it's the repentable name all over the talmud and the realm is called Holly of chevot they call they call it hog hot seret it's the holiday that Sarah is combination has the crops culminate the fruits of the crops are harvested it's a culmination it means to delay to culminate a Zenith okay so Hersh points out very beautifully the answer to all these interesting questions about that we just brought up comes from the fact that it's just like the holiday shmini at Sarah so if you go back to what I said before there's Sago intermediary days and then there's a holiday of shmini okay now shmini at Sarah is very interesting it has no mitzvos of it of the day just like Shavuot there's no Mitzvah like matzah like Arbor meaning there is no chauffeur Metro says God just said to the Jewish people stay back hold yourself back delayed one more day and just have a meal with me because leaving you my dear children is so difficult for me today of love between the Jewish people and God so he said so too this is really and it has the same energy and what's that energy the energy is that it's not a holiday that's bringing us a means to an end said mitzvos like matzah like sagod like many all the nits was the Torah it brings us to a certain point a certain connection with God that's what the Mitzvahs do he said even the Mitzvah of the counting the omna it's a beautiful kind of understanding of this because during this between Passover and we have this counting of the Omer and it's a time it's a time when we work on ourselves spiritually try to become fit people to receive the Torah and as I said in the in the module the idea was in Omer symbolizes the Mana the Mana that we got from Heaven from God in the desert those 40 years and that mother that bread and how we collected it and the faith we had in God that he delivers all of our needs establishes our connection to Hashem in real terms we Jews don't just think don't just believe from like the the head up we basically have living amuna living a moon of means where the rubber hits the road the rubber hits the road and am I making a living can I feed my family is this world going to satisfy me and give me all that I need and that's so beautifully is what the Mitzvah of the Omer is all about so it it It prepares us using the fruits the first fruits that are maturing and we're going to collect on it it writes the ship of my relationship with God and Passover didn't have such a great relationship to materialism how to get off of the hummus we had to pull back from the physical world Remember The Barley often if you look at the midst of the Omer was it was barley Barley's animal food they were really animals in kind of our relationship to food over those 50 days we purify ourselves and we actually bring two loaves of wheat the only time we were allowed to bring loaves not matzah loaves onto the um the Altar and what that symbolizes that my children you worked on yourselves you're now ready to eat hummus like an angel you're now ready to immerse yourselves in the physical world with spirituality now so when we did we talked about shavuas we're saying that there are no Mitzvahs of the day right and it is only one day because it's a measure of our relationship to Hashem it's not a means it's an end it's an end that's what representative said you either have the relationship of the time you get the shmini at Sarah after you don't no Mr gonna help at this point so too we've been working on ourselves Passover all the way through the Omer you're ready to accept that relationship with Hashem or you're not ready to now the question that you might ask yourself is isn't Torah a me a means like how can you really say it's just an N it also a means because when you do mitzviz you grow you get closer you're you're doing using the target get somewhere and that's true but I want what I want to do is I want to make a division between two very important aspects of the Torah and I think Trevose is about the first aspect of Torah that I'm going to explain to you and that follows the module in the module one of the sources said that the Torah is our life our soul our nashama it was our connection that God that was the essence of the receiving the Torah of Mount Sinai we became prophets meaning you know in the old vernacular Star Trek it was like a Vulcan mind melt meaning the mind or the soul of the Jew and the soul of Hashem fuse together when when God said the The Ten Commandments the Jewish people we got a living amuna a basis for a connection to God people I think make a mistake and think a Muna faith belief which that first myth so we got in the power is the miseramuna and the Lord your God it took you out of Egypt from the house of slavery that Mitch is not just an intellectual appreciation of God I call that Mitzvah um living amuna meaning it's the the emotions that you have in God the belief in the faith that we have in God the Jewish people is a in real time my connection to Hashem to God in any moment of my life in real time it's not an intellectual thing it's a connection thing how connected am I to God as I walk through my life when I walk through my business do I connect to God his Torah his morals his values how connected am I to God in real terms you might say it like this is God a palpable presence in my life that's a Muna that's what we got the foundation of on during the year when we keep learning Torah we add to that Foundation but the initial I think like 20. us and God came on Mount Sinai and the giving of the Torah foreign this was when we became one with God it's almost like you know AM radio waves you're always going out you know in The Ether but you have to have a receiver which is calibrated right to receive the signal that was what we got on Mount Sinai this calibration that we were going to receive a connection to God in real time minute by minute and yes we add to that connection just to pack that up you might be familiar some of you with the madrases the famous medrish that says that um in the womb everyone is taught Torah by an Angel and right before each of us were born the angel Taps you under the nodes in the invitation over here and that's why you have this invitation and you forget the Torah now it's cute story everyone knows it ideas that all your life is spent remembering the Torah that you lost you didn't lose it all it's been printed it's in your soul it's there waiting to come out of potential but what what God gave us as that Medium of connection was that imprint of Torah that connection to him which is in our souls and that's what your voice is about and when you um when you go to the Holly of shavuas this relationship with God is what you're after the relationship with Hashem the amuna that comes in real terms through understanding Hashem is involved with your life is taking care of you and connects to you in real time it's not a book on a shelf you know they say that the um Torah has a written law and an oral law is all about the oral law we only know about the holiday because we have to look at the rabbi's explanations and count up the days nothing's on the surface and I think the the idea of it is that it's not supposed to be a book on a shelf it's supposed to be something that I draw out of my soul and the oral law is the connection to God through the explanations of Torah through the talmud through almost everything we talk about really is oral law all my sources that I brought and the explanations the sources may have been from the written law some of them but all the explanations were for the oral law and I think the Torah is trying to tell us something very deep that the oral law is what Torah is about we want to be connected to God connected to the world law I'll just leave you this last point when you look at all the Jewish movements in the world and not just now but the historical Jewish movements all the movements that have gotten away from the the oral law the talmud the mission of all those commentaries they died out because a book on a shelf is like a body without a soul the soul of Torah is the oral law and that's why I'm so happy we have this beautiful program where you all can be delving into the Aurora because that's really what you're doing when we draw out we tease out the beautiful lessons that connect our nashama to the soul of the universe which is Hashem so my brother that everybody revise themselves reinforces that connection to God that amuna a real living connection and all through the year Hashem gives you a greater portion of Torah and of oral law and a Torah that comes from your questions and from your answers because that's the Torah that we all need to really connect to God as a Jewish people thank you very much and have a wonderful wonderful holiday thank you so much thank you so much Ryan Barnett and thank you so much everyone for joining us who did all the technical side for us and thank you guys so much for joining the program thank you thank you thanks Rabbi have a great chivalist everybody thank you thank you thank