Published in Nitzachon, the Adas Torah journal
The story is well known.
When Moshe arrived atop Mt. Sinai, the angels were aghast.
“What is a human being doing up here?”
“He has come to receive the Torah,” Hashem
replied.
“You want to give to flesh and blood the
precious treasure that was hidden nine hundred and seventy-four generations
before creation?! What is a human that You should think of him, or a son of
Adam that You should consider him...?”
Hashem instructed Moshe to respond.
Moshe didn’t want to argue with angels. “I am
frightened lest they burn me with their breath.”
“Take hold of My throne,”
said God, “and answer them!”
“Master of the World,”
declared Moshe, “the Torah that You are giving me, what does it say?”
“I am Hashem your Lord Who
took you out from the land of Egypt.”
Moshe turned to the angels.
“Did you go down into Egypt? Were you enslaved
to Pharaoh? Why should the Torah be yours?”
“What else does it say?”
asked Moshe.
“You shall not have other
gods,” replied God.
Moshe turned to the angels.
“Do you live among nations who worship idols?”
“What else does it say?”
“Remember the Shabbos day
to sanctify it.”
“Do you work that you are in
need of rest?”
“What else does it say?”
“Do not take God’s name in vain.”
“Are any of you
in business [that would require the taking of oaths]?”
“What else does it say?”
“Honor your father and your
mother.”
“Do you have a father and a
mother?”
“What else does it
say?”
“Do not commit murder; do
not commit adultery; do not steal.”
“Do you suffer
from jealousy? Do you have negative drives?”
The angels admitted that
Hashem was right, as the verse states, מה אדיר שמך בכל הארץ, “Hashem our Master, how mighty is Your name upon all the
earth…” (Tehillim 8).
Cf. Shabbos
88b-89a
The
Radvaz (1479-1573) asks the obvious question. What were the angels
thinking? Moshe's response is self-evident; the Torah was clearly written for human
beings. Why are the angels surprised that Hashem is giving it to its intended
audience?
The
Radvaz bases his answer on a mystical Midrash: “The Torah in its
entirety consists of the names of the Holy One, blessed be He.” The Ramban
cites this Midrash in the introduction to his Torah commentary and he explains
that the primordial Torah had no spaces between words, allowing
it to be read as an uninterrupted string of divine names.
The angels were only familiar with this original, spiritual version of Torah.
Far more adept than humans at understanding the mystical nature of God’s names
(cf. Nefesh HaChaim 1:10), the angels naturally wondered why Hashem was
giving the Torah to Moshe (Teshuvas Radvaz 3:643).
The
Radvaz’s explanation allows us to understand why Hashem did not answer
the angels Himself and instead instructed Moshe to respond. Hashem wanted to
the angels to hear firsthand what the Torah looks like from a human perspective. Moshe
explained to the angels that people don’t read the Torah the way they do; we
see it differently. For us it is the Book of the Jewish People. To
human eyes, the spiritual Torah of the angels – the list of divine names –
appears as a practical guide for the elevation of man and the forging of an
intimate relationship with God.
For
what, after all, is in a name? All names allow for personal identification and
facilitate interaction with others, but Hebrew names run deeper than that. To
call someone by their real name can be an intimate act
because Hebrew names are not mere arbitrary labels, they define and describe
the hidden inner reality. To give an early example, light is not just called ohr;
light is ohr. Hashem said, “Let there be ohr” and there was
light. The same is also true for people. A Jew is his name.
If
names describe reality, what then does it mean for God to have names? Although
God is obviously different – we cannot know the infinite God and His names do
not describe Him – nonetheless, a divine name is a divine revelation; an
expression of the Creator’s will to connect to His creation and sanctify our
world (cf. Nefesh HaChaim 2:2-4). In other words, Hashem’s names
describe His relationship with us.
This
then is Torah. Every verse is a revelation. Better said,
every revelation is a verse. As the Zohar puts it, Hashem
and the Torah are one (cf. Nefesh HaChaim 4:6,10).
This
gives us a new understanding of Moshe’s rebuttal to the angels. To paraphrase
his response:
“As
spiritual beings, you may understand the nature of God and
His names better than humans ever will, but ultimately, the Torah is not for you.
Hashem’s names are about Hashem’s desire to connect with people, not angels. How
else can you explain the extraordinary fact that the divine names of Torah are
not just names, they are mitzvos!”
The
angels had no choice but to admit the truth: “Hashem our Master, how mighty
is Your name upon all the earth!”
Revelation & Reverence
The essence of every mitzva
is a divine name, a revelation of Hashem.
This is why the giving of the Torah came with the trauma of Maamad
Har Sinai. To receive Torah is to encounter God and to encounter God is
terrifying.
This is not just an
interesting piece of biblical history. Torah always comes with a Sinai
experience. Unsurprisingly, this reality is embedded into the very mitzva
of Torah study.
The mitzva of teaching
Torah and the mitzva of remembering Sinai are twins; they appear in the
Torah side by side. The verse “You shall make [the Torah] known to your
children and to your children’s children” (Devarim 4:9)
is immediately followed by the mitzva of remembering “the day that you
stood before Hashem your Lord in Horeb” (ibid 4:10). From
this association the gemora infers a frightening lesson:
Just as there [at Sinai] it was with terror, fear,
trembling and sweat, so too here [when you teach Torah] it should be with terror,
fear, trembling and sweat.
Berachos 22a
The gemora is saying
that learning is a reenactment of Sinai and should always be done with the
requisite terror. יראת ה' היא אוצרו, “Fear of Hashem is the storage facility [for
Torah]” (Isaiah 33:6).
It should be obvious that without fear and reverence, our relationship with
Hashem is skewed and we are unable to properly receive His teachings. But the
development of a healthy fear is not just something that we do for Torah. The
Torah has the power to do this to us.
After Matan Torah,
Hashem had a single wish:
“Who could assure that their hearts would remain this
way, fearing Me and observing all of My commandments for all time, for their
benefit, and for their for children's [benefit], forever?”
Devarim 5:26
It sounds like a fantasy,
but Hashem actually has a solution to the problem. He gives the order to Moshe.
“Go and tell them to return to their tents. Then you will
stand here with me and I will tell you about all the mitzvos, decrees
and laws so that you can teach it to them...”
Ibid 5:27-28
How does Hashem ensure that
the fear of Sinai won’t fade? By teaching us Torah! For Torah is a divine name
and a divine revelation, and our daily Torah study is thus nothing less than an
awe-inducing encounter with God on par with the revelation of Sinai. As the
Mirrer Mashgiach, Reb Yerucham Levovitz z”l, put it, “Torah is the thermos that
keeps Maamad Har Sinai warm.”
In sum, fear of Hashem is a
prerequisite for receiving Torah and the Torah itself preserves and engenders this
fear. It is exactly as the sages said, אם אין חכמה אין יראה, ואם אין יראה אין חכמה, “If there is no wisdom, there is no fear, and if there is no
fear, then there is no wisdom” (Avos 3:17).
Birchas HaTorah & Torah L’shmah
One of the few precious
biblical mitzvos that we are privileged to perform every morning is Birchas
HaTorah, the blessing on the Torah. The gemora (Berachos
21a) tells us that the origin of this mitzva is Moshe’s command to the
people in Parshas Haazinu:
כי שם ה' אקרא הבו גודל
לאלהינו
“When I call out the name of God, ascribe greatness to our Lord” (Devarim
32:3).
There is no mention of Torah
here; only the “name of God.” How then does this verse teach us to recite a beracha
before we study Torah? In light of all we have learned, the answer is obvious.
“Name of God” is a codename for “Torah.” Moshe was telling the people, “When I
call out the name of God,” i.e., when I teach Torah, you should “ascribe
greatness” to our Lord, i.e., recite a beracha (Maharsha ad loc.).
Knowing the source for Birchas
HaTorah gives us a new appreciation for its text:
כולנו יודעי שמך ולומדי
תורתיך לשמה
May
all of us know Your name and learn Your Torah for its own sake.
The wording could not be
more explicit: knowing Hashem’s name and knowing His Torah are synonymous. This
extraordinary statement appears in both the source for and in the text of Birchas
HaTorah for it is the spiritual nature of Torah that motivates us and
obligates us to recite this blessing.
The next step is a small one
for a writer, but a giant leap for the Jewish People. We have arrived at a new
understanding of the lofty ideal of תורה לשמה. Typically understood as Torah study “for its own sake,” it literally
reads, “for its name” – and now we know that those two things are actually one
and the same. For its own sake is for its name. Learn Torah l’shma,
for the sake of knowing the Name!
Birchas Kohanim & Hashem’s Smile
After we recite the beracha
on the Torah every morning, we must follow through with some Torah study. Of
all the thousands of Torah verses, which were chosen for the fulfillment of
this great daily mitzva?
יברכך ה'
וישמרך
יאר ה' פניו
אליך ויחנך
ישא ה' פניו
אליך וישם לך שלום
May Hashem bless you and safeguard you.
May Hashem shine His face upon you and be gracious to you.
May Hashem turn His face towards you and grant you peace.
As the words used by Kohanim
to bless the nation, these lines are among the most well-known in all of scripture,
but finding them here comes as a surprise. Although any and every verse
certainly qualifies for Torah study, these verses are prayers, not teachings.
If we were in the market for prototypical Torah, we would expect something more
basic. The Torah’s first verse or first mitzva would be a reasonable
choice. Why Birchas Kohanim?
The key to the answer lies
in the unusual reference to Hashem’s הארת פנים, “shining face.” What does it mean for Hashem to shine His face
towards us?
The same expression appears in
the final beracha of Shemone Esrei:
כי באור פניך נתת לנו ה'
אלהינו תורת חיים
Hashem
our Lord, with Your shining face You granted us a living Torah…
Fascinating. Hashem’s “face”
was “shining” when He gave us the Torah. In his commentary on the Siddur,
Rabbi Aryeh Lieb Gordon
explains:
The expression “a shining face” refers to showing a love
or a desire for something. Signs [of these feelings] are evident on the face,
for one directs a happy and shining face toward the object of their love…
In
other words, Hashem gave us the Torah with a smile. We know this well.
אהבת עולם בית ישראל עמך
אהבת. תורה ומצות חקים ומשפטים אותנו למדת.
“With an eternal love You have loved Your nation, the House of
Israel. You taught us Torah and mitzvos…” (Siddur).
Achieving the Impossible
Before
we return to Birchas HaTorah, we need to address a more fundamental
question. If the giving of the Torah was an act of divine love, if Hashem was
smiling, why were we so terrified at Mt. Sinai?
The
answer (or non-answer) is that there is a basic dichotomy at the heart of the God/man relationship. We address the paradox
in our daily prayers: יחד לבבנו לאהבה וליראה את שמך, “Unify our hearts to love and to fear Your name.”
Love and fear. Closeness and distance. Our Father, our King. The list goes on.
Sometimes we speak to Hashem in first person and sometimes in third, and
oftentimes we violate grammar and use both forms in the same sentence. The
point is, when it comes to Hashem, the conflicting emotions of love and fear are
experienced simultaneously. As we have seen, it was the revelation at Sinai
that forged this unique relationship.
In its original form, the
Torah was not a book of commandments. It was a book of God’s names; an
expression of His desire to dwell among us. Torah doesn’t change; this is what
Torah was and this is what Torah is today. How then, pray tell, does
the Infinite Being achieve the impossible and relate to mortals? The answer is
simple: by giving us the Torah. Through Torah we gain an awe and reverence
for Him, and through Torah Hashem is enabled to bless us with His Presence, protect
us, shine His face upon us, and gift us with peace. This is why the verses of Birchas
Kohanim were chosen for the place of honor after Birchas HaTorah.
For more succinctly and more explicitly than any others, these verses express precisely
what we stand to gain from
Torah study.
When a person buys an object, does he
also acquire the seller? But the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the
Torah to the Jews and He said to them, “It is as if you are getting Me.”
Shemos Rabba 33
We may not always
recognize it as such, but Torah is Hashem’s way of sharing Himself with us. It is not for naught that when we get an Aliyah and are
called up to the Torah, we are called up by name. It is a personal invitation
to connect with Hashem, name to Name.
Shavuos is more
than a commemoration of a historic event and the Torah is more than a how-to
book of Jewish living. If we do it right, our learning will bring the reverence,
the revelation, and the relationship of Sinai into our lives every single
day of the year.
יש הוסיף דזכינו בזה להבנה מחדשת בדין קדיש דרבנן הנאמר לאחר דברי
תורה, כדאיתא בגמ' ואלא עלמא אמאי קא מקיים אקדושה דסידרא ואיהא שמיה רבא
דאגדתא (סוטה מט ע"א), ולהרמב"ם "דאגדתא" לאו דוקא ואומרים
קדיש זו לאחר כל לימוד תורה שבע"פ (עיין סדר התפילות בסוף ספר אהבה),
די"ל שבקדיש יש קיום דין "כי שם ה' אקרא הבו גודל
לאלוהינו", והיינו "יתגדל ויתקדש שמיה רבה", ודו"ק. ועיין יומא
לז ע"א דיש דין הבו גודל גם לאחר קריאת השם.
עוד זכינו בזה לביאור חדש במה שנכתב באברהם אבינו, ויקרא בשם ה' (בראשית יב:ח), וכן, ויקרא שם אברם בשם ה' (יג:ד). דהנה אברהם אבינו זקן ויושב בישיבה היה (יומא כח ע"ב), ודמשק אליעזר דולה ומשקה מתורת רבו לאחרים (שם), ומעתא י"ל דהיינו דכתיב ד"קרא" אברהם "בשם" ה', דקריאת השם הוא תלמוד תורה כנ"ל, כמבואר בקרא, כי שם ה' אקרא - הבו גודל לאלהינו, ודו"ק.
