The ‘sweet singer of israei’ - David Hamelech - exulted:(Ps’ 119:97): מה אהבתי תורתך כל היום היא שיחתי: ’How I love your Torah; all day I speak of it.’
What could be a more appropriate topic, for our shiur, on this, a few days before Shavuot - the Time of the Giving of our Torah!
The Baalei Midrash - on our Parasha - say:’At the time that Bnei Israel received the Torah, the nations of the world envied them:’What did they see, to cause them to come closer, than the other nations?
‘Hakadosh-Baruch-Hu closed their mouths, saying to them: Bring your ספר יוחסין: the book of your pedigrees, as my sons bring - which is why the Torah, at the outset of our Parasha, brings the pedigrees of Bnei Israel - according to their fathers’ houses - then mentioning the mitzvot they were given at Har Sinai.
‘This proves, that Bnei Israel only merited to receive the Torah, because of their pedigrees.’
By your leave, let us trace the pedigree of Bnei Israel - from - for our purposes - Yaakov Avinu:’the Pillar of Torah’, as he is known.
The parshanim darshan that the ‘love affair’ between Yaakov, the Torah and Hashem, was mutual, on all sides - if we be permitted to say so.
This is based on their reading of Ps’ 105:4: ‘Yaakov chose for him, Hashem to be his G-d; Israel to be His סגולה: His precious possession.’
They read this as: ‘Because Yaakov chose Hashem to be his G-d, Hashem chose Israel - Yaakov’s nation - to be His special Lot.’
We read (Toldot 25:27:)’Yaakov was איש תם: a guileless man, who dwelled in tents’ - Rashi: ‘the tents of the Torah academies of Shem and of Eber’.
When Yaakov ran away from home -to escape the wrath of his brother Esav, for having taken the blessings of their father, Yitzchak - it was to these very ‘tents’, that he fled - spending fourteen years of ceaseless toil in Torah - nights as days (Rashi: Vayetze 28:11).
It was Yaakov who left us the beautiful legacy of the blessing: (Vayechi 48:16) המלאך הגואל אותי : ‘the angel who redeems me from all harm ..bless the lads.. וידגו לרוב: and may they proliferate abundantly like fish’ - a blessing with which we continue to bless our children, to this day.
Let us bear in mind, the principle that ‘in blessings, everything follows the ending.’
A Midrash gives a beautiful elucidation of the ending of this blessing, which befits the ‘pillar of Torah’, and is the foundation of our love of Torah - the topic of our dvar Torah.
Say the Baa’lei Midrash::’Though these fish grow in a body of water, should a single drop of water fall from above, they drink it with great thirst, as if they had not tasted water, in their lives; so too, Israel: though they grow in the sea of Torah - likewise, ‘a body of water’ - should they hear a new Torah teaching, they ‘drink it in’, as if they had never heard a word of Torah, in their lives.’
Rav Yaakov Kaminetzky expounds that the tragic episode of the deaths of the twenty-four thousand disciples of Rabbi Akiva - as based on this Midrash:
‘True, they were privileged to learn Torah from the great Sage - Rabbi Akiva - but, as the fish in the Midrash taught us, they should have still honored the Torah of their fellow students - if they truly loved Torah -and not only their own Torah- every drop of Torah would have been precious in their eyes, whatever be its source - as was every drop of water, to the fish.’
The love of Torah remained within the hearts of Bnei Israel, despite their long and cruel subjugation, in Egypt, as Hashem taught Moshe Rabeinu, on His very first appearance to him - appropriately - at the mountain of G-d’, so called, as Rashi comments:’on account of what would happen there in the future’.
The Torah relates: (Shemot 3:1-12), Hashem said to Moshe:’Now go, I will send you to Pharoah. You will take My people, Bnei israel, out of Egypt.
‘Moshe said to Hashem:’Who am i that I should go to Pharoah AND take Bnei Israel out of Egypt?’
Rashi:’And that I should take Bnei Israel out of Egypt’: Even if I am important enough to speak to Pharoah, what merit do Bnei Israel possess that a miracle be performed for them and that I take them out of Egypt? ‘- answered Hashem: ‘Regarding that which you asked:What merit do Bnei Israel have that they should go out of Egypt? I have a great purpose in bringing them out, for they are destined to receive the Torah on this mountain at the end of three months after they have left Egypt.’
The Shibolei Haleket brings the Midrash, that when Moshe relayed these joyous tidings to Bnei Israel - that after their exodus from Egypt, they would receive the Torah on Har Sinai - they asked him:’When will that be?’: he answered: ‘At the end of fifty days, from then.
‘Out of their love, they counted each passing day, saying:’One day has passed.. and now the second day - and so, on each day, in their eagerness and love of the Torah, the time seemed to them, to pass very slowly.
Hashem rewarded their love and eagerness, by later commanding them to count these fifty days, as a Mitzvah (Parashat Emor 23), as our Sages lay down:’greater is one who is commanded, and performs a Mitzvah, than one who is not commanded, and performs that deed.’
The Sefer haChinuch - written in the thirteenth century - comments, that, by giving Bnei Israel the Mitzvah of counting the days till Matan Torah - and not of the days from the exodus from Egypt - the Torah teaches that, in our souls, the main yearning was not for the physical freedom from slavery, but for the day we would receive the Torah, as the counting of the days till then, shows our yearning for that day to arrive.
Whilst we have focused on our love of Torah, our Sages expound that - at the same time - Hashem yearns that we toil in Torah.
‘They expound the passuk:(Bechokotai 26:3): אם בחקתי תלכו:’If in my ordinances you shall go’, is to be understood as:’Hashem yearns that you toil in Torah’- since the Torah here already adjures us to observe the ordinances, so, therefore it teaches that Hashem yearns that we toil in Torah.
The Darchei Noam adds - uniting the two aspects - that a person’s love for Torah, can be measured by the amount of toil that he expends in Torah.
He concludes:’When a person toils in the Torah, not because he feels obligated to do so, but because of his recognition that it is the most important and precious of all pursuits - to which nothing else can compare - he becomes, as it were, as if betrothed to it, and it, in his eyes, sweeter than honey - all this because of his love for it.’
Moshe Rabeinu - as we would expect - teaches us an eternal lesson, in love of Torah.
After five-hundred- and fifteen unheeded pleas to remain in this life - and to enter the Land - he makes a further and different - alas, also unsuccessful - plea:(VaEtchanan 3:24 ): אתה החילותה להראות את עבדך את גדלך: ‘You have only just begun to show Your servant, Your greatness’ - expounds the Chiddishei Ha’Rim:’You have only just began to show Your servant, the hidden secrets of Your Torah’ - this, after all the Torah that he learned ‘from the Mouth of Hashem’, in the preceding forty years!
Even on his last day in this life, Moshe Rabeinu’s love of Torah, played a central role.
The Torah brings his sad lament:( Vayelech 31:2 )’Today I am one hundred -and- twenty years old: I can no longer go out and come in’.
Comment the Sages: ‘This cannot be understood literally - the Torah later records that he ascended the mountain, where he was to be his final resting place!
‘What it means, is that ‘he could no longer go out and come in’, in Torah learning, as its well-springs have been blocked to him.
The Ein Yaakov comments: this was from Hashem, who knew that, for Moshe, life without Torah, was ‘worse than death’ - and that only this would cause Moshe to willingly ascend Above, as had been decreed.
Not surprisingly, the first question that Moshe Rabeinu. - and indeed, every one of us - would be asked, by the Heavenly Tribunal (Shabbat 31:1)’קבעת עתים לתורה: Did you set times, for Torah?’
The Vilna Gaon - in his commentary on Proverbs - expounds that - instead of קבעת: ‘set’, it should be read as גנבת עתים לתורה: ‘Did you steal time for Torah, from other pursuits you were engaged in - even when you had no free time, for Torah?
This, he - and other great commentators - decree is what is the true measure, of the person’s love of Torah - over all other pleasures and pursuits.
In another instance - directly related to Matan Torah - the Vilna Gaon gives a brilliant answer, to our quest.
The singular events which may properly be described as Matan Torah, are the subject of two - not one - parshiot in the Torah.
In Parashat Yitro we read of the events on the first three days of the Third month: Sivan, AND of the giving of the Ten Commandments, on the Sixth of Sivan.
For some reason - to which we are not privy - the events of the Fourth and the Fifth of Sivan - including the declaration by Bnei Israel of כל אשר דבר ה' נעשה ונשמע;’All that Hashem says, we will do and we will hear’ - are brought in the following Parasha: Parashat Mishpatim.
Rashi makes clear:(24:7-9)’on the Fourth Sivan, Moshe wrote all the matters in Hashem’s book, and on the morrow, he took the ספר הברית: the Book of the Covensnt, and read it in the ears of the people, who then said:’All that Hashem said, we will do and we will hear’ - and Moshe entered into a Covenant of Blood with the people, on these matters.
The Vilna Gaon expounds that, to understand the matter, we need to first understand what a ‘covenant’ is.
He elucidates: ‘When two parties have a strong need to be always connected - but are unable to do so, for physical reasons, such as separation - they retain the bond, by each giving the other ‘something taken from themselves’, as an eternal keepsake, thereby always remaining ‘connected’.
‘In our case, the Torah is the precious keepsake that ‘is part of Hashem’, that He gave to Bnei Israel, on this occasion.
‘What was the keepsake - ‘part of themselves’ - that Bnei Israel gave to Hashem, to complete the Covenant?
‘The most precious ‘possession’ that man has - in his eyes - is his freedom and independence - to act as he chooses.
By accepting here - for the only time at Sinai - that ‘all that Hashem says, they will do and they will hear’, they gave to Hashem - and thereby performed their part of the Covenant - for all time and all generations.