Deep Dive Shavuot 2025 with Rabbi Yitzchok Feldheim

Okay, thank you so much everyone for joining us for this special one-on-one deep dive program for Shivuote. And we are so excited to have as our special guest speaker for the program, Rabbi Yetskak Felheim. He's a renowned international thinker and lecturer. He specializes in Jewish thought and philosophy. He travels to major universities and Jewish communities to present religious ideas to secular audiences. is he has spoken for us many times at project inspire and on ash programs and he is also the rabbi at the alter in Bay Harbor Florida. So thank you Rabbi Felheim for joining us. Okay and no one no one heard anything I just said. No no no sorry but just the first few seconds just the first few seconds. I said it's great to be here. I'm happy to be back. This is the best audience anywhere and uh I don't know. I don't think I've been here since Kaneka maybe. Does that make sense? I don't know. Okay, so let's get right to it. We have a few minutes before the class to say a few words and then we'll do it afterwards. I was just thinking to connect a lot of dots for you and connect it to the theme that you're going to be reading about. The theme that you're going to be reading about is the theme of unity and so let let me just give you a lot of detail and see if we can connect a lot of dots. First of all, the name of the holiday is has two meanings. One meaning of the word is week. A week is a so means weeks. And the reason why it's called weeks is because it's the culmination of counting seven weeks, right? We count 49 days. Seven weeks of seven days equals 49. And the 50th day is so the counting was 49 days and that's the meaning of weeks. On the other hand, there's another meaning of the word which means oaths, right? Uh to make it to swear in in Hebrew is is to make a shva. And uh it's interesting to think about if you can think about what is the common denominator of an oath and a week that uh both of them have the same word in Hebrew. Like in Hebrew words mean something. They don't mean two things. So the word shu means whatever the common denominator of weak and oath is. Uh I'm not I'll I'll save that for five minutes from now as my punchline of the first talk. What the connection is. But before we get there, I'll just give you a little more information. Things that we know, but just to put it all together and make a cholant out of it is that the 49 days of the Omr that we count began after the first day of PES, right? But we we start counting really by the second seder. So the this the first day of Pes and then we count to 49 days till till now everyone knows that the ma one of the main laws of PES is the get getting rid of and whoever spoke for you before Pes or any classes that you went to about Pes you heard every negative connotation of Levan of KTS it's arrogance it's self and sin and matzah is humble and and it's unity it's not self a lot of metaphors. So it's interesting that we spend so much time bad mouthing before Pes that when you come to it's fascinating to discover that the offering that's bought brought on the holiday of is called the two loaves of bread and the one law that the Torah says about these two loaves is they must be baked. So for all the talk of how evil KTZ is on Pesak when it 49 days later when Shuis comes KTZ is all of a sudden the hero. So what happened to KTZ this rehabilitation of the image of KTZ it it needs to be explained. So uh okay I'll limit it to those details and we'll tie it together. So we asked two questions. What is the connection between the word oath and as weak and why is all of a sudden on some kind of hero? How is KTS become holy in in a matter of seven weeks? I will just tell you one little tidbit just for those who might be a little skeptical about the the connection between weeks and oaths. It's it's very random but there's a track date of Talmud a ma called shuos which is all the laws of oaths and uh it's ironic do you know how many pages there are in the track date of oaths 49 pages so shuos in in in the talmud has 49 pages and there means oaths not weeks so it's another dimension to the connection between weeks and oath So I'll tell you one deep idea of what the connection between oaths and weeks is are is that uh on PES we the whole holiday is about becoming a nation and therefore the the principle of nationhood is the removal of self is to work together as a group and that's how we get rid of because it's all about humility and teamwork. Um, if you're into the zodiac, there's a lot of cabala on the zodiac. The sign of the month of Nissan is Aries, which is it's really a sheep, a ram, but the the cabala says that the ram represents unity because they travel in the flock and it's passive. And uh the month of Nissan is the month of unity of of becoming a nation. And that's why it's symbolized by the sheep because it's this it's sort of like the sacrificing of self for the community. On the other hand, the next month, the month we're in now, is the month of of which is Taurus. It's an ox in in in the zodiac in the month of uh in the symbols of the months. And the ox is a lone animal. It's an animal that plows on its own in the field. It's not part of a flock. The the job of the month of Nissan that Pes is in is unity. The job of the month of Ear is the counting of the Omr is individuality. Is to focus on every little individual thing, not the group, but to to flesh out your own skills and your own traits. It's a dangerous thing to work on individuality because that's why we know Rabi Akiva's students all died during this period for the sin of not respecting each other. It's the occupational hazard of of individuality is sort of losing sight of the group and having a maybe not enough sensitivity to everyone else's traits. on pes when we work on nationality that's not a problem but once you start to work on individuality there are there are things you have to watch out for and that's the month and that and that's you know not respecting others not understanding differences in people and just being wrapped up in your own worldview the the deal with the zodiac and the cabalistic ideas of it point out that the the third month Nissan is the sheep er is the ax unity and individuality. Shivos falls in the beginning of the month of of Sivon which is Gemini and Gemini is twins and the idea is is the twins represent the ability to synthesize unity and individuality is that we're supposed to figure out and how to have both traits together. were not sheep or oxen but some kind of synthesized we call it tiferes which is the Hebrew word for beauty the idea of beauty in Judaism represents the ability to synthesize unity and individuality and that's the goal of shuis so we start off with unity we work our way through individuality we're supposed to meet in the end with some kind of synthesized idea this is the idea right oh very nice the two luos are twins one right very Nice. One is the luos between man and his fellow man and one are your own personal relationships to God. So the ability to combine both lus the relationship of man and God and God and man self community. This is what we're doing over here which brings me back to the connection between weeks and oaths. So what a week is it's it's uh I'll do it oath first. It's a little easier to see it in an oath. the Hashem gives us 613 mitzvah. But there's a mitzvah that you have to keep your oaths. So when somebody makes swears and makes a commitment, what he's done is now and you break your commitment, you break your vow. So now you've broken a law in the Torah. Meaning the Torah says I can't eat meat and milk, but it doesn't say I can't eat cotton candy. But if I make an oath that I'm going to eat cotton candy or not eat cotton candy or something like that, so now that becomes a mitzvah because if I break that I swore and I lie. So now I've broken a Torah law. What what the say is oath is the ability to create personal Torah. God gives us the first 613 laws. But then by my speech, by my word, by making commitments and promises and oaths, I'm creating my own obligations, personal responsibilities. So the Torah is what's given to us by God. And oaths, what an oath represents is personal obligations, personally created obligations, which is the uniqueness of what oaths are. Is it's me. And that's what a week is. Also, there are many different ways of measuring time. And they're all based on the c on year. The year is based on a solar cycle. How long it takes for the earth to go around the sun. A day is a rotation of the earth on its axis facing the moon. Your sunrise, sunset. All of the different measurements of time are based on different celestial cycles. But there is no cycle for a week. The week, if you think about it, right, takes 30 days for the earth to go for for for a month. A day is a rotation is one day. A year is a rotation of the earth around the sun. So what's a week? A week is a human created measurement of time. It is our own imprint, our own choice. You could divide a month into, we could have made 10 weeks of three days each. We could have made three weeks of 10 days each. We could have divided it many different ways. The division of seven day weeks. There is no reference to that in the cosmos in any of the planets and stars and the moon is a total human creation. And God has given us two ways to measure time. his way and our way. And he's given us different mitzvah, his mitzvah and our mitzvah. So shuos are our mitzvos. The weeks are our measurements of time. So what shuos really is it's the it's pes started off with unity and then the omra begins the work on individuality. individ God wants us to know that people often assume that religion is the negation of self and what the Torah is telling us over here is exactly the opposite is that the goal is to affirm yourself. Hashem has created a means for us to expand the Torah and to create oaths. He's giving us the ability even to measure time by our own choices, our own way of measuring time. So shvos really is the celebration of self my own imprint on the universe and that's why the offering on sukus is specifically on on sukus has become holy and uh unity is nice unity is safe. It's much more dangerous to work on individuality. But the the idea that you can if you refine your individuality and somehow not ruin the community and synthesize it with the community, that's the greatest achievement. If you can somehow get to the point where you can embrace and have that larger self but not impinge on the group and on other people, then you've personified the twins of shis. And that's the idea. We'll come back after the class with a little more insight into this on unity and this theme, but go ahead and go to your rooms and enjoy yourselves. We'll see you soon. Thank you so much, Rabbi Felheim. So, we're all going to break out now for about a half an hour and then we will call you back and Rabbi Felheim will close out the program for us. Thank you so much. Great. Enjoy. Take care everybody. Daniela, I have an unexpected guest. I have to leave. I'm sorry. Okay, welcome back everybody. I hope every I hope that everyone enjoyed the um the source-based uh Zoom room learning and I'm going to give it back over to our BFL time. Okay, everybody, welcome back. Am I everyone hears me? I'm good. I I'm I'll assume yes. Okay. So, you just did for the last half an hour a whole presentation about the theme of unity and that the Torah is is really just a guide book to unity. Um, to sum up everything you you did in short, uh, he used the metaphor of a puzzle. I think a puzzle is an amazing metaphor. There's there are three stages in a puzzle. There's the cover of the puzzle box and that's the original picture. And then there's the pieces in the box which is the picture once it's been cut up. And then there's the finished puzzle stage three when you reassemble all the pieces. And that's that's really the pattern in in most things in Judaism. We say shama that's how he started. He started the exercise with the shama. The shama is that God is oneness itself. And then that's the cover. Hashem is the cover of the puzzle box. And then the universe are all the fragmented pieces. Um basically the unity of God is hidden and we don't see how everything's one. And that's that's life. That's everything that we uh we see every day. all the problems of the world, sickness and poverty and hatred and and division and jealousy and there's physical division uh emotional you know noneness intellectual non-weness lies ignorance and the third stages is where we sort of put everything back together again and we fix all the problems we make everything work and that's the goal of the Torah is sort of the guide book to assembling to puzzlem and we're the puzzle makers and uh that's what we celebrate on shuis is the giving of the book which allows us a guide to how to assemble the pieces of puzzle that's basically what you read about I want to tie that now into what I spoke about in the beginning of the journey from matzah to kitz matzah is unity so this entire theme was about unity but somehow Now at the same time it's about unity is also about individuality. So how does that fit with the with the oneness if it's all about self? So it's a very very deep idea. Uh the progress of you see ma I I don't think that to say it in a nugget it would be that matzah and kt aren't really opposites. It's a process. I if we were to ask ourselves maybe the biggest question is I understand that I was created with abilities and a role and a niche in the universe a unique role that only I could perform and let's say we accept that why is it that it's so difficult to do that why is it that so few people really become everything that they were meant me meant to be and uh okay it's it's it's not meant for 10 minutes to treat that exhaustively. But the short gist of it is is in Jewish thought, the reason why we believe that most people don't become who they were meant to be is because, well, I'll add one step. We don't become who we're meant to be because we run away from it. In just like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they went to hide in the bushes. And the idea is that most of us end up to some degree hiding in the bushes. And the question is is what makes us hide in the bushes? Why aren't we embracing all of the parts of life that were given to us? Why aren't I be why am I not becoming who I was meant to be? And uh so the shortest answer is is the reason why we often don't become don't embrace our lives and we run we we we don't try and become who we were meant to be is because we think that we're supposed to be everything. We look around and we see people with all these different gifts and this guy has a ski chalet and this guy has a a ha, you know, a condo on the beach and this one lives in Manhattan and this one's got an estate in the country and those are all beautiful blessings, but those are blessings that are meant for 40 people. I have a beautiful blessing, too, but I'm not supposed to be everything. What happens is that we look out at the world. If we think of ourselves, let's let's think of the world as as a symphony and every one of us as an instrument. But then we look around at the stage and we see everyone playing all these instruments and I think I'm supposed to be everything. And when I think I'm supposed to be everything, so that's impossible. I can never be everything. It's the idea that I think I have to be everything that causes me to give up. Cuz if I think I'm supposed to be everything and I realize I'll never be everything, then why should I bother trying? I'll never succeed at what I think I should be. The thing that robs us of the confidence to attack life is the idea that we're supposed to be everything. It's interesting that what robs us of self-esteem and of confidence is the idea that I think I'm supposed to be more than I am. If I think that I'm supposed to be everything, then my chance of success is zero. It's impossible to be everything. So it'll be more come more clear when when we figure out what the answer is. So what is the answer? If the reason that I don't have the confidence to jump into life the way I would love to is because I don't think I'll succeed because I think I'm supposed to be everything. So what what what's the answer that you would tell somebody? What we tell them is is that you know what the secret of self-esteem is? The secret of self-esteem is realizing that you're not everything. And that's what humility means. Humility means humility doesn't mean I'm nothing. Humility means I'm not everything. I'm an instrument. I could be the most beautiful instrument, but I'm not every instrument. The second that we accept that we're only one instrument. The second that I accept I'm not everything. You know what the child of humility is? We think humility and self-esteem are opposites. Confidence is the opposite. Self is the opposite of humility. It's exactly there's nothing further from the truth. Confidence is the child of humility. If the reason I'm not confident is I think I have to be everything. So the second I realize I'm not everything, I'm something. So all of a sudden now I'm I realize that I can do and I can throw myself into life. The reason why we focus on pes on humility and on matzah is because the second that you realize you don't need to be everything. The result of that is not meekness. People think humility is a goal. Humility is not a goal to think you're small. We're not trying to knock anyone down when we tell someone to be humble. Maybe that's one take on humility. But the Torah's view on humility is matzah. And the reason why we talk about being humble is not to lower yourselves, but is to to create a view of life is that there is something called everything. There certainly is. But everything is shared by everyone. It's a very good metaphor to look at our screen here. Everybody has a computer screen or a phone screen and it's divided into how many squares? Every one of us has one square on the screen. Together all those squares make the entire screen. The second that I accept that I'm only one square in the screen of life then the result of that is confidence because that we can do. I can be me. I can't be everyone. So the second I realize that I'm not everyone. I'm just me. Humility creates confidence. Self-esteem is the child of humility. And therefore, matzah and aren't opposites. The second that we embrace ourselves and throw ourselves into the world of matzah and we stop thinking of ourselves as everything. The idea of pesak was that we're a nation. Look at the screen and see all the little boxes of all the many people. And when the second that you sit back and you realize that life the screen is made out of hundreds thousands millions of people then what you discover is that you have a niche and your niche you can become the expert at your niche. So the purpose of matzah is to create and this is why the second that we eat the matzah by the sed we immediately start counting up to the one should never think that the goal of life is to be small. The only reason we talk about anything like humility is only to create a a belief in ourselves and a fire. The contemplating the idea that the job of life is divided into many many slices creates a a a grasp allows us to grasp that I'm a specialist and the second that you realize that you're just a specialist you're not everything that we can nail that that we have and that's the celebration of shuvus is the confidence the comes from the matzah It's impossible to get to that confidence unless you first begin with humility. I'm saying it a lot of different ways because it's it's it sounds so simple but it's very very rich. It's you know it's very novel. It's a novel idea that humility and self are not opposites. Self is the child of humility. If you don't first discover that the screen is made out of hundreds of faces, then you will never be able to have confidence because it's impossible to really believe that you can do every job. Maybe someone could temporarily have such delusional ideas and you can think that I can do anything. Those ideas are not real and they don't last. And invariably people who think they have to be everything end up doing nothing and they don't leave their room. They stay in the bed in bed and they they they they do whatever it does to pass the time. The reason why people run into the bushes of the garden is because we think we were supposed to be everything. They didn't begin with matzah. So we had a beautiful seder 40 days ago and uh we we we talked about the nation which is we had a seder. We invited people to our seder. The whole pesak is really about marinating in the idea that life is a screen made out of hundreds of faces. And if you assimilate that in time, you still have nine more days to assimilate that. If you assimilate that idea that the universe is made out of many, many niche roles, then the only thing you could walk away from that is that wow, that I can do. I'm I'm not everything. I'm something. I can definitely be something. and we'll throw ourselves into life. And that's the top of the mountain that Shuis and that is what the month of of Sivan is. It's the twins. It's the understanding in one sentence the entire existence of of of this holiday is the understanding that humility and pride are not opposites. Pride is the child of humility. If you if you eat your matzah properly, then you can eat your shu and you can you can bring the world to where it needs to be. Okay, everybody, it's been amazing. I wish you all a beautiful shu and uh we'll see you next time. Thank you so much. Thank you so much everyone for joining