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.

New Moon Iyar

The month of Iyar is the second of the twelve months of the Jewish calendar. It is the month that bridges Pesach and Shavuot, festivals that commemorate the Exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai.

The names of the Jewish month are found in the Epic of Gilgimesh written hundreds of years before Avraham who lived 3800 hundred years ago; many of these ancient names have no meaning in Hebrew like Iyar. The 6000 year old Hebrew calendar, we are now at 5770, is an extension of the ancient Babylonian calendar.

Between Passover and Shavuot are forty-nine days during which the commandment of counting the days is carried out in increments of weeks. Today begins the third week called Tiferet/Beauty based on the lower seven of the Ten Sefirot which correspond to the seven days of the weeks and the 6000 years of creation plus the seventh thousandth year of peace and women.

Each day also corresponds with one of the seven outer planets–this week Tiferet/Beauty is Jupiter which is certainly beautiful; the first day correlates to the earth which is Chesed/Kindness. Kindness and beauty are represented in today.

The first 33 days are an inward process of repairing the subtleties of these seven primal qualities; the last 16 days are of going out culminating with the receiving of the Torah on day 50. The Cabala explains that fifty is forever.