SHAVUOUS - THE 2 LOAVES OF SHAVUOUS

 March 18, 1993

Shavuous commemorates the receiving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai.  This was commemorated in the Mishkan and the Temple by offering an unusual sacrifice: the Kohanim would eat: two loaves of bread.  These two loaves are practically the only grain offering that MUST be made of chomitz (the other is a thanksgiving offering).  All other grain offerings must be made of Matzah.

The question is: what do these two loaves represent, and why must they be made of Chomitz.  And isn't it strange that we have an offering of Chomitz only 6 weeks after the end of Pesah, where anyone who eats chomitz is liable for Korase, being cut off?  If, as we say on Pesach, chomitz is symbolic of the evil inclination, and we declare that we want to have nothing to do with the Yetzer Hara by ridding our houses of chomitz, why just a few weeks later do we offer two loaves that MUST be made of chomitz?

When we look at the two loaves and think of what happened during the receiving of the Torah, the symbolism becomes clear. Moses received the two Luchos, the two tablets, from Hashem.  And to commemorate that we offer two loaves of bread.  It seems a viable hypothesis that the two loaves represent the two Luchos.  To butress this hypothesis, Luchos and Lechem both begin with the same two letters, Lamed and Ches, Loch.  The meaning of the word Loch is wet, or liquid.

What do Luchos and Lechem have to do with liquid.  The Torah is often compared to water.  And Lechem is made by adding water to dough.  In fact, it's the water that makes the yeast rise and turns the dough into chomitz.

But what's going on here?  Are we suggesting that the two loaves of bread that must be chomitz is comparable to the Torah?  And that they are both compared to liquid (loch) that is the source of the chomitz in the first place.  How could the Torah be compared to bread that is chomitz when we stress just a few weeks earlier on Pesach how we are to be separated from chomitz because it's compared to the evil inclination.

Upon examination, the analogy between chomitz and the yetzer hara breaks down, because the rest of the year, not only do we eat chomitz, but it's the centerpiece of our Shabbos and Yom Tov meals, it's the center of our Shabbos avodah, so to speak.

Then why is chomitz compared to the yetzer hara on Pesach only, while the rest of the year it isn't, and why on Shavuous do we offer two loaves of chomitz that is even compararable to the the Torah itself?  Certainly chomitz seems to be serving as contradictory symbols.

The answer is in the word Loch, liquid.  Liquid is compared to both the Torah and to taiva, desire, because it represents the life force, the Yetzer, that can be used for both good and bad.  The Gemmorah in Yuma tells how the Rabbis, after rebuilding the second Temple wanted to avoid a repetition of the events that led to the destruction of the first Temple.  So they destroyed the evil inclination.  But they found that chickens didn't even lay eggs.  All desire was gone from the world.  They realized that a world without desire is empty and dysfunctional.  The goal can't be to destroy desire, but to channel it.  Water represents this desire because it flows into all places unless channeled.  Torah is also represented by Torah because Torah emcompasses all of the forces in the world, the energy that keeps the world alive.

Liquid represents the force of energy, whether it is in the Torah, or in the liquid that helps make the dough rise and become chomitz.  That is why the root of Luchos and Lechem is 'liquid'.

Then why is it that we must totally separate ourselves from chomitz on Pesach?  The answer is simply is that on Pesach we have just gained our freedom after centuries of slavery.  And there is a tremendous tendency of a newly freed slave to run amok with his new found freedom.  We are free.  But we must recognize the extreme dangers of freedom, of following our desires to dangerous places, of 'following our eyes and hearts after they are wont to stray' as the Shema says.  So on Pesach we must distance ourselves from the power of spontaneous desire, and stress making our lives completely ordered.  Pesach night we have a Seder, meaning 'order'.  One of the meanings of Pesach is the danger of our newly found freedom if we follow the liquid where it flows.  We actually achieved our new freedom by crossing over DRY land through the Red Sea.  We must keep ourselves dry on Pesach, dry from the temptations of desire.

But seven weeks later, we receive the solution to the problem of freedom.  We receive the Torah.  The Torah contains the set of rules that permits us to live normal lives, complete with desire that is channeled by the rules outlined in the Torah.  The evil inclication is desire that is not channeled by the Torah.  But desire that is channeled by the Torah is called the Yetzer Tov, the 'good inclination'

On Pesach we can't risk getting involved with the Yetzer at all, so we separate ourselves, from the powers of desire, the Yetzer, as represented by chomitz, and our focus is on seder.  But when we receive the Torah, and we have the rules to channel the Yetzer, we can live a full-bodied life again, full of desire and energy that is well channeled.