Why we celebrate the day before we received the Torah

One of the more familiar questions surrounding the holiday of Shavuot focuses on why we seem to celebrate the holiday on the “wrong day”. According to the tradition of Chazal, we left Egypt on a Thursday and received the Torah on Shabbat, 51 days later. Yet we celebrate Shavuot on the 50th day. 

Over the course of generations, many have asked this question and offered explanations. But I would like to focus on one particular approach that carries powerful ramifications for how we approach our very identity and peoplehood as Jews. 

The answer lies in the premise that the question itself is wrong. We aren’t, in fact, celebrating the actual giving of the Torah on Shavuot. We’re celebrating the process that led up to it and events that came before, the moments where we were preparing to receive the Torah. 

We celebrate understanding what the Torah actually means for us in building our nation. Without that understanding, one might assume that Torah is a scholarly or academic text or book of rules that needs to be understood and learned. What makes the Torah so special isn’t simply the knowledge it contains, but the values, responsibilities, and sense of purpose that accompanies it. 

The lesson we learn is that the preparation to receive the Torah is just as important as the Torah itself. Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook emphasised the teaching of Chazal that the Jewish people were punished because they didn’t properly recite the blessing over the Torah before studying it. He explained that the issue wasn’t merely the absence of a blessing, but rather the absence of the proper attitude towards Torah itself. Torah cannot be approached as simply an academic discipline or intellectual pursuit. If it is studied only on a surface level, detached from meaning, spirituality, and moral responsibility, then something essential is lost. 

Indeed, if we approach halacha and Torah study without inherently linking it to the morals, ethics, and spirituality that make it so central to the Jewish people, and if Torah is embraced without the critical concept of derech eretz kadma laTorah, “dignity and proper behaviour precede the Torah”, then the Torah would lack all of the influence and sanctity that makes it what it is. 

Only when we view the Torah as a guide for how we live and how we live among others can we begin to understand how our connection to its teachings have made us who we are. Torah must be predicated on values of humanism, unity, and solidarity well before it becomes a text of laws and topics for academic or scholarly analysis. 

In preparation for receiving the Torah, the Jewish nation was described as k’ish echad b’lev echad, “as one person with one heart”. Before we could receive the Torah, we first needed to understand that our peoplehood isn’t only about personal observance or individual scholarship. It’s about our collective responsibility, our shared destiny, and our mutual care for one another. Our unity was what allowed us to be worthy of receiving the Torah and become the nation of Israel. 

This is what’s being celebrated on Shavuot ‒ on the day before we actually received the Torah. In this regard it’s worth noting that the very name of the holiday, Shavuot, meaning “weeks”, is a reference not to the day itself but to the seven weeks of spiritual preparation to receive the Torah. 

The holiday reminds us that being worthy of the Torah matters just as much as receiving it. 

Shavuot provides us the chance to remember that our very identity as Jews isn’t solely about the study of Torah itself, but the kind of people we become because of it. 

• Rabbi David Stav is the chairperson of the Tzohar rabbinical organisation and the chief rabbi of the city of Shoham.