Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Matan Torah - Integration of Body and Soul

Okay, everybody. Thank you. Thanks for coming. And tonight's year is dedicated a re-for-Shlema for Ari Benjamin and Saralea and Shoshana bat Rachel Lea and for all of those whose health has been affected by the war and especially for the safe and quick return of our brothers and sisters that are held in captivity. As well and all the after for Yitzchak Hirsch ben Eliezer as well as the mother of Larry and Lynn Vincent, Shulamith bat Chaim Mordechai. On her second Yahrzeit, the 22nd of Shvat. And for Shalom Ber ben Ephraim and Gittel Feigel and Gittel bat Shmuel and Ida. Again, we hope that the divrei Torah should be ilui iluinishmatam and we thank everybody for their support of Achsana Torah. You'll remember a few weeks ago we read about the four leshonos of geulah. There are four terms of redemption that Hashem used. V'hotzeisi, I will take you out. V'lakachti, I'm sorry, I'll take you. V'hitzalti, I will take you out. V'ga'alti, I will redeem you. V'lakachti. And these are why we have four cups of wine because of the four leshonos of geulah and we gave a shiur on the meaning of the four leshonos of geulah. But the one thing that is interesting and relevant to this parsha is that the fourth lashon, v'lakachti eschem li l'am, I will take you unto me as a nation is technically not referring to the Exodus at all. It is referring to Matan Torah. You will become my nation at Matan Torah. So it's very interesting, you see from here that the giving of the Torah, which occurs in this parsha, is not simply an extra thing. It is actually the essence of what the redemption from Mitzrayim is about. It is one of the leshonos of geulah. It is the tachlis of yetzias Mitzrayim. I remember years ago when there used to be the old uh big bad Soviet Union. So during the 1970s there was a lot of activism to kind of get the Jews out of the Soviet Union, free them. And every synagogue, conservative, reform, orthodox, had a big sign on the lawn saying, "Let my people go." Which is a somewhat of a quote or a paraphrase from Exodus. But the truth of the matter is the full pasuk says, shalach ami, which is not let my people go, but shalach ami sent forth my people, v'ya'avduni, so they will serve me. They left out the v'ya'avduni. In other words, it wasn't freedom alone that was needed. It was a freedom to be able to serve Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And thus Matan Torah is the fourth lashon of geulah because it is the ultimate tachlis of yetzias Mitzrayim. And we see from this a chazal saying in a number of different ways that true freedom is not you get to do whatever you want, but true freedom is the ability to submit yourself to the ratzon Hashem. Pirkei Avos tells us, ein ben chorin ela mi she'osek baTorah. The only one who is free, chorin, is the person who is able to learn the Torah, keep the Torah. Because otherwise we're just an animal. If I simply go with every way my yetzer hara tells me to go, I'm a slave. Maybe I'm not a slave to some outside person, but I'm a slave to negative forces within myself. I'm not in control. I'm like a leaf that is being blown and buffeted by winds in all directions. It is precisely when you have Torah that gives you discipline and guidance and instruction that you're able to be free in the sense of bringing out the beauty of your neshama, bringing out your potentiality. Chazal say as well that the grain offering of Pesach is the omer offering on the second day of Pesach and the omer offering is barley. On Shavuos the grain offering are two loaves of wheat bread. Now chazal say barley was generally, at least before the invention of cholents, barley was generally given to animals. Wheat was generally consumed by human beings. The freedom of Pesach, of yetzias Mitzrayim, as lovely and beautiful and fundamental as it is, just gives me the freedom of an animal. Animal liberation. It is Matan Torah that transforms animal liberation to human dignity and human freedom. And thus Matan Torah is an integral part of geulas Mitzrayim because it is the tachlis, it is the purpose of that geulah to begin with. I mentioned a number of times, I'll just repeat it very quickly. Tagore, a very famous Indian poet, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, he compared a human soul to a violin string that is capable of making beautiful, beautiful music, but only when the string is tied down. If you had a loose string on the table, totally free, unencumbered, not held down in any way, you would not be able to get any music out of that string. You tie it down, you constrict it, you limit its movement, then and only then can it produce music. The same thing for a human being. We think if I could just do whatever I want, I would be free. The answer is no. I wouldn't be able to focus. I wouldn't be able to realize the kochos, the powers, the abilities that is within me. It's only submission to the structure that allows even one's creativity to come out. Right? And that's the idea of ein ben chorin ela mi she'osek baTorah. No one is free except one who learns Torah. This is why we go from se'orim, a barley offering on Pesach, to chitim. And this is why in effect, although it's not the time of year yet, the counting of the omer is a linkage between Pesach and Shavuos. There's a comment of the Ramban. The Ramban views the whole period of counting of the omer as a chol hamoed. Meaning to say Pesach and Shavuos are one long holiday with a, you know, 49-day chol hamoed. So when you tell your boss you're not working during chol hamoed, then you disappear for all of Sefiras HaOmer, you have the right to do so, although I doubt that the job will be held open if you simply don't show up for 49 days. But be it as it may, Ramban says Shavuos is not a separate holiday. Shavuos is the last days of the Pesach-Shavuos continuum because once again it is the culmination, it is the purpose of of of redemption. So in a sense that's why parshas Yisro is still in shuvavim. Shuvavim are the weeks Shemos, Va'eira, Bo, Beshalach, Yisro, Mishpatim because once again, even though shuvavim is about being liberated from your inner Mitzrayims, Matan Torah is a chelek, an integral part of that liberation of the slavery of of Egypt. Reb Myron Hersh and Reb Reb Nachman Schillar, he should be well, his his health has taken some difficult downturns, but be'ezras Hashem he should have a refuah shleima. He used to say that when we talk about free will and you ask somebody, "What is free will? What is bechira?" So the standard answer would be, "Bechira is my ability to do whatever I want." Not that I'm allowed to. God doesn't want me to do whatever I want, but I have the power to do whatever I want. So Reb Nachman Schillar always said that an animal can do whatever it wants. Bechira is the power to do what you don't want to do and the power not to do what you want to do. It's the other way around. The real koach of bechira is the override that we have over our natural inclinations. That is what about bechira is. A person who simply automatically responds to whatever they desire at the moment is not really exercising free will. They are simply a victim of their nature, whatever their nature is. Choice involves overriding your nature. The idea of deferred gratification, I want something, but I realize that it's better if I wait. What's the story? This is a very famous experiment in social psychology where they offered little children a choice. You can have the candy right now, or if you wait 10 minutes or something, you'll have two candies. So some kids said, "I want the candy now." Other kids waited 10 minutes. And they tracked these children over many years and it was determined that those who were able to defer gratification for 10 minutes were much more successful in life because they realized that you don't make decisions based on the immediate short term, but you look at the long-term consequences. So bechira is not I do what I want, bechira is I sometimes do what I don't want because it is better for me in the long term. Now granted, that experiment only involved 10 minutes, but you know, for a for an 8-year-old, 10 minutes is an eternity. Uh so they still were exercising uh their bechira in a very very responsible way. So, of course, um there's an old joke from Reb Yaakov Kamenetsky, it's a little bit of a cynical joke, and but but like like jokes go, it actually has truth to the famous mimer Chazal, "No one is free except they learn Torah." You know, if you're in yeshiva, so baruch Hashem, you have a lot of friends who are getting married. So there's always a chasunah to go to. Now especially in Yerushalayim, there's always a chasunah. If in New York City, there's always chasunahs. So as a result, you know, guys are always taking off. They got to leave yeshiva to go to Detroit or go to Chicago or go to Los Los Angeles. And Reb Yaakov didn't like that. He felt that if you're learning in yeshiva, you don't take off just to go to friends' weddings. So he said he now understands the meaning, "The only person that's free is a person who learns Torah because any other job you have, you can't tell your boss every other day, 'I got to leave.' If you're in yeshiva, you can tell your boss, 'I got to go to a chasunah, got to go to sheva brachos, got to go to a bris, got to go to a pidyon haben.'" So he says, "Ein ben chorin ela mi she'osek baTorah." the one who's learning Torah is free to do whatever he wants. But that's a cynical interpretation. The other interpretation is the opposite, that it's the discipline of life that allows the flourishing of my inner kochos. That's Degary's beautiful mashal, that the violin string produces music only when it is tied down and not when it's totally loose. He was not speaking about Judaism. He I don't even know if he knew a Jew, but he's speaking about life in general. And the truth of the matter is, once again, to draw on a secular analogy, you know, you look at um uh jazz musicians, right? They improvise. They play riffs. They just play whatever they want. Or you look at an artist like Picasso who does abstract who did abstract art and the like. And then, you know, you're learning how to play the piano and you're told you got to practice uh scales like 3 hours. Or you're a want to be a want to be a an artist, a painter. So you have to kind of paint, you know, plants or or paint bowls of fruit, you know, for a week. And you say, "I don't want to do that. I want to improvise. I want to be creative. I want to express my individuality. Why am I forced to play scales? Why am I forced to paint apples?" But you have to understand that the difference between Picasso and a 3-year-old who can simply scribble on a piece of paper is that Picasso learned the technique, he learned the art, and then he was able to transcend it. He was then able to go beyond it. But he was able to go beyond it in a very creative way only because he mastered the fundamentals. The jazz musician who plays riffs, once again, how is that different from a kid who just bangs on a piano? The answer is because it it it is a creativity and an individuality that comes after the mastery of something. Once you tie yourself down, you're then free to fly. Uh like a kite, right? A kite that's rooted, tied down in the ground, or somebody's holding it, the kite can go very very very very high. But if it's simply not tied down anywhere, nobody's holding it, it just goes into the stratosphere and it's lost. Torah learning is that way as well. God wants us to be involved in Torah in a very creative way, to innovate, to rethink things, to make new connections. That's called chiddush, right? It's the notion of innovating in Torah. And each person is given a cheilek, a portion in Torah that is their portion to develop. It's hard to understand this, meaning each and every one of us has a certain insight in Torah that even Rashi didn't have. Now going back, uh well Moshe Rabbeinu probably had everything, but let's say, you know, whatever it would be, David Hamelech didn't have. And that's our prayer in the Amidah, "Vesein chelkeinu baTorasecha." Give us our portion in the Torah. Show me my portion. Show me what is my insight. What is my understanding? So I can share it with so I can develop it myself and I can share it with the world. But in order to be able to develop your insight, you also have to be rooted in the basics, rooted in the fundamentals. Then you're like a kite that's rooted, tied down, anchored, and then you can fly to very very high levels. Otherwise, you just go into outer space and you're gone. Right? So that's the same idea here, that the creativity of life has to be rooted in a basic commitment and submission to the tools of the craft, whether it's the service of God, whether it's art, whether it's music, whether it's philosophy, whatever whatever it would be. And this is the esser of ein ben chorin ela mi she'osek baTorah. So I want to talk a little bit just about matan Torah again in perhaps very very general terms. Uh there is a Gemara in maseches Shabbos where uh a man from Galil, the Galil, he's not given a name. We're not know we're not told who it is, made a statement. And the Gemara just quotes the statement and gives no explanation for it. "Baruch Rachamana." Blessed is God "Diyav lan." This is Aramaic. "Diyav lan" who gave us a reisa tlisai, a threefold Torah, that's the Torah, the Prophets, the Nevi'im, the Kesuvim, the Writings, "la li ar liyam tlisai, to a threefold nation, Kohanim, Levi'im, Yisraelim, biyarcha tlisai, in the third month." Counting from Nissan, which is always month number one. So Nissan Iyar Sivan. Matan Torah was on the either the 6th of Sivan or the 7th. That's a machlokes. After 3 days of separation and preparation. And that's all it says. "Baruch Rachamana." Thank you, God, who gave us all of these threes. So apparently, the Gemara is making a point that the number three is very significant in connection with matan Torah. Just as four happens to be very significant in connection to Pesach, right? The Pesach seder has a whole bunch of fours. Uh we have the four questions, the Mah Nishtanah. We have four cups of wine. We have four terms of redemption. We have four sons. Right? So the number four is very important in the seder. Maybe we'll talk about that later. But the number three is very important when it comes to matan Torah. What is the chashivus? What is the significance? What is the importance of the number three? So Maharal of Prague, Maharal of Prague was very uh into among many many things, he was into numerology, again based on Kabbalah. Uh he was into numbers having symbolic values that represent spiritual ideas. And he makes the point that three is connected to synthesis, integration, and harmonization of opposite forces. The example would be, imagine if you have a line, a simple horizontal line that has opposite points. There's a point at each end of the line. The points are moving in opposite directions. You then draw diagonals from the outer point to create a triangle, the sides of a triangle, and they meet at the apex of the triangle. So now you started off with a two-point line, and now you have a three-point triangle. But what is the triangle? What is the apex of a triangle? It synthesizes and integrates and combines the two opposite points. So the Maharal says symbolically, whenever we have a number three, it represents, as we would say later philosophical terms, a thesis and antithesis and a synthesis in which opposite forces are harmonized. In Kabbalah, this is very much so. If you go to the lower seven sefiros, the lower we're not not counting chochmah binah a keser chochmah binah, that uh are the higher sefiros, but the lower sefiros, so the first three, which is all we need to talk about, is chesed, loving kindness, gevurah, inner strength and discipline, and the third synthesis and the third factor is called tiferes, which is beauty. Avraham represents the spiritual force of chesed. Yitzchak represents the spiritual force of constriction, limitation, fear of God. But when they are harmonized in the personality of Yaakov, that reaches a beauty, the combination, the mizug, because spiritually uh each force by itself could be dangerous. Chesed is a wonderful thing. But I don't know if you ever saw these old situation comedy motifs of an ice cream machine that you can't shut off like soft ice cream. It produces the soft ice cream, and the ice cream comes out and out and out, and you can't shut it off. So it keeps on filling the room, you know, it's I think it's old Lucille Ball type of type of stuff. So that's chesed. Chesed is giving giving giving giving giving. But I get overwhelmed with the light of God, and it's not just being overwhelmed, I cease to exist. I can't have my autonomy in the light and revelation of godliness. I become absorbed just as a candle would be totally subsumed in the light of the sun. This is infinitely more so. So, gevurah requires See, people think gevurah is punishment. I mean, punishment is an aspect of it. Gevurah is really withdrawal. Gevurah is holding back. Gevurah is necessary for me to receive chesed. I can't receive the chesed of God. My kli, my vessel is too weak to hold that light. God has to hold back his light and it to a certain degree of concealment. So, gevurah itself is what enables chesed to be received. But, gevurah is not per se punishment. Gevurah is withholding. That may be a punishment, but they also may be the mechanism by which I receive chesed. So, too much chesed you have this, you're overwhelmed, you cease to exist. Too much gevurah, I'm starving for kirvat Elokim. Tiferet, beauty is the synthesis between chesed and gevurah. And the same thing in human behavior because whatever the avot did is the avot mimicked. Right? There's kind of a double mimicking going on, a double imitation theory. We imitate God. And by our imitation of God, God imitates us. Many of you may have heard or learnt the beautiful sefer Tomer Devorah uh written by the great kabbalist Rav Moshe Cordovero who uh was an older contemporary of the Arizal. He died a little right Well, the Ari died at 39, but Rav Moshe Cordovero died at 48, but he died shortly before the Arizal. And they do represent two different schools of Kabbalah. Uh the Ramak uh Rav Moshe Cordovero was one school of Kabbalah. It's actually a very very interesting rationalist school. Um the Ramak tried to uh explain Kabbalah as a philosophical system. The Arizal is a more complicated I mean, the Ramak is very complicated, too, but the Arizal was more complicated because he kind of became more intuitive intuitive and free association and could not be explained in linear ways. Ramak was a philosopher of Kabbalah. Uh the Ari was kind of directly experiencing mystical visions. But, one of the Ramak's most beautiful books and most accessible book is Tomer Devorah where he shows how the way by imitating God's midot we actualize God's midot in the world. So, it's a double imitation. I look at the 13 midot of rachamim and I try to carry them out in my own life. But, by my carrying them out in my own life, I elicit that response from God. I imitate God, then God imitates me and brings that into the uh into the world. So, when we say Avraham represents chesed and Yitzchak represents gevurah and Yaakov represents tiferet, this is the human concretization of these divine attributes which in turn bring those divine attributes into the world. Bring them into the world. So, the commentaries say that too much chesed produces a Yishmael a deficiency. Too much gevurah on the part of Yitzchak produces an Esav. It's only Yaakov Avinu who melted and molded and balanced and harmonized chesed and gevurah that we have what is called tiferet, beauty. And beauty produces midot shalomah, all of Yaakov's children. We had our problems, to be sure. We see us Yosef, we see us Ega. I mean, we're not perfect. But, all of us, every Jew has the special kedushah of that unique nation. There is nothing that's rejected. There is nothing that is cut off. And that is because tiferet. Right? Even in parenting, this is very clear. I give my kid everything he wants chesed I'm actually hurting him. I'm not giving him boundaries. I'm not giving him limitations. I'm too limiting, I also destroy him. A parent has to balance chesed and and gevurah. Now, this is why the midah of tiferet, which is beauty is called beauty because true beauty is the harmonization of opposite forces. Right? The beauty of a symphony, the beauty of a work of art is when you mold disparate elements into a harmonious whole. Tiferet is also called truth. Now, the famous British uh poet John Keats said, "Truth is beauty." O thing with O to a Greek urn Grecian urn or something. So, truth is beauty, beauty is truth. I'm not sure if he based it on Kabbalah. But, it is undoubtedly true that in the world of the sefirot tiferet, which is beauty, is also called emet. And tiferet is the term that is applied to the Torah. We know in fact that Yaakov Avinu of the three patriarchs is the most that's directly connected to Torah. Remember the world Remember the world stands on three pillars, Pirkei Avot says, Torah, learning Torah, avodah, divine service, gemilut chasadim, loving kindness. And the four shall explain, Avraham represents service to God through loving kindness. And Yitzchak, who was willing to give his life as a korban, represents divine service. Yaakov, who spent 14 years in the yeshiva of Shem and Ever is the kol of Torah. So, you see the connection here? Yaakov represents tiferet, beauty. Beauty is emet. Torah is emet. Yaakov represents Torah. That is why the Maharal, who wrote a whole sefer on Matan Torah he wrote a sefer on the Exodus that is called Gevurot Hashem, the might of God and he wrote a sefer on Matan Torah. Many many big sefer that is called Tiferet Yisrael the beauty of Israel. Torah is tiferet. Tiferet is emet. So, now let's go back to the significance of the number three. Maharal says the significance of three, just like chesed, gevurah, tiferet triangle is the synthesis of opposite forces. So, too the Torah synthesizes forces that are otherwise opposite and opposing within the human personality. And that is the guf and the neshamah. We are all of us fundamentally schizophrenic because we have two identities. We have a spiritual soul that is the breath of God, the essence of God. As the Zohar says, "When I breathe into you, I give a person mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, part of my very life force goes into them." So, in a sense, as the kabbalists say, "Our neshamot are very different than any other neshamah." The soul of every other creature the living force is something God created. And God said, "Let there be cows." And God said, "Let there be dogs." So, they were created through God's speech. Our soul was not created by God's speech. Our soul was created by God's breath. That's very very different. In a sense again, it's very hard to understand this and this can be misunderstood our soul is not a created entity at all. Because God was pre-existing. God breathed what whatever that means, I don't know what it means, to tell you the truth. God breathes into us his breath. Now, God's breath was not created. God's breath is part of God because God is an indivisible unit. And God breathed his breath into us. So, this is the meaning of the oft-repeated statement our neshamot are chelek Eloka mimol is an actual part of God. And as the Baal Hatanya emphatically says, "Chelek Eloka mimol mamash." He adds the word mamash. Really is. Now this gives rise to a lot of things. You know, you know, the truth of the matter is these kabbalistic ideas have become common currency. I mean, you can you can hear any mashgiach, any uh yeshiva rebbe say, "Our neshamot are chelek Eloka mimol." It's it's a common way of describing it. One should know there's a tremendous tremendous tremendous controversy uh on those very words. And uh this was one of the great great controversies that the Vilna Gaon had against the Hasidic movement. We know that the Vilna Gaon did not get involved in Jewish politics too much. The Vilna Gaon's only interest in life was to serve Hashem to learn Torah, to teach Torah. He was not interested. The Vilna Gaon was not a rav. He was not a rosh yeshiva. Uh he did not have any position in the Jewish community other than the fact that he was the the you know, gadol of the generation. but he did not get involved in too many things outside of his learning and outside of his teaching. But one of the very, very few issues that he was very aggressive about was his opposition to the development of this new Hasidic movement. And to this, you know, he signed excommunications, different bans, and the like. Now, the story of why the Vilna Gaon was opposed to Hasidus is a complicated story and it's a multi-faceted story and one of the interesting things, maybe we'll give a shiur on it sometime, is his own disciple, Rav Chaim Volozhiner, who was very, very close to the Vilna Gaon, uh did not sign the bans against Hasidus. Many great rabbis joined the Vilna Gaon. Rav Chaim Volozhiner did not. People speculate, "Why? He was so close to the Vilna Gaon. How how could he not sign the Vilna Gaon's ban on Hasidus?" So, I think the explanation he himself gave was, "How dare he sign uh a ban with the Vilna Gaon? That would imply that the Vilna Gaon needs his agreement and of course he doesn't need his agreement, so he's not going to sign." In reality, however, it's very, very clear that Rav Chaim Volozhiner had a much more conciliatory view of Hasidus than the Vilna Gaon and in fact in the great Yeshiva of Volozhin, uh he uh admitted Hasidic students and they even say, although maybe uh that's not a proof, that his own son, Rav Yitzchak of Volozhin, who became the Rosh Yeshiva of Volozhin after Rav Chaim died, and Rav Yitzchak of Volozhin was the father-in-law of the Netziv, that Rav Yitzchak of Volozhin had Hasidic books in his library that he sometimes read. But again, that's no proof. Yitzchak of Volozhin but Rav Chaim was a very independent character. He wanted to go to medical school at one point. Rav Chaim Volozhiner used to say, "I founded the holy Yeshiva, Yeshiva, so my son shouldn't go to medical school." And the fact that I kept him out of medical school, dayenu, that justified the holy Yeshiva, so it's not a riot. But so the the the the actual controversies the Vilna Gaon had with Hasidus are complicated, but one of them involves this issue. And again, I'm just going to mention issues. I'm not going to address them or answer them or fully explain them because they are Kabbalistic. And that is the notion that within every person is not just God created me, but God is within me. The breath of God, the chelek Eloka mima'al. If you think about it, creates enormous theological problems that are connected to pantheism. I'm God, you're God. And then somebody even extended to the inanimate, you know, God is is is here, God is there. If everything is God, then no one is God. Why do I have to listen to God if I'm God? So, the Vilna Gaon did not like to talk about, you know, the essence of God is within me. He says, "God creates me. God sustains me. God is my creator, but not that God is in me per se." So, we're not going to get into it, but but suffice it to say that we do believe, at least mainstream at this point, just as um John Kennedy, uh President JFK, said back in the in the uh early '60s, he went to uh West Berlin and he said, "We are all Berliners." So, the truth is uh we are all Kabbalists today. Uh people don't realize that Kabbalah has taken over mainstream Judaism, whether you like it or not. Uh we routinely utilize the vocabulary of Hasidic and Kabbalistic thoughts as the common method of expression. Okay, that's a bit of a digression. All I'm saying is our souls are a spiritual entity, the breath of God, chelek Eloka mima'al. And the soul only has one desire. The only thing the soul wants is to be connected to its roots, to be connected to God through Torah, through mitzvahs, through ma'asim tovim, through ahavas Yisrael. But we are also bodies. Our bodies are yetzer hara, you can describe it in different ways, has many other things that it wants. It seeks ta'avah, physical pleasures, laziness, whether it's food or sexual relations, or accumulation of money, or sleep. So, we have this irreconcilable conflict between body and soul. We have this conflict between gashmius, physicality, and ruchnius, spirituality. And sometimes on a good day the ruchnius wins and the yetzer tov is victorious. And there are going to be other times in which the other side wins and we get pulled down. How do you navigate it? It's like that line with two opposite points, the ruchnius, the gashmius. Sometimes I'm there, sometimes I'm there. But the Torah says, the Maharal, is connected to the magic number three because the Torah creates a synthesis, an integration, a harmo- harmonization of body and soul. Because the Torah teaches us that you can serve God not only by avoiding physicality and materialism, like by davening, learning, getting away from the physical, but you can serve God within the context of physicality itself. You can eat and enjoy your food, but by making brachos and by having gratitude to Hashem and by having kavana that at least in part I'm eating to give me the health to be able to serve Hashem better. So, as the Rambam himself writes, at that point even the physical activities you're engaged in become kodesh. They become holy. They become elevated. They become spiritualized. A person plays basketball, a person jogs. Now, the Rambam makes a very interesting point about physical activity. Actually, it's a very fascinating point. And everyone knows that the Rambam was of course a physician and he was a very famous physician. The Rambam was actually one of the great physicians of the Middle Ages and along with his halachic works that are still and philosophical works that are of course still learned, he actually he he also wrote many medical works. Again, I I would say that they're less studied, maybe for good reason, but he wrote treatises on asthma and on stomach problems and the like, but in the Mishneh Torah itself, he incorporates two chapters in Hilchos De'os on exercise and diet and things that will uh help you from uh from getting ill and the like. And in fact, uh much of that medical advice is still considered valid and uh there are even diet books, modern diet books, that are written based on the Rambam's suggested diet and the like. So, the Rambam was a very big advocate, as you would expect, for physical health, including diet, exercise, sleep, all of the things that we would normally associate today. But in his introduction to Pirkei Avos, that's called the Shmona Perakim, he makes a very fascinating point. He says that the only thing that a person should think about in life is, "Whenever you have to make a decision, is this going to bring me closer to Hashem, or is this going to take me further from Hashem?" And every decision has to be made in light of that purpose. Now, he says, "All of us would agree generally that if somebody is addicted to food, that's kind of a disgusting thing. No, what do you know? Food, sex, you know, why is he addicted to it all the time? And yet we don't think that way," the Rambam says, "if somebody is addicted to health. Let's say the person Now, there are people who are addicted to exercise. They jog, you know, 8 hours a day, whatever it is. We think, 'Well, that's virtuous.' We look at that guy," the Rambam says and says, "That's a tzaddik. He takes care of himself." And we look at that guy, "That guy's a glutton." The Rambam says, "What's the difference? One guy's addicted to food and one guy's addicted to good health." He says, "Health is not inherently more virtuous than any other addiction. Ah, but the greatness of good health is it's not an intrinsic good. It is what we call an instrumental good. By good health, I'm able to serve Hashem. I'm able to live longer and do more mitzvahs. I'll be there for my spouse and children." See, it's a very interesting point. Health is very important, but health is important not because it's intrinsically valuable. He says, "It's no more intrinsically valuable than anything else you do with your life." But health is the means that can bring you to the things that are truly important. And that's why indeed, the Rambam says, there's a mitzvah to take care of your health. But one should not look at health as the end all of life. The purpose of my life is not to be healthy. This is my little joke they say about uh the uh the person when on their exercise program, he said, 'Well, you know, I got good news. Uh if you jog, you You add 5 years to your life, but those are the 5 years that you're jogging, so you don't come out necessarily so much ahead in terms of that, right? So health is not the end of things. But health is a means. So, here is the point. The Rambam writes that if I play basketball, I jog, and I do so with a kavana that I want to be healthy to be able to serve Hashem, that becomes serving God. The exercise is serving God. The jogging is serving God. If I go to see the Grand Canyon, because by looking at the granders of nature, I have a sense of awe. That can become if I go to look at beautiful places simply because beauty calms my spirit, and it gives me serenity. And when I have serenity, I can concentrate on davening better, whatever it would be. That becomes avodas Hashem. And the Rambam says that this is the meaning of Chazal's statement, Kol ma'asecha yiyu leshem shamayim. All of your deeds should be for the sake of heaven. Not just the religious deeds, not just your learning, not just your davening, but your jogging, and your traveling, and your going on vacation, and your eating. Do it leshem shamayim. Now again, we're we're most of us are not on the madrega where we can do it 100% that way. There's always going to be an aspect. Indeed, part of why God put taste into food is so that we'll eat what we need to eat. If it wouldn't have any taste, we might, you know, maybe be good for our diet. We would lose weight, but we wouldn't eat what we need to eat. So Hashem creates colors and tastes and textures precisely so we'll be attracted to things. Ein achina ami. But if you just add a little leshem shamayim to what you're doing, then you have transformed the mundane, the secular, the physical, the material to holy work, avodas Hashem. That's a great thing. Holiness is not necessarily by withdrawing from the material world. Holiness is even higher when you can elevate the material world by sanctifying it leshem shamayim. So the Maharal says, going back to the original question, this is why the Torah is connected to the number three. It takes the needs of the body and the needs of the soul opposite and gives us a way to synthesize it them and integrate them, in which my body gets its due, and at the same time that is feeding the neshama as well. Actually, last week that that's one of the lessons of Tu Bishvat. You take the peiros, you take the eating, and you elevate it leshem leshem Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Right? So this is the yesod of why so many parts of Matan Torah are connected to the number three. Thank you. The Baber Rebbe says an interesting point. Again, this is more connected to Shavuos, but I'll but I'll mention it. You know, this parsha is the parsha of Matan Torah. Everyone knows that there's a widespread custom in Klal Yisrael that people try to stay up all night Shavuos night, learn all night. And the source of that minhag is a midrash that says that the night before Matan Torah, the Jewish people went to sleep, and Hashem came at the crack of dawn to give them the Torah, and people are still sleeping, so God had to wait for us, whatever that means. And therefore, in order to make up, in order to rectify the fact that we kept God waiting, we kind of get up before dawn. That's why I tell people, if you can't stay up all night, and your question is, should I learn late or get up early? I think the logic of the custom is to get up early, because I think the main point is that when the dawn comes, you are there to receive the Torah. So instead of learning till 2:30 or 3:00, go to if you can't stay up all night, go to sleep at 10:00, and you know, get up so you're up before dawn, and therefore you're rectifying the sin of Am Yisrael who who slept when God showed up in the morning. Right? This is a midrash. Now, the midrash doesn't bring the minhag. The minhag developed much later. The minhag developed in the time of Rabbi Yosef Caro and and the like, but it's based on this midrash that Klal Yisrael were asleep. So the Rebbe asks a very simple question. You know, you know you're told that the next day you're going to get the Torah. And this is the very purpose of Yetziat Mitzrayim. And for 49 days you were preparing yourself, going up from level to level. We left Mitzrayim on the 49th level of tumah, but by the end of the Omer period, we had reached the 49th level of holiness. So we're going to sleep, and we're not going to get up in time? And most of us probably wouldn't have been able to sleep, you know, Matan Torah the next day. How could How could you sleep? And how can you get up late? So the Rebbe explains that this sleep was a very different type type of sleep. This was a holy sleep. There's a midrash, another midrash that describes the sleep that there were no mosquitoes, there were no flies. There was an aura of holiness. And the idea of the sleep was that sometimes when a person wants to reach great levels of kedusha, they cannot do so in the confines of a physical body. The guf is a mechitza. The guf is a barrier to communion with God. So with the great tzaddikim, and the Vilna Gaon writes this, their neshamos, their godly souls, not their biological soul, their godly soul leaves their body, goes up to shamayim, absorbs all sorts of secrets and wisdom, which it couldn't really comprehend in a physical body, and then comes down. That's one of the reasons, you know, it's a well-known idea that sometimes when you have a problem that you can't figure out, you go to sleep, and you wake up with the answer. Somehow like your subconscious mind figured things out. Well, cabalistically, the way this would be explained is when your neshama escaped the confines and limitations of the physical guf, it was able to reach a higher level of perception that it then brings back to you. In fact, this might be one of the reasons for sleep, right? In in fact, uh a very interesting philosophical question, a spiritual question is, why on earth did God create us with the need to sleep? I mean, you know, look at how many hours of our lives are spent in sleep. That's even if you sleep I mean, let's assume you sleep 3 hours a night. How many hours that is? And you know, if you sleep more than that, and you need to sleep more than that, what's the tachlis that I kind of am dead for so many hours every day? It's a very good question. Like, what is the purpose of sleep? One of the reasons is that this is an occasion for your neshama to escape the body and achieve perceptions of ruchniyus that you otherwise wouldn't be able to perceive, and then it comes back. Now, we're not always on that madrega, either, but among the great tzaddikim, they achieve great great aliyos in the concept of sleep. By the way, the Rebbe gave another reason for sleep in a different talk. He said, the purpose of sleep is to give us a sense of renewal, because otherwise a person let's assume that I get avairos and everything else, and I feel it's dragging. I feel that I haven't accomplished. I feel that I'm a failure. But when I sleep, and it's a new day, so psychologically I feel a little liberated from that past. It's a way of giving a person a sense that something new is happening. If you wouldn't sleep, there would never be a newness to your life per se. Okay. But be this as it may, the Rebbe, going back to the Shavuos thing, so the Rebbe said, Klal Yisrael slept the night before Matan Torah not because they were stump sleeping. They slept because they thought that would be an aliyas neshama. They wanted their neshamos to absorb higherness from God. And they felt they could do this only if the neshama transcended the body. So, that sounds good. So what's the aveira? The aveira is that Matan Torah is not about escaping the physical. Matan Torah is serving God within the physical. Yeah, they had a cheshbon. They had a very very good cheshbon. But that's not what Torah is about. Torah does not say, "Serve God by rejecting the physical." The Torah says, "Serve God by taking the physical and elevating it." And therefore, yes, be in your body, stay in your body, remain with your physicality, and serve Hashem by elevating it. And that's kind of the tikkun of staying up all night in our tired, you know, lack of focus state, in which we're serving Hakadosh Baruch Hu with our guf, and not only with our with our neshama. And the my going back to the Maharal, you know, I'm combining different things, this is the idea of the Torah connected to the number three. Three is synthesis, integration, harmony. Chesed, gevurah, tiferes is what Actually actually, I should clarify. If you've been following me, I've actually mentioned two different types of synthesis. One is chesed, gevurah, tiferes, the other is body soul integration. And there was really speaking about two different integrations. The Torah integrates the meter of Hesed with the boundaries. And the Torah integrates the ruchniyus and the gashmiyus, right? Those are two different integrations, but both of them are subsumed under three, which is Tiferet, beauty, which is Torah, which is emet, truth. Truth can only exist when conflicting opposite forces are harmonized and balanced. And you don't go to one extreme or another. Extreme will always be a distortion of emet. That itself has a lot of relevance to many other questions as well. Um okay. So now I just want to give you one more example of this, and this is a thought from another Hasidic rebbe, the great Rav Zadok of Lublin, who uh died in 1900. As he points out that uh right before the Aseret Hadibrot, the morning of the 6th of Sivan or the 7th of Sivan, there's actually a machlokes in the Gemara, was the Torah given on the 6th of Sivan or was the Torah given on the 7th of Sivan? By the way, I just want to point out just for your own knowledge, and I'm not going to address this. This is not a machlokes when Shavuot is. People sometimes get confused. Oh, we have a machlokes in the Gemara, is Shavuot 6 or 7? No, Shavuot is by the 6th. But there's a machlokes, did we get the Aseret Hadibrot on Shavuot or did we get it the day after Shavuot? And indeed, the Maggid of Mezritch asked the kasha, what's the sense here? If the Torah was given on the 7th, why wouldn't we celebrate Shavuot on the 6th? Good kasha, we'll talk about it later, but it doesn't change it. Shavuot is not affected by this controversy, but this controversy is historical. Was the Torah given on the 6th or was it given on the 7th? But that morning, it describes kolos, there was thunder, u v'rakim, and lightning flashes. And Chazal even say that they heard uh They They Sorry, they saw the sound and they heard the colors. In other words, there there was What do they call kinesthesia? There's that thing where your different senses move up with the thing. What is it called? Synesthesia. Synesthesia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they experienced that. So look at what it says. Kolos, u v'rakim, thunder and lightning flashes. And then Hashem gives the Aseret Hadibrot or the first two, that itself is a big machlokes, did we hear only two and then we asked Moshe to be the intermediary, intermediary, that's how Rashi understands it, or did we hear all 10? That's a big big machlokes in Rishonim, what exactly did we hear? But after we heard what we heard, it then repeats, everybody saw the kolos, the thunder, v'lapidim, and the torches, the flames in the sky. So Rav Zadok points out, there is a subtle distinction between the pre-Matan Torah description and the post-Matan Torah description. Pre-Matan Torah, it's kolos u v'rakim, thunder and lightning. After Matan Torah, it says kolos v'lapidim, thunder and torches. Very small difference, flames. But Rav Zadok wants to suggest that the difference in the visualization of Am Yisrael represents a spiritual transformation pre-Matan Torah and post-Matan Torah. Even before the Torah was given, the human being, even a non-Jew, has a spiritual desire to be connected to God. The statement that everyone is created in the image of God applies to Jew and non-Jew. But without a Torah, you can only achieve holiness by rejecting the physical. The physical is going to drag you down. The physical is going to connect you to your animal self. So you only can achieve kedusha. That is why, for example, Christianity, or at least the Catholicism, requires celibacy. Because in the act of a sexual union, you're going to be dragged down. Poverty. Whether it works or not is is another question, but nevertheless, the model of holiness in these religions is one of asceticism, renunciation, separation. But the problem is, there's no way you can ever be totally separated. As aesthetic as you want to aesthetic as you want to be, you have to eat. You have to sleep. You have to go to the bathroom. You can't escape the body that you're in. So Rav Zadok says, that modality of kedusha is described as lightning. Because what is lightning? A brilliant flash of light that then plunges you into total darkness. Light, darkness, on, off. That's the holiness of dichotomy. That's the holiness of contradiction. When I give in to my body, I'm not with God. And when I feed my soul and deny my body, I am with God. On, off. Schizophrenia. No consistency. That is the holiness of lightning. Brilliant light, ecstasy, followed by darkness. The Torah taught the Jewish people a new way to connect to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Connecting to Hakadosh Baruch Hu not by rejecting the physical, but by taking the physical and elevating it. Now there, at this point, I'm no longer living in a world of contradiction. At this point, even my physicality can be a way to serve Hashem. So that's described as a torch. The difference between a torch, a lapid, and a barak. I know in Israel we have two politicians, we have Ehud Barak and and Yair Lapid, Yair Lapid. Okay, but putting the politicians aside, the difference between a barak and a lapid is a barak is brilliant light followed by total darkness. A lapid is not as brilliant as a lightning It flickers. But it's constant. It gives you warmth, it gives you light, it gives you direction. So it's true, when I live a life in the physical world, maybe the holiness of my experience is not going to be as great, but it will be enduring. I remember years ago, before they built uh they improved the road to Tzfat, uh to get to Tzfat, you had to go around a mountain path over and over and over. You really got got carsick. And but there was no there was also no railing. And at night, you sometimes had this sense it was extremely dangerous. The bus, God forbid, could just fall off the side of the of the mountain. In fact, that's the old joke that they say about uh the Egged bus driver. Now we have these other companies now, but I'll I'll go with Egged, that's the familiar. The Egged bus driver and the great Rosh Yeshiva, they died the same time, and they both came up to Gan Eden. And the Egged bus driver got in right away, and the great Rosh Yeshiva, they said, "Well, we have to wait, we have to look through your life a little bit and determine." So the Rosh Yeshiva complained a little bit. Again, I'm sure really he wouldn't do it, but he complained, you know, "Hey, this guy's not even from, you know, he gets in right away, and you know, you're making me wait." So they said, "Well, listen, how many people did you get to say Tehillim? You know, the Egged bus driver got thousands of people say Tehillim over his life. He caused more more zechuyos than even you. So imagine if you had to navigate the bus had to navigate the hairpin turns by a without headlights, just by the light of lightning. It'd be pretty scary. It's scary anyway, you know, a flash of light, but then you're dark again. But if you even had a torch or a headlight, that can give you some confidence that you know what you're doing. Right? So that's what Rav Zadok says. Rav Zadok says, in some ways, it's almost a tragic compromise, because a life of asceticism, a life of renunciation, a life of separation from the body can give me moments of ecstasy that I might not be able to have living a mundane life. But instead of going from holiness, light to darkness, I have a way of integrating. And that's what Matan Torah is. So I think Rav Zadok's words about barak versus lapid ties in very well with the Maharal's idea of the explanation of Maseches Shabbos that the Torah is connected to three. And ultimately, we'll go back to the Rambam, right? That's our third text where the Rambam makes the point that knowing Hashem in all your ways means your eating and your drinking and your vacation and your exercise can all be elevated. Going to museums can all be elevated as aspects to serving Hakadosh Baruch Hu as a whole person. Your body is not necessarily your enemy. Your body can be a tremendous Your physical needs, your emotional needs, they can be a tremendous vehicle that can help you in serving Hashem. So, be as it is Hashem, we should uh be zoche to balance the body and the soul that they should work in harmony. Thank you.