Matos: 5786 - Parshas Bamidbar is always read before the festival of Shavuos, and the reasons for this. The Rebbe instituted and requested a 'Shabbos of unity' to hold farbrengens together - as one man with one heart. Rabbi…

00:00 Speaker 1 Please.

00:03 Speaker 2 We’re already getting close to Shavuos. Parshas Bamidbar is always read before Shavuos. One reason is that Ezra the Scribe instituted the Torah reading so that Parshas Bamidbar would always be read before Shavuos. Why? Because Parshas Bamidbar tells of the census of the Jewish people. The entire book is called the Book of Numbers. And why did he establish this specifically before Shavuos? Because something that is counted is not nullified. It doesn’t lose its significance. So that the Jewish people would not be nullified among the nations, we always read Parshas Bamidbar before Shavuos. That’s one explanation. For the Shabbos before Shavuos, the Rebbe also instituted a Shabbos of unity, because the preparation for the giving of the Torah was that the Jewish people encamped as one person with one heart. To receive the Torah, there needs to be unity among the Jewish people. So the Rebbe instituted and asked that the Shabbos before Shavuos be a Shabbos of unity: everyone sits together, washes for bread, shares a meal, and says words of Torah. It’s about the unity of the Jewish people. One of the customs we observe on Shavuos is eating dairy foods. Why do we eat dairy foods on Shavuos? There are many reasons for it, given by both the earlier and later authorities—many, many reasons. We’ll touch on a few of them. One reason is that the Torah is compared to milk and honey. There’s the verse, “Milk and honey are under your tongue,” and the Torah is compared to milk and honey. Why specifically milk and honey? Milk is food for babies, for young children, because they can’t digest heavier foods. So the Torah has practical mitzvos that are, how should I put it, for each and every person, for everyone. And then there’s honey, which is specifically for adults; it could harm young children. That refers to someone who delves deeply into the secrets of the Torah, into the inner dimension of Torah. So that’s why it’s compared specifically to milk and honey: “Milk and honey are under your tongue.” And that’s why we eat

02:24 Speaker 2 dairy on Shavuos. There’s another explanation brought by the Magen Avraham for why we eat dairy foods on Shavuos. According to the Zohar, the seven weeks of the Omer that we’ve counted until now are compared to the seven clean days a woman counts in order to become pure. In the same way, to become pure and receive the Torah, we counted seven weeks. This transforms judgment into mercy, just as it says regarding a woman that blood is transformed into milk. That’s why we eat dairy: it reminds us of those seven weeks of purification in preparation for the giving of the Torah. That’s another explanation for why we eat dairy foods. There’s another explanation attributed to one of the great figures of Chassidus, Rabbi Shimshon of Ostropoli. He said something interesting. We see that the angels brought accusations against the Jewish people before Hakadosh Boruch Hu three times: when man was created, then when the Torah was given, and afterward when they sinned with the Golden Calf. The angels came before Hakadosh Boruch Hu and argued against the Jewish people. At the giving of the Torah, too, they argued: “What is man that You should remember him?” Why was Hakadosh Boruch Hu giving the Torah to the Jewish people? “Place Your glory upon the heavens.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu said to them: What did I write in the Torah? I wrote, “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.” One may not eat meat and milk together. When you came to Avraham Avinu, it says, “He took butter and milk and the calf.” You ate meat and milk together. How can you ask to receive the Torah? So it says that Hakadosh Boruch Hu silenced them, and their accusation was nullified. To commemorate that miracle, we eat dairy on Shavuos. That’s one reason. There’s another reason. On the eve of Shavuos, we’ll finish the mitzvah of counting the Omer, so we make a meal in honor of completing a mitzvah. We complete

04:46 Speaker 2 the forty-nine days during which we’ve counted the Omer. So in honor of our counting—especially if someone hasn’t missed a day and can still count with a bracha—we make a meal to celebrate completing this mitzvah, just as we make a meal to celebrate completing the Torah. But if we make it a meat meal, how can we distinguish between the meal celebrating the completion of a mitzvah and the meal celebrating the joy of Yom Tov? To distinguish between them, we make this one specifically a dairy meal. That’s another reason. This explanation I just mentioned is brought in the name of Rabbi Pinchas of Koritz: we make a meal to celebrate completing a mitzvah. We also learn this from King Shlomo. When King Shlomo finished building the Beis Hamikdash, it says that he made a meal for all his servants to mark its completion. We do the same when we finish counting the Omer. Another reason is that when the Jewish people returned home from the giving of the Torah, they wanted something to eat. But they had nothing to eat, because until then, as we just learned in the Gemara, they would kill animals by cutting their throats. Now they could no longer eat meat from an animal killed that way; it had to be slaughtered through shechitah. So they couldn’t eat meat. What’s more, it says that everyone agrees the Torah was given on Shabbos. They couldn’t do all the work involved in slaughtering the animal and then preparing the meat on Shabbos. So what could they eat? They had returned from the giving of the Torah and wanted something to eat. The only thing they could eat was dairy food. So to commemorate this, we eat meat and dairy. These are some of the reasons for this custom,

06:48 Speaker 2 and a Jewish custom is Torah. That is why we eat dairy foods. May we merit to receive the Torah with joy and inwardly.

06:56 Speaker 3 Amen.