Summary Bamidbar 5762
This week we begin reading the book of Bamidbar. The sedra of Bamidbar gives an account of the census taken of the Israelites, their arrangements for travelling from Mount Sinai to the Land of Israel and a listing of the duties of the Levites.

The Haftorah for today is a special one, only read when Rosh Chodesh begins on Saturday night. The reason for its selection seems to be due to the opening words: "Tomorrow is the new moon". Taken from the book of Samuel, the Haftorah describes the great friendship between David and Jonathan, the son of King Saul. The prophet Samuel had anointed David to be king after Saul. Although the anointing ceremony was done in private, Saul had a strong intuition about it and tried to have David killed. The Haftorah describes how Jonathan protected his friend, notwithstanding the fact that he was compromising his own succession to the monarchy.

This coming Thursday night sees the beginning of Shavuot, which has several names in the Torah. The name Shavuot itself means 'weeks' and refers to the seven weeks counted towards the festival from Pesach. It is also called Chag Hakatzir, the Festival of the (Wheat) harvest; Yom Habikurim, the day of the First Fruits and Atzeret, a day of stopping (work). The Torah places the festival on a par with others such as Pesach, Rosh Hashanah and Succot.

The Oral Torah has a further name for this festival - Zeman Matan Torateinu - The Season of the Giving of our Torah. Without the Oral Torah, we cannot understand the Written Torah, as the latter is mostly written in a cryptic style. In fact we cannot even read the Torah, without the oral tradition of the vowel signs. G-d taught Moses the Oral Torah at the same time that He gave him the Written Torah. For over 1000 years, it was transmitted orally until the closing days of the Second Temple, when the slow process of writing it down began.

Our reliance on the Oral Torah is such that we even rely on it to tell us when the Written Torah was actually given - on the festival of Shavuot. As Shavuot is the Festival of the Giving of the Torah, there are no special laws - how would one commemorate the entire Torah? But it does have all the laws of a regular festival such as Lighting Candles, Kiddush, cessation of work, etc.

It is customary on the first night of Shavuot to stay up all night and learn Torah. In our community, we observe this custom with several hours of shiurim at our home, as well as an all-night program for the youth at the home of Dovid and Nachi Lewis. Another custom is to decorate the shul with flowers, which in our shul is done lovingly by our Ladies Guild! Finally it is a custom to have dairy foods. Many reasons are offered for this custom. As this Shavuot falls on a Friday, we take Eruv Tavshilin beforehand. More on this from the pulpit!

Shabbat Shalom