This is Something We Have Never Seen Before
If you have ever felt stuck in your personal life, spiritual life, relationships or career; this is for you.
Whenever we feel stuck, the challenge can usually be summed up as a lack of insight. We’re waiting for the “Aha!” moment; for the lightbulb to come on; but in the meanwhile we’re fumbling in the dark, wondering where or if the light switch may be.
And if this is true on a person level, it’s certainly true on a national level. We’re waiting for a break though, a Chiddush, that will bring the all hostages home, that will finally defeat Hamas, end the anti-semtism and somehow unify Klal Yisrael.
To date, no-one has the answer.
At least not yet.
But perhaps it’s possible that we might have all the answers in a few short days time.
The Mishna in Rosh Hashana (א:ב) tells us that Shavuos is more than a day of celebration; it is a day of judgement:
בַּעֲצֶרֶת עַל פֵּרוֹת הָאִילָן – on Shavuos we are judged concerning the fruits of the tree.
For most of us, this statement of Chazal is largely irrelevant. Even for those of us who own fruit trees, it far from our primary source of income.
The Sfas Emes (שבועות תרס”א) explains that aside from the physical trees, we are judged concerning the Torah:
אך התורה נקראת עץ חיים. וכמו שאילן מוציא פירות בכל שנה ושנה כמו כן התורה מתחדשת פירותי' בכל שנה. ולכן בעצרת על פירות האילן היינו התחדשות התורה שנק' עץ חיים. וכן איתא בספרים. ולכן נק' יום הביכורים.
The “Tree” that the Mishna speaks of is the Torah itself, which is called “Eitz Chaim”. Since, just like a tree yields new fruit every year, the Torah also yields new fruit each and every year... To that end, Shavuos is also the Day of Bikurim – the day of first fruit.
This raises the question: What exactly are these new fruits of the Torah?
The Shela HaKadosh (מסכת שבועות, נר מצוה כ״ח) quotes from the great Medieval Kabbalist, Rabbi Meir ibn Gabbai explaining:
These fruits of the Torah are our spiritual needs – the perspectives and enlightenment that our souls need to fly up to Hashem.
On Rosh Hashana, Hashem decides how our physical needs are met, but on Shavuos, He judges us on what kind of Ruchniyus we will be able to achieve and experience. What will we gain out of the Torah that we learn, the mitzvos that we do, and the Tefillos that we say? That’s what is decided on Shavuos.
The Shela HaKadosh continues: The metric by which we are measured is how much we value the Torah we have now.
And to that end, our custom is to spend as much time on Shavuos learning Torah. We're hoping to merit some new perspective on ourselves, the Torah and the world.
Let’s bring this into the world of practical application:
It’s a mind-bending truth that everything on planet earth today has always been here. The metals in the laptop I’m typing on, the plastic of the keys, the glass of the screen; all of them have been somewhere on planet earth since Adam HaRishon.
It’s taken a few thousand years for humanity to work out how to extract and use these materials to make a laptop. Or, put another way, all human growth, development and ingenuity is a series of Chidushim; a series of novel reimagining of the things we already have in front of us.
That which is true of the physical world is certainly true of the Torah. In the places in life that we feel most stuck, most lost and most clueless, there is some chiddush in the Torah that will solve this crisis. The answer is there, hidden somewhere in the layers of Peshat, Remez, Drash and Sod; Hashem waiting for us to uncover it.
Truthfully, we daven for this insight daily in the Bracha we say just before the Shema every morning: וְהָאֵר עֵינֵינוּ בְּתוֹרָתֶךָ – Illuminate our eyes in your Torah. That we should be able to peer deeply into the infinity of Torah and achieve that clarity that will allow us the experience of וְדַבֵּק לִבֵּנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתֶיךָ – that our hearts should cleave to your mitzvos. With the correct insights in Torah, we are able to live and act in a way that brings our hearts, souls and minds into to alignment – וְיַחֵד לְבָבֵנוּ לְאַהֲבָה וּלְיִרְאָה אֶת־שְׁמֶךָ – please unify our hearts to love and fear Your Name.
The result of all this is that וְלֹא נֵבוֹשׁ לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד – and we will never be put to shame. We will live as proud Jews, with clarity and conviction.
For those who yearn to live connected, enlightened lives of clarity and Ruchniyus, Shavuos is the day to demonstrate how much it means to us. That's what's on the table; it's the thing Hashem is offering us this year, just as he did 3337 years ago on Har Sinai: A brand new way of seeing and understanding the world.
Ultimately this is the goal of the day: To merit new fruits from the Tree of Life that will open our eyes, lift up our hearts and illuminate our souls.