What Do We Celebrate? A Shavuot Reflection
By Douglas Aronin

We all know that Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Torah, yet the Torah itself never links the holiday to that event. The Torah focuses on the agricultural elements of Shavuot, and particularly on its role as the time in which the bikurim (first fruits) were brought to the Temple. But the Torah contains no mention of Shavuot's role as the anniversary of the Revelation on Mount Sinai.

One possible explanation for this anomaly is that Shavuot celebrates the giving of both the written and the oral Torah. One way to make sure that we understand the equality of the two is by making us dependent on the Oral Torah to know when to celebrate the anniversary even of the Written Torah. Without the Oral Torah, we would have no way to know when that event took place. How better to demonstrate the indispensability of the Oral Torah?

Yet for me at least, that explanation isn't quite good enough. There are many mitzvot, after all, that are not fully comprehensible based on the Written Torah alone. It would certainly be possible to emphasize the critical importance of the Oral Torah by withholding from us some details of the how-to celebrate Shavuot without leaving the primary purpose of the holiday out of the Written Torah entirely. Indeed, the Torah does this by not telling us directly the date on which Shavuot falls, instead commanding us to count for forty-nine days and celebrate Shavuot on the fiftieth -- while forcing us to depend on the Oral Torah to know when to start counting.

Perhaps, though, the omission of the connection between Shavuot and the giving of the Torah has another lesson to teach us. It is self-evident to any human being that God's redemption of our people from Egyptian bondage and His protection of them during their wanderings in the desert (the events we celebrate on Pesach and Sukkot respectively) are worthy of celebration.

By commanding us to celebrate those events in those particular seasons, the Torah is simply channeling our natural feelings of gratitude into a prescribed form. It's not commanding us to celebrate our redemption from Egypt or God's protection during the years of our wanderings; it's only commanding us how to celebrate them.

The same natural feeling of gratitude would no doubt motivate us to celebrate God's gift of the first fruits, and of the Land in which they were grown. Thus, the Torah's association of Shavuot with our gratitude for the first fruits follows the pattern of the other two festivals.

In each case the Torah is taking a feeling of gratitude that we would expect to experience and commanding us how to express that feeling.

The giving of Torah is different. All human beings have an instinctive longing for freedom, protection and sustenance, and thus a natural appreciation for those gifts. Appreciating the gift of Torah, on the other hand, is something of an acquired taste.

In celebrating the giving of the Torah, we are not merely giving form to an instinctive feeling of gratitude, but rather are cultivating that feeling of gratitude itself. The Torah sets aside a day on which celebrating God's gift of Torah would be appropriate, but it is we who decide whether or not we want to celebrate that gift.

Torah is central to the life of a Jew, but there is a difference between obeying Torah and celebrating it. Even while living a life of Torah, we can choose whether to view Torah as a burden to be borne or as a gift to be celebrated.

By making Shavuot the Season of the Giving of the Torah, the Jewish people has opted to see Torah as a gift -- one for which we are grateful, one that we want to celebrate. May our celebration of Shavuot help to cultivate within us a continued appreciation of how precious that gift truly is.

Chag sameach.

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For additional reading

• Holidays: Shavout
• Holidays: Shavout: The Book of Ruth
• Holidays: Shavout for Kids
• What do we celebrate? A Shavuot reflection
• Seven Complete Weeks: A Shavuot reflection