There is an obvious connection between Pesach and Shavuos. The tachlis of Yetzias Mitzrayim was to receive the Torah תעבדון אלקים על ההר הזה . The bridge that carried Yisrael from one point to the other is the days of Sefirah. The revelations Am Yisrael experienced on the night of the Seder was a gift from Hashem even though we were not deserving it. The days of the Sefirah was given as our avodah to earn it again, this time by ourselves. By doing so the revelation of the Seder Night was revealed once more even in a greater presentation than before, on the Shavuos the day of Matan Torah.

We would like to expound on another common association which all three share together and that is THUNDER. The geulah from Mitzrayim is described as a thunder רעם . In Tehillim 81 which is the Shira recited on Thursday the passuk says אענך בסתר רעם Hashem tells Moshe Rabbeinu I will answer your tefillos בסתר which were between Me and you concerning redeeming Yisrael from Galus in the fashion of רעם thunder with the explicit display of Ten Maakos on the Egyptians. Why are the plagues described as thunder? Chazal write Berachos 59

אמר רבי אלכסנדרי אמר רבי יהושע בן לוי לא נבראו רעמים אלא לפשוט עקמומית שבלב שנאמר והאלהים עשה שיראו מלפניו

Thunder was created in order to remove the crookedness of one's heart. The heart can possesses perverted middos, false understanding and hashkafos, and unhealthy emotions. Yet one can go through life as if he is sleeping and not aware of his shortcomings (Rambam Hilchos Teshuvah 3,4).The sudden boom of thunder is likened to the Shofar of Rosh Hashanah whose loud blasts shatter the silence in the entire shul proclaiming the call for teshuvah. A loud sudden thunder can shake a person for a moment or two to the point of shock therapy and even leave him with the momentary fear of death especially when unprepared for it. As they saying goes "there are no atheists in a foxhole". When the control of your life is out of your hands and there is a risk of losing it, then is the time we turn to Hashem. At that instance lies a valuable opportunity from Hashem for one to bring to his consciousness the necessity to become closer to Him and start straightening out some crookedness within his heart.

The beginning of Am Yisrael's journey was witnessing the Ten Makkos which was not only a call to the Mitzriyim to straighten their erroneous beliefs of idolatry, but it was also an awakening for Yisrael to be inspired to do the same. However, on the second day of Pesach this enlightenment and deep arousal to the recognition of the omnipotence of Hashem dimmed. For it was a gift of Hashem not due to our own merits, and was experienced by Yisrael in order for them to be redeemed from galus and begin yearning for the day of Matan Torah.

At the end of the journey in becoming Hashem's special nation, we experienced a similar thunder at Matan Torah The passuk says (Shmos 19,16) ויהי קלות וברקים וקל שפר חזק מאד ויחרד כל העם אשר במחנה. Some meforshim learn that these sounds were thunder. There was also the ear piercing sound of the shofar which steadily increased in volume the loudness of which they never experienced. With both booming sounds going on, all the assembled trembled and were frozen in their places. They needed Moshe Rabbeinu to coax them to approach Har Sinai .ויוצא משה את העם לקראת האלקים One can be pretty sure that standing at Har Sinai in the presence of earsplitting sounds, any negative wrinkles in one's heart was ironed out and any mechitza were removed. As the passuk testifies when describing Matan Torah .אתה הראת לדעת כי ה' הוא האלקים אין עוד מלבדו(Devarim 4,35).

Now that we have demonstrated that the Yetzias Mitzrayim came after Ten thunderous plagues showing that Hashem is in charge of the world, and at Matan Torah once again it was displayed through thunder and other spectacular phenomenon that Hashem is King of the universe, let us examine the nature of the bridge between them, the Forty Nine Days of Sefirah. It was during this period that Am Yisrael prepared their hearts and their middos to resurrect an even greater revelation than the night of Yetzias Mitzrayim.

This challenge was achieved also through רעם - thunder, but unlike Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah it was by a silent thunder called by the name of Sefiras Haomer. Yisrael's yearning and anticipation for Matan Torah was so intense and deep, that each day that passed they would toil tirelessly to rectify another middah until they completed all forty nine middos. The sefarim tell us that the Korban Omer was to bring about a consciousness that nature in not קרי a happenstance but rather under the hashgacha of Hashem. That is why we find the gematriah of עמר to be קרי . The Nefesh Habehamis within man strives to take charge of the body and hijack it away from the neshama's control. It is driven to construct a קיר a wall and separation of קרי between the Yid and Hashem. In contrast is the neshama's goal to sanctify קרי nature, and thereby transform the letters קרי to יקר something that is precious and endearing to Hashem. For by elevating nature by fulfilling Hashem's intention of creation, one removes the ריק void and emptiness that would have resided in the world had not the physical been sanctified to a higher purpose. Instead of an actualization of קדש, one would have created a חילול which means hollowness and vacuum, losing forever that opportunity to reveal Hashem from His hiding place behind nature.

The second day of Pesach when we are commanded to bring the Omer we begin our journey to prepare ourselves for Matan Torah and the consciousness recognition of אין עוד מלבדו. We create our personal thunder within ourselves to correct each day the crookedness of our hearts. Each day of the עמר we realize that we are ערם naked from maalos after seeing the incredible revelations of Hashem during the night of the Seder that quickly vanished before our eyes. This void alone causes an arousal of our inner silent רעם thunder and serves as an alarm clock to wake up from our slumber and not fall back to "sleep" again.

Another example of our Silent Thunder is our daily recital of שמע ישראל . When we say the שמע what are we supposed to be hearing? We suggest that we must bring ourselves to hear the climax of the cumulative thunder of Maakos at the night of the Seder, and the thunder of Matan Torah. These are hinted in the word שמע which is the acronym (והאלקים) עשה שיראו מלפניו that Hashem created thunder so we should be stirred to fix the crookedness of the heart and fear Him. The passuk hints to this idea is קול רעמך בגלגל (Tehillim 77,19). There were ב two revelations גלגל of your thunder, the word גל means revelation, in Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah. If one adds up two times the word רעם for these two occasions, he arrives at exactly 620 which is the same number of letters in the Luchos. The Luchos themselves symbolize the heart as the passuk says כתבם על לוח לבך. After we finished the geulah and the two Thunders, our hearts were ready to receive the Luchos and the Torah which included 613 mitzvos and 7 takanos instituted by our Chachamim altogether also 620. The sefarim say that the passuk of שמע ישראל ה' אלקינו ה' אחד alludes to Matan Torah. ה' אלקינו correlates to the first dibbur אנכי ה' אלקיך אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים, and ה' אחד correlates to the second dibbur .לא יהיה לכם אלהים אחרים על פני This tells us that when we recite the שמע we must sync ourselves with Matan Torah and hear the קול רעמך of Hashem that was at Matan Torah. An allusion to this thought is hinted in the inner letters ofרעם which areיש ין מ the gematria of שמע 410.

The LIkutei Halachos in Hilchos Tefillin 4,1 writes that davening with a loud קול causes thunder to be formed. According to this, when one recites the Shma with proper kavanah and with a loud voice, and takes upon himself ,עול מלכות שמים he is actually forming in his heart the קולות of Matan Torah and the giving of the Dibros which were also with a big boom from Hashem. In this fashion, the saying of the Shma straightens out all the crookedness that one amasses in his heart over time.

Concerning the future geulah the Navi says והיה ביום ההוא יתקע בשופר גדול . What does it mean a big shofar? I once saw a pshat that the big shofar is composed from all the culminative Rosh Hashanah's that we blew shofar to do teshuvah and bring Moshiach. We suggest that the incredible display of the kol shofar and the deafening thunder at Matan Torah were an actualization composite of all the inner silent thunders that millions of members of Klal Yisrael aroused within themselves during the 49 consecutive days of Sefirah in order to prepare and clean their hearts from its impurities and shortcomings. We can honestly say that during these 49 days they acquired the necessary לב טוב which is gematria 49 (Bnei Yissaschar).