Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: G-d is not above the Law

[Music] hi everybody hope you're doing well and we are in the final countdown to Matt Santoro to the holiday of show us that God willing we will be celebrating Thursday night and Friday and I'd like to share with you a very interesting thought about sure that's something that sometimes you're not aware of if you ask anybody why you show us a holiday so the answer is because that is the day that God gave us the Torah first of all that itself needs a certain amount of definition obviously when we say God gave us the toranshah vows we don't mean that God gave us the 613 commandments because those we got over the course of 40 years in the desert and indeed Moshe Rabbeinu himself didn't get the whole Torah even privately until he was on Mount Sinai for forty days so when we say Hashem gave us the tarantulas that means Hashem gave us the Ten Commandments which is the foundation of the Torah and he gave it through a mass revelation to three million people as opposed to most of the Torah that he privately told Moshe and Moshe taught us the Torah but the Asura said dubrow's we heard directly from a college portal and according to some opinions only the first two of those Commandments not even all of them but be it as it may if you look in the Commish itself the Commish does not say that the holiday of Shavuos is because of math on Torah the Commish says the holiday of Shavuos is an agricultural festival that celebrates the wheat harvest so the question is very obvious if Shavuos is as our governing tells us is a man mattandsarah say no that is infinitely more important than the agricultural significance of the wheat harvest so why does the Torah not even mention that Shavuos is a man not on Torah why does it use a secondary motif instead of the primary one so that my Rao gives a very interesting answer the morale actual he says that's whether one rejoices on the day that you get the Torah it's not necessarily a done deal it really depends on how you live your life if you live your life observing the Torah learning the Torah striving to be a person that is consistent with the Torah then Mactan Torah is the greatest of all choice but if cause for Shalom you reject the Torah you don't learn it you treat it with disdain then maybe you would be better off not having it because if you didn't have it you would not be accountable so the morale says it wouldn't be possible for God to tell any individual Jew you must rejoice the day that we celebrate Mactan Torah because in a sense whether you should rejoice or not rejoice is not up to God it's up to us so God gives us a reason that applies to everybody listen no matter what your attitude towards the Torah is we celebrate the wheat harvest in Eretz Israel that's a simcha but the simcha of Matan Torah has to be from your attitude our attitude our connection to the Torah and that is why it does not come from above it must come from below and that is why the morale says the Torah D emphasizes the idea of saman mattandsarah say no but to take the start much further there is a famous question from the great commentator on the show cleric the mugging of Rome who actually proves that the Torah was not given unto us the Torah was given the day after she was how do we know this the kumara in my second Shabbos brings a Bryce from say to her olam Seder Olam was the rabbinic chronology that asserts without proving it that the Jewish people left mitzrayim on a Thursday that means that first year the 15th of Nisan was on a Thursday now we know we talked about this last week at length that the counting of the Omer is the day after the second day of Pesach so that means the first day of Spira that year was on a Friday the 49th day which completes seven weeks would be Thursday the 50th of the Omer is Friday and yet because I'll say the Taira was given on Shabbos so the question is we celebrate Veloz on the fiftieth day of the Omer but the Taira was not given on the 15th day of the Omer the Torah was given on the 51st day of the omen of course there is no 51st day of the or about what would have been the 51st day of the omen if that's the case we are celebrating math on Torah a day earlier than it actually happened so why do I say on the sixth of seven zaman matin torah say no this is the kasha of the mugging of RAM the machina Proms answer is that in reality the Tigris should have been given a day early because God basically said on Wednesday that husbands should separate from their wives in preparation for math on Torah and I Shem indicated it should be two full days Wednesday and Thursday and it was the Almighty's plan that the Torah would be given on the third day which would be a Friday but the gomorian Shabbos tells us and we'll have to explain this too that moshe rabbeinu moseph yarmulke me dato moshe rabbeinu added an extra day for preparation he converted Friday from the day of matin Toa to become the third day of preparation hence we have the expression shallow sheis you may have Bubba three days of preparation Wednesday Thursday Friday and the Torah was given at Shabbos also says the mug in Avram we celebrate the holiday of Shavuos not on the day that Hashem actually gave the Torah we celebrate the day that the holiday on the day that a Shem would have given the Torah had Moshe Rabbeinu not added a day of preparation on his own volition the gomorian Shabbos tells us that there were actually three times that Moshe a Boehner simply did something without consulting with God ahead of time that's called moseph Matata and in Turkish Barca was muscum God agreed after the fact to what motor urbane who did the first was adding an extra day to math on Torah because God said let them sanctify themselves today and tomorrow and I will come on the third day meaning Wednesday Thursday I will come on Friday and Moshe changed it sanctify yourselves for three days and God will come after the three days Moshe Rabbeinu added a yarmulke me-dasu Moshe Rabbeinu delayed Kabbalah say Torah by a whole day that's the first thing the second thing he did was he made a decision that from rotten Torah onwards he would no longer be intimate with his wife because he felt he had to be on call for prophetic revelation 24/7 you will recall that later in the Torah in fact in two weeks we're going to read that this was the Lashon Hara that Miriam said about Moshe that why does he think he's so holy that he needs to be celibate we to our profits and we are not celibate but be thes it made this was motor of a nose own decision coach park who did not tell him to be celibate but I should have agreed that this was the right thing after the fact and the third instance of Moshe Rabbeinu be doing something on his own was the breaking of the tablets when he comes down from the mountain and the 17th of Tammuz and he sees the golden calf and he breaks the loo clothes again I go sparkly did not tell him to do so but he said yeah sure Co caca congratulations it was the right thing that you broke the Lucas so these are three examples of moisture Rubino my SEF dove army dato and will try to explain what that means and for our purposes the mugging of rom says that is why we celebrate Zeus on the fiftieth day of the Oh mare because although the teller was not given until the 51st day of the Oh mare but since it was Hashem is a regional plan to given on the fiftieth we celebrated on the day that a Shem would have given the Torah rather than the actual day the best Shem gave the Torah this is the answer of the mug in of RAM but Mahara the mug in affirms answer is very very difficult why should the hypothetical be more significant than the actual what happened on the sixth of seven the fiftieth day of the omen nothing happens what happened on the 51st de colo sooo brooken thunder lightning the revelation of God so why would you celebrate the day that should have been and never was and ignore the day of the actual revelation as the at least in hood florets they get it right right the second day of Shabazz is the actual day of Matt Santa and yet we don't celebrate certainly in their chest row we don't celebrate the seventh of c1 we only sell it the sixth of Siva so to understand the mugging of Rama and to understand the timing of Shavuos in a deeper way let me share with you a thoughts from one of the great literature column a review of selenium in the 19th century in the safe air a MEK yoshua and he starts off with the well-known Kumar and I think I myself have discussed this Kumar before and many of you are undoubtedly familiar with this it's one of the famous famous sardonic passages in Shas and this is the story of tanner shellac no tarnish a lot no is an earthenware oven that was transported by cutting it into horizontal hoops like hula hoops and you would carry the Rings and when it was time to assemble the oven you would assemble the rings that you would put mud between them and when the mud ride you had an oven and when he wants it to transport the oven you would shake off the mud and then you'd be able to carry the rings the halacha question of Tanner shellac know was whether the rings are susceptible to impurity if they come in contact with a dead animal or a dead person what's the Shila the Shila is because normally a vessel that is in a broken or shattered state is not susceptible to being McCobb altima so the question becomes is this considered broken because you're transporting rings or no since that is the way it is normally assembled and disassembled it's considered to be intact locus a majority of the sages took the position that the oven is susceptible to ritual impurity it can become timing but rabbi eliezer been keenest took the position that the oven was taught and they discussed and they argued over this for a very long time but at the end of the day the sages were not convinced and remember Eliezer been Candace was overruled by the majority the halacha is based on the majority of the sages but Rebbe Eliezer refused to concede and Rabbi Eliezer then went on to say he wants you to invoke some heavenly assistance to show that he was right and he said if the Holika is like me let the carob tree uproot itself and fly away and the tree uprooted itself and flew away and the hakama him said we don't pay attention to trees he then said if the halacha is like me let this river reverse its course and flow in the other direction and the river reversed this course and flew in the other direction and the car come him said once again we do not listen to rivers and then he said if the halacha is like me that the walls of the basin idris come in words and the walls began to move and Rebbe yahushua said to the walls don't you dare move and the walls didn't know what to do should they straighten up like Ravi yoshua should they keep on bending and collapsing inwards like rabbi eliezer and the kumara says that because the wall was deadlocked it remained slanting I had how Yama said to this very day the walls were slanting like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and once again just as the Hermann said we do not listen to trees and we do not listen to rivers they also said we do not listen to walls base Midrash as a little aside this is a bit of a digression but it's an interesting digression the Vilna Gaon explains why this rabbi eliezer used specifically these three miracles the carob tree the river and the walls of the besan idris when the Vilna gan says that to be at thomas - who is capable of prosecuting haka and having his words accepted there are three basic qualities with a Torah scholar must have and the rabbi eliezer is trying to invoke heavenly validation that he is in possession of these basic three qualities the first quality is miss topic permit mr. Peck Mammoet means you're satisfied with very little you're not a person that needs money that needs a lot of food that needs luxury because if you are miss Utah if you are over invested in materialism and comfort and pleasure your heart will not be open in the depths of the Torah because you will be seeking instant gratification and will not have the willingness to work and to be me again to understand the Torah of God the Judaism is not esthetic Judaism acknowledges that there is a role for pleasure in life but you have to be happy with a simple lifestyle and not be overly invested in the pleasures of the world symbolically a person who lives very simply is this always described in kazow as one who simply eats a measure of carob roof this is a very simple food and the governor says for example rubbish on either band eisah was a great Sadiq and miracle worker rakesh brother says about rubbish Nina been dice that in his merit I give sustenance to the whole world but all he needs is a cop car even a measure of carob from one Erev Shabbos to the next Arif jealous so when rabbi eliezer calls upon the tree to fly away he's basically saying this carrot tree can testify that I am a person that is miss topic bomb watts I am a person who is satisfied with very little the next quality the Torah scholar needs is the quality of humility all of us know that the tourists compared to water and there are many reasons why tourists compared to water but one of the main reasons is that just as water goes from high ground to low ground gravity drags water down so to the tyro leaves the arrogant and conceited and it goes to the humble rabbi eliezer saying the water can testify that I have the characteristic of humility and therefore my word should be listened to right so if the carob tree indicates mistake mama what's the water indicates the quality of another now you might say that's a little funny because here he's doing a supernatural miracle to show how humble he is that's a little strange because that by definition is ostentatious that by definition is showing off how can I ask God to do a supernatural miracle to change the course of a river in order to demonstrate how genuinely humble I am but in reality if you think about it this is not a contradiction humility never means I'm oblivious as to my level if a person were to think that he's you know doesn't have intelligence he's not a great person then fact that would prevent him from fulfilling his mission Rabbi Eliezer knew he was a God all he knew he was great he knew he had a responsibility but the point that he's making is he's not involved in Torah for egotism for self-aggrandizement for arrogance he is saying I am totally committed to a disinterested search for the truth and I'm not maintaining my position because of arrogance or divert I am maintaining my position because I believe it's Emmis and in that sense he has a responsibility to try to let the sages see that and thus he calls upon God to make a miracle so God Himself testifies that Rabbi Eliezer has humility as the requisite Innova right so once again therefore the carob tree is miss topic Mammoet the changing of the river is another target compared to water and the third quality that I tell Menachem needs is diligence housemother putting in the time and the effort to master Torah no matter how righteous you are no matter how simple is your lifestyle no matter how humble you are if you don't put in the time you're not going to master the Torah so we often find that the base Metris is kind of a testimony the walls of the base mattress can testify that he was the first to come in in the morning and the last to leave at night so he's trying to tell the Cohanim you should listen to me I have simplicity I have humility I have diligence this is from the Vilna Gaon why those three miracles were so significant but the end of the story is the Cohanim did not listen to him so finally he brings out the big guns he says if the hawala is like me let there be a voice from heaven let there be a bus call that says halacha caribou Eleazar and a voice from heaven God proclaimed the hawala is like Rabbi Eliezer and you know what the Cohanim said the Haim said to God we don't even listen to us yet because you said in your own Torah know about your Miami the Torah is not in heaven you gave the authority for the interpretation of the Torah and the promulgation of Halawa to the sages in every generation and even you God are bound by the commandments of your Torah and therefore stay out of it this is quite an amazing exceptional statement you know we often have debates and politics about is anybody above the law presidents kings emperors here you have a statement nobody is above the law including God himself God is bound by the Torah and that is why loba shamaya me prophets cannot partake in the halacha discourse now let me point out the haha man could have said something different but they didn't say this the Cohanim could have said we don't listen to heavenly voices because who says those voices are authentic who says they're real all sorts of people imagined voices or faked them or whatever it would be so a Bosco is not reliable because it might be a delusion or it might be an illusion but please pay attention to this the humming did not disparage the Bosco because they denied its authenticity rather what they said was we acknowledge that it is the genuine voice of God and we don't listen to it now that sounds like a tremendous hutzpah but the Gemara recounts that years later one of the mo ryeom encountered Eliyahu Hanavi and asked Eliyahu Hanavi about this story and said what it was God's response when they said Lobos to Miami and the gomorrah becomes then a college Barca was laughing and a college bar who said NIT scoony banai my children have been victorious over me I will stay out of this well the Gomorrah goes on and says that even after the Columbian rejected the Bosco rabbi eliezer still did not retract his position and Rabban Gamliel the head of the Sanhedrin took the extraordinary step of excommunicating Rabbi Eliezer a matching this rebel yes sir the God Allah door was excommunicated and they sent his Talmud his beloved disciple Rabbi Akiva to inform him of the excommunication and at this time Rabbi Eliezer was very old and sick and he was in bed and Rabbi Akiva comes into the sick room and he stays at a distance of 4 a mouse from Rabbi Eliezer because when you're excommunicated you cannot stand within 4 hemos and Rabbi Eliezer didn't understand what's going on and he said - Robbie Akiva why don't you come closer and Rabbi Akiva said it appears that your colleagues have separated themselves from you and Rabbi Eliezer began sobbing and Rabbi Eliezer said behold I am like a safer Torah that is wrapped up and tied up there is so much I could teach there is so much I could give and now I am disabled from doing it and Rabbi Eliezer was a broken man because he could no longer teach the Torah of which he was such a master and of which he had so much to give interestingly enough Rebbe eleazar's wife was the sister of Rebbe and Gamal you rubbing him Leo the head of the son had new excommunicated him and it's recorded in the Gemara that she never let her husband say taco moon after the Amidah because taco none is the part of governing that you express your anguish and your sadness and she was afraid if Rebbe Eliezer would express his anguish to the Almighty God would avenge his pain by hurting or destroying Reverend Emilio so she always interrupted it before he said Tuckerman but on were so - she didn't have to watch him because there is no tackling on Rosh Chodesh but the Gomorrah indicates that she thought a certain day was roast kodesh when it wasn't so she wasn't watching him and she saw her husband saying taco done and she said to him you killed my brother this day and that very moment shalyah came to tell her that Reverend Graham Leo was nifty very very sad story all around but let's go back to the main point of the Gemara Lobos show Miami the Torah is not in heaven now let's think about that for a moment we don't listen to heavenly voices we don't even listen to prophets prophets cannot say God told me that a certain mr. should be done a certain way now today of course we lack prophecy and we lack heavenly voices so when we try to learn what the halacha is we go through sources we go through analogies we discuss we refute we analyze we utilize all of the components of human reason but ultimately what are we trying to do when you're trying to figure out how welcome we're trying to figure out what does God wants me to do in this particular case and since God is not going to tell me directly I have to use precedent analogy and analysis to try to figure this out but if how luckily is ultimately about what is the will of God then if God tells you what his will is how can you dismiss that as irrelevant how could there be a concept God's will is not relevant in determining allaha if halacha is about determining god's will to take a trivial example if you have a bunch of kids who are sitting around and they're trying to figure out what their parents what their father would want for a birthday gift so one thing I think dad wants to tie I think dad wants a coupling I think dad wants a safer and dad walks by and dad says well since you're asking this is what I really want and the kids say the dad please dad stay out of this we are trying to figure out what you want and what you say you want is not relevant to the inquiry that would make no sense at all so how can we dismiss what God tells us is his will by saying we are gonna figure out your well and what you say is irrelevant no but you Miami seems to be a logical absurdity now another kasha is that throughout shots throughout Gomorrah throughout cause out and even in modern how luckily literature there's a constant phenomenon called Mack locust different opinions look at the sources and they come up with different views base he'll obey jam'iyyah by you forever Rashi toe scoffs rebel yeah sure go slow Mazama Norma and well how luckily we have to follow one or the other but often these mclogan are mutually exclusive one says kosher one says strafe one says pure one says impure one says hi of your obligated one says pleasure you can't do both they're mutually contradictory but objectively which one of them is true and which one of them is false so the Gemara remarks and Moustakas cardiga a la vieille oh dear a elokim Khayyam these and those are the words of the eternal gods they are both right they are both right the one that says culture is right and the one that says traif is right what sense does that make what did God tell Moshe did God tell Moshe kosher then traif is wrong if God said to Moshe trait then kosher is wrong how can two contradictory ideas both be right it's reminiscent of a famous joke in which a person that had a claim against another person spoke to the rabbi and the rabbi said you're right and then the other party spoke to the rabbi and the rabbi said you're right and then the Rebbetzin asked the rabbi how can they both be right and then the rabbi said you're right also so we have to conscious culture number one is how do we understand the idea of loba show Miami that God is disabled from participating in holic discussion through prophecy or heavenly voice or otherwise and question number two is when there is a mock locusts and it's not resolved unlike Rabbi Eliezer where it was resolved we say a movie a low-key frail-looking Khayyam these and those are the words of the Almighty God they are both objectively true so the dress around the dress of Rubino Nisa one of the great we shown him who lived in the 14th century offers the following explanation he says how logic truth is very different than mathematical truth in mathematical truth now of course in higher mathematics even this can be challenged but let's take basic arithmetic there will only be one correct answer to a given situation if I say one plus one equals three that is not a matter of my opinion I am simply wrong there's an objective reality and that objective reality defines the truth and anything in opposition to that objective reality is simply false Aloha is a very very different process God gave Moshe in addition to the written law God gave Moshe general principles methodologies of interpretation and the basic structure and process and then left it to the Hakka meme of every generation and I'm glossing over a huge interpretive question who is a legitimate Hakan that's far from simple but putting aside that very important and interesting question God left it to the sages of every generation utilizing the principles and the process and the precedence of the Torah to apply those teachings to the new situations that arise in every generation the Torah is eternal and unchanging to be sure but life changes constantly there will always be new situations new controversies new problems and God gave us an eternal structure that can handle and address every single problem that comes down the road but it was left to the hakama to supply the answers and what God is saying is that if they thought if they're authorized people and if they follow the process and they utilize the methodology then no matter what process they come up with I will give it the imprimatur of truth even if it is the answer that is different than the answer that I myself would have come up with and not only that but if they resolve the matter in accordance with my procedures then even when they're wrong it becomes right so able be able differently chemcam is based on the idea that even if there's a metaphysical Platonic truth that God has the operational truth that God wants to be applied in earth is the result of the homonyms interpretation and utilization of the methodologies and their conclusions become the ruts on hashem even when they were wrong it now becomes right this is the meaning of a versatile in ms may Eretz tits my truth emerges from the earth and therefore it is possible for mutually contradictory views to be given the imprimatur of truth and it is possible for the Cohanim to bind touch him even when his own answer would have been different in other words this is an important idea to understand about the oral law the I mean let's say we have in modern times you have all sorts of new Shiloh's what does Judaism say about cloning or not so new anymore what is the status of surrogate motherhood or nuclear war or genetic engineering now some people imagine that the Torah to work this way God gave Moshe a specific ruling on every single thing that will ever happen and our job is simply to uncover by human reasoning what that ruling was now if that's how you understand the oral law then it's not possible to say it will be able debris looking volume because God gave Moshe a specific answer to every specific question and I either got it right or I got it wrong but what the ROM is teaching us is something very different when you ask the question what did God tell Moshe about genetic engineering the answer actually is God told Moshe nothing about genetic engineering but God gave Moshe the principles out of which we could address the issue and I shall left it to us using his principles to determine what his will would have been regarding genetic engineering so the halacha process is not about discovering what hashem actually said about a specific issue but rather it's about the ability to extrapolate from god's principles what the Divine Will is and as long as we use the principles and are authorized to use them God will agree to whatever our conclusion is even if in a platonic sense he would have come to a different conclusion this is the meaning of Robuchon I am a and this is the meaning of LOV a lo give regular complain now one may say that one may raise a question and that is this is a very messy way to communicate a system of law and regulation why does Hashem give us these principles leave it to us and then say even if you get it wrong it becomes right why couldn't touch n give us definite answers to every single question that comes down the pike imagine what that would mean first of all it would eliminate tomorrow learning because Gomorrah is all about grappling and trying to figure something out going up line delis retracing your steps but if we had definitive resolution on every single question that would eliminate my locus eliminate ambiguity get rid of uncertainty we would have precise guidance from God now you might say well that's not possible because at the time of math on Torah they didn't know what cloning was they didn't know what genetic engineering was okay hashem could have given moshe envelopes and the envelopes could have said do not open before 5700 or 5800 and then we opened it up and says oh genetic engineering what's your uh sir so why does Hashem give the Torah in such an indeterminate way that requires human input and creativity as opposed to giving us definitive rules that's not the normal way you would promulgate laws and the short answer is that this is part of God's love for the Jewish people let's imagine a parent who wants to make a cake for their four-year-old the best easiest most efficient way to make the cake is that when the child is asleep or in God you simply make the cake or even better buy the cake in a bakery the cake will look good it'll taste good the kitchen will not be a mess so if your only concern was the quality of the cake the less the kid has to do it the better but a deeper level of loving relationship is when you make the cake with the child now making a cake with the four-year-old is not an easy job they may be sugar on the floor and chocolate cocoa and and the counter and that shells in the batter and part of the cake maybe underdone and part of it maybe over baked and lumpy you could certainly have done a better job by yourself and a bakery would have done even a better job than you but the love is the fact that we did it together we collaborated we were partners God could have given us a Torah in which everything is spelled out exactly and there would be no room for our inputs but God in his great love says to obvious realm I want you to be my partners I'll give you the raw materials I'll give you the written law I'll give you the basic principles I'll give you the interpretive keys I will give you the structure and then I will leave it to you to take the raw materials I've given you and apply them to the ever-changing scenarios of life and even when you get it wrong I'll go with you and your mistake becomes correct because that's God's love Torah is not simply a one-way street where God commands us Torah is an interactive creative dynamic process that we share with God that is why it is actually called Matt and Tyler Matt Santoro doesn't just mean God commanded the Torah my time God gave us the Torah in fact on the project that we say it's from Mitch lay and we say this passage when we return the Torah to the ark Kela dr. Nezhat Elohim I have given you a good purchase Taurasi all times over do not abandon my Toa so the gomorian brothel says the media the characteristic of a kurdish Barco is not like the characteristic of besar verdun they must serve it down if I am a seller and I have a very precious heirloom that I have to get rid of for money so generally I am said when I give up my heirloom I am sad and the buyer is happy but I call a Fargo a no Cain he gave us the Torah and yet he still rejoices Kela cocked over Nastasia a provisional Harlan says what's the analogy the mohair is giving something up Hashem commands us to keep the Torah what is the analogy to the motor but based on what we're discussing you can now see it Hakadosh barukh okay vehicle actually abdicated he surrendered his color over the Torah by giving it to us and making us his partners and therefore he is just like the mohair that is parted with his precious heirloom Matan Torah giving away the time because Hashem says I want to make the cake with you we are co-creators of holiness in the world in fact we see this in a more general way let's pretend in many spirit God left the world in a state of incompletion so we become his partners in bringing the Brya to perfection now if we understand if we understand that the essence of Mattson Torah is not simply God giving us Commandments but God involving us in the creation of halakhah truth to the degree that even when we're wrong Hashem is mofat el his will to our interpretation and that which was an error becomes spiritually correct let's ask ourselves what was the first time that that phenomenon appeared answer and the sixth of seven the 50th day of the Omer Friday it was God's will and God's original design to give the turret to the Jewish people and God did not do so because as the gomorian Shabbos explains motion misinterpreted the divine command where God intended two days of separation and to give the tour around the third day which would have been Friday Moshe interpreted it to mean three full days of separation in other words Moshe interpreted the will of God in a way that was contradictory to the will of God and yet God deferred to moshus interpretation that itself is the greatest expression of math on Torah in other words Matan Torah occurred not by God doing something Martin Torah occurred by God not doing something in deference to moshe obey this interpretation so we're back to the mugging of rams capture the market of romantic asha if the Asura study Prost were given on the fifty first day of sphere why do we celebrate Matan Torah under 15th because the fiftieth is the celebration of Hashem deferring to Moshe Rubino's interpretation moseph Yom Akkad Matata so this is still quite amazing I'm not sure but you tell your kids because it's very dramatic what happened on Shavuos the answer is nothing happened unto us and the fact that nothing happened made it the day of math on Torah the Asura satirists were not given until the day after shows now this idea that God defers to us obviously does not mean a person who's learning Torah with some selfish predetermined agenda this presupposes a person is objectively looking for truth but God essentially gives the Cohanim full credit for process now this type of power is of course reserved only to the greatest of the rabbi's of every generation but to a lesser degree this is something in which all of us share every time we learn whether it's himesh whether it's Mishnah whether its Gomorrah God wants us to bring our personality our creativity our understanding we become a partner with the Almighty in bringing truth into the world and even when we're going up the wrong alley because think about this how much of a Gomorrah our ideas that are actually refuted and incorrect these are called a la Mina's now one wonders if I if I spent the whole day learning a javelina that the Gemara refutes was I'm a Khayyam Tama Toa after all it's not true but the answer is no it's precisely the blind alleys it's going over the possibilities in which you become a partner in the uncovering of truth that's why I always had a catch up there's a famous story bunch of I'm celibate rape say it's a joke story but it's interesting story that you know the some post can say we don't pass Q this way that you could be Mac I am sooo delicious on Shabbos the third meal by simply learning you don't have to eat anything at all so FK em salvaged it was once giving a shear and he stopped because we have to eat sue - holy so one of his students said to him Rebbe why do we have to do - ELISA so in the middle of learning that our learning count for soo delicious so the search of crime said was the following you're right you can be deified by Mac I am sooo delicious by learning but what if we're learning and after Shabbos I uncover the idea that what I saw was incorrect so llama Freya I refuted the Torah and if my Freya refuted the Torah we don't have such other shedders but my repeted a filter fish is irrefutable so if claim says we'll stop for a filter fish because maybe my toe is not a mess but I want to suggest that that story is probably not not accurate because the truth of the matter is you get reward for learning Torah not only when you're correct you get reward for learning Torah even when you're incorrect because it is the process of trying to understand the will of God that is the essence of learning Torah and it is often through the blind alleys and the mistakes that we make that we come to deeper understandings that is why so much of the Gemara are actually the possibilities that are not accepted by law you can't understand base hell else when you go through a pajama you need to go through all of the different arguments to then arrive at what is the final truth and ref claims grandson the famous Rev Joseph doe celibate recovery team University described in such a movingly moving way he said that after his father died after his wife died he often felt very very lonely in life he felt lonely he didn't have spouse he didn't have his parents but he says when he sat down to learn he no longer felt lonely because he sits doubt to learn he is surrounded by Hillel and Shammai and Abhaya and Robin from Eric Israel and from buther and Rashi from France and the rush from Germany and the Rambam from Spain and Rebecca vaguer from Poland in Russia and in all these different countries and they're all debating and they're all discussing remember when we learned we always talked about the presence we don't use the past tense we don't say a buyer said we say oh by a cell she says toaster says they're with us in the room but not only are we listening to them but we become a participant we add to the process God is making the cake with all of us and although we might very well be the five-year-old's of the two-year-old compared to all those great bakers who are involved in that cake God cherishes our inputs he wants us to be a part of that we are partners with God in bringing holiness into the world so I just want to wish you all as we enter the holiday of not on Torah may we not just commemorate the events but may we feel the joy of being connected to God may we feel the joy of partnership of ownership of responsibility may we know that God cherishes our I may listen Torah are working into our desire to understand silver and may the Torah always be sweet and good to us may be a source of strength a source of Solace the source of comfort a source of light wish you all a wonderful wonderful young Tiff's and may the Scheffer of Kabbalah cetera of Shavuos carry over into the entire year and ultimately bring us to Messiah said que no Ben hey Ravi ma no thank you [Music]