Connected!
For the week of June 15, 2024 / 9 Sivan 5784
Naso
Torah: B’midbar/Numbers 4:21 – 7:89
Shoftim/Judges 13:2-25
You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks (Hebrew: Shavuot) to the LORD your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the LORD your God blesses you. (D’varim/Deuteronomy 16:9-10)
I don’t know about you, but I am still amazed at wireless technology. On a recent walk with my wife, I mentioned how photocopies used to look like photocopies (low-quality duplicates), but now from our devices we can print documents wirelessly that look as original as the original. And what about wireless earbuds? Incredible! I get such a nice feeling when I put them in my ears and hear the pleasant voice say, “Connected.”
We live in a world of connections. We begin life connected to an entire family tree, whether or not we ever fully grasp those connections. Moreover, living life requires the connection of relationships, including family, friends, co-workers, and more. Then, like the earbuds, society depends on all sorts of connected systems.
This week, beginning Tuesday evening, June 11, Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks) begins. You may know it by its Greek-based name, Pentecost. If so, you might be saying to yourself (thinking you are talking to me): “But Pentecost was about a month ago.” We’ll deal with that later.
For now, I want to explain how Shavuot is a feast of connection. Of the three major Torah feasts, Pesach: (English: Passover) and Sukkot (English: Tabernacles or Booths), Shavuot is the only one that doesn’t explicitly commemorate a historical event. It does, but not explicitly. During Pesach, we remember God’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Sukkot commemorates Israel’s years in the wilderness. Shavuot also lacks the kind of specialized customs that Pesach and Sukkot have, Pesach has the Seder and eating matza for a week, Sukkot has living in temporary dwellings and rejoicing while holding specified growing things. Shavuot’s customs as observed today were developed in post-biblical times.
However, there is an explicit and unique feature of Shavuot that is easily missed—connection. God, through Moses, set the date of Shavuot by directing the people of Israel to count seven weeks from Pesach, which is why Shavuot is called the Feast of Weeks. Its alternate name, “Pentecost” is from the number fifty as it was to occur the day after the counting of seven weeks or forty-nine days. Based on this, as acknowledged by Jewish tradition, the timing of Shavuot places it at the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. Therefore, the purposeful counting established a strong connection between the rescue from Egypt and the giving of God’s Word, the Torah. This demonstrates that Israel’s freedom from Egypt was not so that they could do whatever they wanted, but rather to serve the God who rescued them.
But then why in Acts chapter two of the New Covenant Writings does the Ruach HaKodesh (English: the Holy Spirit) come at Shavuot? What’s that connection all about? The key is in understanding one of the core aspects of the New Covenant as prophesied hundreds of years earlier through Jeremiah:
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law (Hebrew: Torah) within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people (Jeremiah 31:33).
Shavuot commemorates the calling of the people of Israel through the giving of the Torah. But as the overall biblical story unfolds, we discover that on our own, we were unable to live up to that call. That is, until that very special Shavuot when through the Ruach HaKodesh, God enabled us to truly be his people from the inside out, thus connecting the people of Israel to himself by his Spirit.
That same special Shavuot also marks a great development of God’s plans and purposes for the world by not only connecting the people of Israel to himself as never before—but by opening the way for people of all nations to truly know him through the Jewish Messiah. And yet most non-Jewish Yeshua followers are not aware that the Pentecost of Acts 2 is the biblical Feast of Shavuot. It doesn’t help that the connection between the Christian celebration of Pentecost occurs at a different time from Shavuot. Why is that? It’s because the Christian Church in the fourth century purposely broke the connection between Yeshua and the Jewish people. I wonder how many other God-given connections we’re missing out on?
Scriptures taken from the English Standard Version
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