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When I think of Shavuos,
I think of weddings and organ transplants.
Let me explain.
One of the most powerful images Jews possess that helps us understand our relationship with our Maker, both personal and communal, is the image of the two lovers whose story is told in King Solomon's Song of Songs. The song's imagery, often quite graphic, informs us that our relationship with Life itself can be just as passionate and fiery as the relationship between lovers. The supporting characters in the love story hear of King Solomon's glory in the following poetic phrase:
"Go out and gaze, daughters of Zion, at King Solomon, wearing the crown with which his mother crowned him on his wedding day." (Song of Songs 3:11) The Jewish understanding of this phrase is that the world is called upon to witness the King's glory as it was and is demonstrated every year on our wedding day.
That "wedding day" is Shavuos.
What is the real difference between two lovers who remain single and two lovers
who marry?
A man and a woman may love each other to death. They might be willing to die for each other. They might give each other tremendous joy. Hearts flutter. The sun shines more brightly. But without the bond of marriage, they remain two entities. If they decide to break up, the harm, as emotionally painful as it might be, is the separation of two entities.
When a man and woman marry, the commitment becomes real, legally speaking. The relationship before the marriage for all its excitement is voluntary. The addition of this new ego to one's self is as life-giving as the addition of a necessary limb or organ, a transplant. They are now one entity. One spouse is defined by the other. Each spouse's essence expands. One spouse's relatives become the other spouse's relatives. A break-up is no longer just a break-up. It is an amputation.
Real commitment, in marriage as in Jewish life, totally transforms a person. Ask someone who has had a transplant of a major organ. Without the organ, the body cannot live. Yet, ironically, the body fights the life-giving newcomer with all its might. The body tells the new kidney or liver, "I don't know you. You are not what I was born and raised with. Get out!" The only way the match will be successful is if the person's immune system is suppressed. So too the only way a real personal commitment such as marriage can work is if the person committing is willing to surrender some of his immune system i.e. his ego, including the way s/he was born and raised.
Shavuos is the wedding day of the Israel to her Spouse because we said, "We are committed to this relationship no matter what it takes." The particular mitzvos were not the point. Shavuos has no particular Mitzvah focus like the other Jewish holidays. The point was the commitment to make it work which transcended the details. The mitzvos that were then introduced derive their meaning from the commitment that backs them all up.
Ruth, the heroine who embodies commitment, whose life we celebrate on Shavuos, says it all; "Wherever you go, I will go. Where you lodge I will lodge. Your people are my people and your G-d is my G-d. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may G-d do to me - and more - if anything but death separates me from you."