The Shavuot Meal: Why Bring a Bread Offering?

(9) The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: (10) Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving to you and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the first sheaf of your harvest to the priest. (11) He shall elevate the sheaf before the LORD for acceptance in your behalf; the priest shall elevate it on the day after the sabbath. (12) On the day that you elevate the sheaf, you shall offer as a burnt offering to the LORD a lamb of the first year without blemish. (13) The meal offering with it shall be two-tenths of a measure of choice flour with oil mixed in, an offering by fire of pleasing odor to the LORD; and the libation with it shall be of wine, a quarter of a hin. (14) Until that very day, until you have brought the offering of your God, you shall eat no bread or parched grain or fresh ears; it is a law for all time throughout the ages in all your settlements.

(15) And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath—you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: (16) you must count until the day after the seventh week—fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to the LORD. (17) You shall bring from your settlements two loaves of bread as an elevation offering; each shall be made of two-tenths of a measure of choice flour, baked after leavening, as first fruits to the LORD. (18) With the bread you shall present, as burnt offerings to the LORD, seven yearling lambs without blemish, one bull of the herd, and two rams, with their meal offerings and libations, an offering by fire of pleasing odor to the LORD. (19) You shall also offer one he-goat as a sin offering and two yearling lambs as a sacrifice of well-being. (20) The priest shall elevate these—the two lambs—together with the bread of first fruits as an elevation offering before the LORD; they shall be holy to the LORD, for the priest. (21) On that same day you shall hold a celebration; it shall be a sacred occasion for you; you shall not work at your occupations. This is a law for all time in all your settlements, throughout the ages. (22) And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I the LORD am your God.

(1) Leaven shall they be baked - The verse instructs that they should be leaven because they are in thanksgiving to Hashem that He preserved the laws of harvest and the thanksgiving offering is brought with bread of leaven. Perhaps the prohibition against leaven (in sacrifices generally) is because it hints to the trait of judgment because it's called "leaven" when it refers to wine that is weakened, "vinegar of wine and vinegar of alcohol" (Numbers 6:3). The language is derived from the language of "unjust and the lawless" (Psalms 71:4), for their taste is stolen from them and they can't be eaten. The same is true of "My mind was stripped of its reason" (Psalms 73:21), which means he is angry and his reasoning was lost from him. And since the sacrifices are for the will of the glorious God, they should not come from things that have a strong hand to change the nature [of things]; and so [too], they should not come from things that are completely sweet like honey, but rather from [things that are] mixtures - as they, may their memory be blessed, said (Genesis Rabbah 12:15) about the creation of the world, "He combined the trait of compassion with the trait of judgment and created it." Indeed, on the holiday of Shavuot, which is the day of the giving of the Torah, he brings a sacrifice that is a thanksgiving offering because it is the day of solemn gathering, and the educated will understand. And this is the foundation behind that which our Rabbis said (Leviticus Rabba 9:3): "All of the sacrifices will be set aside but the thanksgiving offering will never be set aside..." For it contains both matzah and leaven, which is in line with the World to Come.

(1) Then you shall bring an offering of new grain to the Lord: It is a sign for the day of the giving of the Torah, since the Torah must be new to a person on every day, as if he received it on Mount Sinai [that day]. And that which it is not mentioned explicitly in the Torah that this day is [the day of] the giving of the Torah, and so [too] it is not mentioned explicitly in the Torah that Rosh Hashanah is the day of judgement, the reason for both of them is [the same], as I have written in my essay, Ollalot Ephraim: That about the giving of the Torah, God did not want to limit [it] to one specific day, since it must be similar to a person as if each and every day of the year, he received it on that day from Mount Sinai. As in truth our rabbis, may their memory be blessed, said (Eruvin 54b) that the Torah is compared to a breast: that all the time that the infant presses on it, it brings out a new flavor; so [too] the Torah - any one who ponders it brings out a new explanation every day. Therefore it is correct that it be similar to him as if he received it today at Mount Sinai. And, if so, every day is the [day] of the giving of the Torah for those that ponder it. Therefore, it is not fitting to limit its giving to one specific day. And therefore, our rabbis, may their memory be blessed, said (Sifrei, Veetchanan 6:6) that words of Torah should be new to you, and not like an old thing that the heart of a person is sick of. And, in truth, you find a novelty in it on each and every day. And therefore the day of its giving is [nowhere] elucidated in the Torah more than that which is hinted in the bringing of the new offering - to teach that the Torah is a new offering on each and every day.

(2) And the two breads were of leaven, to which the Evil Inclination is compared, for in the language of the Rabbis (Brachot 17) he is called "se'or she'b'isa" (raising-agent in the dough), because in a place where the Torah is found, the Evil Inclination is unable to cause damage, as the Rabbis said (Kiddushin 30b): The Holy One, Blessed be He, said, "I created the Evil Inclination but I created a cure", which is the Torah. If it were not for the Evil Inclination, G-d would not have brought down the Torah from the Heavens to Earth because that was the basis of the claim with which Moses succeeded over the angels when they said to the Holy One, Blessed be He, "You have something precious...and You want to give it to flesh-and-blood?" and Moses responded to them, "Do you have an Evil Inclination among you" (Shabbat 88b). He meant to say that the need to give the Torah to the Earth is so that they have a cure for the Evil Incination that is embedded inside them to fill their lacking. That is why it says, "Bake them as leaven."

(3) This is the reason why the Day of Judgment is not mentioned as well, so a person will not go in the stubbornness of his heart and acquire sins all year round, thinking that he will correct his deeds close to the day when Hashem sits on the Throne of Judgment. Rather, he should envision that each and every day Hashem sits on His Throne of Justice and examines His ledger. In this way all his days will be in repentance …

Rabbi Elazar interpreted the verse as referring to the Exodus from Egypt. Just as a rose, when it is among the thorns, is difficult for its owner to pluck, so too was the Exodus of Israel difficult before the Holy One, Blessed be He. That is why it is written (Deuteronomy 4:34), "Or has any god ventured to go and take for himself one nation from the midst of another by prodigious acts..." Both were uncircumcised, both would grow the same hair style, they would both wear mixtures of linen and wool. If so, strict justice would have been that Israel not ever be redeemed from Egypt. Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani said: Had the Holy One, Blessed be He, not committed Himself through an oath, Israel would never have been redeemed.

“I am the Lord, your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Ex. 20:2) – R. Yeisa the Small of the Colleagues posed a question on this verse to R. Shimon bar Yochai. He said: I would like to ask a question of you which pounds in my heart, but I am afraid to ask it. On the one hand, if I ask it I fear I may deserve punishment; but if I don’t, I shall remain confused. Rabbi Shimon told him to ask. So he asked: “I am the Lord, your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt” – what is the novelty being taught us [in the fulfillment of this promise], did not Hashem fully stipulate in his covenant with Abraham: “You shall surely know that your seed will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will enslave them and oppress them, for four hundred years… and afterwards they will go forth with great possessions.” (Gen. 15:13, 14) – If so, why is the verse repeated so often? Rabbi Shimon answered him: come and see my son, the Holy One Blessed be He stipulated only that he would remove Israel from the Egyptian exile – but not from the influence of foreign deities; for the Israelites in Egypt had surely defiled and contaminated themselves with all manner of abominations, until they lived under the influence of the forty-nine powers of impurity – and the Holy One, blessed be He separated them from the service of all these forces.