CHAZAQ’s Torah Talks #58: Rabbi Akiva Zweig - What is Torah!

tuesday night program with special guests tonight we have with us robbie akiva's wife from florida rabbi welcome to the program how you doing excellent i can tell you it's a little hot in florida but uh being with you is uh definitely going to be a warm experience whatever the weather is and thank you for all the work that you're doing with project hashem thank you very much rabbi zweig and tonight we're going to be talking about what is torah being that it's right before the holiday of shabbat but before we get into tonight's uh topic rabbi if you could give our audience a little bit of a background for yourself and a little bit about the great work that you're involved with be a pleasure my father opened the yeshiva in miami beach in 1974. we moved from ariz israel where my father was a rosh yeshiva and based at palmud together at that time with riverdale schwartzman with moshe shapiro and uh and just before my father left is actually when rafner also came the base of talmud the father was recruited to open a yeshiva miami beach by several important members of the miami beach jewish community the berkowitz family and the alexander gross who started the local hebrew academy and that was the beginning of our yeshiva since 1974 until today yeshiva has grown from yeshiva godola which means post high school to include a high school an elementary school for boys and girls oh wow as well as a as well as a preschool here in miami beach we actually have three campuses and we currently actually have a another project happening in pennsylvania in this little known town called new bloomfield pennsylvania where yeshivas and camps go over for shabbaton and summers and things like that so hashem with all of that and just working with the community in general we've seen a tremendous flourishing in the south florida community even before last year now that this past year is happening of course everything here is looming and burgeoning and it's very exciting time and we feel privileged to be able to be in this business of learning torah and helping people to learn tala amazing rabbits continue spreading the light that's amazing and we're going to jump straight into it like we mentioned tonight's topic is what is torah so as we know shabbat is coming up and uh rabbi what are we celebrating on shabbat when we in essence didn't really receive the slash of the torah and most of the mitsuran chef wrote so why is it called entertain the time of the giving of our torah if you could elaborate we would really appreciate it that's awesome it's really a great question it's interesting to me that people don't often focus on this question and it speaks to how we really have to pay attention to everything that's happening in jewish life we talk about holidays but we don't necessarily understand their significance or appreciate what the torah itself says about the holiday or what the rabbis say so yes like you have i mentioned in our prayers we do say that it it's a new torah either way i've been a rabbi in both an ashkenazi rule and the faraday show probably because i can do i in and people like that so either way it works and the question is why do we call shavuot the time of the giving of our torah when at the end of the day if we think about what happened on shabbos even though it's very significant it doesn't seem to be when the torah information was mostly given to us a few days before shavuot moshe read and wrote from the beginning of the torah from the parasha's purishes the actual genesis of the torah through the history of the forefathers and the time that we spent in egypt until we came to mount sinai and he actually read that book to us before shovel oath but we don't celebrate that as the time of the giving of our torah and after shavuot moshe went up to mount sinai and he was there for 40 days a night eventually that became 120 days and nights and that's when he learned the rest of the torah especially the world torah that didn't get transferred and transmitted to the jewish people until yom kippur of that year when moshe came down and he eventually taught everyone the rest of the torah so why is shabu oat called the giving of the torah so what did happen on shavuot so what the torah records and what we read hopefully after having studied diligently throughout the night of shabu shavuot but we reached out morning is that hashem appeared to us at mount sinai and he spoke to us the ten commandments to us directly the first two commandments perhaps all of them simultaneously that's a question that the rabbis discuss but we didn't get anything we heard the ten commandments now that's wonderful and it was a great experience so if we called shabu oh the day of a great experience i would understand that to call it the giving of our torah why does that terminology apply and that's the question that now you're asking me to answer that's right yep okay so what i'd like to do is try to understand the word torah and how what we call torah whether it's the written torah or the oral torah the halachic torah how all of that fits this definition so the first point we have to look at is what does the word torah mean and really it comes from the word more which we're all familiar with the teacher so aha or more is a teaching or a guidance so the best word in my opinion that defines into english the word torah is guide the torah is a guide now we have to talk about a guide to what and what does that have to do with if again we didn't get all the information of it why is this the best time to say oh we received the guidance of the torah and so my personal answer and just to like explain a little bit more on this elaboration we know that the word torah for example in addition to meaning guide is also numerically 611 which is two away from 613 which are the commandments of the torah and the first two we heard directly from hashem at mount sinai great okay but what is this that's happening on shavuot that is a guide and so my answer is that we have to understand that there's a philosophically fundamental issue that the torah is coming to address in terms of the creation of the world hashem created a world that's something that we accept something we learn from the torah we're gonna have a discussion another time how do we know that to be true but that's the premise of torah when hashem created the world the intention was for hashem to create a people with whom hashem would have a relationship and those people should exist forever now the philosophic problem that the torah is trying to solve is how can people who are finite have an infinite existence how does it happen the people who are fundamentally not god himself created from god get to live forever at a different time talk about what is happening in all that forever but for now how does that happen and the answer to that question is torah what torah does is foundationally and fundamentally change and transform a person from being mortal to being immortal and that by the way refers to body and soul which is how most rabbis understand that not only do our souls live immortally but our bodies also in some fashion also come back in the future and will live on forever but how do we become a being that's capable of such an existence the answer is 613 commandments called torah but even that is built on the idea that these 613 commandments are guiding us to a fundamental connection to hashem the idea that a human being that is finite can relate to a god infinitely is the philosophical issue that torah comes to address and it's through the study and the observance of torah that we become transformationally different and capable of living forever now the first person to actually understand that is avraham because the talmud actually says that even though we celebrate the giving of the torah on shavuot which again we're still going to explain a little bit more abraham avinu began the years of the torah when he taught the people of kharan the torah intracted page 9a says that the 2000 years of torah of the world begin with the idea that avraham and sarah had souls that they made in kharan the souls that they made in quran why is that called the beginning of the torah because the answer is when you make someone's soul as a human being you transform them into being capable of an infinite existence that began with avraham avinu and even though he didn't so to speak receive the information of the torah then what he did do was connect people into a meaningful transformational relationship with hashem so you know what happened on shabbirus on shavuos hashem appeared in a way that he never ever appeared again to human beings as a group and it never before appeared simply to say i want to be connected with you forever that's what happened on shavuots that is called the receiving of our torah because we received the access to hashem's infinity which ultimately would be helped and guided through the torah so when we say we receive the torah on shavuas what we mean is we received the connection of infinity to hashem in this world now it starts with the ten commandments and we heard the ten commandments and that's why we were blown away we weren't able to even contain ourselves according to the rabbis we died and hashem resurrected us and then we came back to life because that level of sublime connection to god is really otherworldly and that really is what happens when we learn torah in a meaningful way we feel like we're transformed and transported to a different world that's the magic of the torah and that's what we mean by the receiving of the torah on shibuyas amazing rabbis like wow very very very interesting and torah does transform we see this day and night with the work that we do at kazakh and the kiriban transforming of people's lives from what they used to be and what they become so rabbi uh the question is like this that we constantly emphasize uh har cena the man of sinai you know mo shakib al-taram you see moshe got the door we see the door from sinai why is there such a focus on har c night what's the big deal why does it have to be mentioned constantly that's a very important question and i do want to relate it exactly to the word fazak as we know one of the things that we do whenever we finish a book of the torah right we say that at the end of every torah and in fact the the famous expression that you're strengthened should be your strengths should be straightened and made good and true and long-lasting what in us ashkenazim like to call right as opposed to as opposed to which appropriately inspired when moshe broke the because the jewish people were not ready to receive them that happened at the base of harsinai when moshe came down with the luchot the first time so what cni really represents and this is an amazing thing is that human beings have a control over the torah when hashem gives us the torah he says the halacha is up to you moshe albania you decide that the hashem carved himself and wrote himself you decide that the people can't get it yet i leave it up to you you break it it's broken because you need to do whatever strengthens you you need to have the torah in a way that makes you strong and that is what hashem gave us on harassing hashem didn't just tell us the information he gave it over to us which is why in the brachot and the blessings of the torah we say that hashem gave us the torah he gives us the talk that's because we have a say we decide what law is we decide when the new month is and we decide how to use the torah for us hashem leaves that up to us because hashem gave us the torah and that's represented by this location called sinai where not only did we hear the ten commandments we received hashem moshe broke them then hashem moshe and hashem forgave us motion david for us then we get a second quote all of that is part of the scene i experienced in addition to staying there for the next year and learning it and really internalizing that the torah is ours and it's our responsibility and what we do with it is up to us and what we really should do with it is to help it to make us strong have the torah make us strong amazing amazing rappers by powerful very very good so rabbit we know that kumara says that the betterment dash was destroyed of course is the reason because it was one of the reasons is because the jewish people didn't say barakat that torah the blessings of the torah so rabbi why is it that the jews didn't say it and why is it of utmost importance to say regatta you touched upon it before as well yes yes so so the way i'd like to explain it and just for anybody who is interested maharal and many commentaries talk about this question extensively this is a page nadarim 81a in the talmud very interesting conversation that the rabbis and the commentaries try to explain what does it mean that because we didn't bless on the torah that's why the besamiktas the holy temple is restored or the land of israel islam what is that what could that possibly mean there are much worse sins a common one is lashon hara that's a terrible sin it's worse than even the three cardinal sins and unfortunately people are guilty of that we're going to say no that's not so bad but not making a blessing on the torah that's really bad and why weren't people making a blessing when it darts over here i think we really need to understand the difference between the wisdom of the torah and the difference between that kind of wisdom and every other wisdom in the world philosophically the way to explain it is that any information of the torah is infinitely deep it can be taken infinitely there's layer upon layer upon layer and it never ends and that means it speaks to the issue of a human being being able to transform forever like we spoke about before every other wisdom in the torah is only as deep as you seem to understand it yes sometimes it goes a little bit deeper than the surfer surface certainly there are many levels of math and science but it's not intrinsically infinite unless it's torah and so the idea of making a blessing on the torah is specifically to say that torah is not another smart book it's not another information or wisdom source it's the source of all infinite truth it's the source of everything that's true that's the torah and therefore if you don't connect the torah hashem you're saying the torah is not the source of all truth because only that which is connected to hashem can actually be infinite so you're saying a blessing on the torah what you're saying is i understand that this is not just good advice not just going to prevent me from getting punished or give me reward it's a way of tapping into infinite truth that's only true if you understand that it's not only something that hashem gave us but hashem constantly gives us so that's why we say barca we don't say blessed are you hashem who gave us the torah we say blessed are you hashem who gives us the torah because something that's infinite is ongoing it's always happening and hashem is learning with us when we're in the torah he's giving us the wisdom the brain power the insight you know to see the infinite truths of the torah and that's a magical experience but it's only that way if you're connecting the torah hashem and that's what a blessing does i recognize hashem this comes from you and it is your teaching and you are now teaching it to me even more amazingly i don't understand that then we really don't have the torah unfortunately we really don't have it we can't actually say that it's going to help us in every way that we need and we can't even really say that we have it and there's no point in the land of israel if we don't have the torah and this is why we call this uh program toratox because we're talking tara and tori every single day no tenants are beautiful there's nice insight and rabbi's wife so many beautiful amazing uh insights and gems uh we have a custom on torah talks for one final message for our broad audience uh with regards to uh whether it's this topic another topic of story and insight whatever you have in mind sure so to me this is uh something that strikes very deeply and i'm very passionate about because i know i'm not the only one that you know sometimes notices things in the newspaper like called roe v wade and many other issues of social pressure and and questions of society how society is dealing with itself how society is understanding gender issues in general what is democracy what is freedom these are all questions that society struggles with and unfortunately sometimes it seems like people are crazy you know it's gotten to the point where if if we really say that there's no such thing as gender then you know i don't know how to begin to understand who is a man who is a woman and is there a marriage and who should be with who and it just gets the point where it almost seems like nonsense and so difficult to understand and and we really have to understand that the gift of the torah is that the torah does teach us the truth and it really guides us to how to live in a healthy way in a way that makes sense but not only that in a way where people are not depressed do you know that globally speaking the statistics of either being addicted to some form of drug were having anxiety or depressive disorder is a minimum of 20 percent most people think it's closer to 35 which means one out of five or one out of three at a minimum of people that are either addicted need severe you know medication and intervention in order to just kind of be okay that's crazy torah is what teaches us how to live that the statistics become very different because we have a sense of purpose in life because we know that we can really be elevated and dignified and transform and have an infinite future and therefore there's a purpose we understand that you know hacking children is a good idea today people even wonder if that's a good idea and yet if you talk to any person in their 70s or 80s they'll tell you the best thing in their world is their children so everybody older says that but the newer generation not so much so we need guidance on everything that we hear and everything that we read and society tries to teach us and the torah is the guide for that and i think when we celebrate us you know it's great to have an all night of learning and it's great to maybe have cheesecake or blintzes or whatever your custom is that's wonderful but much more important that is to realize the incredible value add that torah is to our life if we just simply open the book read discuss with a friend discuss with the rabbi say hey you know what does the torah say about abortion what does the torah say about gender differences in marriage what does the torah say about having children and should i really or shouldn't i what does the torah say about these things i think if we do that in addition to following the torah and whatever reward that implies much more practically is we have much better lives that we enjoy we're happy and feel good amazing amazing rabbi akiva zawaii like the rabbi said torah is hera it's the way of life and we all right now before shabbat should take upon ourselves to learn more torad to connect to the torah and uh i want to thank robbie's wife for the beautiful torah talk it was very inspiring and uh for all the great work they do in your community and we want to thank all of our partners and friends for making the torah talks available i want to give a shout out and thank you to our friend robbie nick demon from lakewood for making this over here with rabe zweig and shout out to you and um i want to thank dailygiving.com.org us dollar day goes very very far away evelyn should be a part of it it's amazing and uh every single tuesday night we have special guests at the hazak tour talks program uh to dedicate future programs please reach out to the kazakh organization 718-285-9132.org and uh we should only hear bizarro devoted and only good news you should craft y thank you once again really a pleasure i look forward to seeing everything you're doing when i'm in new york mr sham you're always welcome rabbi and everyone's welcome please come and visit wonderful everybody be blessed