Torah Given

Shavuot, or the "feast of weeks,” is celebrated seven weeks after Passover. It marks the culmination of the Omer period leading to the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.

The word Shavout/Weeks is connected to the words Sovia/Satiated and Shavua/Vows; these three ideas of weeks, satiation and vows culminate on the fiftieth day, the sixth of Sivan when the Jewish People received the Torah which this year falls on the 19th of May.

Passover is the advent of the Jewish People and 50 days later the Jewish People become bride to the Creator who gave the Ten Commandments engraved in two cubes made of sapphire and the Jewish People became bride to the Creator promising to obey and perform the 613 Commandments implicit within the first ten.

The Torah satisfies the soul since God looked into the ocean of the Torah and from that reflection created creation. The Cabala teaches the first commandments given to the first human beings were of a spiritual nature but it was not until the Torah was given on Mount Sinai that the commandments became physical.

The Midrash-Book of Metaphor says Avraham did all the 613 Commandments even before the Torah was given; once in the physical world the commandments become filaments to the spiritual light. Every year at this time the light becomes more profound.