The letters of the Torah are like glasses: Through them we can see the Giver of the Torah
We stood under the chuppah, Har Sinai, which was raised over our heads, and received our wedding ring — the Luchos. Shavuos is when we meet our Beloved face to face. The Shabbos before Shavuos, the aufruf Shabbos or Shabbos kallah, is when the chassan and kallah prepare for the great day. And we see hints of this in the haftarah, “I have betrothed you to Me forever, I have betrothed you to Me with righteousness and with justice and with kindness and with compassion and… with emunah” (Hoshea 2:21–22).
The parshah that (almost) always precedes Shavuos is Bamidbar, where the Jews are counted and arranged. How does this prepare us for our union with Hashem?
There are 600,000 primary root souls and there are 600,000 letters in the Torah. Each Jewish soul is a letter in the Torah of Hashem. Hashem commanded our greatest leaders to count us — Moshe, Aharon and the heads of the shevatim. The task of tallying the census couldn’t be given to anyone of lesser stature. To count a Jew means to understand which letter he is, to know its essence, teachings, halachos, and secrets.
If a kallah’s eyes are beautiful, we are assured, the rest of her is also beautiful (Taanis 24a). The “beautiful eyes” of the Jewish People — the leaders, the einei ha’eidah — know how to bring out the beauty of every Jew, to bring out eternal brightness that may be temporarily dulled, to reveal the Heavenly glowing neshamah that was hewed from the Kisei Hakavod.
Create a free account to keep reading.
