בִּשְׁעַת קְרִיאַת עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְּרוֹת עוֹמְדִים וּפְנֵיהֶם אֶל הַסֵּפֶר תּוֹרָה, אֵין אוֹמְרִים אַקְדָמוּת.

1 During the public reading of the Ten Commandments,2 the congregants stand and face the Torah scroll.3

It is not our custom to recite the hymn beginning Akdamus.4

הִסְתַּלְּקוּת הַבַּעַל שֵׁם טוֹב — בַּיוֹם הָרְבִיעִי א דְחַג הַשָּׁבוּעוֹת תק"ך וּמְנוּחָתוֹ כָּבוֹד בְּמֶעזִיבּוּשׁ. אַדְמוּ"ר הַזָּקֵן אָמַר עַל זֶה — יוֹם ד, כ בְּכִסְלֵו תקנ"ט בְּפּעֶטעֶרבּוּרג — בַּיוֹם הָרְבִיעִי נִטְּלוּ הַמְּאוֹרוֹת.

The Baal Shem Tov passed away on Wednesday, the first day of Shavuos, 5520 (1760). His resting place is in Mezhibuzh. Concerning this, the Alter Rebbe said on Wednesday, 20 Kislev, 5559 (1798),5 in Petersburg: “On Wednesday, the luminaries were taken away.”6

Peering Over the Horizon

The Rebbe often pointed out that the Baal Shem Tov’s passing on Shavuos was not a coincidence.7 What is the intrinsic connection?

Inherently, the spiritual and physical are separate domains. Yet at the Giving of the Torah, G‑d granted them the potential to be fused together. Thus the Midrash8 cites David in these words: “The Holy One, blessed be He, had decreed that9 ‘the heavens are the heavens of G‑d, and the earth He gave to men....’ Nevertheless, when He desired to give the Torah, He nullified that original decree and declared, ‘The lower realms shall ascend to the higher realms, and the higher realms shall descend to the lower.’ “

In other words, in the original makeup of creation the material and the spiritual realms were discrete planes that never converged. G‑d’s ultimate intent, however, was that they merge, so that His existence at the root of creation would surface and manifest itself in our material world. The Giving of the Torah was the beginning of this process, which will be completed in the era of Mashiach, when the spiritual nature of all existence will be manifest.

Now, Mashiach will come when the wellsprings of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings are disseminated throughout the world.10 This is why the day of his passing — the day on which “all of a man’s efforts in which his soul toiled during his lifetime… become revealed”11 — falls on Shavuos, the day on which heaven and earth, the spiritual and the physical, first united.