Chevre, tomorrow is שָׁבוּעוֹת (Shavuot) and Shabbat is Parshat נָׁשאֹׂ (Nasso). (Note: for those outside of Israel, Shavuot is a 2 day chag and so you will not read Nasso this week. Israel and the rest of the world will come back to the same parsha later, but I’ll only be writing about the Israeli readings).
Shavuot is the giving of the Torah. It is a common minhag to stay up all night learning. We read Sefer Ruth in the morning. When I first came to Israel (I was in Arad), we would do the morning prayers on Shavuot in an overlook of the Moav mountains, where Ruth was from. Being able to see for myself the places talked about in the Tanach is meaningful. It’s only by being there can you understand the details. When the Torah describes the Aron HaKodesh and specifies shitim wood should be used, Rashi goes through hoops to explain why that was chosen. When you are actually in the Negev, you can understand, that that is the only wood that was around. It’s why our AWS workshops are so important to get ourselves and our customers into the services so they can understand how they work.
Parshat Nasso talks about the purification of the camp, the Sotah and the Nazir. And then spends most of the parsha (the longest parsha of the Torah) describing in great detail each prince’s offering to the santification of the Mishkan. We can think of this as the spinning up of the AWS region. We have the manual of what to do, the Torah. And then we have the building of the Mishkan at the end of Sefer Shemot. Now we are spinning up the region and getting it ready for operation.
May we all be prepared and ready to receive the Torah tonight. Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom.
Shavuot / Nasso - 2020