Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Shavuot - The Torah Is Not in Heaven

[Music] okay hi everybody thank you uh for coming and uh today's share is dedicated for a for shim may he have and for Cil Basim as well as the father and brother of K fold David MOS Ben AB fishel's father and yonan Isel David moshe's brother again may all of our learning be uh we're obviously we have a very big holiday coming up in a few days and I thought we would talk about the holiday of shos today and when we ask ourselves what is shos celebrating so the obvious answer is what the sitter says it's celebrating Z matanu the day that God gave us the Torah first of all just as a matter of basic definition we certainly did not get the whole Torah on Shas we got the mitzvos over a period of time so when we say the whole Tor we mean Hashem revealed himself to the the Jewish people and gave them the Ten Commandments which is the root and the shes of all of the Mitzvah and like that's the first thing to understand we didn't get the whole Torah on sh but we heard Hashem give theas Hadas that's Point number one but the second point to make is very interesting the Torah nowhere says that that's the reason why you celebrate Shu the Torah does identify a holiday that you celebrate after after counting 49 days and that holiday is called shos because it comes after 7 weeks but the only reason the tus gives for celebrating Shas is an agricultural reason it talks about it as the time of the first fruits it talks about it as the time of the wheat Harvest it does not give the most important reason that this is the day that Hashem gave us the Torah in fact the only way kazal even know that is M by making a number of calculations now we do know from the that the Jewish people arrived at Mount Si Roes and then we know there were dialogues for several days culminating in the aeras but you don't really know that it was on the sixth day uh I'll you know figure it out but it's a very indirect way I mean you would think that the giving of the Torah is a much more important thing than the wheat season Harvest so why does the Torah deemphasize the importance of shos by relegating it to an agricultural Festival now agricultural festivals are important I don't mean to demean their importance but certainly we would look at Matan Torah as transcendentally important so the maharal gives a fascinating explanation he says God could not have made a holiday out of Matan Torah why is that because whether Matan Torah is a joyous day or not does not depend on God it depends on us if I live my life by following hashem's Torah then it becomes the greatest day that ever existed if I don't live my life following God's Torah then maybe I'd be better off without it because once it's given there's accountability there's responsibility so in a sense hasm could say the following listen even if you don't keep the Tor is a happy day because at least there's a wheat Harvest so the wheat Harvest is a reason that applies to everybody but the Sim T is a function of how I live my life and therefore Hashem says you can make it make this the most joyous day of your life or you could make it a tragic day that's up to you that's not up to God as say how sh everything is in the hands of Heaven except the decision to fear Hashem to serve hasem because that's B that's free will and that's an amazing thing yes God is omnipotent God controls everything but God so to speak abdicated his control over my decision to worship him or not to worship him that's my decision that's not his decision now I need hashem's help without hashem's help I'm not going to be able to conquer the Yura but I have to make the decision that that's what I want to do once I decide I want to do it then we have the rule the way you want to go is the way Hashem is going to lead you Hashem is like a taxi driver you tell the driver where you want to go you want to go in the DK of righteousness Hashem will assist you you want to go the other way Hashem will help you out that way also you have to decide it reminds me a little bit of a thought that is sometimes expressed in the morning Bros we make three Bros in the negative we thank Hashem he didn't make me a he didn't make me a slave and the men make the BR didn't make me a woman Etc because men have more mitzvos that's a whole other talking itself but simply men have more mitzvos let's just keep it at a at a simple level but people ask the question why do we thank for negatives why don't we why don't we express it in the positive thank you Hashem for making me a Jew and men and women can both say this now there actually is in the Rama the RMA does bring such an opinion so there is such an opinion but we don't follow that we make the BR in the negative so there's a thought in that Hashem doesn't make you a Jew you make yourself a Jew now that's not a halakic statement certainly Hally if you're born a Jew you're a Jew but in a spiritual sense you forge your identity as a Jew the most you could say to Hashem is by not making you a non-jew he's given you the capacity to become a Jew but whether you're really a is your choice not hashem's choice and that's why the moral says mat is not necessarily A S it all depends on what you do with the T you serve the tah you you keep the Torah it's a great great joy you don't keep the Torah then you know maybe you're better off without it in that in that sense now but here I want to ask another question it's not my question there's a very very famous question the mug of asks the mug of is one of the great commentators on the and that is there's Aus in the gar did hasem give the Ten Commandments on the sixth of s or on the seventh of s now that's not Aus when Shu say sh certainly on the sixth but when did Hashem give the Ten Commandments and through the various Tech techical reasons the gorra gives it actually turns out that we pasin that the Ten Commandments were given on the seventh of s in other words they weren't given an I mean don't tell people they may be traumatized but according to the opinion that says the Torah was given on the seventh of Sian nothing happened on the sixth of Sian amazing so at least in they get it right because it turns out the real day of Matan Torah is the second day of shus seventh of s now let me ask the the ask the another way because you might say well listen who cares what date the Torah was given shos after all is actually not defined in terms of a date unlike P that's the 15th of Nissan and unlike yam Kipper that's the 10th of Tish and unlike sukus that's the 15th of Tish the Torah does not define shos as the sixth of s the Torah defines shos as the 50th day of the Omare now there's something you need to understand about the Jewish calendar the only reason shivas is on the sixth day of San is because based on our present calendrical system the month of Nissan always has 30 days and the month of these are the two months in between p and always has 29 days so the 50th day of the Omare will always be on the 6th of San that's only because we have a fixed calendar in the time of the bikash the calendar was not fixed any given month dependent on when Witnesses showed up and saw a new moon so any given month could be 29 days or 30 days so it actually turns out that if both Nissan and Eeyore were 29 days your 50th day of the OM would be on the seventh of s because you had fewer days in Nissan and if Nissan and were both 30 days the fifth th day would be the fifth of s and if Nissan is 30 and year is 29 which happens to be our calendar the sixth is six of s as Shu now shu is a floating holiday shuis can either be five six or seven the only requirement is it's the 50th date of the OM so you might make the argument okay so even if the Ten Commandments were given on the seventh maybe the calendar was set up that that was the 50th day of the OM and we celebrated it on the 50th day of the OM which is the sixth of stepen in our calendar you might give that as an answer says the mugin of ram that's not true I'll prove to you that Not only was the Torah given on the seventh of San but the Torah was given on the 51st day of the OM Aras is totally wrong how do we prove this because Garian chabas says that that we left mitzraim this is a tradition we don't have proof for this but we left mitzraim on a Thursday that means the first day of pesak was Wednesday night Thursday so when do you start counting the Omare the second night which is Thursday night Friday so let's just say Friday so Friday was day one of the Omar the gorah also says we got the Ten Commandments on chabas so let's figure it out if the first day of the OM is Friday the 49th day of the Omare is Thursday the 50th day of the Omare is Friday we got the Torah the day after on chabas the 51st day of the OM so the M of rams Kasha is aalha how can we celebrate that the now the Tyra says we celebrate shus on the 50th day of the Omare which based on our present calendar is the sixth of St and yet the Torah was given on the 51st day of the OM which was the seventh of C so we are celebrating Matan Torah on the wrong day now this is not a Kasha on us this is a Kasha on hasem Words it's not that we made a mistake in when we celebrate Shas said you celebrate Shas day 50 right the is not just you know we made a mistake says you celebrate on day 50 even though the T was not given until day 51 we are celebrating the wrong day why is shos the day of commemorating Matan Torah so the M abam gives the following answer on the fourth of San the fourth of s that's tonight right the fourth of San Hashem told mosenu tell the Jewish people to separate from their wives and prepare themselves spiritually today the fourth of s and tomorrow the next day and I will come and give them the Torah on the third day which means they separated on the fourth of Sion the fifth of San and Hashem said I will give them the Torah the next day on the sixth of San Moshe communicated to Ben Israel he deviated from what God Said and the of saying prepare yourselves today and tomorrow and God will come the third day Moshe said prepare yourself for three days and then God will come I'll discuss how we could do that so it turns out that based on hashem's original statement separate on the fourth and the fifth and I will come on the sixth the Tyra would have been given on the sixth of sant which is Friday and the 50 th day of the OM but because Moser rabenu added an extra day on his own volition Hashem deferred Matan Torah so we celebrate shos it's an amazing uh conclusion we celebrate shabos not on the day that Hashem actually gave the Torah we celebrate the Shas on the day that Hashem would have given the Torah had Moshe not added an extra day in other words based on hashem's original plan the Torah would have been given on Friday which was day 15 mosha now we'll explain how could mosha add we'll explain that moso added on his own volition an extra day which hasem deferred to and thear chabas actually says there were three things where Moshe took initiative on his own without a commandment from Hashem and Hashem agreed it was the right thing after the fact the first of these things was he added a day of preparation to Matan Torah God said prepare on the fourth and the fifth and I'll give you the Torah on the sixth mosha said prepare on the fourth the fifth and the sixth and I'll give you the Torah on the seventh right that's that's the first thing mosha did the second thing mosha did was from the time of Matan Torah onwards Moshe became celibate with his wife now Hashem didn't tell him to separate from his wife I mean all of the Jewish people separated for three days but Moshe remained permanently celibate because he felt he had to be on call for prophecy 24/7 Hashem didn't tell him to do that and that's never been the Jewish way in fact if anyone else would try to have that behavior that would be totally wrong and of course uh that was even the subject of the Len Hara that Miriam said against Moshe that it was not right but for Moshe this was his unique madrea he made that decision on his own Hashem agreed and the third instance of Moser rabenu making a decision on his own initiative was 40 days later when he comes down and he sees the agel and he smashes the luos Hashem didn't tell him to do that but Hashem said that was the right decision actually the gamorra explains that maybe we'll talk about this a little later but the gorra explains that Moshe didn't do this out of anger shom but rather the luos were like a wedding ring that Hashem gave us and worshiping the agel is adultery so Moshe wanted to smash the wedding ring so Hashem would look at us like a single woman that is promiscuous and not a married woman and the standard might be more lenient as M kab was we should be judged like pya a single woman and not like asish not like a married woman okay so be as it may though the tpis of the mug R's answer which is quite astounding again maybe don't tell your kids they might be traumatized uh is that the Torah was not given on the sixth of s but the 50th of the OM but this was the day that Hashem would have given the Torah had Mosher Reno not added a day of preparation by the way this actually means a little bit that what we call the three days of preparation right even today we commemorate three days of preparation they're actually not the same three days of preparation that the Jews had in the midb in other words the three days of preparation of the Jews were the fourth fifth and sixth with the Torah being given on the 7eventh but since we celebrate shabas on the 6th we actually start our three days of prep preparation a day earlier 3 4 5 see we have to do that because the sixth becomes shabos and you need three days but the first year that's not the way it was shos not not I don't mean but the Matan Torah was on the 7th so the three days of preparation were four five six that's an interesting observation and of itself Okay so mugan not elaborate on this Beyond uh this answer that the sixth of Sion the 50th of the OM is the day that God wanted to give the Torah and that's why it's Manan Torah but the question you might ask is why should the hypothetical day be more significant than the real day s call S Hashem gave the aceras on the seventh of s he would have given it on the sixth but he didn't give it on the sixth so why is Matan Tor the hypothetical day and not the actual thing so so to understand this there's a famous uh uh Daran of the 19th century actually was a big Torah uh the a yua Rua of slim who offers a very very beautiful explanation of the mugin of Ram's answer and this is based on one of the most famous agados in all of CH a gamar that is very very rich in many many different perspectives and this involves What's called the oven of a tanor the word AK means a snake and this involved a kind of an Arcane technical problem we know that vessels that come in contact with dead people or dead animals become ritually impure you have to take them to a mikah whatever it would be or if they're Earth andwar actually you cannot take it to a mi you have to smash it we also know however that once something is broken or smashed it's not susceptible to be maab Tuma because it's no longer a CLE so the Shila that the gar is debating it's an Arcane Shila is let's assume you had an Earth andwar Oven that you want it to transport from place to place so the way they would do it is they would cut it into horizontal Rings if you're a little older you might remember hoola Hoops so imagine an earthware oven that was cut into hula hoops so you'd carry them on your arm these hoola hoops and when you wanted to assemble it you would pile the Hoops on top of each other you would put mud in between the hoops and when the mud would dry you would have an oven right the mud would be like the mortar and when it was time to move on you just shook out the mud or wased away the mud and you carry the Hoops so the Shila is if the hoops come in contact with the dead are the Hoops maab Tuma one opinion says well it's like a broken vessel it's a bunch of broken rings and it's not maab Tuma another opinion says well it's not really broken you just assemble it and reassemble it and that's the way you use it so it's a technical the reason it's called snake because a snake you know can take its tail in its uh mouth and form a circle so these Rings were described as snake likee rings so the gor records Aus between the sages the majority the and rebi elzar in which the sages said t it's considered to be a functional vessel and its T rebi elzar says tahar now normally the is like the majority but he refused to give in and he brought all sorts of proofs and they did not accept his proofs so finally he decided to utilize Supernatural evidence that he was correct he said if the Haka is like me let the carob tree uproot itself and fly away and the carab tree uprooted itself flew away the said sorry we don't listen to trees he then said If thou lock is like me Let the River reverse its course and flow in the other direction and the river reversed its course and he said they said we don't listen to rivers and then he said if the is like me that the walls of the B medish collapse Inward and the walls began to move Inward and rabi yua ordered the walls don't you dare move so the walls didn't know who to listen to should they listen to Rabbi Eleazar and come in or should they listen to R Yeshua and straighten out and because of that the walls remain slanted apparently in the time of the gumar there still was this bace medish with slanting walls like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the gamorra attributes it to the walls not knowing who to listen to well as you would guess the said to reab elzar we don't listen to walls reab elzar did three miracles to show that he's right obviously these Miracles come from Hashem there was the tree there was the water there was the B medish finally he's not he gets out the big guns and he says if the is like me there should be a Heavenly voice Hashem should announce that I'm correct this is called a baso a Basco came from heaven and a Bas said elzar there's not too much wiggle room to deny that and the said to hasem we don't listen to heavenly voices you yourself said in your Torah your Torah the Torah is not in heaven you gave us a process by which we resolve and we followed that process and we followed your rules you cannot interfere and indeed the rambam takes this as a solid H principle that a prophet who comes and even an established Prophet I don't mean a false prophet a prophet comes and tells you that God intends that a certain Mitzvah should be done differently or a Mitzvah should be abrogated unless it's an emergency short-term change like a Leah who authorized the bringing of sacrifices at Mount Carmel outside of the base of mikdash that's temporary in fact one of the main reasons again to singer can talk about this at much greater length but one of the main reasons not the only reason why Christianity cannot be accepted within Judaism is it teaches that the Torah was superseded by subsequent prophetic Revelation and that's not possible loami so as a result rabi elzar was overruled even though there was a Bas lash Miami and the story has a sad ending he was actually excommunicated he was really the greatest Rabbi in Israel but because he did not accept the view of the Sanhedrin he was excommunicated which meant among other things he could no longer teach Torah he was elderly and he was sick and they delegated his student rabi Akiva to inform him of the excommunication and RAB yiva enters his bedroom and he stands at a distance because when someone is excommunicated you're not supposed to be in their four cubits and reaka stands at a distance and rebbi elzar says what's wrong my son what's wrong and Rabbi AKA said it appears that your colleagues have separated themselves from you that's how he informed him and rebi elzra broke down sobbing because he said he is like a safer Torah that's totally rolled up tightly there's so much Torah here but it's closed and it's locked and it's tied and all of that Torah can never be revealed it was an awful thing now what's interesting is the Nasi the head of the suned that ex communicated rabie Eleazar was Robin gaml Rin G Le's sister was Rabbi elzar's wife so they were brothers-in-law so the gamor recounts that Rabbi elzar's wife never let him say the tan prayer in the morning why because tun is when you pour out your private anguish to Hashem and she was afraid if he would pour out and express his private anguish Hashem would punish her brother for causing that anguish even though it was the sh sh and one day she made a mistake so she used to interrupt him every time it was time to say she would interrupt him and the him say although he could say Tak later but if you don't say it right after the amid it doesn't have that power butes we don't say and one day she miscalculated she thought it was roses she wasn't monitoring her husband and it was notes so she walked in seeing him doing so she said to him you killed my brother today at that very moment they got news that Rin gel died now I don't think we should assume that rabie elzar prayed that something should happen to Raab that that would not be what exodic does rather it's Hashem that avenges him in other words he was just expressing his anguish and his suffering and that's going to cause repercussions and again this is a complicated idea this is not punishment for sin there is no sin rean gumo committed re gel did what was necessary to preserve the unity of the people but when you hurt those who are great and holy it's like playing with fire there's going to be a consequence you you can't just say Wella I was justified so what if I jump into a fire to save a baby I'm also Justified but I'm probably going to get burnt most of the time you see okay and then shortly thereafter rabie elzar himself died so again it was very very tragic that this Feud okay but I want to go back to the central idea the Torah is not in heaven what is that that mean when we let's assume right new new questions in come up all the time right when electricity was discovered or utilized you know his electricity fire and chabas right so postum have to analyze this now when we ask a Shila is something mucher or something AER what we're really asking is what does Hashem want us to do in a given circumstance know we may not say it that way we say well we'll look at the gamarra we'll look at the rambam we'll look at Rashi we'll look at toos we'll look at the sh because those are our sources but really what we're trying to do is figure out what would Hashem want me to do and since hasem does not directly speak to us so we have to use the second best thing that we have and that is all of the different sour es but if Hashem tells you what he wants how could that be irrelevant how can you say when we're trying to figure out what the Raton Hashem is Hashem has no input in that process I mean let's take a trivial example let's imagine that kids are deciding what they want to give their father as a birthday present so one says ABA really wants the safer and one says you know ABA wants uh whatever it is uh a record or a cassette or a CD ABA wants a tie ABA wants cuff Lings or if it's non ABA wants an iPad right what whatever it would be or an iPhone so ABA walks by and ABA is hearing all the kids discussing what he wants for his birthday and ABA says you know it's very nice of you to want to get me a gift but what I really want is ex so the kids say back in a very respectful way please ABA don't get involved in this we're trying to figure out what you want for your birthday uh you have nothing to contribute to that discussion what does that mean the whole point is what he wants for his birthday he's telling you well isn't of the same thing what does God want me to do God tells you what he wants you to do we don't listen now you might say and from a practical standpoint this is quite strong that the reason we don't rely on heavenly voices or prophets is because we don't really know if it's true people could lie people could make things up people could act under mental illness or delusion so you might say that is based on pragmatic concerns that it's not authentic and you know that is a true idea but that's not what the gamor is saying the gamorra does not say that they rejected the Basco because they said who said God said it rather they acknowledged and they were able to verify this they acknowledged this came from Hashem and they still said we don't care in fact the gamar goes on to says that a later Rabbi met AOH hanavi who goes back and forth between shmay andit right he's here he's there and they said to him what was hashem's reaction when the say to God stay out of it mind your own business what a he reported Hashem laughed whatever that means exactly and Hashem said my children have been Victorious over me I'm going to stay out of their fight I'm going to mind my own business in other words Hashem was masim Hashem agreed so the question becomes what is the logic that Hashem has no input in a h process which is supposed to determine what it is Hashem wants now let me raise another question throughout the gamar we have mishna gamar we have numerous numerous M on every conceivable subject and the mum are mutually exclusive one says kosher one says trfe one says pure one says impure one says guilty one says exempt now in we got to follow something so we have a but objectively which is right and which is wrong so the gamar says maybe this is not true for every makus in the world but certainly among the M of the great rabbis of the mishna and the tal these and those are the words of the Living God they are both right they are both correct once again you have a problem how can two contradictory propositions both be right you're telling me it's kosher and trfe it's pure and impure what does it mean it's the they tell a That's a classic little story about uh two litigant go before a rabbi to adjudicate their dispute and the rabbi listens to one guy and says you're right and the rabbi listens to the other guy and he says you're right and his Ritson asks them how can they both be right he says you're right too everybody's right everybody's right how could that be so these are two questions that are related one is what is the meaning of Lo we don't listen to heavenly voices and what is the meaning of that two contradictory realities can both be true how can that be so there is uh an essay by rabenu Nim he's called the ran rabenu Nim one of the great great weon him the ran was a great great commentator uh on gorah but in addition he wrote a very excellent book called Russ San which explores some major themes in Jewish philosophy in fact um there are recent translations art scoll now has a Dro San as well um and it's a worthwhile book to to look at uh and the Dr San deals with these questions and he says something that once again these are what you might call dangerous ideas now dangerous ideas are not the same as untrue ideas this is very important sometimes we say this idea is dangerous meaning it can be abused it can be twisted it can be misapplied yeah there are dangerous ideas but that doesn't mean it's not true when you properly apply it that's a very important idea that just because an idea is dangerous doesn't mean it's not true but it does mean it's prone to misapplication so this is a r an idea of the r that I think is a dangerous idea but it's a very very profound idea the Iran differentiates between what you might call mathematical truth and what you might call halic truth in mathematical truth actually I should qualify that at least in arithmetical truth there is only one particular answer to a given equation and anything else is just false it's not a matter of opinion 1 + 1 is two if you say three you're not entitled to your opinion you're just wrong although there's a great I I don't remember all the details there a YouTube video how in a in this Multicultural crazy world one in one could does not have to be two it could be 11 whatever it is different types of things but in a normal functioning Society mathematical truth has one right answer and everything else is sheer H truth is very very different it is true that God does have an answer to every possible question but God did not give us an answer to every possible question the way Toral works is Hashem gave us principles and then he left it to the sages of each generation to take those principles and derive conclusions from following this halic process now I am Gliding Over some very difficult questions what is the definition of the process that's authentic and who are the people that are competent and qualified those are biggies but ignoring those important questions for a moment Hashem see people make a mistake people think Hashem gave Moshe to give to us every answer to every question so Hashem told Moshe about electricity about microwaves about surrogate motherhood but he did not he gave mosha the principles out of which the sages derive halic truth therefore just like a professor of mathematics might sometimes give you full credit for following the process even if there's a computational error at the very end because you understand the process Hashem basically says as long as the right people so to speak follow the right process then whatever conclusions they come up with will be given the Imp primature of divine approval even if in some objective platonic sense it was not the answer that God had because God wanted the answer to come from the human effort of the sages of the Torah CLA Israel which means even if an answer is wrong it becomes right and that's the will of God assuming you have people are following the process I don't mean conservative reform people who are following the process now you might say that's a very messy way to convey law I mean if Hashem wants us to live a certain way he should give us the rules he shouldn't kind of give us principles and then say figure it out and that's why there's mokas all the time because you're taking these principles and different people look at it different ways and makas after m after makus why couldn't Hashem just give us the rules so there are a few things you could say well first of all some of the rules wouldn't have been intelligible at the time of Matan Tor what should AEM talk about electricity atomic energy that wouldn't be understood but that's not an answer AEM could have given envelopes not to be opened until a certain date right we got the Torah and then a bunch of envelopes to be opened progressively as technology develops another answer you might give is well there would be too many envelopes life is everchanging it's not possible for Hashem to give specific Revelation on every conceivable question the Torah is eternal and unchanging but life changes all the time so Hashem has to you know it's almost like by necessity Hashem has to create an interpretive system that's an answer to but I think the most beautiful answer is Hashem wanted to have a partnership with the Jewish people the analogy I often use is making a cake let's imagine you want to bake a cake or you want to make a cake for your four-year-old's birthday the easiest thing to do is not to bake the cake at all just go to a good Bakery and get it simple but the other way of doing it is I'll bake the cake when my daughter is a sleep or in gun have a nice cake after 20 minutes I'll put it in the oven or whatever everything's going to be great but the deepest way of showing your love is to involve your four-year-old in the making of the cake in which you become co-creators of this cake now the cake that you make with your 4-year-old is not likely to be as perfect as the cake you'd make yourself and certainly not as perfect as the cake you'd buy in the bakery it may be lumpy it may be uneven part of it might be burnt part of it might be undone there may be eggshell in the batter there may be chocolate there may be cocoa powder on the floor you could do a much better job without the kid why get the kid involved all the answer is when you love somebody you want them to be involved in the process with you this is what Torah is Hashem didn't simply give us a bunch of rules Hashem you know gave us the written Torah of course and the principles of the oral Torah but then says I want the truth to emerge not not out of what I say in heaven but out of your work and your struggle so even when you get it wrong I like your answer better I want your answer again for the people in the room this this is an aspect of theem wants to make his Dwelling Place in the lowly world this is actually the way theic process works Hashem says you know we're not going to do things the way I decree from Heaven we're going to do things the way you figure it out on Earth because we're I live is with you right so it's an amazing thing that the giving of the Torah actually means to some degree the giving up of the Torah Hashem gave through it the power to interpret the now again the reason why I say it's dangerous it's because you know you hear this and you might think oh yeah so reform can do this you we can just interpret whatever we want obviously there are parameters There Are Rules there are structures there's procedures and the only people that have any input are the people who follow those rules and procedures but at that point even if they make a mistake it becomes the will of Hashem that's why it's called mat in fact bras almost makes this point explicitly you know there's a PK from Mish that we recite every time we put the Torah back Monday Thursday I have given you a good purchase do not abandon my Torah so the gorah gives the following M Hashem is not like a buer vam a human being when a buser vam has to sell a precious heirloom the moer is very unhappy that I had to sell the monol Lisa the buyer is is very happy I got the Mona Lisa but Hashem is not that way Hashem sold us the Torah and he still rejoices but what's the analogy when I sell the Mona Lisa I've given it up it's not mine anymore Hashem didn't give away the Torah but the answer is based on L he actually did he actually did there's a certain appication relationship of love you know there's another gamorra which has many many meanings the first word of the 10 commandments is an i i an is the more common word Ani is an unusual word for I but the commands with I so the gar in shabas says is an abbreviation right I aric my soul I have written it VAV and I have given it to you yahav without yavas in other words God put whatever that means exactly he put his soul he put his Essence in the Torah and he gave it to us whether you call it him marriage which is indeed Matan Tori is often described as a marriage or you describe it as a parent to a child see again Hashem is described in all those different ways he is our Lover he is our friend he is our parents all of these different relationships in fact he's even our sister and our brother meaning every type of human relationship is a reflection of aspects of Hashem relating to us there's even a statement that Hashem is also our child how do you understand that but Hashem is described as our parent our King our child our spouse um our brother our sister right all of the different things all of those things come together in the infinity ofes and therefore Matan Torah is really love it's not just Hashem commanding us it's Hashem saying I want the the operational truth of how to make this world good to come from a collaboration and a partnership between you and me I don't want to do all the work I want you to work with me you had another analogy here you know r manman u i don't think it bothers him per se but he's going through rough times in these days because he's constantly talking about the idea that God needs you and there are some other rabbis on the internet who take very very deep offense with that idea and uh sometimes they spend half of their Shear it's kind of a waste of a sheer time like attacking Rabbi fredman for saying saying these things and you know it's all big thing I think I think I I'm even getting dragged into it because people ask me and then whatever it it becomes a big mess where everybody's attacking everybody uh but the truth of the matter is I I I think what Freeman says is inescapably true because if you assume that everything Hashem does has a reason that means there's something Hashem wants to accomplish so that means there is a need now granted I understand that philosophically every need Hashem has is a self-created de meaning it's not that Hashem objectively needed it but he willed it was his will to need okay I understand this so philosophically you have to say that it doesn't come from weakness it comes from Essence I know it's a difficult philosophical question but ifem did something there is a reason why he did it and that reason is a need that Hashem has to do that thing I mean it has to be I mean it's it's inescapably the fact that God has a need in what he did okay but putting it aside hashem's need is that we become his partners and that's a remarkable beautiful powerful idea so now if you understand that Matan Torah is not simply God giving us Commandments but God making us his Partners in the creation of Truth when is the first time that that actually happen it happened on Friday the 6th of s which was the day that Hashem wanted to give the Torah to the Jewish people but because of Moshe renu's interpretation Hashem said I'm going to go with you that's Matan Torah Matan Torah is not when hasem gave us the Commandments Matan Tor is when Hashem deferred to the interpretation of mos which means Matan Torah was not an act of commission it was hashem's om Mission words Matan Torah occurred by Hashem not giving the Torah on Friday and that's the and the gar explains actually that when it says MOS added a day it's not that he simply added a day he misinterpreted God meaning the explains M shabas he thought hashem's command was three days when in fact hashem's command was two days so he misinterpreted commands and Hashem said if that's the way you understand it I'll go with you that's mat Tor and that is why we observe shos not on the day of the Ten Commandments but on the day when Hashem didn't give the Ten Commandments in deference to mosha renu's interpretation so uh again it's quite remarkable again as I say um I'm not sure you should share this with your children necessarily because it is like traumatic I mean I mean we want people to come to show to hear the aeras Adas a very it certainly is a very very very important thing but at a high higher deeper level to understand that the terror was actually given on the uh 51st Day by the way there was a great great M ra aaro poano is a city in Italy he's called the Rama R meano and again his history in cabala is actually very very significant he was one of the main people who brought the Aral cabala from marel to Europe so you'll find Rami Pano number one was a mble number one great mble in his own right and number two he happened to be very wealthy I'm not sure from what and he also financed the publication of all of these and even a saer the B Joseph on the tour he you know he paid for it he prob so he was he's very very important in the history of both cabala and the publishing of swm generally but the Raman Pano has a very interesting a little bit why Moshe deferred the sh not deferred m t to the next day because he wanted to legitimate the second day of sh in now let me let me explain why this is so in truth everybody knows in you keep you know every one day Y is two days right you keep two days of the first days of PES two days of sukus two days of SH now the reason why you have to keep two days in goes back to the fact that in the olden times during the times of the mikash the there was no fixed calendar Andes was determined by Witnesses and then Messengers were sent out to tell people when roses was so inel they could reach every part of AR within two weeks so they always knew when a was except for rash which is the first day of the month in the couldn't get there in time so in you never knew if a month was 29 days or 30 days so you didn't know when to startes so you didn't know when the was so you had to keep two days and the explains even though today we don't have doubt anymore but we keep the Min hug of our forefathers now if you think about that that makes sense for pesak and sukos it doesn't make sense for shos because for shos you don't need to know when Roes is you're just counting 50 days from pesak and even though when pesak happened they weren't sure which day it was but by the time shabas would come they would know when pesak was they got news eventually so so they knew the 50th Day meaning they didn't know what date that would be but that made no difference so in reality one could raise a very very good question why in the diaspora was there ever a need to keep two days of Shas two days of P yeah because we didn't know when rosesh Nissan was two days of sukus yeah because we didn't know when rashash was two days of even if I don't know when Roes even was I only have to count 50 days from pesak and eventually I found out when pesak was officially so the rambam's answer is you're right there is no intrinsic logic to to two days of but when the sages made the enactment they didn't want to differ because if they would say one day people might not keep two days for the other ones so Rao says M knew withes that there would be some issue raised about a two days of so he wanted to make it special that that becomes the day of Matan Tor and therefore people are going to say oh I shouldn't keep the second day of that's the day of the ten commandments so essentially this created validation for yum sh this is what Rao says why MOS Chang it okay but be as it may uh it is fascinating that as the is explaining Matan Torah was an act of omission or was an Omission rather than a Comission and it reminds us how the Torah is not just the master commanding the servant but it's a relationship of love and relationship in which we become aes's partners in the world so I wish everybody to have a wonderful wonderful a true with Sim and with and with [Music] there's some here