There is a machloket in gemara Shabbat (86b) where the tanna kamma argues with Rabbi Yossi as to when the Torah was given. The tanna kamma says it was given on the sixth of Sivan, while Rabbi Yossi says it was given on the seventh of Sivan.
Yet there is another gemara (Rosh Hashana 6b) that says that Shavuot can fall on the 5th 6th or 7th of Sivan, since we base the festival not on the date of matan Torah but rather on the 50 day count starting from Pesach.
Why is it that we base our celebration of the holiday on the count from Pesach as apposed to the actual day when we received the torah?
There is a famous Beit Halevi (Bo, Vihigadita Levincha) that says that the mitzvot in the torah came before the reasons for the mitzvot. Even before the Jews came out of mitzriam with matzah Avraham had already celebrated the holiday by eating matzah. He explains that really we do the mitzvot just because Hashem told us to do them and the reason that we have for them are not the real reasons for them. So the holiday of Pesach has a special mitzvah for that day. In fact, it was because of the mtizvot of the day that we were saved from mitzriam on that day.
From the day the Jews left mitzriam they needed 50 days to reach the level of spirituality required to get the Torah. I heard from Rav Avharam Schorr that according to Rabbi Yossi who says that we got the Torah on the seventh the reason why it was 51 days later was because the war of Amalek pushed off matan torah by a day. For Rabbi Yossi it would not be a problem to celebrate the chag on the 6th because the reason for Shavuot is to connect to the koach of matan torah, which was on the 50th day of the count, not on any specific date on the calendar. So, we are remembering the 50 day process on Shavuot, not the actual day of matan torah.
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