Why Can’t I Tickle Myself: The Hidden Mitzvoth of Shavuot

A great number of the customs associated with the Holiday of Shavuot, the day on which the Torah was given at Mount Sinai, seem to hide the true nature of the Holiday.  For example:

1) One of the most popular ‘new’ customs associated with Shavuot is the Tikun Leil, an all-night learning experience where people dedicate themselves to studying Torah in the wee hours of the night (or is it morning already at 3 AM?).  If the study of Torah is really central to the Holiday – and to Judaism in general – why ‘hide’ it in the middle of the night?  Shouldn’t it be celebrated in the most public way possible, at the most popular time possible?

[A brief aside:  I write that this custom is relatively 'new' due to the fact that it appears to have begun only in the 1500's when Rabbi Yosef Karo had a dream in Istanbul informing him that he should stay up all night learning Torah.  It's interesting to note that it was just about this same time that coffee, which began in Yemen by Sufi mystics interested in staying up all night, and then migrated to Egypt, had just begun to be imported to Istanbul as well.  Perhaps the reason this custom of staying up all night developed and flourished is thanks to this fact.]

2) Perhaps the reason an all-night learning experience developed rather than a day time one was due to a strange Talmudic command that actually forbade learning Torah all day on Shavuot.  That’s right, forbade it.  With other other holidays such a prohibition does not exist.  Usually one would learn a little and feast a little, but of course if wanted to learn exclusively he is permitted to do so.  With Shavuot, though, the text (Pesachim 68b) is clear:  You may not forgo your feast in order to learn Torah exclusively all day.  But if Shavuot is about Torah, why not?

3) One of the main ways we demonstrate our ‘joy’ in a Holiday is by partaking in a feast filled with meat and wine.  The Rambam, presumably quoting the Talmud, actually describes these food items as the definition of joy.  Yet on Shavuot, while there are many who do eat meat, there is a well known custom to partake in dairy products more so than on any other holiday.  Is this another attempt at diminishing the joy of Torah or hiding its significance?

4) The Torah doesn’t even mention the fact that Shavuot is the day on which the Torah is given.  Nor does it tell us the date of this Holiday?  Does it have something to hide?

5) And the most obvious question of all – on Shavuot, unlike other holidays, we have no specific mitzvoth to perform.  No lulav and etrog like on Sukkot.  No Matzah and marror like on Pesach.  No Shofar like on Rosh Hashana.  Why?

To answer all these questions I’d like to suggest that there are actually two ways of understanding Shavuot in particular (and Torah in general), and that one of these ways does indeed require a certain amount of ‘mystery’ in order to successfully convey its essence.

To understand these two aspects of Shavuot, let’s first explore two aspects of what precedes it – the counting of the Omer.

On one hand, it is quite easy to identify the two aspects of this custom.  In one place in the Torah we are commanded to count ‘the days’ between the ‘Shabbat’ of Passover and Shavuot (all 49 of them), while in another place we are commanded to count ‘the weeks’ between the first Omer offering (during Pesach) until the Mincha Chadasha (new offering) of the Two Loaves of Bread Offering (during Shavuot).

On the other hand … what does this mean?

Let’s start with the counting of weeks.  Notice that the Torah is not concerned with the holidays of Passover and Shavuot but rather the ‘offerings’ associated with them.   The goal of counting weeks, then, is to remind us of sacrifice, and more specifically, the Temple’s role in enabling this process.  In so doing, Rav Tzadok teaches, we are also reminded of our national sovereignty.  The pomp and circumstance associated with the Temple was not for my personal benefit, but to celebrate the nation and the nation’s ability to have an impact on the world.  That is why the offering of Shavuot was the Two Loaves of Bread.  Normally we are not thrilled about bringing bread into the Temple; we prefer the ‘humility’ encapsulated by matzah.  But sometimes, writes Rav Tzadok, we need bread as well.  We need the ‘puffing up’ provided by the hametz.  Why?  Because Torah is not meant simply to influence my own personal life, to enrich my personal spiritual experience.  It is meant to have an impact on the world.  Bread symbolizes growth of something small and flat – matzah – to something expansive (yeast literally expands).  By counting weeks, then, we are reminded that Torah must be relevant for the whole world, and must have a public impact.

What then does counting days teach us?

The exact opposite.  It’s about personal growth, about redeeming every small moment – not just the important, global and very public national moments.  Yes, we are to have an impact on the whole world, but don’t forget what the Torah told Avraham: It is through the families of the world that blessing will be bestowed.  That’s why the counting of days doesn’t mention the sacrifices but rather the day after the Shabbat – which is Pesach. Both Shabbat and Pesach emphasize the private life of a Jew.  To the Temple everyone must go; but Shabbat comes to us wherever we are.  Pesach is celebrated in the home, also late at night, also just with the family.  Ultimately a nation is only as strong as the individuals and the families within it.  Thus to strengthen the nation there is no better way than to strengthen oneself.

So these are the two approaches of the counting of the Omer.  What does it teach us about Shavuot?

Rashi points out that the first set of Tablets were given with thunder and lightening and great fanfare … and they were eventually destroyed.  The second set of Tablets were given in modesty and humility on Yom Kipur.

In other words, the Torah was given – and today is learned – both in public and private.  Both are important, but the former can only last if the latter also exists.

Unfortunately, in today’s world that is not only the case.  Many people focus on the public display of Torah, on what others can see – how I dress, what level of kashrut I observe, etc.  But that’s the type of Torah that doesn’t last, nor does it inspire others.  It’s the quiet observance, the day to day Torah study and performance of hidden mitzvoth, seen perhaps by one’s family or more likely by no one at all except the One and All.  That’s the Torah that sticks, and that’s the Torah that makes the national moments so much more meaningful when we eventually arrive at them.

With this insight at hand, let us now return to some of our initial questions about why Torah seems to be hidden on Shavuot of all days.

Obviously it answers why we learn in the middle of the night, far from the public light, as well as why no specific mitzvoth are associated with the day; after all, it’s not about mitzvoth you can see but those that you can’t see.  Perhaps it also explains why we must not forgo our family feasts on this day in order to learn Torah exclusively.  The family, after all, is the pillar on which this ‘hidden’ Torah is built; our table quite literally is the alter on which we learn this special Torah.  We are forbidden to replace the quiet Torah learning of family dynamics with the public Torah learning of the first tablets.

This insight also helps explain the custom of bypassing meat in favor of dairy.  As you may recall I suggested earlier that the Rambam based his position that meat and wine was the definition of joy on the Talmud.  When one reads the Talmud in the original, though, he will find something quite interesting.  It does not say what many of us are accustomed to saying it says, that “there is no simcha without meat and wine.”  Rather, it says that we once had the Temple (and the national experience), and the meat from that experience (the sacrifices brought to the Temple) symbolized that joy.  But now that we no longer have that national experience, we are only left with the joy of wine, the joy that needs to be stimulated from some outside source.

So we see that ‘meat’ symbolized the joy of the national experience of the Temple.  Obviously this is a very important experience, and something that the rebirth of Israel speaks to on a daily basis.  But on Shavuot we are reminded that this nation cannot stand alone; it requires an army of individuals dedicated to celebrating Torah on a daily basis without fanfare, redeeming moments of seeming insignificance from oblivion.

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