Add-on to the Holiday

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 The day after a Festival is called “Isru Chag” - which is literally translated as “bind the Festival.”  It is based on the verse (Tehillim 118:27) “The L-rd is G-d, and He gave us light. Bind the sacrifice with ropes until [it is brought to] the corners of the altar.”  


The word for “sacrifice” is “Chag” - which also means “Festival”, and the word for “ropes” is “Ba’avotim”, which also means “large and fat animals”.  Hence, the Talmud says, based on this verse, that whoever makes a bond for the holiday with additional food and drink like on the holiday itself, is considered as if one had sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice on the corners of the Altar.  Now this sounds funny.  How does eating meat compare to offering a sacrifice itself?


I was thinking about this when someone in my Thursday night class (on Zoom, yes you’re welcome to join) asked:  Why are our holidays so much about food?  I was discussing the requirement to eat four festive meals on Shavuot, plus a dairy meal.    Even on Yom Kippur, which is a fast day, we make a big deal about having two meals on the day before the fast, and of course a feast to break the fast. Why the seeming obsession with food? 


This question is even more pronounced on Shavuot, when the entire holiday is about receiving the Torah.  Hashem’s presence came down to Mt. Sinai.  The heavens opened and the Jews witnessed the upper realms full of angels and spiritual beings.  Hashem gave us a code by which to worship and connect to Him, and here we are baking cheesecakes and briskets.


I answered that our soul lives in a body, and the body also has to celebrate and feel the joy of the Holiday.  Our purpose in seeking spirituality is not to leave the body and the world behind, but to transform and harness the physical into a home for the spiritual.


I think the same answer applies to Isru Chag.  We just celebrated Shavuot, 48 hours steeped in Torah, connecting to its meaning and purpose, recommitting to our heritage and Torah learning and observance.  We don’t want to leave all the inspiration behind.  If we don’t carry the light of the festival forward into the rest of the year, then we won’t see any lasting benefit from this spiritually uplifting time.


So on the day after Shavuot, we spend time thinking about how to continue the spirit of Shavuot and have it permeate our lives.  To make sure that everything we do, our work, our play, our shopping and all our “mundane” activities are filled with purpose.  And when we eat a little extra with this idea in mind, our body gets the message that it is a special time, a time to “digest” the illumination that our soul feels in a way that brings together body and soul in a harmonious journey.


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