23 May SHAVUOT: FINDING STABILITY IN A TIME OF INSTABILITY

The upcoming holiday
of Shavuot, the
celebration of our
receiving the Torah,
along with the name of
the book we are now
beginning – “Bamidar” (“in the desert”)
– gives us an opportunity to reflect on the
fact that G-d chose to give us the Torah,
and to begin our nation’s history, in a
desert.
Why the desert? Why didn’t G-d wait
until we came into the land, built homes
and communities, and got ourselves
settled?
One Rabbi answered that the Torah was
given in the desert precisely because it is
in “desert” conditions when we show that
we’re up to the task, that we are truly
committed.
Imagine going to sleep at night without a
morsel of food in the house. Nothing. The
cupboards, the fridge and the freezer are
EMPTY. And, there is no plumbing, so

you have not a drop of water.
One other thing – your bank account is
down to zero. There’s not even a
penny. You have no job and no source of
income.
Sounds pretty scary.
Somebody then tells you not to worry,
because when you wake up in the
morning, all the food your family needs
is going to fall down from the sky. And
you’re going to have plenty of water –
it’s going to come out of a rock.
This is how Beneh Yisrael lived in the
desert, for forty years. They went to sleep
each night with absolutely nothing, with
not even a crumb of food. All they had
was the promise that manna will fall the
next morning and water will flow from a
rock.
True commitment to Hashem is shown in
the “desert,” in times of instability. This
is when we show that we trust in Hashem,
that we believe that He is the source of

our sustenance and our wellbeing.
We crave stability. It’s one of our most
important needs. But we look for it in the
wrong places. We look for it in our jobs,
our businesses, our source of income, our
house, our car, our wealthy relative or
friend. The Torah was given in the most
unstable condition possible – in the
desert, where the people had no
possibility of sustaining themselves, to
teach them, and to teach us, that OUR
SENSE OF STABILITY MUST COME
FROM HASHEM, and from nothing
else.
In the times of the Bet Ha’mikdash, the
nation would come to the Bet
Ha’mikdash every Pesach, Shavuot and
Sukkot. The Gemara says that on these
holidays, the kohanim would display to
the people the shulhan – the special table
in the Bet Ha’mikdash, which had on it
thelechem hapanim, special bread. The
bread remained on the table for a full
week until it was removed and eaten by

the kohanim, but it miraculously
remained fresh all week.
The kohanim displayed this miracle to
the people to show them that THE
MANNA IS STILL FALLING. The
bread on our tables, even now, is as
miraculous as the manna in the
desert. Hashem is sustaining us just as
He sustained our ancestors in the most
unstable place imaginable.
Hashem gave us the Torah in a desert – to
teach us that it is here where we show our
faith, where we make it clear that we
place our trust in Him, and not in anything
else.