Shavuot, also called the Festival of Weeks, is at the centre of the three main Biblical Feasts periods. Shavuot is to be celebrated 7 weeks + 1, that is 50 days after the Sabbath of Pesach (Passover). While it appears clear from Scripture that these 50 days are to start on the Sunday, the first day after the regular weekly Sabbath that falls during the Feast of Unleavened Bread/Passover, most of Judaism (the Karaites are an exception) counts from the day after Passover/Pesach, that is from the 15th Nisan.
Personally, I have tended to celebrate with Israel for the sake of unity.
While it would also appear that the 2 Tablets (the 10 Words) were not actually given to Israel on this day, nonetheless Israel celebrates the giving of the 10 Words on this day or at the very least the preparedness of Israel to accept the Torah.
Rabbi Moshe Kempinski argues that:
“… the festival of Shavout represents not the giving of the Torah, but rather the Jewish people’s resolve to stand at the foot of the mountain to receive the Torah. That decision to stand and enter into a covenant of obedience to G-d’s direction marks the power of that day. Shavuot represents the wedding of the Jewish people to their Creator. G-d is seen as the groom beckoning His bride, the people of Israel, to stand under His cloud-huppah covering and to accept His marriage contract (ketubah), His Torah. The joy of this festival is that this people agreed to enter the huppah.”
This take seems to me to be in good harmony with the events of Shavuot as described in Acts 2, as this incredible outpouring of power and spirit on some 3000 zealous Jews from around the world resulted in these people taking the message, joy and goal of Torah[1] to the entire world (even though the message has been seriously distorted and disturbed over the centuries since).
We read in Acts 2 that the followers of Yeshua waited for Shavuot in Jerusalem, after Yeshua had ascended some 10 days before. They waited and then received great power from HaShem which was witnessed by thousands and which resulted in some three thousand becoming followers of Yeshua and believing his message that very day.
In Numbers we read:
“Then the LORD said to Moses, Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you.
And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone.” – Numbers 11:16-17
Note here that God’s Spirit, His Power ‘emanated’ from Moses to these followers, these elders who loved HaShem and were obedient to Moses. Thus, Moses no longer bore the burden alone, but even more importantly, the light of Torah and the power to proclaim it was now in the hands of many more so that the truth of the Almighty could be shared with a great many more and begin to emanate throughout the whole people of Israel gathered in the desert.
Fast forward to the miracle of Shavuot/Pentecost in Acts 2, and we see a very similar event, where just as Yeshua had predicted his proclamation of the Gospel and Torah was now able to emanate into the world through his followers, these ‘elders’ of The Way, who would now have the Power of the Almighty to enable them to proclaim Yeshua’s message, which was of course the message of the Almighty, just as Moses had been told when HaShem declared that He would sent a prophet who would speak His Words.
Deut 18:18-19
“I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.”
In Jerusalem for Shavuot at that time were very many zealous believers from the Diaspora, who saw this great outpouring of the Spirit of God. In returning home, the message of the Kingdom, the message of Yeshua was thus powerfully magnified and ‘emanated’ throughout the world so that Yeshua and his followers could truly be a ‘Light to the Nations’, that is, a revealer of Torah, of The Way (Ps 119) and of the Good News of the Kingdom (Luke 4:43).
There are also some interesting parallels when we investigate the chiastic structure of the 10 Words and also a summary of a midrashic commentary on the delegation/emanation of Numbers 11:16-17 (quoted above).
The Ten Words are ordered in a triple chiastic structure:
Chiastic structure is a literary structure used in ancient literature including the Bible.
For example, suppose that the first topic in a text is labeled by A, the second topic is labeled by B and the third topic is labeled by C. If the topics in the text appear in the order ABC…CBA so that the first concept that comes up is also the last, the second is the second to last, and so on, the text is said to have a chiastic structure. [Also, a chiastic structure can be of the form ABBAABB…ABBA. i.e. when only 2 ideas are being repeatedly referenced rather than 3 or more].
So to help visualize this we write it in this indented manner:
A
B
C
C’
B’
A’
There is normally an inverted parallelism in the sequence.
For example, Matthew 7:6 contains a simple chiastic structure:
A “Do not give what is holy to dogs,
B and do not throw your pearls before swine,
B’ lest they trample them under their feet,
A’ and turn and tear you to pieces”
In this instance, the propositions A and B are reflected as in a reversed mirror image by the propositions B’ and A’.
This helps us understand this verse better as we can see that the dogs (A) tear to pieces (A’), and the swine (B) do the trampling (B’).
A very good example of formal chiasmus may be found in Genesis 17:1-25:
A Abram’s age (1a)
B The LORD appears to Abram (1b)
C God’s first speech (1b-2)
D Abram falls on his face (3)
E God’s second speech – Abram’s name changed (4-8)
X God’s Third Speech -the covenant of circumcision; (9-14)
E’ God’s fourth speech – Sari’s name changed (15- 16)
D’ Abraham falls on his face (17-18)
C’ God’s fifth speech (19-21)
B’ God “goes up” from Abraham (22)
A’ Abraham’s age (24-25)
[See http://www.inthebeginning.org/chiasmus/introduction/chiasmus_intro.htm]
The ordering of the Ten Words can be seen to have a chiastic structure when placed into one of three categories of:
– emotion, speech, and action
The first two commandments, 1) Belief in God and 2) Not worshipping other gods, both have to do with what is in our hearts, what we feel to be true.
We are then told not to take God’s name in vain; this is clearly speech. The fourth Word, ‘Keeping the Sabbath’ is all about action, as is the fifth, as ‘honouring our parents’ is all about how we act toward them.
Beginning with the top of the second tablet (the 2nd 5 Words) we have: Murder, Adultery, and Stealing which are all ‘action’ sins. The 9th Word, ‘Bearing false witness against your neighbour’ is a transgression through speech. The final commandment, coveting that which belongs to your neighbour, is contained within one’s heart, one’s emotions.
Thus we can see that the Ten Words; the Ten Commandments follow the chiastic structure of AABCC – CCCBA.
AA
B
CC
C’C’C’
B’
A’
This order and categorization also helps us appreciate which are more difficult as it is always hardest to control the heart[2]. The above is mostly paraphrased from an article by Stacey Goldman.
Her conclusion is also well worth contemplation:
“Through this literary analysis, we discover a very deep lesson from the Torah. When it comes to our relationship with G‑d, we need to work on our belief so that we can control our speech which will help to refine our actions. This will then further control our actions towards other people which will help to control our speech and refine our thoughts and beliefs about ourselves. This is what it is all about. We cannot respect and treat one another properly unless we respect and care about ourselves, and we can only truly care about ourselves when we recognize that we were created for a reason and that we need to have a relationship with our Creator.”
In Leviticus 19:18 we read ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. This is surely the greatest principle of the Torah. God is involved in the human-to-human relationships. He is manifest when neighbours and friends get along, when people treat one another with mutual respect and caring. The “greatest principle of the Torah”, then, must be read as a rejoinder to behave towards one another in a manner that brings God into our personal and collective lives. This is the path to holiness; indeed, loving your neighbour as yourself becomes the epitome of holiness.
And the inclusion of God in this ‘greatest principle’ is evident when we read the conclusion of verse 18 where we read “I am God”.
“… but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am God.” – Lev 19:18b
God is part of the equation. Loving your neighbour is a summation of the 2nd Tablet. And when it is done in the ‘fear of God’ it sums up the whole of Torah as the Apostle Paul stated: “For the whole of the Torah is summed up in this one sentence: “Love your neighbour as yourself” – Gal 5:14
Thus the holiness of man is connected to keeping the commandments – specifically, the Ten Commandments, the “essentials of Torah.” And the Almighty provides the strength and power to heed this call and be holy.
Yeshua had told his disciples that they would receive the power of the holy Spirit and to wait for this event. As it was only 10 days until Shavuot in seems likely that they would remain in Jerusalem until then.
“But you will receive power when the Ruach HaKodesh comes upon you; you will be my witnesses both in Yerushalayim and in all Y’hudah and Shomron, indeed to the ends of the earth!” – Yeshua in Acts 1:8
What this incredible event seems to illustrate is the delegation of the Gospel message to a much greater number of people from all lands of the Diaspora. It seems then to match the events we read in Numbers as below:
Numbers 11:16-17 and Delegation
“If the burden is too heavy for you to bear alone, says G-d to Moses, “Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you.”
And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will emanate of the spirit which is upon you, and will bestow it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you bear it not yourself alone.
On the most basic level, this is the difference between physical and spiritual giving. In physical giving, the givers resources are depleted by his gift–he now has less money or energy than before. In spiritual giving, however, there is no loss. When a person teaches his fellow, his own knowledge is not diminished if anything, it is enhanced.
Upon deeper contemplation, however, it would seem that spiritual giving, too, carries a “price.” If the disciple is of inferior knowledge and mental capability than the teacher, the time and effort expended in teaching him is invariably at the expense of the teachers own intellectual development; also, the need for the teacher to “coarsen” and simplify his ideas to fit the disciples mind will ultimately detract from the depth and abstraction of his own thoughts. By the same token, dealing with people of lower moral and spiritual level than oneself cannot but affect one’s own spiritual state. The recipients of this “spiritual charity” will be elevated by it, but its giver will be diminished by the relationship, however subtly.
Indeed, we find an example of such spiritual descent in Moses bestowal of the leadership upon Joshua. In contrast to the appointment of the seventy elders, where he was told to “emanate” his spirit to them, Moses is here commanded to “Take Joshua the son of Nun, and lay your hand upon him… and give of your glory upon him” (Numbers 28:18-20). Here the Midrash comments, “Lay your hand upon him like one who kindles a candle from a candle; Give of your glory like one who pours from one vessel into another vessel.”
In other words, there are two kinds of spiritual gifts: a gift that “costs” the giver nothing (“emanation”, which is like “kindling a candle from a candle”), and a gift that involves a removal of something from the giver in order that the recipient should receive something (“pouring from one vessel into another”).
There are times we indeed sacrifice something of ourselves for the benefit of a fellow. But there are also times when we commit ourselves to our fellow so absolutely–when the gift comes from a place so deep and so true within us–that we only grow from experience, no matter how much we give of ourselves.”
– by The Lubavitcher Rebbe (seehttp://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/1088/jewish/The-Emissaries.htm for a fascinating article on the Rebbe which also relates to the ‘outpouring’ or ‘emanation’.
In the case of the Shavuot experience of Acts 2 the spiritual gift was really from the Almighty who can’t in anyway be diminished.
May you experience something of the joy and power of being filled with the Spirit of the Almighty this Shavuot and may the joy of Torah be yours as well and bring you into a deeper holiness.
[1] http://circumcisedheart.info/The%20Goal%20of%20Messiah.pdf
[2] see http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/521897/jewish/The-Meaning-in-the-Order.htm
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