Shavuot, celebrated on the sixth of Sivan, is the day dedicated to remembering the giving of the Torah to the people of Yisrael through the agency of Moshe Rabbenu.

The question, of course, is why the sixth of Sivan, the day that began the forty-day study of the Torah by Moshe?  When he came down from Sinai and saw what depravity had enveloped the people and that they had built the golden calf, Moshe made a decision.  Since there was no one to give the Torah to, he broke the tablets and then went to see if he could save the people (he did).  Subsequently, Moshe went up the mountain of Sinai again and received the Torah a second time and returned to the camp on the tenth of Tishrei, Yom HaKippurim, and gave the Torah he had received, the second set of Tablets to the people.  Wouldn’t it be reasonable to celebrate the Torah on the day it was actually given to the people; around Yom Kippur, and not the day which ended by the Torah not being given and being received by the Jewish people?

“In the third month from the exodus of the children of Yisrael from Egypt, on that day, they arrived at the wilderness of Sinai” (Shmot 19:1). 

Rashi comments on the phrase “on that day” that the words of the Torah shall be new to you as if it was given today.

Rashi teaches an important lesson.  Real history is not about the past.  It becomes meaningful only if the “day” recurs.  We are asked not to remember the day but to recreate it “As if it were given today”.

But we might ask Rashi, why the day which proved ultimately to be disastrous for the people?  Why the day which lead to the building of the golden calf and the rejection of the Torah which Moshe brought down from the mountain?

Midrash Shmot Rabba (chapter 46) states:  “Do not bemoan the first tablets (which were broken) which only contained the ten commandments.  The second tablets which are given to you contain halachot, midrash and aggadot."  Pri Zadik concludes from this midrash that the oral law was given to the people only with the second Tablets.

This may mean that the people who stood at Sinai were different.  They were expected to understand the oral law on their own; to understand as Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov did what the Torah wanted in every situation.  They built the Golden calf because Moshe was late.  They didn’t trust their own ability to count as the Torah wished they would.

On Shavuot we are asked to remember what we received but also to note what we might have received.  There are different objectives for the mitzvah of Talmud Torah.  First, to know the Torah, but beyond that to be able to intuit what the Torah wants of us, and that is celebrated on the sixth of Sivan.