Shavuos: Uniting the Guf and Neshama

AI summary (may contain mistakes)

Why does everyone agree that Shavuos needs eating and drinking, even Rabbi Eliezer, who lets a Yom Tov be spent entirely learning? The neshama wants to fly upward while the guf pulls it down, and their union is the wonder of man, expressed in speech. Matan Torah gave the power to lift gashmius itself into kedusha, so the Yom Tov meal shows the guf flying with the neshama.

Key points

• Rabbi Eliezer offers a Yom Tov wholly lashem or wholly lechem, while another Tanna divides it.
• Rashi explains the Shavuos meal as showing that the day of Matan Torah pleases us.
• The Gemara in Sanhedrin says a neshama without a guf flies upward.
• One commentator ties Moshe Rabbeinu's kevad peh to his barely embracing his guf.
• A later sefer answers that after Matan Torah, gashmius itself can become kedusha.

In this shiur

1. 0:00How to spend a Yom Tov
2. 4:25Lechem on Shavuos and Rashi
3. 10:29The igla tilsa on Shavuos
4. 16:01Korban HaOmer and Shtei HaLechem
5. 18:18The neshama flies, the guf pulls down
6. 27:21Moshe Rabbeinu's difficulty speaking
7. 35:12The Chinuch on tzitzis

Topics

• Shavuos
• Matan Torah
• Guf and Neshama
• Moshe Rabbeinu