Shavuot Greater than the Sum of its Parts Dr Deborah Geller May 25, 2025

Um, I'm so excited to be here and have the privilege of learning with all of you today. Um, thank you Zamira for that over the top introduction. And, um, I think that it's really interesting because sometimes when we're new at something and we think, "Oh, everyone else has it all together." But really, everyone is just figuring it out. And I think that years later, I'm still figuring it out. And today, I'd like to figure out some things about Shabuot with all of you. just Oh, hold. Okay. Yeah. Um, so Zamir said, "Can you speak about something related to Shabuot?" And so I said, "Sure." Um, and when I thought about Shabuot, I really thought, well, you know, when we experience something, if we end or exit that experience the same way that we entered, then what was the experience really for? And so I started to think about what are we aiming for with the experience of Shabuot and can we come out a little bit different other than the added pounds from the cheesecake? Can we come out a little bit different after Shàuot? And if so, what would that look like? What is the true essence or the overarching theme of Shàuot? So um I started to look and I have to apologize. The sheets that I sent were the wrong ones and they have Sham Hashem on them. So I really apologize. it's actually Giza. So, everyone just has to be careful with that. If you don't want them, I'll take them and uh dispose of them properly. Um in Geneza, um so in any case, um when we look at Shabuot, there are a few things that stand out and um we know this already from the names of Shabuot. In the Torah, Shabuot is known by several different names. We have the feast of weeks, the harvest holiday, the holiday of the first fruits and of course also kazal based on uh the date and the timing and the we call it the date holiday of the giving of the Torah. So um and of course is the only in the Torah that isn't given a date. It is 49 days after bringing of the Quran. And so we have to count those days. As we know, we we're in the middle of um No. Is this better? What? It's not working. Now it's working. Okay. I have to hold it close. Okay. Yes. Is that good? Yes. Okay. Um, so I'd like to take a look at some of the places where Shabot is mentioned in the Torah and through comparisons we will try to figure out what the essence of Shabu is and what we can learn from it. So the two main places that describe the holiday um and not just a quick mention or the corbanote of it um are in Amor and inim. So source one in your sheets um we begin any discussion of shabot has to start with because it is intimately linked to that it doesn't have its own date like we said and so in source one it says so we have to count the 49 or really here it says 50 We count 49 days. The 50th day is and on that day we uh have counted the days and the weeks and we bring the which is from the new uh grain the the new wheat harvest. The carban of course is from the barley harvest. So here we see that the we bring is accompanied by I'm not sure if it's gonna okay you can try it. Okay maybe I don't think [Music] Um so sorry. So so here we see the the word burim for the first time related to the bikurim being the first fruits. So we look in and we see that we are counting days. We are counting weeks. So there's some sort of a process. We're going from the corban to the so from barley to the more refined wheat that's also indicating a process and we have this transition uh sort of feel for the holiday and finally after listing the carbon in the next few um we have So, we don't have a name for the holiday. We have just the generic um holy convocation or a celebration, a sacred uh occasion for you. So, the description is one of process and we aren't even given a name, a proper name for the holiday. And finally, before the Torah continues on to the next, which is we have an extra stuck in to the description. So after the description of the we have two the leaving the corner of the field uh uncut and the mitzvah of le that we don't go back and pick up the gleanings that the uh the stalks that have fallen those are left for the uh poor people to collect. So it's a very strange place for it. We have this mitzvah in other places in inim. So the fact that all of a sudden it's just stuck right in here even though it's the time of year when we would be doing these mitzvot but it's a little bit strange that's the description in vayikra. Let's move now to seafford. In safer we have a shorter description. the carbonote are not mentioned and we start out as follows. So right away what do we notice? What's missing from this description in verse 9 in chapter 16? You shall count off seven weeks. Starts to count the seven weeks when the sickle is first put to the standing grain. Yeah, we're not we're not told to count the days in we're only counting the weeks and as a result of that in so what is it called here? It's called and the emphasis is on the weeks and not on the days. Furthermore, inf we're told what should we do? We're not told about any of the but so we're told to have a big celebration and who's included? Everyone. Bring everyone. And here we see and then the following before we finish and we also have to remember where we came from. So look around, bring in everyone and don't forget where you came from. So we have these sort of two parallel descriptions, a lot of similarities, but also a lot of differences. So those are what we're going to start with and we're going to come back to that shortly. Before we do, I want to focus on the mitzvah of bikurim. We know that in source three you have three, one is from one is from and one is from and those also describe very quickly. So the first time it's called Next and and it mentions the next we have again is called but we don't forget to mention the those first fruits and finally here the itself is called by the name of first fruits So again and again in different ways no matter what the is called we have an emphasis on the burim on those first fruits. So if we take a look at the big picture, we have the description of the actual not in any of these parot of the moim that describe the all the holidays, but they're in par before we enter the land in your we have the para and the para is very familiar to us. Why is it so familiar to us? It's a very strange thing that the story of that we tell is not from which is the book of but it's from the story of and what do we do the the section starts you come into the land when you come into the land and you're going to inherit the land that Hashem has given you. So when you come, you're going to take all of your first fruits, put them in a basket, and bring them to the place Hashem decides, which is of course, and you're going to present them to the Cohen. Um and this is the and when you give it to the cohen then you have what's called the right the statement of intent and you start with a history lesson. So what does the person say? Again, we know this from the starting in right all of these about our national history. What happened? We went down to we were slaves there and then Hashem took us out with a strong hand and an outstretched arm and so on until he brought us to this land. So we have this whole procession. We bring the first fruits and a big celebration and this is of course going to be happening which is so on the one hand each person has to bring their own And we see that in al if until uh hey, right? When we talk about the person doing it, it's in the singular. When you come into the land, singular, you will take the produce and you will bring it to the Cohen. But then when the person with the first fruits goes to the cohen and says the whole story of right the whole national history then it's in the plural because then we have a situation where in fact it's our joint history right and so each person is bringing his own but we're doing it together and we're not going in the interest of time um I'm not going to read the uh Mishnaote that I brought in uh source five but they're very beautiful, right? That basically everyone would come and everyone would come to But how would they do it? They wouldn't just take their stuff, put it in the basket and go. They would all the people from the small villages would go into the closest city and they would sleep in the street in the city so as not to become tame. And then in the morning they would be awoken by a person in charge of being the city alarm clock and everybody would wake up and he would say, So it was this very private thing on the one hand because it's your first fruits, but on the other hand, everyone's doing it together. And then the Mishna continues, I didn't even bring it, but the Mishnad Gimmel there in in Per Gimmel describes this, this big parade, which many places in Israel do nowadays, a reenactment of the Bikurim parade. And Mishnadal describes how even the king, King Angryas would put the salv the basket on his shoulder and he himself would bring it and not have a servant do it. It was such an important beloved mitzvah. So we have this tension with the bikurim between the private and the communal between bringing it and feeling a connection to your own produce and the national history and that you're doing this with everyone. So shiki is a very interesting idea about the connection. Why are we bringing on shabuot? So on the one hand it's very practical. There was aliyah regal in any case. So it's a great time. This is when you're harvesting. May as well. But there's another idea that's fundamental to be says is that the Torah is given to someone who understands that the first the best goes to someone else. It goes to Hashem. And in return, Hashem gives to us his best. He gives us his Torah. And that relationship starts to be built through the bikini. So we have this constant, you know, push and pull between the communal and the individual, between living my private very physical life and the life of kadusha that's related to Hashem and and I think that we get that from the viewing. Now the next idea I wanted to touch on is the idea of le remember in source one the last in it says that you have to by the way well while you're doing all of this keeping these mitzvot you need to leave the on the corner of the field and the leet and focus for now on the le partly because it's so prevalent in gilat root right which we read of course on shabuot um most people are sleeping because they've been up all night. But but um we got root which we look at root as one of our role models. And what do we see? Root comes back with nami. They are destitute despite the fact that they were accustomed to a very high lifestyle. And Ruth says, "As long as I can be with Israel, it will be okay. And I'm going to go to the field." And she goes to Boaz's field and she starts to What is what does it mean? It means that you are bending down and picking up grain one sock at a time. This is backbreaking labor, right? How did they actually harvest grain? They would put their arm around a whole I mean, forget about how they do it today, right, with machines. But they would take the kama, the the standing grain, and they would gather it in their arm and then they would take a sickle and scoop it all at once. And then it would be bound together as a sheath. And it was not easy work, but it was reasonable. But leet is the idea that you're going after the harvesters and whatever fell one by one, you're picking up those stocks of not only did root uh pick up those grains, but And we see so she she gathers all of the individual stocks at night. She is she does the um the beating of the of the grain to get away all of the chaff and she ends up with an aa and aa is a huge amount. It's like somewhere between depending on what shim you use somewhere between 25 to 43 liters. Okay. So you know think about size of a liter bottle. So at least 25 of those is the amount of the kernels of wheat without the chaff that she was able to gather. So we see that she is quite industrious and not afraid of hard work. But when we talk about le there are so many other images that come to mind. If you look in source seven we have hashem as well. to it's such a beautiful pursuit. Hashem when we are in Galut, he will go down to the Euphrates River and he will one by one glean the fallen stalks of AmIrael. the Jews that didn't come back, the Jews that were lost, the Jews that we could have forgotten about, God forbid. And so this is the imagery that's used. And in the beautiful love song between and we see the shim. So my beloved has gone down to his garden to the beds of spices to look in the gardens and pick the liies or the roses. And theo says, "Hashem is picking the uh his his nation from the thorns from the thorns that we've gotten stuck in in our long galut." So we start to see this imagery of um Leet as representative not just of someone who cares and not someone who not just someone who's willing to do hard work but we see that the imagery really is that every soul is important. We can't think about the le without understanding the figurative nature that Hashem is going to collect. every member of AmI isel and that root is praiseworthy because she is acting the way Hashem acts that she doesn't disregard a single stalk and by the way the word le the chesh of le that root appears 12 times in the gilat root more than in any other safer of even though the gilat root is only four and I would say that you know perhaps that's a wink to the 12vatim which will not be forgotten no Jew will be forgotten Um, and we won't go through it right now, but not the word leet, but who else was binding sheav? Who else was bringing grain together in the dream of Yoseph that the brothers got so upset about? He was also um he says to the brothers, "We were all bundling up our sheav." And again, what was Yoseph trying albeit unsuccessfully at that time to do? He was trying to unite all the brothers that we're going to be one nation, one family, regardless of whose mother was the beloved wife and whose mother was not, but we're going to be all together. And in that place, the the alterbi in verse 10 says, "Sorry, I said I wasn't going to do it, but I can't resist." Right? He says, um, three lines down, So he was joining everyone together and they were all united in the of Hashem. That was the dream. That was the dream that didn't happen for many more years. And further down he says, so when he's binding the sheavs, everyone was scattered, separate. And They had a dream and the dream was that everyone all of a Israel will be united. So I think that we can look at the mitzvah of Leet and why is it stuck in the middle of the the mitzvah of Shuot and why is it so important and stressed in theat which we read on shot. I don't think that's an accident, right? Leett is the collection of the forgotten, the ones who fell by the wayside, the ones that maybe other people thought they're not worth the effort. It's too hard. I have to bend down and pick up each one. And Root is following in the footsteps of Hagadu and saying, "No, everyone is important. Every kernel of grain can be a little bit of nutrition and every Jew will add to the fabric of Am Israel. And if we compare le to bikurim, just to remember where we started, right? The burim is rashit. Bikurim is those those big moments you go with your basket and the wealthier people had golden and silver baskets. It's described in the Mishna and it was with a big fanfare and the whole nation was there. But there's also a and we're not going to forget the and root walked after the harvesters. And she says we won't forget the shibim that fell. And so that's that's often we know there's going to be a lot there. Okay. So we have to look now at Omar and in as we mentioned we have the days and the weeks and it's a great mitzvah it's an extended mitzvah that lasts seven weeks we think that we've just created mindfulness in this generation. know this is every single day to know you right and every single day we have a mitzvah just to count what this day is but then we also add it together and say there are bigger units those days they they're not individuals they add up they're unified into weeks and all seven weeks are unified into spirat which will bring us from the barley Corban of the Om to the wheat corban of the and that refinement and we know that we now have we we're knowing to talk about the right the cabalistic sphero we take the seven lower spro each one is parallel to a different week in Om and we have every possible permutation between the day and the week right and so on so what are we working on We're trying to take all of our different midot during this time period and integrate them and saying I'm not compartmentalizing. I'm taking all of the parts of me and I'm bringing it together to serve Hashem. And why to us? Because this is our counting. This is our our group counting and also our individual counting. The Qurban is brought together. But the mitzvah of counting is each individual. And finally we celebrate we saw inim with everyone right has the the in source two. It's almost you have to get out of breath from reading it. So when we have such an emphasis on including everyone in the celebration and we have a similar by the way with regards to but there it says here it says and there it says that you should bring everyone in and here the less fortunate members of our society It says that they are they are within you. So we have here a real unification. We're unifying our own souls. We're we're trying to bring in all of those parts and all of those pieces and we're unifying am is we see this I think through the and through the le and as well. So, so now we'll just add one more aspect to this and that's of course matans, right? We can't talk about without mentioning the aspect of matanor. And in source 13 on your sheath, we have the description of Israel camped at the base of and They camped in the singular and Rashi says famously believed like one person with one heart is at this point in history was totally united as individual organisms that have all joined together for a singular purpose. And when we received the mitzvot, we used those mitzvot as a pillar with which to ascend to unite with hashem. So here we have the unification of ourselves, the unification of the and unification with hashem. So there's one more thing that I want to touch on before we finish. We can finish here, but it's 2025. And when we talk about unity and when we talk about the group collective there's a little bit of push back today I have to be honest because everyone is an individual and everyone has well well if I if I join the group then what happens to me as an individual so hner here brings a beautiful idea in his inf and he discussed is the idea that because of the fact that Adam was created as a single person. We have the idea of the world was created for me and each one of us can say that as a descendant of that primordial father, right? And at the same time, because of that, we're all children of one father.