Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: G-d Gave Away His Torah to His Partners in Creation

[Music] hi everybody thank you for coming and uh the stove and uh today sheer is dedicated uh uh for benyamin israel and halevi the young man that we were miss paolo for and very very sadly his grandfather mrs gunter's father arya leith ben nakhomhalevi was just nifty this morning so again we send mrs gancher and her whole family they should have much much muhammad and all of our learning should be alit neshama both for their son and for their grandfather and we also have an anonymous donation yoel ben avraham and again may his neshama have an aliyah and finally a reforeshalema for brian batrava along with charcoal israel and those who are rich hashem healthy should remain so we are in the last week of the omer and god willing right after shabbos we're going to have a holiday of shavuos in many many ways this year we are one with the karates because as you know the karaoke as we discussed always began counting the omer on a sunday so for them shavuos would always be on a sunday uh this of course we don't go that way because we started the second day of pesach but since this year the second day of pesach was in fact on a sunday so hashem everybody's united so maybe that's a sign that all jews can be united even if they have different religious beliefs and if that's the case samir hashem we should try to follow that in our own lives the topic i want to talk about again i apologize some people may have heard this this morning and i i do apologize uh for the bit of the repetition and that is the issue of shavuos beings man mata antoraseno the season in which god gave us the torah right everyone knows that what do we celebrate on us we celebrate matan torah the receiving of god's torah so there are two points i want to note at the very beginning here first of all what is the claim that god gave us the torah and schwarz and this is an important point you know pierce says moshe got the torah at sinai but you have to differentiate well first of all at sinai that means the 40 days moshe went up on shivuas and he was there for 40 days and then he came down so even if you say he got the whole torah at mount sinai it wasn't on schwarz it was of a period of 40 days starting from shivas but even more than that more basically you very much have to differentiate between when did moshe get the torah and when did the jewish people get the torah it's not the same question it's very clear from the khumas that the jewish people got the torah in dribs and drabs over a 40-year period things happens hashem told moshe reveal certain mitzvos as things happened that's true for the mitzvos and it's even more true for the history mata torah is in the middle of the humish there are many many historical events that happened after matantora happened after matan torah the sin of the spies the sin of korach the jewish people in no way received those things before they happened and god said to write them down so the mitzvos were not all received by the jewish people at mount sinai and even moshe got them over a 40-day period we got them over a 40-year period and the historical narratives of the torah were not given until they actually happened and moshe was commanded to write them down we did not have a safer torah until the last day of moshe rabbanu's life there is a much locus in the gemara did he write the torah as things happened in a piecemeal way or did he only write it down at the end but for sure it was not finished until the end so even the seemingly you know clear to understand claim that we got the torah on shivers torah does not mean the five books of moses or the 613 commandments it actually means the ten commandments we heard the ten commandments on the day of shavuos and the ten commandments are indeed the foundation of the whole torah the ramban actually wrote a contrast in which he shows how all of the 613 mitzvoths are derivatives of the ten commandments but we didn't know that at the time meaning only in retrospect after we have the 6 13 we can read them back into the ten commandments but you wouldn't know by reading the ten commandments what those mitzvahs were now even with respect to the ten commandments there's many many different opinions what the jewish people heard according to rashik and all of these have opinions that are sourced in ghazal according to rashi the jewish people only and the governing makos the jewish people only heard the first two commandments there i am the lord your god who took you out of egypt which is the mitzvah of belief in hashem and then the negative of that uh you shall not have any other gods before me and then they were afraid they were frightened and they asked moshe to be the intermediary and everything else they heard from moshe right that is rashi shita based on the gomorrah in marcos rambam learns they didn't even hear the first two commandments they heard nothing from god but when the gemara says they got the two commandments from god it means that through the totality of the sinaitic revelation they understood there was a god and there was no other god meaning it doesn't mean they heard any type of verbalization they just understood intuitively that this who actually interprets the verses in the simplest sense that the jewish people heard the ten commandments they heard everything but the most they got were the essera sadibrans so it's important to understand therefore that you're not really celebrating the giving of the whole torah but you are celebrating the revelation of god's presence that kind of introduced the torah to us through a direct revelation of divinity so that's point number one that you have to understand what matan torah even meant it was not the totality of what we call the five books of moses the second point to underscore is that the idea that we got the ten commandments on shavuos uh is not in the torah at all meaning the torah does not tell us when we got the torah when the torah talks about the holiday of shavuos it does not say we celebrate shivohos because of matantora the torah says we celebrate shabbos because it's part of an agricultural cycle pesach is called of if because that is when the barley ripens shavuos is called katsir because that is the wheat harvest sukkos is called asif because that is when you in gather the grain that was drying in the field throughout the summer and in on in one perspective the shalosh regalim the three pilgrimage festivals are really part of an agricultural cycle and they're not necessarily linked exclusively to spiritual events on the other hand with respect to pesach we are told that we left mithraim on the 15th of nisan sukhos which is a commemoration of the desert experience the clouds of glory you know that's described in the torah there is no explicit declaration in the torah that the ten commandments were given on shavuos and nor is that given as the reason for the holiday at all so that's very very interesting that shavuos which is zaman matantarasena such an important pivotal event in the formation of israel is not explicitly mentioned in the torah at all and some want to suggest that that's because you need to know it based on the oral law you wouldn't know it based on the written law and to underscore the idea that when god gave us the torah he not only gave us a written law but also in our law the very holiday that celebrates the torah exists only by virtue of the oral law and not by virtue of the written law in other words it kind of upgrades the kashivas the importance of torisha balpair that that's the whole reason that you know there is a holiday of shibuos based on matan torah i mean you know there's a holiday but you wouldn't connect it to matantora except via okay but the next question i want to raise is there's actually a mach lokas in massachusetts what was the calendar date that the jewish people received the torah according to one opinion they received the torah on the sixth of sivan which is shiva's according to another opinion they received the torah on the seventh of siva and the gemara goes through intricate calculations how you figure this out we don't have time to go into the calculations but makloches 6 or 7. now some people make a mistake in reading that gomorrah and they say oh well if there's a makloches if the ten commandments were given on the sixth or the seventh so there would be a much locus when you celebrate the holiday of shabbos that according to one opinion you celebrate it on the sixth and according to the other opinion you're celebrated on the seventh that would be totally wrong everybody admits that at least based on our present calendar we celebrate chivas on the sixth that doesn't change shabbos is chavos but what is strange is you're celebrating chavos on a day that the torah wasn't given because it wasn't given until the next day right so one might ask the question how can we celebrate matantora on the sixth of sivan according to the view that says matantora occurred on the seventh of seven that's a pretty strong question but in reality it's not a question at all there'll be another question that's similar which is a real question but this is not a real question and the reason is the following it's very important to note that the torah does not give shavuos a calendar date the torah does not say that shivohos is the sixth of stephen doesn't say it rather shivulos is based on the counting of the omir that we start the second day of pesach and shavuos is the 50th day of that count we count 49 days the 50th day after seven weeks that's why it's called shibuos the festival of weeks we have shavus now it happens to be it's really a happenstance it happens to be that based on the present configuration of the jewish calendar that the 50th day of the omer will happen to be the sixth of seven but this was not inevitably the case in the time of the basa mikdash and even for some centuries after the destruction of the base amigos there was no fixed calendar the fixed jewish calendar dates from only around the 5th century the 400s until then you actually had witnesses who would come to the sanhedrin based on the sighting of the moon and the sanhedrin would proclaim what day is rosh chodesh now in our pre-arranged calendar the months alternate 30 29 30 thirty twenty nine with the exception of chechman and kislev that are adjustable months for various reasons so based on our predetermined calendar nissan is always a thirty day month and the eeyore these are the two rosh kodushes in the counting of the only period is always a 29 day month so based on that your 50th day is always going to be the 6th deceiver but at a time when months could be variable meaning any month could be 30 and any month could be 29 chavuos could be as early as the 5th of season meaning if both nissan and eeyore were 30 days so you used up some omer days in the extra day of nissan and near the 50th day of the omer what would be the fifth of stephen and that would be chavos or if both nissan and er were only 29 days so you lost two days of your omer count then shavuos would be as late as the seventh of siva if one is 30 and one is 29 whether it's nissan 30 and er 29 which is our calendar or if you had it in reverse if nissan were 29 and the error were 30 then and only then shavuos would be on day 6. there is nothing intrinsic with the sixth of seven and the definition of shavuos shavuos has to be the 50th day from the commencement of the counting of the omer so it could be the fifth event sixth of seven seven this evening so if there's a mach locus if the torah was given on the sixth of seven or the seventh of stephen that would just be a mach lokas what were the lengths of the month during that period of time the one that says 6 would say 1 was 31 was 29 the one that says 7 says they both were so that doesn't change the idea of the 50th so the task that people sometimes ask how could we celebrate matan torah on the sixth of seven if the torah was given on the seventh of stephen like that opinion is not akasha at all because we're not celebrating the sixth of sivan we are celebrating the fiftieth day of the elmer and one opinion said that was the seventh of seven that year one says that was the sixth of sivan that's not a tasha now it is worthy to ponder a little bit how come shabuas is the only one of our holidays that is not defined by a calendar date and in fact it is variable and it's defined by the 50th day of the omer and the short answer is this goes back to a thought that we had discussed many times and that is shavuos is not a separate at all it is essentially the conclusion of pesach shivohos is the 51st day of pesach dr ramban actually says the whole period of omer is ho hamoid joining pesach which is the first holiday which has its own holy moly of course and then shivohosh one big holiday because pesach is the holiday of freedom and shavuos is the holiday of torah and it's one holiday because a freedom that is not linked to the discipline and the submission to hashem's torah is not only worthless but it's ultimately destructive so schwarz is not based on a calendar day just like we don't say for example we don't talk this way we don't say the last day of pesach is the 22nd of nissan although it is we just say it's the eighth day of pesach so similarly is the 50th day of the omer it doesn't have a calendar date at all it is simply x number of days from pesach or from the second day of pesach so that's fine so the point basically is at this point fairly simple the machu locus whether the torah was given on the sixth or the seventh does not raise any problem about shivers because the only important thing about shibuyas is it is the 50th day of the omer ah but now the mughan abram asks the kasha in a different way which makes it a real difficult question and that is the following margin of ram is uh lived in the uh 1600s and poland is actually one of the great great postgan uh in the shokunara so normally he does not deal with you know interpretive issues that are not halachic issues but here he does and this is a rare instance and he says the following i can prove to you he says that the torah was not given on the 50th day of the omer the torah was given on the 51st day of the omer 51st day of the elmer meaning the wrong day how do we know this because there is a braiser in seider ha'olan now seder olam is a rabbinic chronology of the events in the torah that was compiled by rabbi yossi and rabbi yossi was the rebbie the teacher of ravi dahanasi he wrote the mishna and he records a tradition without any proof but this was a tradition that the jewish people left mitzrayim on a thursday so let's think this out if they left mitraim on a thursday that means the first day of pesach which is the day of vietnam was a thursday if thursday was the first day of pesach then the second day of pesach was friday so the omer started day one of the omer was friday if day one of the omer is friday the seven weeks are over thursday right from friday to thursday seven weeks will be seven complete weeks and the 50th day of the elmer is there for friday and yet we have another tradition that the torah was given on shabbos if they left on thursday and the torah was given on shabbos whether it's the fifth whether it's the sixth of seven or the seventh is irrelevant but you have 51 days the torah was given on day 51 of the omer now that is a real question like everybody how can we celebrate matan torah on the 50th day of the omer the torah was not given on the 50th day of the omer the torah was given on the 51st day of the omer so at least in chutzlarets they actually have it right because the second day of shavuot sunday night and monday is the actual day of matan torah the 51st day of the omer but here in heritage israel we don't celebrate the 51st day of the omer we celebrate as the torah commands us only the 50th day of the owner it's a real real question the terror was not given on that day in fact this is again i want to emphasize this is true whether the calendar date is the sixth of seven or the seventh but we celebrate chavos on the fiftieth day of the omer and the torah was given on the fifty first day of the armor wrong day some want to say it's not an answer really but they just want to point out that's why we call shavuos we don't call it yom mata we don't call it the day we got the triggers we didn't it's approximately but again that's that's a different because really all the regulars we don't say retainer okay but someone who says you know you're kind of a little before a little after you know it's an approximation but they're already celebrating because that's the day that hashem chose us as a nation and that's what we're really celebrating our connection hashem but we said nonsense before we even got this so well okay well once again though we we do call it zaman matan taraseno that's what the dominic says the day that god gave us the torah that's what it is so listen so you're hitting on something though let's look at what the mugen ibrahim says the morgan of ram points out the following idea the gemara masaka shabbas very important gemara very interesting gomorrah says that moshe rabbenu did three things on his own initiative that god did not command him to do but after he did them hashem said he was correct hashem agreed to mosher ebenu's unilateral changes the first one was that from the time of matantora onwards moshe decided he needed to be celibate moshe rabaner separated from his wife and although hashem never told him to do so and you'll recall this was the lash and hara that aron and miriam said about moshe they said we're prophets we're holy we talk to god and we don't do this what gives him the right to do it but moshe felt that because he was on call for navua 24 7 literally he felt he could not be involved in this and i again i hasten to add that this is not a role model it's so interesting that as you know i mean judaism by and large is very much against celibacy would be uh unlike christianity or at least catholicism that holds celibacy as a high spiritual level we treat it as a sinful state a person is obligated to try i can't say i won't say to be married because you know it's not always up to you but a person is obligated to try uh to get married and to have children so celibacy is not a desirable state and yet moshe was different from osha rabbenu it was the proper approach that he needed to take so that's number one number two was he added on a day to the preparations that god wanted from matan torah hashem said shortly before matantora go to the people tell them to sanctify themselves today and tomorrow we'll see in a moment what is staying tomorrow and i will come to them on the third day and give them the torah so god said today and tomorrow and i will come to them on the third day moshe deviated from god's command and told the people sanctify yourselves for three days and then god will give you the torah so here is what the governor and shabbos explains god spoke to moshe the wednesday before matantora so based on what god said sanctify yourselves today and tomorrow and i will come the third day that means sanctify yourselves wednesday sanctify yourselves thursday and i will come on friday that that's what god is meaning once you posit that the days of separation began on wednesday so that the days would have been wednesday thursday with martin torren friday now moshe changed it we'll explain how he did that and he said sanctify yourselves wednesday thursday friday and god will come on shabbat so it turns out says the mugging of ram i'll mention the third thing that must have changed in a moment that based on god's original plan the torah would have been given on friday now if the torah would have been given on friday that would have been day 50. so says the mugging of ram we celebrate matan torah not on the day that god actually gave the torah which was shabbos day 51 but on the day that hashem would have given the torah had moshe not added a day of preparation midaito this is actually a quite astounding answer i mean don't tell your kids this actually means uh i want to torture your children and say what happened on schwa right so your child will tell you god gave us the ten commandments wrong nothing happened unto us god didn't give the ten commandments according to market run doesn't exactly the case the ten commandments were not nothing happened on friday but we may get shivohos because it is the day that god would have given the torah now just to complete the maya mercado what is the third thing that moshe did on his own he broke when he came down after 40 days and he sees the jewish people worshiping or some of them worshiping the golden calf moshe smashes the tablets and hashem didn't tell him to do that but he did it on his own and hashem said that was the right decision they needed the musser of seeing the tablet smashed so they would realize the enormity of their sin now the truth is there are other midrashim that say moshe did not intentionally smash the tablets what happened was that because of the sin the letters flew off the tablets and the tablets which didn't have the letters were physically too heavy for moshe to carry that that's a madrashic tradition uh but the simple shot of the homies itself is moshe smashed the luchas and hashem said that was a good idea okay but back to the mughal realm the mugging of rama's answer is that we don't celebrate shavuot on the actual day of matantora we celebrate shivohas on the day that god would have given the torah had moshe bainu not added a day of his own volition this is the teres the answer of the morgan avraham now the question is the mugging of rum is known for being very very brief it's very it's actually a relatively obscure payrash and there are commentaries on the mugging of rum um although again he's considered to be a very definitive payrish a very definitive commentary but his lotion is very mukitzer and here too the answer is very obscure because why should the torah make a yamtif out of the theoretical day that hashem would have given the torah instead of the actual day if for whatever reason hashem agreed to moshe bainer's additional day and hashem deferred the giving of the torah by one day then logically that should have been the definition so we should have said hashem should have said count the over for 50 days and after that you know make uh make a holiday of shabbos so a number of swarms try to explain the answer of the mughan of ram exactly how does it work so i'm going to share a thought with you from a safer amec yoshua from ravi yoshua of slanim one of the great litvisha lithuanian godzilla of the 19th century where he gives a really really beautiful explanation which gives us a deep understanding in the nature of matantora and tori shibalpa and he starts with going over one of the most famous agados in the talmud and this is a story that i think i've had occasion to talk about a number of times and that is tanner shalach is a type of earthenware oven that's cut up into horizontal strips like hula hoops that's how you would transport it you'd have an earthenware oven cut into hula hoops and you would move it from place to place and when you wanted to set it up you would put mud between the hoops and the mud would solidify so you had a structure where you could cook things and bake things in the oven etc and then when it was time to go you would remove the mud and then you'd have these soups so it was a fairly portable oven so the machlokis is a very arcane much locust but that is is such an oven susceptible to the ritual impurity of becoming in contact with a dead body or a dead animal what's the halachic issue because that loving issue is that the only types of vessels that are susceptible to impurity are vessels that are in a complete state if for example you have something broken and smashed it's not capable of becoming tame because it's not a cli so do i look at the hula hoops so to speak as a broken smashed oven in which case it would not be macabre tomb at least when it's not intact or do i say it's not broken this is the way you assemble and reassemble and therefore it will be susceptible to tuba now the reason it's called tanner literally means the oven of the snake because the shape of the hoops the rounded hoops resemble a coiled snake who puts his uh you can put his tail in his mouth that's the description tanya shalakhan so the majority of the sages took the position that this is a broken vessel i'm sorry that it's not it's not a broken vessel and it is susceptible to tuma rabbi eliezer who was one of the greatest rabbis took the position that it is a broken vessel and it is tahor and therefore it is ritually pure it does not become tummy and rabbi eliezer brought many many many proofs to his position but the sages rejected it he was overruled and normally the is majority against the minority and halachic matters you follow a majority but rabbi eliezer was not willing to give in and he called upon god to do a number of miracles to prove that he was right and he said if the luck was like me let the carob tree uproot itself and fly away let it just get up and fly and the tree flew and the channel said we don't pay attention to trees and then he said if the luck was like me let the river change its course and move in the opposite direction and the river moved in the opposite direction and they said we don't listen to rivers and then he said if talaqa is like me let the walls of this baitha midrash collapse inward and the walls began to collapse inward rabbi yoshua who was with the ordered the walls not to move so the walls didn't know what to do rabbi eliezer commands the walls to collapse inward rabbi yoshua commands the walls to go back the walls were paralyzed with indecision and that's why they remain slanted right that's a good excuse so you have to have this if you have this architectural defect in the building what do you want this was uh the miracle of rabbi elias and ravi yeshua once again the gave the same answer a third time we don't listen to walls trees do not impress us rivers do not impress us walls do not impress us so finally he got out the big guns and he said if the law is like me let there be a voice from heaven that pro called the bhaskar that proclaims the halal like me and a voice from heaven hashem said and you know the said to god we don't listen to you either god because after all you said in your torah lo basha miami the torah is not in heaven you said the torah is decided by the you can't change the rules on us you're bound by your commandments so stay out of this you have nothing to do with this and this is actually the halal of that we don't listen to basko in the formulation of that actually is a halal principle now you might have thought well i don't listen to heavenly voices because who says they're authentic maybe it's a hallucination but that's not what the gemara seems to be saying the gemara does not say maybe it's fake the gemara is saying even if it's real we don't listen to it now if that sounds like chutzpah the gemara recounts afterwards that somebody met elio hanovi and asked him what was hashem doing when they gave that chutzpah dick answer and elio navi said hashem was laughing and he said my children have beaten me in an argument they're right i'm gonna keep quiet and i'll let them fight it out themselves low bashir miami an amazing thing by the way as a little aside the ville nagon has an interesting point why does rabbi ezra badafka do these three miracles why these three miracles he says because there are three characteristics that a talmud khakham is supposed to have and he's trying to show that he is worthy of being listened to the first characteristic is a talmud is satisfied with a very simple lifestyle he is not looking for luxuries and the like and the paradigm of the simplest of foods perhaps one of the most unappetizing of foods is dried carob i think we talked about tubercult it was called boxer i guess bucks is probably a yiddish word but when you used to eat boxer and kritslaris on tuberculot it quite literally was eating a stick it was like eating a piece of wood and the gemara talks about great great sadhikim like rabbi nina mendoza who is a miracle worker and it says the whole world gets parnassa in the merit of kamina bendaisa and khanina my precious son only eats a measure of kharov the measure of carib from heir of shabbos to aeroshells so acharov is emblematic of a very simple lifestyle so rabbi eliezer is saying let the carob tree testify that i live on carobs quality number two atomizer needs is to be humble not arrogant and we know that water is a symbol of humility one of the reasons why torah is compared to water is just as water moves from high ground to low ground the torah moves from the arrogant to the humble surabi eliezer wants to demonstrate that he is humble that he is modest now here you might have a little bit of a problem here one second a modest as a modest or humble person do a supernatural miracle to show everybody how humble he is one might think that that's the opposite one might think that that itself is guyva and arrogance but not really not really because humility doesn't mean i think i'm stupid i think i'm worthless i think my view doesn't mean anything moshe albania was described as the most humble of all people now if someone asked moshe rabena who was shyly is he going to say oh i'm so stupid go go and ask that five-year-old he know he understands torah much better than me i'm a nobody if moshe bainer were to answer with shiloh that way that would not be modesty that would be delusional thinking that would be a psychotic almost that would be crazy so what is humility humility means a person knows his strengths he's aware of his abilities and he takes responsibility to act in accordance with the abilities that god gave him but he does so with the recognition that it's all a gift from hashem to be used to sanctify his name and therefore he does not have arrogance in those abilities he knows that they were given to him for a certain responsibility so it is not inconsistent if rabbi eliezer feels that he come he has come to a certain interpretation of torah that's truthful and he truly is saying i'm not acting out of ego i'm not acting out of personal advertisement i'm acting for the sake of god and god will testify through this miracle of the water that i am sincere he's not being arrogant in doing that he needs to make that point for the truth of torah so the carob tree represents simplicity of lifestyle the water changing course represents humility and the third quality is diligence what we call has meaning even if you're the most righteous person in the world if you don't put in the time to learn right the villenegon was was an absolute genius so why did the vilner don't have to learn 18 hours or 20 hours a day he was a genius he was a genius the answer is that genius alone is not going to get you all of that in fact they say it start with the priscilla rose that khazenesh died so somebody gave a hespit for the fazinish that the khaznich was so great because every bit of torah he learned he learned torah the shema for the sake of god no ulterior motive which of course was true and that made him great the british grove didn't like that because the implication of such a eulogy is you know i learn and he learns i learned just as much as he learns but the khajnis is greater because he's lishma the brisker of says don't think that the difference in you and the khasanesh is he learned leshma and you learn natalisma you can make it a simpler difference he learns he put in all of those hours we don't put in those hours now yes it's true he also had lashma but the shot is he learnt exact same thing you know people say hi what it's righteous able to finish probably and you shall me and rambam and zawa and madras and tanaka right but the answer is in some ways it's not that much of a miracle if you learn the number of hours he learns you will be able to finish that's kind of a muscle on us now this was not this was not a supernatural accomplishment where he kind of you know learned two hours a day and managed to finish everything that would be an ace in some ways this is not it maybe it's an ace that such a human being has that determination that might be a miracle but the fact that he was able to accomplish with that determination in some ways it's not miraculous at all you put in those hours like they say then somebody asked the native uh how you become a goggle he said well you don't have to learn that many hours if you learn 16 hours a day for 25 years then it just says i promise you you will be a good opportunity in a way it's kind of scary because you know a person might say well why why don't i why don't i do that you know it's kind of a little bit of a a musser and it just says i guarantee you you will be a god of adore if you learn 16 hours a day for 25 years but you can't skip shabbos and yamcha it says you got to include yourself so the point is therefore rabil yazar is trying to show that he has three qualities that are necessary to be great in torah he is satisfied with very little that's the carrib tree he is humble and he acts for the sake of god that's the water and the walls of the beta midrash can testify so to speak that he was the first in and the last out but with all of this majority rules yeah that's a good question uh it it actually is a good question it could be you know the question is uh was was not ravi eliezer aware in other words if rabbi eliezer is maintaining his position against the majority then uh is he not himself violating a halachic directive what gives him the right to do that well certainly as long as they're discussing he has the right to do whatever he wants but the issue is at some point when they rejected all of his arguments so here's the thing i would say i would say he's not rejecting the majority principle but he might be rejecting the notion that god can't intervene meaning to say by virtue of the heavenly voice he is taking the position that that can override a majority so it's not he that is overriding it's hashem that's overriding but even that was rejected okay so the bottom line is not only did they reject the miracles they rejected the heavenly voice of hashem how can that be based on the based on the biblical verse law must remind me the torah is not in heaven so the russian saran wrabanism one of the great medieval we've shown him has a whole question about what is the coherence what is the sense of lo basha miami when we study torah and we try to figure out a halacha a new shiloh whatever it would be what does allah say about cloning about surrogate motherhood about hydroponics on shemitah you know any type of sheila that comes up so what does a posing do a posik is looking at this text and this text mishna gemara rishonim trying to draw analogies but what is really being done what's really being done is a post-sake or anyone learning is trying to figure out what is hashem's will in this given situation what does god want me to do now since most of us don't have access to god directly telling us so we have to try to reconstruct it by all sorts of textual sources but if god tells you what he wants how can that possibly be irrelevant since the whole thing i'm trying to figure out when i'm learning is what is the wrath on hashem how could there be something called lobashimayami you know example i give is that children are discussing what they want to get their father for a birthday so one child says oh alba wants this safer one says abba likes a tie abba wants a new watch abba wants uh i don't know a new cell not a smartphone that's forbidden but at least a cell phone charger or whatever it would be so abba walks by and abby hears the kids talking and abba says dad says you know so nice of you to think about a gift what i really would like is such and such so the kids say abba with all respect please stay out of this uh we're trying to figure out what you want and you know what you feel is really not relevant to the discussion that makes no sense at all the whole discussion is what does abba want so abba can't say what he wants hashem we're debating a halacha let it be an arcane halacha of tanner is the earthenware of in tamertar hashem tells you what the halakhah is and you say back it's not relevant how could that be the low bashir miami seems to be an incoherence position now another question about this which is related but it's a little bit of a different phenomenon is until you resolve the much locus let's assume that you have a mach locus which has not been resolved by a majority for example a mach locus routine based hillary made china let's assume numerically they're equal and there are many many such mach loksim which have mutually exclusive rules one says kosher one says traif one says tame one says tahar one says i have obligated one says exempt now good halal we have to follow one view over another because we can't do both but objectively which one is true and which one is false so the gemaris makes the remarkable statements a luvielu they're both right the one that says kosher is right and the one that says traif is right the one that says obligated is right and the one that says putter is right they're both objectively true in the eyes of akadesh park once again you have a similar question how can two opposite positions both be regarded as heavenly truth they contradict each other if one is right the other is wrong so we have two related questions one is how do you understand lobasha miami that god's expressed will is irrelevant and how do you understand elo viet lo dibra eloquem hayem the contradictory opinions are both considered true these are two different questions but you'll see they'll be explained uh with the same idea this is reminiscent of the the old joke they tell about uh the litigants that go in front of a rav and one litigant states his side of the case and the rabbi says you're right 100 percent and then the other litigant says his side of the case and the rabbi says you're right and then the repetition overhears this and says how can they both be right they're saying opposite things and the rabbi says you're right also everybody's right how could it be so here the iran says something which is a very powerful idea and it can easily be misunderstood and distorted and misused and abused but you know you have to understand that just because an idea can be abused when it's incorrectly applied does not mean it's an incorrect idea it just means you got to be careful how you apply it and the ron says there is a difference between mathematical truth and halachic truth mathematical truth at least on basic level mathematics let's take arithmetic there is only one possible truth and you're either right or you're wrong one plus one two if you say three it's not that you have your opinion you're wrong although on this little example itself somebody sent me a brilliant video not a jewish video about how the corruption of the educational system where some kid said in school that one plus one equals 11 or something whatever it's a whole like 10 minute video and the teacher tried to correct and the teacher was fired because you don't impose your value system on your students a brilliant video i don't know is that in california probably so yeah and basically she but she got she got she got at them because when they fired her they had to give her a severance pay and basically she added the digits the same way the kid did he said you know you have to give me like five times more because whatever it was so you know what could they say that okay uh but generally speaking mathematical truth has a fixed answer a luckily truth is very different and this is an important point you know and i i actually have this problem with um the talmudim and arsenal very often because you know when someone becomes firm we teach them every word of the oral law was given to moshe by hashem and it was handed down for many many many generations until there was a danger that it would be forgotten and then it had to be written down so somebody just asked me the other day so when the gemara talks about abaye and rava are they just saying the words that god gave moshe the truth is that's very absurd i mean i open up any page of gomorrah abaya says torava river says to abide now we know habai and rebel were people we know when they lived they're debating they're discussing i mean did somebody give them a script like there's some producer here that says okay abaya today we have it from the boss on boss up there that you're supposed to say this and you rather that's not the way it works obviously you're talking about discussion you're talking about debates so if that's the case what does it mean that the oral torah was given to moshe at harcina it doesn't mean specific rulings on every type of case first of all if that would be the case how could there be arguments in the gemara what did god say the answer is the oral law that hashem gave to moshe our principles our structures our methodologies the 13 principles of rabbi ishmael would be one type of list and then hashem said i am giving you claudius israel structures methodologies and approaches and you are to use those methodologies and approaches in figuring out what the should be in new situations that constantly arise because torah is eternal but life is ever-changing therefore if two different rabbis are using the same principles but they come to different conclusions from hashem's perspective one is not right and the other wrong they both utilized the processes which hashem said are to be utilized in allahic decision making so abrahavilla kim khayim is a recognition that hashem says if you follow the process and now this is going to be and you are an authorized person to do so now that's a big big big question i'm not addressing because obviously it doesn't mean each one of us can just do this but if you're the authorized per or unauthorized a person that is authorized to do this your conclusions are going to be true even if they're mutually exclusive is somebody else's conclusions this is what the iran says truth is an outgrowth of the utilizing the methodologies of the torah now this the ran says is also the meaning of lo bashamayami because here's the thing new questions always come up right god certainly has an answer to every question objectively therefore it is quite possible that the will come to the wrong answer they will not get god's answer but operationally the truth that god wants to be followed in the presence is not the objective proof of the truth of whatever he came up with but it's the truth that comes from the process as applied by the cham because unless god revealed the specific rule at the time of matantora and most i mean there were a few things he did like still in her black that's called how local emotion be seen on but generally speaking god did not reveal to moshe about electricity on shabbos or microwave ovens or nuclear war or cloning or the permissibility of plastic surgery god didn't tell moshe any of that but god gave moshe the methodology out of which all of those things could could be determined but can come to different conclusions as the rambam writes two people with the identical first principles can come to different views regarding the application so loba-shamayami is an amazing idea it's the idea that god wants halaq truth to be created by the utilizing the raw materials that hashem gave us at mount sinai now and therefore even when they get it wrong it becomes the will of hashem it becomes right even when it's objectively wrong in a heavenly sense god says operationally your decision becomes my will on this earth now you might say that's kind of a very crazy way to give a law code i mean to basically say i'm giving you a procedure whether you get it right or wrong that's going to be the law why didn't hashem just give us the laws why didn't hashem tell us about surrogacy about cloning about whatever the chile is and if you're going to answer me well that generation wouldn't have understood it okay so hashem could have given envelopes do not open before 57 60 57 70. and then we opened it up and we have some new first of all if you think about it that would make life much much easier we wouldn't have all of these arguments all the time i don't mean bad arguments but mahloke you wouldn't need a gemara right what does kumar go through this this argument this argument this argument this argument this possibility if hashem would simply tell us what the law would be in every case i wouldn't have any much locus at all but the answer is hashem wanted to give it in a way that we become co-participants in the creation of toei i've used the example before of a mother who wants to bake a cake for her child the easiest way to do it would be when the child is asleep either make the cake or buy the cake go to a bakery and buy it you'll have a great cake wonderful cake but a deeper level of love in relationship is when you make the cake with the child now to make a cake with a four-year-old the cake will not be of the same quality and certainly the kitchen will not be of this in the same shape there'll be sugar on the floor and cocoa on the on the counter and egg shells in the batter and it won't be uh mixed totally well if the if the child is doing some of the mixing and part of it might be too thin and get burnt and part of it might be too moist and liquidy now if the whole point is to give my kid a nice cake then why should i get her involved at all but the answer is the point is not make a nice cake or buy a nice cake the point is connection relationship and hashem basically says i want the torah to come out of a collaboration between me and you between god and man i don't want to just give you rules i want you to have a dynamic role in creating those rules by applying the principles that i gave you and trying your best to come up with what my will is but if you don't come up with my will your will becomes my will because you're utilizing the tools that i've made this is why people make a big mistake people envision taurus of alpha as just a huge mass of information and the only role of every generation is to hand down the information no torsion valpara actually gets bigger with every generation because of the accumulated insight and it's a dynamic creative process it's not just a transmitting process it is a creative dynamic process now as i say there is something dangerous about some of these ideas because in fact the rhetoric just as a matter of rhetoric it sounds kind of like what conservative and reform theology say in which they talk about the ability of halaqa to change and be modified so it is a delicate balance where we're talking about within the parameters of the system number one and the people who are authorized to make those judgments which is a tricky controversial question but that is certainly going to be an element of it that is why matantora is called matantora hashem gave the torah away it's not that he just commanded us he abdicated his shalita his control over the torah matan torah okay so now let's go back if matan torah is understood not as simply god giving us commandments but rather god making us his partners in the implementation of halacha we become co-creators when is the first time that that happened the first time that it happened was the 50th day of the omer which was a friday and based on god's original plan the torah was supposed to be given that day but god didn't give the torah that day why because moshe rabeno interpreted actually i didn't say this before but the gomorrah and shabbos explains he didn't just violate god's words he misinterpreted god's words he thought you needed three uh you needed two full days and since the first severe was wednesday so he thought you needed part of wednesday thursday and friday moshe misinterpreted god's words but what did god say if that's how you see it i'm going to follow it that's ma tantora so here is the subtlety if we ask the question when did we hear the ten commandments we didn't hear the ten commandments until the fifty first day of the term we did not hear them on truth again don't tell your kids this it will confuse them we did not hear the ten commandments on schloes but if we ask when was their mata torah it was the day that god deferred to the ruling of moshe rabbenu even though it was objectively mistaken so not on torah was not an event matan torah was the non-occurrence of an event matan torah was an omission rather than a commission and that is what the maganavraha means when he says we celebrate it the day it would have been given had moshe bainu not added the day in himself so again this is quite remarkable and it really shows us in a very very deep way the love that hashem has in the torah this is a relational idea that god says you and i create the truths that govern the world and obviously the partnership is not equal because hashem is perfect and we are very very imperfect but hashem says you're my child will make the cake together it's true that the cake that you're making with me is not gonna be as perfect as the cake that i could have made myself god could have given us a system where there's no ambiguity no no ambiguities no uncertainty but hashem says i love this imperfect cake even more because you made it with me and that's why shiva's is indeed a day of great great great divine love not simply because god gave us commandments but god gave us an involvement in the process now you might say i'll just end here well i'm talking about something that may be only the greatest condolence the greatest scholars you know have that type of thing power i mean no we don't do it et cetera but the truth is in a lesser degree each and every one of us have a portion in this process as well because when we come up with insights we come up with ideas we come up with perspectives you know hashem wants to hear sometimes you know sometimes rebellion are a little mean in this i know rebecca will ask their their classes uh questions on humish so the kid will come up with an answer and the rebbe says what's your source as if to say unless there is a source what you say is not important not true sometimes the source can be you you have a mind are your thoughts totally irrelevant now again i mean you have to be humble you have to be honest you have to understand that it might be wrong but to think that is not makshif our thoughts and our insights and our perceptions is a very very big mistake the whole idea of mata ontario is that we are involved in trying to bring our own personalities and our own understandings to get attached to the word of academic so this is not only for the greatest greatest greatest of gdollum but this is our own uh aveda also rafale vajric describes how you know he would often discuss that after he lost his wife and as his brother his mother and years before he lost his father how he often felt very lonely but sylvatrick would often be very open about the loneliness that he felt and treasures matter is because he was such a brilliant person that also created a loneliness that couldn't really relate to the average person so to speak but he would say when he sits and he learns it's a very beautiful description he didn't feel lonely because he felt he was surrounded with rashi and tosovos and the rambam and the ramban and then his beloved father that he had missed and his grandfather raphaim salabatrik and rebecchi vager and they're all talking and they're all debating and they're all arguing and rafael bajic says sometimes he would get in an argument as well and he says he never felt lonely because he had all of these personalities that were communicating to him in various ways it's very beautiful description of what learning is and that's why when we learn uh we refer to people in the present tense rashi says basil says what do you mean says that she died more than a thousand years ago and this hillary is 1500 years ago more than that 2000 years ago but to us they're alive they're here they're still teaching us we're learning and we debate with them we engage with them you know we have our cautious and you know we argue with them with with all respect and the like so this is what matantara is about again i just want to wish everyone that they should have a wonderful wonderful yamchav a kabbalah and of course one of the conditions for kabbalah satora that we should be like one person one heart and may all of us be zoha to reach that level [Music] is