Shavuot - Why Don't We Commemorate the Giving of the Torah?

The holiday of Shavuot is widely celebrated by Jews, not for its traditional agricultural meaning, but as the day when the Torah was given to the Jews on Mount Sinai. 

And yet there is no mention in the Torah of any such thing regarding Shavuot. 

Furthermore, the Torah designates no special day or celebration of the giving of the Torah. Mount Sinai does not become a place of any special religious significance and even if Jews were certain where it's located, there is no thought of returning there for a celebration. Likewise, the burial spot of Moshe, we are explicitly told in the Torah, has been hidden away where no one may find it.

Why is there such a seeming avoidance of forming a more direct connection with the place, the time and the man through whom the Torah was given?

Shavuot serves as the other side of a dual holiday, divided by the counting of the Omer with Pesach. The holiday of Passover was enacted to remember the exodus. Jews are commanded to remember the Exodus in great detail at the Pesach seder and also on a daily basis. The Shabbat kiddush, on the evening and the day, offer separate commemorations of G-d's creation of the world and the exodus from Egypt.

It would seem like the most natural thing to include the remembrance of the giving of the Torah alongside the exodus and the creation of the world.

Why do we not do that?

As Jews, we commemorate things that have been completed. G-d created the world and rested. He took the Jews out of Egypt. But the giving of the Torah is incomplete. The giving of the Torah was only the beginning of a journey. The receiving of it, that is the journey itself. 

The Torah does not command the Jews to commemorate the giving of the Torah. Only the Jews could commemorate that once they had begun the process of receiving it. 

The two Jewish holidays associated with the Torah, Shavuot and Simchat Torah, are the result of innovations by the Jewish people. It would be inappropriate for the Jewish people to add celebrations of the exodus or the creation of the world of their own accord. But, having studied the Torah, it is only proper for the Jews to hold festivals celebrating what was given and what they have received from G-d.

The blessing before food is fairly brief while much longer blessings follow once someone has eaten. 

Likewise the true celebration of the Torah can only come when we have become 'satiated' with at least some of it.

The Torah wants us to focus on what we do with it rather than the original moment on Mount Sinai because it is what we do with it, how we bring it into us and let it change us, that matters. It did not take long after the giving of the Torah for the Jews to worship the golden calf. Simply hearing G-d's voice and the commandments, as awesome and incredible as that was, did not make the Jews into who they needed to be. Only the actual laborious process of learning and keeping the Torah could do that.

The giving of the Torah was accompanied by incredible miracles, much like the exodus, but where the exodus from Egypt set us free, the Torah was the beginning of a commitment. And we are not meant to dwell too much on the place or on the man, but on our obligation to keep it.

Pesach is a reminder that G-d redeemed us and runs the world. Shavuot however is our celebration of the work that we have done. In Egypt we were passive, but in learning the Torah we were active. The exodus cannot be repeated, but the receiving of the Torah is an ongoing process. The exodus made us free for all time, even when we are enslaved, but the Torah is perpetually being received and remains incomplete. We strive to work on it, no longer passive, but as partners with the Creator.