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Thought for the Day: Shavuos -- Moving Out of This World and Into Eternity

I like to think of myself as someone who is not dense. You know, I pick up on important things. I just heard this same Chazal for the third time completely out of the blue (Pesachim 68b):

רב יוסף ביומא דעצרתא אמר עבדי לי עגלא תלתא אמר אי לא האי יומא דקא גרים כמה יוסף איכא בשוקא

Rav Yosef would make himself a beautiful BBQ on Shavuos, saying: If not for what that day (Shavuos) caused (ie, me to learn Torah), I would be just another Yosef in the marketplace.

I first heard it on Shavuos night in the rav's shiur (I was in Boca Raton). Then a friend pointed me to a Beur Heitiv (Siman 494). Then I just heard a shiur from R' Efraim Twerski on TorahAnytime.com. So what makes this Chazal so interesting?

First, Rav Yosef seems to be "tooting his own horn" here. "I am a rav, and they aren't. I'm special, and they aren't."  Also, why is Rav Yosef focusing on the day? Shouldn't Rav Yosef be focusing on the Torah? It is the Torah after all that makes us special.

Let's start with that Beur Heitiv. Siman 494 is entitled, "Order of the prayers for the holiday of Shavuos". The siman says that we celebrate the holiday of Shavuos on the 50th day for the Omer. The t'filos are just like on Pesach, except we say, "the day of this festival of Shavuos, the season of the giving of the Torah." The Beur Halacha begins by telling us to see the Magen Avraham who notes that according to everyone the Torah was given on the 51st day of the Omer.

Wait... what? Didn't we think that Shavuos is the celebration of the day of the giving of the Torah? Getting unanimous agreement is pretty impressive, don't you think? How's that work? Everyone agrees that we left Mitzrayim on a Thursday. Everyone agrees we received the Torah on Shabbos. Count seven complete weeks from the day after we left; that's Friday to Thursday time seven. Then Friday is day 50. Then Shabbos is... well son of gun; Shabbos -- the day on which we received the Torah at Har Sinai -- is day 51.

Why is Shavuos on day 50? One answer, brought by the Beur Heitiv from the Maharsha is that fear of sin -- not fear of punishment for sinning -- is an absolute requirement for receiving the Torah. Imagine proposing marriage and the potential fiance would ask, "well... How many times a week do you want me to to laundry? How many meat meals do you want for dinners? Am I going to have to iron your clothes?" This is not going to work. What's the only right answer? "Oh, Yes! And we'll do whatever we need to for this to work!" That's what happened when HaShem offered the Torah to the nations; they all wanted to know what were the contractual obligations. Only Klal Yisrael answered, "Oh, Yes! And we'll do whatever we need to for this to work!"

What about the focus on the day, instead of the Torah? R' Twerski brings from the Chasam Sofer that goyim count their days from the morning, whereas we count from the night. That means that Klal Yisral started counting that Thursday night and so the Torah was given on our 50th day. (The details are tricky.) Why does their night follow day and our day follows the night? Because they are attached to this world; that is their "light". After this world, for them, comes the darkness of death. We are the opposite, this world is dark and confusing, so HaShem gave us the Torah as a guide. When we leave this world, we enter the עולם הבא, and existence of eternal light.

Rav Yosef teaches us that whenever we remember that our day starts at night, we should be thankful for the day we moved out of this world and into eternal life.

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