Unlike the other two major biblical festivals of Passover and Sukkot, the upcoming holiday of Shavuot has no specific mitzvot designated for its celebration.There is no formal seder (order) no symbolic foods must be eaten, and no huts built, Shavuot, from a straightforward reading of the Biblical verses, is a yom tov, a holiday – devoid of any particular rituals.
Even though Shavuot does not come with laws or rituals listed in the Torah, the Talmud in Tractate Pesachim (68b) points to one halacha that is unique to Shavuot. In delineating the rules of the holidays, the Torah at times refers to them as “holidays for you,” and at times as “holidays for God.”Picking up on this seeming inconsistency, the Talmud suggests that these two terms are complementary since they indicate to us how we are meant to spend our holidays.
Holidays for God vs holidays for you
Rabbi Eliezer claims that one should choose either to devote one’s time and energy over the holidays to the study of Torah (“holidays for God”) or focus on the eating, drinking, and festivities of the day (“holidays for you”). Rabbi Yehoshua, on the other hand, argues that time must be made for both activities, studying and feasting, over the course of every holiday.
This last halachic ruling seems odd. Specifically on the day that the Torah was given we are meant to make time for eating and drinking! Does that make eating cheesecake, marketed in bakeries all over Israel this time of year, a real mitzvah? We would expect just the opposite: Of all the holidays on the calendar, Shavuot should have been designated to focus purely on Torah study. In fact, in Jewish communities around the world, there is a well-established custom to study Torah all night long!
Rav Tzadok Hakohen (Pri Tzadik, Shavuot 12), offers an amazing interpretation of this ruling. Shavuot is, indeed, the time that we celebrate the giving of the Torah. But the Torah is not merely a text to be studied in the beit midrash, as meaningful as that is. The Torah is a way of life, the core and essence of how we live and breathe within the world.
All of life, says Rav Tzadok, emanates from the Torah and takes inspiration from it. As such, there is no better day than Shavuot to eat and drink – with the express intent to sanctify our lives and our world through engaging with the physical. Not through relegating celebration through a special mitzvah, such as a matza or a lulav, do we mark the commemoration of the giving of the Torah, but through the act of engaging with the physical, eating. This is how we recognize the place that the Torah holds in everything that we do.
The Talmud’s approach to how we celebrate Shavuot, as interpreted by Rav Tzadok, reflects a fundamental idea in our Jewish observance. The Torah is not restricted to the spiritual or cerebral, or boxed off into the space in which we perform ritual commands. Rather, the Torah calls on us to find holiness in our every action – our meals, our work, our everyday interactions with others, and beyond.Every part of life offers us the chance to fill the world with the splendor of Torah, by acting in accordance with its letter and with its spirit. The everyday, the mundane – these are not the opposite of holiness, but simply the open space that invites holiness in at every moment. It is about bringing holiness into the mundane and the recognition that without the mundane, holiness is unimportant.
As we once again accept the Torah, let us take it upon ourselves to find new ways to infuse holiness into the routines that make up our daily lives, to feel the presence and the relevance of the Torah wherever we may travel, in whatever we may do.
The writer is president and rosh yeshiva of Ohr Torah Stone, a Modern Orthodox network of 32 educational and social institutions and programs transforming Jewish life, learning, and leadership worldwide.