Shavuot: June 1-3, 2006

Shavuot is the second of the three major festivals (Passover being the first and Sukkot the third) and comes exactly fifty days after Passover. The Torah was given by G-d to the Jewish people on Mount Sinai over 3,300 years ago. Every year on this day we renew our acceptance of G-d's gift.

The word Shavuot means "weeks." It marks the completion of the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot (the 'Omer' period) during which the Jewish people prepared themselves for the giving of the Torah. During this time they cleansed themselves of the scars of slavery and became a holy nation ready to enter into an eternal covenant with G-d with the giving of the Torah.

Shavuot also means "oaths." With the giving of the Torah, the Jewish people and G-d exchanged oaths, forming an everlasting covenant, not to forsake one another.

An excerpt from the Lubavitcher Rebbe's Shavuos message
5715 [1955]:

... The core of Jewish vitality and indestructibility is in its pure faith in G-d; not in some kind of an abstract Deity, hidden somewhere in the heavenly spheres, who regards this world from a distance; but absolute faith in a very personal G-d, who is the very life and existence of everybody; who permeates where one is, or what one does.

Where there is such faith, there is no room for fear or anxiety, as the Psalmist says, 'I fear no evil, for Thou art with me,' with me, indeed, at all times, not only on Shabbos or Yom Tom, or during prayer or meditation on G-d. And when one puts his trust in G-d, unconditionally and unreservedly, one realizes what it means to be really free and full of vigor, for all one's energy is released in the most constructive way, not only in one's own behalf, but also in behalf of the environment at large.

The road is not free from obstacles and obstructions, for in the Divine order of things we are expected to attain our goal by effort; but if we make a determined effort success is Divinely assured, and the obstacles and obstructions which at first loom large, dissolve and disappear.

I wish you to tread this road of pure faith in G-d, without over [? unclear in original] introspection and self-searching, as in the simple illustration of a man walking: He will walk most steadily and assuredly if he will not be conscious of his walk and not seek to consciously coordinate the hundreds of muscles operative in locomotion, or he would be unable to make his first step.

Rabbi Lazer Brody explains that on Shavuos we read The Book of Ruth: Converts and Moshiach.

Ruth:

"Do not urge me to leave you, or to turn back and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die and be buried."

...And Ruth and Boaz had a son whose name was Obed, who was the father of Jesse, who was the father of David, who became king over all of Israel.

Chag Sameach! I'll be back motzei Shabbos . . . Yael