Rabbi Ari Hertz - Shavuot

huh hi everybody I feel very lucky and and privileged to be able to address everybody before she vote last time was before pesach I get another opportunity before a holiday and and it's important for us to think about really what what is so meaningful about this holiday it's one of the bigger three you know and what are we celebrating so we spend a long time before all the way from pesach accounting counting up in anticipation for another reception as if we're receiving the Torah from Hashem at Sinai again and and really you know that's beautiful and and if we if we think about it as a beautiful picture imagine that scene is unbelievable but but what is that crowning moment that we're really celebrating that reception of the Torah what are we receiving what what is so meaningful about it and obviously it's so fast and so it's so deep that there's no real way for us to appreciate every element of it but but for us to appreciate that hashem's letting us in he's telling us this is how I view things on this world that I put you in this is what I think is truth this is what's meaningful to me and for us to have that opportunity to to to be a part of that and to really feel connected to him as a greater being and and really be led into what he thinks is important you know it's as if you have that relationship with somebody and you finally really understand them and they understand you and and you connect and you can connect through that so to celebrate that Oneness that we have with Hashem that that beautiful ability to be connected and and have real guided purpose and and direction through connection with our rabbis through connection with with the Torah in and of itself and through understanding it and learning it and appreciating it deeper and one part that I would like to add a little bit of another dimension is that in this past week's Parsha um it's it's taught that that when the Jewish nation was traveling in the desert that the Torah the levium the Levites had to be in the middle of the nation just as if when they were encamped that it had they had to be in the middle and the hover time learns from this that that when we're learning when we're learning when we have our Torah being read in the show that we have to that we have to have it in the middle as well on the bhima and not in the front and that's a little bit counter-intuitive you might think that it should be in the front where it's specifically close to where Hashem srina his presence might be coming down but actually for it to be in the middle that everybody can understand that nobody's inadequate nobody doesn't have a relationship with it everybody really because of how great has that ability and that opportunity to have it that that's that's what Hashem wanted for us to know about his Torah that we all have but we all have a connection to it and an opportunity for it and really we we're all deserving of it because of our greatness hugs let me ask everybody I hope everybody can feel that greatness this this Shavuot inside of ourselves recognize it and others and take it with us with our families and and continue to grow together hugs a man