Yomim Tovim by Jews are not mere days of 'we were threatened, Hashem saved us, lets celebrate!'. Rather we celebrate days that allow us to tap into the nissim that transpired and the siritual levels that were gained through them.
Klal Yisroel were given the Luchas, twice. On Shavuous we were given the first set of Luchas- which Moshe broke the 17th day of Tamuz, the day that Klal Yisroel made the golden calf. The second Luchas was given after Klal Yisroel did Teshuva and were forgiven, on Yom Kippur. There were intrinsic differences between them. The first one was written on stone taken from heaven- had we been zoche we would have had a actual piece from shmayim down in our midst. Being that is was so great it would have made a bigger impression on us. There wouldn't have been any forgetting of torah or any sin. We would have reached the tachlis of creation. All that would have been the case had the luchas come down from Hashem and not been broken. But we sinned and were not ready for that level of serving Hashem, so Moshe broke the Luchas. After eighty days of doing teshuva and begging for forgiveness we were given a new set of tablets. This one was made up of stone from down here on earth, written with the finger of Hashem. It was lacking that spiritual benefit of being straight from Hashem and we were left to toil in the Torah and fight the Yetzar Horah.
The Torah we have today is from the second Luchas the one that humans can relate to, the one we got on Yom Kippur. The Question is- why do we celebrate Shavuous if we can't (seemingly) tap into the levels of Luchas reshonim?
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I heard a very nice speech yesterday which in a nutshell explained that what we really are celebrating Shavuos is (not the actual matan torah, but) the level that we reached through the avodah over the 49 days of sefirah.. a level which brought us to the possibility of receiving the Torah. Each Jew in his own way can strive to reach that level with the proper focus and work each and every year by realizing that even the seemingly mundane and unholy (working the field)can be raised to a level of kedusha. This can be accomplished by working on ourselves to come to the realization that the benefits we reap from our work in the field (and in business) is all from Hashem and we have no control over it. Once we reach that level we can be vessels ready to receive the Torah properly. This explains why on Pesach we bring the Omer made of barley (animal feed) and on Shavuos we bring the Two Loaves made of Chametz, which symbolizes the Yetzer Hara; we are showing that before we start working on ourselves (Pesach) we are not on the level to bring chametz, but after the days of sefira we are now on a level where we can bring chametz to demostrate that even the our evil inclination can be raised to be used to do acts of kedusha. And indeed the Torah makes no mention of Matan Torah when it mentions Shavuos! This explains why we celebrate Shavuos! COmments are welcome...
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