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Over the last nearly 50 days 46 days we've
been counting the Omer countdown from Pesach,
Yetziat Mitzrayimi, until Shavuot, fifty days
seven weeks plus one. look The Chachamim ask
a question it's a very good question, question is
what happens on the 50th day? Shavuot. Don't jump
for the answers not all once guys. Shavuot is
on the 50th day we have less than a week left.
What's on Shavout? Why are we celebrating Shavuot?
What happened on Shavuot? We got the Torah. But we
didn't get the Torah. You say we got the Torah
on the 50th day right? But we didn't get the
50th day. We got the Torah on the 51st day.
So how come we're celebrating Matan Torah on
the 50th day if we got the Torah on the 51st
day? So the Maharsha alav ha-shalom gives an
extraordinary answer. He says, that in order
for us to get the Torah we have to we had to
go from the 49th level of impurity to the 49th
level of purity. From tamei to tahor. Meaning,
that in order to receive the Torah we have to
prepare. You can't just receive something pure
and treat it like you're supposed to without being
prepared. You can't get married until you know how
to be a decent human being if you do, then I
guarantee you'll get divorced. You can't be a
father until you understand the responsibility
that comes with it and if you're one of these
15-year-old heroes that wants to have a kid just
because he can, then you realize that your son is
going to be tortured and eventually he's gonna be
your father... because you're gonna be a 30 year
old mess and he's gonna be a 15 year old with
no choice he's gonna have to raise you. He's
gonna be the father all of a sudden. It happens
a lot where the kids end up becoming the parents
because the parents never had time to mature and
the kids have no choice but to mature. Meaning,
that in order to receive anything of any value
you have to prepare yourself. If you plan on
keeping it. Now the sages tell us that we had
to prepare ourselves we had to remove all of
the idolatry that we had from Mitzrayim whether
it was the idols themselves in those days or
avodah zara that comes from wigs today. Whether
it was believing in the Nile River or Pharoh,
or the goat being a god or believing that your
dollar is God. Same thing. Nothing's changed.
The reality is, you have to prepare. And it says
that a HaShem is giving us the Torah each year all
over again. He didn't just give us the Torah
back then, he's giving it to us each year all
over again. But why are we celebrating the 50th
day if we got the Torah on the 51st? The reason
why Rabbotai is because in order for us to get to
that point, in order for us to get to that point
of actually receiving the Torah, we had to work
on our middot (character traits), we had to work
on our character traits and clean up all of the
disgusting tumah that became part of us. All the
sleepy people that think that they're tzaddikim
when in reality they're as far from it as can be.
All of the people that are religious in their
own eyes. All the people that are generous in
their own eyes. All of the women that are modest
in their own eyes – but in reality they're not.
So this is why we had to prepare for 50 days
and after we're prepared we got the Torah.
The sages continue adding to what the Maharsha
said and the Magen Avraham asked: in your Pesach
haggadah, there's a section where we say dayenu.
Remember that section dayenu? It would have been
enough...if you would have taken us out of Egypt
and nothing else. It would have been enough... if
you gave us all the miracles a nothing else...to
split the ocean, nothing else... it would have
been enough...if you took us to mount that Mount
Sinai and nothing else. The sages have a question
about that. What do you mean it would have been
enough taking us to Mount Sinai and nothing else?
Like don't give us the Torah. What are we gonna do
a Mount Sinai without Torah it's a good question I
never asked it only learned it this week. What
am I gonna do at Mount Sinai if I'm not gonna
get the Torah? Why did I go there? We learn from
the Maharsha, the Maharsha said: why do we go to
Mount Sinai? To clean ourselves up, to learn some
mussar, to clean our middot, to fix ourselves.
That would have already been enough. That would
have been enough chesed from HaShem to let us do
teshuva already, teaching us that it's even more
important to fix our bad middot than to learn
to learn Torah. That's why was done first. Now of
course you have the two go together you have to go
hand-in-hand you cannot fix your me don't without
Torah. But nonetheless, if a person wants to have
a chance when Moshiach (the Messiah) comes, or
Gan Eden, or Olam Haba, and all of those things
he has to realize that working on their middot
it is much more critical than memorizing every
single halacha that was ever said by every chacham
in the last thousand years. It's all important
but fixing your middot is more important.
Why? Because the Gemara specifically says:
a Talmid Chacham with bad character traits, a
dead animal in the middle of the street is better
than him. Why? He was supposed to fix himself as a
result of the Torah. Now he learned Torah he still
didn't fix himself... there's no hope for this
person. A dead animal is better than him. So,
this is one of the major proofs that we learned
from just from this holiday from Shavuot of how
critical it is to learn mussar. Because it's the
only tool we have in order to fix ourselves. It's
the only tool, there is no other tool. It's
hard. iIt's different. It's in your face. It
makes you check yourself over and over again.
But it's the only thing that's gonna fix us.
