Weekly D'var Torah

Rabbi Rudin

And you shall count from the gathering of the first Omer of barley seven weeks: fifty days and then at the wheat harvest make a new offering... (Leviticus 23:15)

The festival of Shavuot which falls Tuesday night, Wednesday and Thursday celebrates the giving of the Torah on Sinai as well as… the beginning of the wheat harvest?   The what now?  In our post-agricultural existence, Why should we celebrate the beginning of a grain harvest? What gives?

On Passover, G-d gave us our freedom from physical slavery.  No longer dependent on our taskmasters for sustenance, we became freed to make our own way in the world.  In terms of our own lives, the Rabbis remind us that there are many forces in the world that seek to enslave us.  Some of them are external forces and others originate from within us.  American writer David Thoreau said, “...worst of all is to be the slave-driver of yourself”.  

The mission of Pesach is to be freed of all that enslaves us, of all that presents an obstacle to the fulfillment of our human potential. 

In Land of Israel terms, Passover is the beginning of the barley harvest.  Barley is a coarse grain that is mostly used to feed animals.  It represents nurturance of our earthly, material selves: a nurturance that too often becomes itself bondage. Barley reminds us that we must always differentiate between what we truly need and what we merely desire.

S’orah- Barley- a coarse, quick-ripening grain, first fruit of the fields of Israel.

Shavuot is when G-d gave us our spiritual freedom through the revelation of the Torah.  By study, doing mitzvot and acts of lovingkindness, we are given wings to self-realization and fulfillment.  Wheat, which ripens seven weeks after the Passover barley- during the Omer in fact, measuring the time it took us to journey from Egypt to Sinai- is the nurturance of humanity, the grain from which we bake bread, the staff of life.  Challah, the bread of Shabbat, comes from wheat.  The Torah tells us, for man does not live by bread alone but by all that comes forth from the mouth of G-d. (Deuteronomy 8:3)  Torah is to our spiritual life what bread is to our physical beings.  Just as we must plant and plow, harvest, winnow and grind and sift to make bread, so must we work on refining our characters.  This is the Torah/Land connection- Torah and bread are given to be shared: together they are the basis of community, connection, compassion.

Hitah- the Wheat harvest.  Notice how the harvester is wearing gloves so that his sweat doesn’t wet the sheaf and make it chametz!

Chag Sameach!