The Case of the Missing Torah - What is Shavuos All About?

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Living with Emunah - Rabbi Efrem Goldberg’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

Good evening and welcome to our sheer. Good evening and welcome to our special sheer, which is part of a beautiful evening of Yeshiva University has planned a evening of learning in anticipation of Shavuot. And I hope that when we are done tonight, you will stay with the sheer and you will join this a very beautiful program they have through the night. If you go on YU's website, you can see all the details and you can join that beautiful sheer. Thank you for being with me tonight as we explore what is a fascinating topic, a very is a fascinating topic, a very interesting topic to me and that is what the holiday of Shavuot is really all about. You see, most of us immediately, if asked what Shavuot celebrates, if someone woke you up in the middle of the night and said, "What is the holiday of Shavuot commemorate? What does it celebrate? What is it really all about?" Almost universally, every one of us would say, "Shavuot is Matan Torah Sinai. Shavuot is about reliving, celebrating, re-experiencing the giving of the Torah. That is what the holiday is all about." And yet, what we'll see tonight, what we'll explore together, is tonight, what we'll explore together, is if you look in the Torah sources themselves, and even if you look in rabbinic literature, you will not find a significant emphasis. The Torah itself, you'll find no mention at all of a connection between Shavuot and the giving of the Torah. So, what has become the universal theme, the universal observance of a holiday for us, actually has no mention in the Torah itself, which frankly is very bizarre. Shavuot is probably the least known and the least observed of all the Jewish holidays. I'm talking among unaffiliated

Jump to a moment

1. 0:03Good evening and welcome to our sheer. Good evening and welcome to our special sheer, which…
2. 3:06You should convoke on this very day. It's a holy convocation. Don't do any creative labor.…
3. 6:51to earn. What does the word Atzeret mean? So, the Ramban there in Parshat Emor, the…
4. 9:53We are observing this Shavuot. And what is the theme, the essence? What are we observing…
5. 13:27B'Tumas Mitzrayim Rotzah Hashem L'Hadbik L'Umah Zu. We were saturated and contaminated the lowest level of…
6. 17:00M'Hakri Ki Kol Mah She'Inyan Yoser Ne'elam V'Yoser Pnimi Hu Yoser Sustam. The holier and the…
7. 20:03theme. It's a superimposed theme on the holiday. The holiday remains primarily a holiday of agriculture,…
8. 24:06because one has to receive and accept the Torah before you could celebrate a holiday which…
9. 27:11a day of judgment, Yom Hadin. It is replete throughout all the liturgy of the davening…
10. 30:47With David Hoffman, the great German also comments and he says the following in translation from…

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