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The Zohar that we traditionally learn on the festival of Shavuot is called, “The night of the Bride”. In beautiful imagery, it pictures the community of Israel joining together with God, as Bride and Bridegroom under the wedding canopy, at the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.
The night of Shavuot is spent studying the Torah, rectifying the vessel so we will be fit to join with God and receive the Torah on the following day.
However , this enactment each year of the Giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai on the festival of Shavuot has a parallel meaning. Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag, in his great commentary on the Zohar, called the Perush haSulam teaches that the festival of Shavuot, the giving of the Torah has the same energy as that of the redemption, the gmar hatikkun. The day of the giving of the Torah is the same energy as the day of the completion of God’s creation in the ultimate way, when His goodness and love will be openly manifest to all.
The night spoken of, is thus, not only the night of the festival of Shavuot, but it is the time when the forces of separation rule over us, separating us from our Creator .
Yet it is just in this time, the Zohar assures us, that the Bride joins with Her Husband, it is in the night, when God’s light is concealed, that the soul unites with Her Creator.
From the ma’amar Leilah de Kalah Perush haSulam vol 1 Zohar,
With grateful thanks to Dvorah Hoffman and the chevrutas in Tsfat for enabling this learning.
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