Shavuos - Passion on Fire | Rabbi Nachum Binder

49 days of preparation. 49 days of anticipation. The day has finally arrived. The day that the Ribono shel Olam revealed Himself to Klal Yisroel with the eternal words of ‘I am Hashem, your God’. The day that the Ribono shel Olam, so to speak, made us His by giving us His holy Torah. When the Torah is describing the Revelation at Sinai, the Torah tells us about the fire that the Revelation at Sinai came with. We heard the voice of the Ribono shel Olam, so to speak, through this great fire, the awesome fire of the Giving of the Torah. And Tosfos in Masechta Shabbos tells us that this fire was necessary for the Giving of the Torah. And the holy Zera Shimshon explains why. Because there's a different fire. There's the fire of the Yetzer Hara that threatens us. There's the fire of temptation, the passion, burning within a person sometimes that he feels he can't control. And the only way to conquer that fire is through the fire of Torah, the fire of the Giving of the Torah. But, Morai v’Rabosai, how does fire fight fire? It doesn't destroy it. It doesn't devour it. It takes it in and overpowers it and becomes one big fire together. And the same is true with the way the Torah fights our Yetzer Hara. I created the Yetzer Hara and I created the Torah as its antidote. The Ribono shel Olam doesn't want us to destroy our Yetzer Hara, doesn't want us to suppress our passion and our temptation in life. The Ribono shel Olam gives us the fire of Torah, the passion of Torah, the temptation of Torah, and that takes in every other temptation that there is, and takes it over and channels it, and takes that temptation which seems so threatening, and makes it a temptation that is so holy and so pure. As we prepare ourselves for the holy Yom Tov of Shavuos, as we prepare ourselves once again to stand under the mountain and hear the ‘I am Hashem, your God,’ as we prepare ourselves to be taken over by the fire of Torah and the fire of the Revelation at Sinai, let us take upon ourselves that we will do this with passion. Any temptation that we have, any passion that we have, we will aim to channel it towards our Torah learning, towards our closeness to Hashem. And we will merit, with the help of Heaven, to feel the ‘And you shall be to Me a kingdom of Kohanim and a holy nation.’ We will merit, with the help of Heaven, to experience the Giving of the Torah, to enjoy the Giving of the Torah, to live a life of the Giving of the Torah. We will merit, with the help of Heaven, to all the blessings that come with the Giving of the Torah.