Parshas Emor contains the Jewish holidays. One of the holidays is the Festival of Shavuos, which is not too far off at this point. Even though the Torah does not mention it explicitly, we all know that Shavuos is the time of our being given the Gift of Torah (z’man Matan Toraseinu) and it is the Yom Tov upon which we celebrate this fact.
The obvious question is the following: If we had to pick a good name for the holiday of Shavuos, it would seem like there is a much better name for the holiday: Simchas Torah! We received the Torah on Shavuos. We celebrate that event — Simchas Torah! What could be a more logical name for this holiday?
The question then is why is Simchas Torah not on Shavuos? And do not tell me because that we celebrate “Simchas Torah” in the fall because that is when we finish reading the Torah cycle. They could have set up the system such that we read Parshas Bereishis on the first Shabbos after Shavuos and we finish the cycle the following year on the holiday of “Simchas Torah” — seven weeks after Pessach.
Is it not a redundancy to celebrate both Simchas Torah and Shavuos? Why isn’t Shavuos the day of Simchas Torah? What is the explanation for two different holidays commemorating Torah?
I once saw a beautiful observation from Rav Simcha Zissel Brody, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Chevron Yeshiva. There are two types of gifts in the world. There are gifts that have value because of the value of the gift (such as the gift of a diamond, a car, a beautiful painting — something with intrinsic value) and there are gifts that are valuable by virtue of the fact of who gives it to you.
Lyndon Johnson was a very effective president when it came to passing legislation. He knew how to get bills through Congress! He used to have elaborate bill signings in the White House. In front of him would be a whole bunch of pens and he would sign his name slowly using a different pen for every curve of every letter in the name Lyndon Baines Johnson. Any person who was invited into the ceremony received one of the pens used by the president for signing the legislation into law as a gift. The pen itself might cost only a couple of dollars but it was a very important gift because it came from the President of the United States. Likewise, anyone who flies in Air Force One is given cufflinks with the insignia of the President of the United States. Again, the cufflinks are worth at most $50. However, the fact that it came from the President makes it an extremely valuable present. These are the two types of presents — intrinsically valuable and valuable by virtue of the person who gave it.
What happens when we have the confluence of both aspects — something that is the most valuable gift in the world and something that was given by the Greatest Being in the universe? That is Matan Torah. The gift of Torah is the most valuable gift in the world — nothing can compare to Torah in value. And who gave it to us? Not the President of the United States but the King of Kings, Master of the Universe!
How do we celebrate this gift? Rav Simcha Zissel says such a celebration requires two separate days — one day to contemplate the gift and one day to contemplate the Giver. Shavuos is the Yom Tov of the Torah. It is the holiday when we must come to the realization that “If not for the Torah that was given on this day, I would just be another Joe in the market place!” What would our lives look like without the Torah? What would our families be like without the Torah? [We need go no further than our front doors to peek outside and see the problems in society to know the answer to that question.] Imagine a week without a Shabbos. Imagine a year without our cycle of spiritually uplifting holidays! What would our children look like if we did not have the Torah to guide them in their development? Where would we be?
The Torah is so valuable that it requires us to have a day to sit and appreciate “Thank G-d, who separated us from those who err and who gave us the Torah of Truth and implanted in our midst eternal life.” This is Shavuos.
But on that same day, we cannot try to fully understand who the Giver is. That requires a second day, which is Simchas Torah. As we all know, the Yom Tov of Succos is the most universal of all Jewish holidays. It is the holiday when we offer sacrifices on behalf of the 70 nations of the world. It is a universal Yom Tov. Shmini Atzeres (and in Chutz L’Aretz the two days of Shmini Atzeres and Simchas Torah) is a time when G-d says, as it were, “Everyone has left. The party is over. I just want you to stay with me one extra day.” There are no special mitzvos — no lulav, no esrog, no Succah, no 70 nations — just the Almighty and His Nation getting together for a time of intimate connection. This is the day when we concentrate on the Master of the Universe. This is the day dedicated to the Giver of the gift of Torah.
Shvauos allows us to celebrate the “cheftza” of Torah (the item itself) and Shmini Atzeres / Simchas Torah allows us to contemplate the greatness of the Giver of the Torah.
