Shavuot: The Fiftieth Day, Beyond the Count

You know that there are three major festivals in the Jewish calendar, the Shalosh Regalim, the three festivals on which the people went up to Yerushalayim, and these three festivals celebrate three moments in history. The past is Pesach. At Pesach we are always in the process of rediscovering our roots through the Exodus from Egypt. Be-chol dor va-dor chayav adam lir’ot et atzmo ke-ilu hu yatza mi-Mitzrayim — in every generation, each person is duty-bound to regard himself as though he were coming out of Egypt. Then we have Sukkot — Sukkot, which is the project of the future: all the nations will gather beneath a single sukkah, and all the nations will celebrate the festival of Sukkot. That is the messianic project of history, the meeting of the Jewish people with all the other peoples. And the one that celebrates the present is Shavuot. And that is why Shavuot has no precise date. It can fall on the fifth of Sivan, the sixth of Sivan or the seventh of Sivan; it all depends on how Rosh Chodesh was sanctified. If both months are of thirty days, then it is the seventh; if both months are of twenty-nine days, then it is the fifth.

We have opted for one month of thirty days and one of twenty-nine, and in this way we have, so to speak, established that the festival of Shavuot is now fixed on the sixth of Sivan. But in reality there is no precise date for the festival of Shavuot: it is simply the culmination of Sefirat HaOmer, the counting of the Omer, which began on the day after Pesach. That is why the festival of Shavuot is the festival of weeks. Since when does one celebrate weeks? Since when does one celebrate weeks? In fact, the festival of Shavuot bears several names. There is the name of the katzir, the harvest — the wheat harvest.

The wheat harvest began at Shavuot, and we were indeed to bring to the Sanctuary an offering consisting of bread made from wheat, whereas on the day after Pesach it was an offering of se’orim, of barley — barley being reputed to be animal fodder, while wheat is the principal food, the staple food of man. For this reason the festival of Shavuot is called Chag HaKatzir, the festival of the harvest. It is also called Chag HaBikkurim, the festival of the firstfruits, since the farmers took it upon themselves to bring the first fruits of the first harvest, which they had marked when they first appeared. These first fruits they brought to the Sanctuary on the occasion of the festival of Shavuot, Yom HaBikkurim — the festival of the fruits of Eretz Yisrael, for which the Land of Israel has been praised; and that is why they are called bikkurim. But there is another name — in any case, in the Bible there is no mention whatsoever of the giving of the Torah at Shavuot; the celebration of Matan Torah at the festival of Shavuot has no part in it there. We connect it to the festival because our chachamim (Sages) have told us that the fiftieth day of the sefirah, the count, is the one that completes our creation — in the same way that man was created from the earth: the Holy One, blessed be He, formed him, but he did not come to life until the nishmat chayim, the breath of life.

He breathed into him; He gave him His breath, the breath of life. That is the second stage of the yetzirah, the formation, of man. There are two yetzirot in man, two creations in man: one belongs to olam ha-zeh (this world) and is perishable, and the other belongs to olam ha-ba (the World to Come) and is imperishable — the formation of the future. And the imperishable one is this divine breath that was placed in man. The Torah of Shavuot is, to some extent, the embodiment of this divine breath in the people of Israel, freshly emerged from the Egyptian clay. So this time of the creation of the Jewish people — or of the completion of the creation of the Jewish people — does not enter into the cycle of the time of creation. And you will remember that I told you that at our Exodus from Egypt we inaugurated another time — another time, one that is ours, one that we are called to master. We were to renew time, to give it a new dimension. And it is because we do not belong to the time of the creation of the universe that we are a people outside of time, and that the wear of time has no hold on us.

We are still here. We step aside from this time of creation, and we stand in a time that lies beyond seven — seven times seven, forty-nine, is it not? For we explained it last time: once we had begun to glimpse creation as a whole through the seven days of creation and its Shabbat, which is its completion, well, we did it again — we reproduced the same pattern for this time that belongs to olam ha-ba, to the World to Come. And we are forging it in a permanent present, with an ani, a self, which remains the project of Adam HaRishon, the first man. Yes — because just as the Holy One, blessed be He, takes up the ani, the “I,” to say, “I am not reducible to any other reality, and I cannot be associated with any other reality,” so it is with each one of us. We all aspire to this ani — ani hu ve-lo acher: I am who I am, and no other. I do not accept being reduced to a number, to a serial number, to being added up with others. No — I am unique, unique in what I represent. But it is a uniqueness made in the image of that of the Holy One, blessed be He, from which it draws all its sap: from the Torah, from the Law, which likewise cannot be reduced to the level of creation, since the Torah preceded the creation of this world. The creation of this world is merely the negative of the world — of that world of the Torah, of that olam ha-ba.

So, for us, this world is perishable. There is a limit — six thousand years, seven thousand years, and it will begin again — but the people is not subject to that time. And the ani is a transformation of the ayin, of that which is not palpable, not graspable, not controllable. Well, that is what I seek to recover in the Anochi. That is why Hillel said, im ani kan, ha-kol kan — if the ani, if the self, is here, then everything is here. It is the Holy One, blessed be He, who said, ani hu ve-lo acher — it is I, and no other. There is nothing associated with My self.

It is that one — it is because the Ani of the Holy One, blessed be He, reveals itself to the Jewish people […]. We know very well that the letter of creation is bet, duality; but the letter of unity, of oneness, is alef, since the Torah begins with an alef. These dualities must be brought back to unity — and these dualities exist in man as well, at his creation. We have spoken of va-yitzer: there are two creations, just as there are two covenants, two revelations of the Torah. Shavuot is recognized as Zeman Matan Toratenu, the time of the Giving of our Torah. It is the time of Matan Torah. At the same time, in the mouth of our Sages it is Atzeret. We have a festival called Shemini Atzeret, which closes the festival of Sukkot, and there is an Atzeret that closes the festival of Pesach — that is to say, the completion of Pesach lies in this revelation. Now this revelation took place in two stages. The Torah was given to us — the Torah was given to us at Mount Sinai — but we did not receive it; we did not fully accept it, we did not fully integrate it. When did we finally receive the Torah? On Yom Kippur: the second Tablets of the Law were handed down to us on Yom Kippur, when we agreed to wipe the slate clean of everything that dug a gulf between us and our fellow, between us and our Creator, and we eliminated the el zar, the alien deity, the foreign divinities. El, precisely — that is to say, force.

Mi chamochah ba-elim Hashem (Exodus 15:11) — there is the El; it stands in the negation […]. One must indeed try to set aside this assertion of the self, which lies beyond the humility we must acknowledge before G-d — because before G-d we are avadim: “they are My servants.” We are servants, yes. Why? Because just as the world, in its creation, must obey laws — otherwise it will not function as it should — so too man needs a structure that governs him and helps him to realize himself by himself. And he is obliged to conform to these laws. And that law is the Torah. The Torah, which was at the origin of the creation of the universe, is the one that is at the origin of the creation of the Jewish people — of its formation, of the definitive conception of the Jewish people.

That is why Ezra enacted that before Shavuot and before Rosh Hashanah we should be called to order by a parashah of berachot and kelalot, of blessings and curses. Paradoxically, there are forty-nine curses in the parashah of Bechukotai, and in the parashah of Ki Tavo, which precedes Rosh Hashanah, there are ninety-eight curses — and ninety-eight is twice forty-nine. Why? Because when we reach Rosh Hashanah without having integrated the first warning, that of Bechukotai, we find ourselves weighed down by two curses, two series of curses, which amount to a hundred less two. And tum, tam, mat […]. Mem-tet is forty-nine. There are forty-nine ways of treating the problem objectively and in purity of mind, but there are also forty-nine ways of darkening the subject, of blocking it, of confusing it.

Mem-tet, tam: there are forty-nine — you can indeed play on both planes and show that they are nourished by the same source. Alef: tamei — tamei is tet-mem and alef, and the alef is the fiftieth. Why? Because the fiftieth lies outside these shavuot, these weeks, outside this seven times seven, forty-nine, outside this square of seven. So when we begin the fiftieth, we do not count it, because it is a time that cannot be reduced to the twenty-four-hour day. It cannot be reduced to a sefirah. We have gone beyond the safar — we have gone beyond the safar, we have gone beyond the limit. Safar means a limit, a calculation, a gevul, a border. […] But we have also explained that to succeed in going beyond this limit, this border, is to be in a state of total transparency, in which one looks at things, but through them […]. And Shavuot is the fiftieth day. Our Sages, moreover, warned us of this. Rav Alexandri, when he finished his prayer, would say — he would confess: “Master of the universe, we wish at all costs to conform to Your will, but at times the leaven in the dough prevents us” — and the shi’bud malkhuyot, this grip of the nations, of the culture of the nations, of the mass that these influences represent over us, which keeps us on a leash and prevents us from fully revealing our soul, our anochi, from measuring ourselves against this divine breath that You have… But that breath does not belong to this world, which can be reduced to numbers and limits. These are the two scourges that prevent man from freeing himself. And that is why Shavuot too is considered a rosh hashanah; it too was a head of the year. When we say “head of the year,” it means that everything follows the head, everything follows the root, everything follows the source; everything else is merely its extension. One cannot help asking the question: there are four perakim, four seasons in which certain elements of the universe are judged. Man is judged principally on Rosh Hashanah, so we understand very well that we should be forewarned before Rosh Hashanah. But how can Shavuot be regarded as a Rosh Hashanah? And the answer given in the Talmud: ba-Atzeret al perot ha-ilan (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:2) — at Shavuot we are judged through the fruit of the tree, concerning the fruit of the tree.

It is the seeds that are [judged] […], and we are judged, we are judged on […]. So why, in the end, single out only these two? Because man’s reason suffered from the fruit of the first great tree, which man, let us say, misused or abused: the etz, the etz ha-da’at tov va-ra, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The origin is there. The origin is there, because our Sages say that in the time of Adam HaRishon wheat was like a palm tree. It grew tall — it was a tree that rose on high — and it was the tree of da’at, of knowledge. But knowledge must not be reduced to the good and the bad, to good and evil; it must be a matter of sacred and profane, of true and false.

And that, man did not understand; man did not integrate it. So the tree of knowledge lost its stature. It became peri ha-adamah, a fruit of the ground — a seed, a grain. What is the difference? With a tree — of course, you take the fruit, you eat it, but the capital is still there! It is not because you have eaten the fruit that you have lost the capital; it will produce fruit again next year, and so on. So you have kept the capital; you have enjoyed its yield, you have taken the fruit. But when it becomes a zera, a grass, a grain, a peri ha-adamah, once you have eaten it you must replant, you must sow again in order to have a new harvest.

Well, what happened with Adam HaRishon is that he made the tree lose its komah, its stature. It became peri ha-adamah, where in the end everything is lost and one must begin all over again. Now Shavuot tells us: perot ha-ilan — we must indeed be judged for the fruit of the tree. Ilan — I have already explained the difference between etz and ilan. As for etz, our Sages have said — […] draws a connection between etz and etzah. Etzah is counsel. Counsel? And where did our Sages locate counsel? How did Avraham reach the truth? Through his kelayot: it was his kidneys that counseled him.

The kidneys: just as the renal function filters the blood, filters out every impurity — well, that is what knowledge is. It must be filtered; one must find its sap in its purity. And that is why, when we speak of the Torah, we speak of etz chayim: etz chayim hi la-machazikim bah (Proverbs 3:18) — it is a tree of life, a counsel of life, a secret of life for all who uphold it. It is a matter of recovering this dimension of the soul which gives the child the capacity to call out Abba, Imma. As our Sages said, the baby learns to call his father and his mother by their title, by their name, only once he has tasted the grain of wheat.

Wheat is da’at. We know very well that in the sphere of knowledge, chochmah and binah — wisdom and understanding — remain abstract as long as they have not been filtered into da’at, into knowledge integrated by man. In the same way, on the level of the human qualities: rather than seeking to project oneself entirely onto the other, or else seeking to withdraw into oneself and turn everything inward, one must try to maintain a certain equilibrium, a certain balance, in this magnificence. And then there is hod and netzach: we have this sense of eternity. We, baruch Hashem, every day — whatever we undertake, we do not undertake it haunted by the fear of death. No — we are constantly making plans as though we were destined for eternity. And yet we notice that, like a flower that withers, we too are shriveling, growing old, losing our strength, and so on.

And the only way to perpetuate things is through yesod; yesod is procreation. It is a way of defying death. So it is through these three poles that everything in man is conceived and governed. And Shavuot is the festival of the weeks of a time that we have decided to count for ourselves, and in which we situate our life so as not to remain dependent on the laws of nature, which are indeed stricken by death. So we sound the shofar. This shofar sounded for us at Matan Torah; at Matan Torah it is written: va-yehi kol ha-shofar holech ve-chazek me’od (Exodus 19:19) — the sound of the shofar grew ever louder. Now the shofar is not a musical instrument.

It does not join with others; it is not placed in an orchestra to accompany the other musical instruments and take part in a symphony. The shofar is a sound that remains independent. It is bound to nothing. Just as my ani is an “I” that does not melt into any whole, so too the shofar is a sound that lends itself to no blend whatsoever. And this shofar of Shavuot, of Matan Torah, appears in order to call everyone to return — ve-shavtem ish el achuzato ve-ish el mishpachto tashuvu (Leviticus 25:10): each must return to his family, to his property, to his root, to his source.

It is the fiftieth year: when we have counted the shemitot, seven times seven — the agricultural shemitot, seven times seven — we arrive at the fiftieth year, the Jubilee, the shofar of the yovel. It is this divine breath that is no longer confined, neither by bilbul ha-da’at nor by shi’bud malkhuyot. Bilbul ha-da’at — confusion: confusion of knowledge, confusion of ideas, which lies at the origin. It is said that in the days of Assyria, when Sennacherib appeared on the stage of history, he threw everything into confusion — he confounded; he created a tohu, a chaos, in the life of all humanity, and people lost that sharpness of vision, that sharpness of thought. And there was a second element.

That is Egypt, the servitude of Egypt. There are two factors that prevent this “self” from freeing itself: either our thought feeds on several sources without distinction and remains in total confusion, or else we have decided, in order to keep up a certain standard of living, to sell ourselves — to sell ourselves, to become [the servants of] others, instead of remaining […] — for it is said, ki li venei Yisrael avadim, avadai hem (Leviticus 25:55): the children of Israel are servants to Me; they are My servants. Lo yimachru mimkeret aved (Leviticus 25:42): they shall not be sold as a slave is sold. No, not at all. And shi’bud malkhuyot — the first to apply it was Egypt, Mitzrayim. That is why ve-hayah ba-yom ha-hu — on that day, the day of the future — that day is the one we forge in the present of Shavuot, since we have said that the festival of Shavuot is the present, the permanent present, since there is no anniversary date for the giving of the Torah.

With the Torah, it is not a matter of celebrating an anniversary of the giving of the Torah; it is simply a matter of taking up again the breath of this Torah in its original purity — its original purity — and of passing it on, of sharing it with others. So it is the present that prepares that future. And on that day there will be a great blast of the shofar for all of humanity: u-va’u ha-ovdim be-eretz Ashur ve-ha-nidachim be-eretz Mitzrayim (Isaiah 27:13) — and those who are lost in the land of Ashur shall come, and those cast away in the land of Egypt. There are those who will lose their way in the land of Ashur: they have indeed confounded all values, because in everything they do they have sought only present enjoyment, the immediacy of pleasure. Those who are lost — and a child who loses his way is a child who has parents.

And he is searching for them. […] Those who in fact excluded themselves […] at that moment: ahavti et adoni, et ishti ve-et banai, lo etze chofshi (Exodus 21:5) — I love my master, my wife and my children; I do not want to leave my master. After all, we have not done so badly! He is then to be a slave forever — but no, not in perpetuity: beyond that, until the yovel, until the fiftieth year, he must at all costs go out, because this slavery, this disposing of himself, is not granted to him. He must take himself back. That is what we find in the second book […] — and in the parashah of Ki Tavo, where these commitments of blessings and curses are found, they conclude [with the verse about being brought back to Egypt in ships, where there will be no buyer (Deuteronomy 28:68)]. So what are these oniyot, these ships?

[…] gives a most interesting explanation. The oniyot are the ani — the ani that each person has lost. And you will sell it; you will try to sell it. You will try to sell it to your enemies. Ve-ein koneh: there is no buyer, no purchaser. No one wants it. No one wants it — you will be forced to return to yourself. Is that not so? […] Moreover, that is why, when we praise the virtues of a woman, we say hayetah ka-oniyot socher (Proverbs 31:14) — she is like the merchant’s ships. For the woman is the one who has the strength, the virtue, to change her ani at any moment, because she has […] powers far greater than those of man in the domain of intuition […] — there she is much stronger than man. And it is through this ani that she engages quite simply in sechorah, in commerce — but note: solely in order to furnish her home, to build her house, to adorn her house, to ensure the well-being of her husband and of her children at every hour. We are in search of this ani […], with an inner shofar, which is that of Matan Torah — but now it must be realized individually. And when it says va-yichan sham Yisrael neged ha-har (Exodus 19:2) — when Israel encamped there ke-ish echad be-lev echad, as one man with one heart — that does not mean that they all melted into one.

No — it simply means that each person stepped aside to give reality to the other. He learned to efface himself somewhat before the other so that there might truly be a tzibbur. A tzibbur is something heaped up, gathered, brought together. Brought together — and that is indeed why our chachamim say that when the Torah speaks in the plural, it addresses each of the members of the community; but when it speaks in the singular, it addresses the whole — a constituted whole, a constituted whole. And this constituted whole, the one we bring about […], is the one in which each person affirms his self through the breath that is his own. That is Shavuot. And that is why a particular emphasis is placed, in the celebration of this day, on the fact that it is conceived — once again — more as atzeret, as the closing of a count, than as a day of Matan Torah.

And indeed, in the Torah this notion of Zeman Matan Toratenu, of the time when the Torah was given, does not appear. I repeat: Chag HaShavuot, the festival of weeks; Chag HaKatzir, the festival of the harvest; Chag HaBikkurim, the festival of the firstfruits. There we are — if you have a question, you may interrupt me. “The first question — perhaps I misunderstood — but you explain that it could be, in a way, the realization of the Jewish people as a whole, in the community.”