Tazria: Is the 'Miracle of Swallowing' Greater Than the Giving of the Torah at Sinai? • Rabbi Yechezkel Sofer

00:06 Hello to all our viewers and listeners. We’re continuing with the fascinating parshiyos of the Book of Bamidbar. Last week was the story of the spies, and this week, with remarkably topical timing, we read about a vote of no confidence in the authority of the greatest of all prophets. Suddenly, people cast doubt on him, to the point that an election was needed: Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself had to choose—“the one whom Hashem chooses, he is the holy one.” And how did the story of Korach’s assembly end? Moshe proved to them that everything he had done was not of his own initiative. The verse says, in chapter 16, verse 28: “Moshe said, ‘By this you shall know that Hashem sent me to do all these things, and that they were not of my own heart.’” What was the test? “If these men die the death of all men, and the fate of all men befalls them”—in other words, if Korach’s assembly dies an ordinary, normal death, like everyone else, that is a sign that Hashem did not send me. Rashi says: “And he is right to challenge me.” But if “Hashem creates a new creation,” a special, extraordinary miracle, “and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them and all that belongs to them, and they descend alive into the grave, then you shall know that these men have scorned Hashem.” And everything I did was “not of my own heart.” Hashem sent me. This whole story raises many questions. First, the most puzzling thing: this was a generation in which 600,000 eyewitnesses and earwitnesses had seen the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai with their own eyes. They saw the fulfillment of the verse, “Behold, I come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people will hear when I speak with you,” and in the same breath Hakadosh Boruch Hu promised him, “And they will believe in you forever.” Could people in such a generation question Moshe’s prophecy? Could they suggest, G-d forbid, that Hashem had not sent him? How could such a thing be? Interestingly, this question applies specifically to this story, even though there had been various complaints before.

03:37 There had also been gatherings against him. Complaints are something else. When people are in the desert without food or water, afraid of their enemies, it is natural for them to be frightened, to grumble and complain. But why complain specifically to Moshe? Because you know he has the power to help. He is Hashem’s prophet. He is the one to turn to, even with complaints—you are allowed to complain. But you know he is the authority. To challenge his very authority is something else. The commentators also grapple with a promise the Rambam writes about in Igeres Teiman, where he needed to strengthen those whom the Muslims were trying to turn away from Judaism. He strengthened them through the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, and then wrote in Igeres Teiman: “The Creator, blessed be He, has already given us His guarantee, like someone who stands surety for his fellow—and His guarantee is enough for us.” He is saying, as it were, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu signed a guarantee, for He said, “And they will believe in you forever.” The Rambam then reaches a startling conclusion: We must therefore know that anyone who turns away from the faith given at that event is not descended from the people who were there. Someone whose ancestors stood at Mount Sinai cannot deny that event, which was so clear to 600,000 eyewitnesses. And our Sages likewise said, the Rambam continues: Anyone who doubts prophecy—his ancestors did not stand at Mount Sinai. He is speaking many generations later, in his own time. All the more so in Moshe Rabbeinu’s time, when they were the first generation. They had not heard about it from their grandmothers. They themselves had witnessed the entire event at Mount Sinai. How could they deny it? And what is even more puzzling is that the Ramban actually sharpens the question further. When Moshe speaks of “all these things,” was their dispute only about the appointment of Aharon and the appointment of Elitzafan, or was it about everything? On the verse “If these men die the death of all men,” verse 29, which we just read, the Ramban says

06:37 this: “They scorned the honor of the teacher and denied all the acts of Hashem that He performed in Egypt and in the desert, and even the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, about which it was said, ‘And they will believe in you forever.’ They said he was unfit to rule over them and that nothing but harm had come to them through him. This is the meaning of ‘Hashem did not send me’”—the Ramban explains it to mean—“that He never sent me to bring them out of Egypt at all.” In other words, they denied the whole thing from the very beginning. And he explains that “all these things” means the things you saw with your own eyes, referring to everything Moshe did from the day Hashem told him, “Go, and I will send you to Pharaoh.” How is that possible? It only sharpens the question: How could they deny all that? Many commentators have grappled with this question, and it is interesting to see the approach their answers take. Some of the teachers of mussar, in explanations attributed to the Sfas Emes and Rabbi Chaim of Brisk, say that the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai rules out only an intellectual denial. That is, if someone were to come and try to prove logically that it could not have happened, I could show him logically that the testimony of 600,000 witnesses is evidence that cannot be denied. But that does not rule out, they argue, a kind of denial that comes from jealousy and desire—an illogical denial born of a quest for power. Because if you say such denial is impossible, does that mean free choice has been taken away? When Hakadosh Boruch Hu declared, “And they will believe in you forever,” did He take away a person’s freedom to deny what happened at Mount Sinai? That cannot be. What about Korach? So they argue that Korach did not really think Moshe had not been sent by Hashem. There is an expression: Korach knew Moshe Rabbeinu and intended to rebel against him. He wanted a position, and that drove him to voice an illogical denial. But their answer

09:21 needs further examination. After all, the jealousy and personal interests belonged only to Korach and his group. They were the ones with those interests. So, with difficulty, we can understand how, despite the Divine promise, they acted brazenly and decided to oppose Moshe. But the big question is: How was all of Israel drawn in after them? They assembled the entire congregation. Interestingly, we also do not find anyone protesting and saying, “How dare you! How can you turn against Moshe Rabbeinu? Didn’t you see all the miracles?” And since they were silent, they apparently agreed. Did they also... Did they also want the priesthood? We know what On ben Peles’s wife said to him: “Why do you need this whole dispute? What will you get out of it? Do you have any stake in it? Why put yourself in the middle of a dispute in which you have no personal interest?” So what about all of Israel? On the other hand, another question arises: Fine, let’s say that for some reason they did deny his authority. Moshe Rabbeinu comes and says, “Now I’ll show you that Hashem sent me.” How? Through the miracle of the earth swallowing them. But if the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, all ten plagues, the manna in the desert, and everything else did not convince them that Moshe was Hashem’s prophet and faithful to his mission, how would this miracle of the earth swallowing them help? What makes it stronger proof than everything that had already happened? And if someone says it was because of personal interests, then tomorrow someone else with personal interests could come along and say, “Moshe made the earth swallow them.” More than that, the main weakness in their answers is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu said, “And they will believe in you forever.” That is not merely a promise. As the Rebbe says in one of his sichos—he addresses this question too, in volume 18 of Likkutei Sichos—regarding Hashem’s promise, “And they will believe in you forever,” he says: Moshe Rabbeinu, in his great

12:05 In his humility, he thought to himself that perhaps he had not been worthy, that perhaps he had become tainted by sin, as Yaakov Avinu had thought, and that was why the promise had not been fulfilled. Here we should note that although a prophecy of good must come true, the commentators have already said that this applies only to a prophecy a prophet delivers to the people. Hashem cannot go back on His word. But this prophecy was spoken privately to Moshe: Hashem had said, “And in you, too, they will believe forever.” We know about it only because Moshe wrote it in the Torah, but it was between them. So he thought that he had not merited their believing in him forever. And it is not only that Hakadosh Boruch Hu acted as a guarantor—as the Rambam puts it, one who becomes a guarantor for his fellow. There is something simpler here: a basic principle of human psychology, that a person cannot deny what his own eyes have seen. How could an entire generation that saw it with their own eyes deny it, even without Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s promise? If not for what the Rambam says in Igeres Teiman, we could say it was not a promise at all, just a fact. As long as I had not come to you before their eyes, there could be a situation in which they would not believe me. They could say to me, “Hashem did not appear to you. We weren’t with you at the burning bush. We don’t know whether it happened.” But He came to you in the thick cloud, and the people heard Him speaking with you. So naturally, “in you, too, they will believe forever.” If so, how could this happen? True, earlier he raised the idea that Hashem does not take away free choice, right? In terms of free choice, a person who wants to rebel against Moshe can choose to say, with chutzpah, “I refuse to follow Moshe Rabbeinu.” In practice, then, he refuses. But he cannot justify a refusal that contradicts both reason and his senses. So the question is: How could all of Israel have been drawn after him without protesting at all?

14:47 That means they thought there was some justice in his claims. There were also 250 heads of Sanhedrins there—a veritable council of leading Torah scholars. But besides that question, there is another very serious question about this parsha. Seemingly, the whole miracle of the earth opening its mouth and swallowing Korach and his company did nothing to prove that Moshe’s prophecy was true. Why? Let’s hear what the Rambam says in chapter 8 of Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah. He discusses Moshe’s prophecy there. Interestingly, the eighth of the Rambam’s thirteen principles is that the Torah is from Heaven. He says: “Israel did not believe in Moshe Rabbeinu because of the signs he performed, for one who believes on the basis of signs has a doubt in his heart.” What does that mean? A nagging doubt beneath the surface; he may have some doubt. Why? “Because the sign could have been performed through sleight of hand or sorcery.” After all, the Torah is full of accounts of the Egyptian magicians. And it says, “You shall not allow a sorceress to live.” Is there such a thing in the world—sorcerers doing astonishing supernatural things? So someone could mistakenly think so. Not, G-d forbid, that the Rambam says Moshe’s miracles were done through sleight of hand or sorcery. But an objective skeptic could say, “How do I know? True, the sea split and the manna came down. Perhaps it was done through sleight of hand or sorcery.” Wait—if the Rambam maintains that a sign or wonder cannot prove Moshe’s prophecy, why did Moshe perform them at all? He immediately says something remarkable: “All the signs Moshe performed in the wilderness were performed as needed, not to bring proof of his prophecy.” Later he explains what the decisive proof of his prophecy was: that they heard Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself speaking to him. In other words, all the other miracles were events in the natural world, changes in the order of creation. They might be brought about by a true prophet or by a sorcerer.

17:59 But they heard the voice of Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. That could not be sleight of hand or sorcery, as the Rambam explains there. So it is clear that a sign or wonder, however great, does not prove that Moshe is Hashem’s prophet. If so, we have a real problem: the Rambam contradicts himself. In his Commentary on the Mishnah, where he sets out his thirteen principles, he says: “The eighth principle is that the Torah is from Heaven.” What does that mean? “We must believe that this entire Torah, given through Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, is wholly from the Almighty. It is exactly the form in which the blessed Hashem told it to Moshe, and he was faithful in his mission.” Now, as is the Rambam’s way, he provides a Scriptural basis for every statement. What tells us that there is such a principle, that the Torah is from Heaven? He says, “The statement that teaches this principle is: ‘And Moshe said, “By this you shall know that Hashem sent me to do all these deeds, and that they did not come from my own heart.”’” Did you hear that, everyone? What does the Rambam say is the decisive proof of Moshe’s prophecy? What happened there, when the earth swallowed them? “By this you shall know”? That raises a question. According to the Rambam, how could the miracle of their being swallowed prove the truth of Moshe’s prophecy to Korach’s company? They could still have a doubt in their hearts. Someone could say, “Perhaps Moshe caused the earth to swallow them through sleight of hand or sorcery.” So you have no proof here at all. In other words, this whole story is difficult from every angle. How could doubts about Moshe’s prophecy have entered their minds? And on the other hand, how did this test—the earth swallowing them—prove it to them more conclusively than the revelation at Mount Sinai or all the other miracles? When they rejected the other miracles, they did not deny that they had happened;

20:49 they denied that they came from Hashem. So what were they? Acts of sorcery. Could the miracle of the earth swallowing them have been one of those too? Where is the proof? Let’s see, then, how we might explain the deeper meaning of the dispute there. Rabbi Yorba, this one is for you. Korach did not doubt Moshe’s prophecy for a moment. What do I mean? That Moshe brought us the Torah, took us out of Egypt, brought down the manna and brought us the quail, and conveyed all the Torah and mitzvos. How do I know he did not doubt it? In the middle of the dispute, he himself says to Moshe, “Why do you raise yourselves above the congregation? The entire congregation—all of them—are holy.” Rashi says: “All of them heard ‘I am Hashem your G-d’ at Sinai.” So you are contradicting yourself right there. You admit that everyone heard at Sinai that Moshe is Hashem’s prophet. How dare you dispute him? That already resolves the question about “in you, too, they will believe forever.” He did believe! How could he not? So what was his dispute about? Korach cleverly drew a distinction. An interesting point: a machlokes, a dispute, can also mean making a distinction. There is a difference between the mitzvos of the Torah—the Shulchan Aruch, the 613 mitzvos—and something else. On that subject, he did not dispute Moshe; he never dreamed of disputing him. Take the law of Pesach Sheini, for example. Nobody got up and said to Moshe, “Hey, where did you suddenly get that from? You already told us the laws of Pesach in Parshas Bo, and we observe it on 14 Nissan. Now you’ve suddenly come up with—what is this?” Nobody asked that. “Stand by, and I will hear what Hashem commands concerning you.” Everyone knew that Moshe had received a prophecy from Hashem, and they observed Pesach Sheini too. Or take something closer to Korach: they all wrapped themselves in tallisos made of techeiles. Leave aside the techeiles—why did they wrap themselves in tallisos? They had just received a mitzvah, and they put tzitzis on them. So if you don’t believe Moshe, don’t

23:33 Wrap yourself in a tallis—with techeiles or without it. The whole argument was whether a tallis made entirely of techeiles requires tzitzis, contrary to what seems logical, or is exempt from tzitzis. He thought the exemption made sense, but he did not say that the entire passage of tzitzis was not from Hashem, because everyone knew that Moshe was Hashem’s prophet, entrusted with conveying the 613 mitzvos. He wanted to distinguish between the mitzvos and political appointments. Positions of authority are another matter. Today there is a modern name for it: when a ruler gives jobs to members of his family, it is called nepotism. That means favoring relatives. So he suspected Moshe. Perhaps these appointments were not from the Shulchan Aruch. They were not among the 613 mitzvos incumbent on every Jew. Perhaps he decided to appoint his relatives based on what seemed right to him. If so, I am not disputing the revelation at Mount Sinai. The revelation at Mount Sinai happened, and the entire Torah and all its mitzvos are true. But not everything Moshe does, every political appointment, comes from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So he thought that perhaps those appointments came from Moshe’s own inclination. We can add here, in parentheses, that the Rebbe adds another element in his sicha that makes Korach’s objection more subtle. It is not that Moshe wanted to give his brother and relatives preferential treatment. Rather, the Rebbe explains that Korach thought Moshe had asked Hakadosh Boruch Hu and prevailed upon Him to agree to give him the position. But Korach thought that this was not necessarily something eternal, like the eternity of the Torah. So now we will pray that Hashem make all of us kohanim. “Do you seek the priesthood too?” You could read it not only as “Do you seek the priesthood too?” but as “You, too, should ask for the priesthood”—perhaps He will give it to you. So there is no denial of the revelation at Mount Sinai here? What will Moshe Rabbeinu do now? He cannot shout at them, “What about

26:21 the revelation at Mount Sinai?” They say, “No problem. Whatever you tell us concerning Torah and mitzvos, we are your servants. We will do everything you say. But there are personal matters that may not be from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Prove it.” And the revelation at Mount Sinai will not help here, because it does not prove that every move, every idea and every appointment Moshe makes comes directly from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So Moshe faces a dilemma. He has to provide additional evidence beyond the revelation at Mount Sinai. What must that evidence prove? That it is not only with regard to mitzvos that we say Moshe’s prophecy is eternally valid; everything Moshe commands in the name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is included in the truth of Moshe’s Torah. The revelation at Mount Sinai alone is not enough to establish this particular point. A special sign is needed, in which Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself will make it clear: “Everything Moshe says is from Me.” We can take an example from the weekly parsha. It says that Moshe asked Hakadosh Boruch Hu, “Do not turn toward their offering.” Rashi asks there: Which offering of theirs? Even the incense they will offer before You—let it not be accepted before You. I thought of a question: Why does he need to ask for that? They are throwing off the yoke, rebelling against Moshe and his Torah, speaking against Hashem and His anointed one. If any non-Jew took a firepan and offered incense, would we need to ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu to be so kind as not to accept it? It would accomplish nothing in the first place. Just as if a non-Jew puts on tefillin, it accomplishes nothing. Perhaps we can say that because Moshe was the one who instructed them, “Take firepans for yourselves,” it is like what we say about sacrifices, which may not be offered outside the Beis Hamikdash. But if a prophet gives a temporary instruction to offer a sacrifice on Mount Carmel, the Rebbe says that not only must it be done because the Torah says, “You shall listen to him”; more than that, it has the status of a sacrifice.

29:13 And it is not considered a sacrifice slaughtered outside the Beis Hamikdash. So because Moshe instructed them to take the firepans—it was not that they brazenly took them on their own; he told them to—one might think their offering would have the status of incense. And afterward Hashem says about the firepans, “For they have become holy”: take them and make them into a covering for the altar. “For they have become holy,” Rashi says, means that they became sacred service vessels. How did they become sacred service vessels? After all, this was against Hashem! Because Moshe told them to do it. But we know that. They thought that when Moshe says something outside the realm of Torah and mitzvos—whether it is a political appointment or some particular suggestion he makes to someone—it is not necessarily from Hashem. Prove it. So what will Moshe do now? The simplest possibility would be for Hakadosh Boruch Hu to appear again on Mount Sinai before the entire congregation and tell them explicitly, “Moshe Rabbeinu is My agent to appoint Aharon.” Then it would be clear to everyone. But there is a principle: we cannot expect Hakadosh Boruch Hu to reveal Himself again. The revelation at Mount Sinai was a one-time event for all eternity. So to wait for Hakadosh Boruch Hu to reveal Himself again and tell everyone explicitly? There is no chance. What, then? We will perform a miracle for them. So what? We said earlier that, as the Rambam says, Moshe’s prophecy is not based on signs and miracles. Many people perform signs and miracles, and a skeptic can say, “I saw something beyond nature. I cannot deny it happened, but perhaps it was done through occult powers and sorcery.” What can be done? Moshe therefore had to ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu for such an extraordinary miracle that no one could claim it might have been done through occult powers and sorcery. What kind of miracle would that be? Here is an interesting idea. Anyone who has read both Tanach and history knows of various displays of sorcery by the Egyptian magicians. And

31:57 throughout history, too, there have been sorcerers who did supernatural things. An essential part of the definition of occult powers and sorcery is that the sorcerer performs some action, such as stretching out a staff or scattering soot from a furnace, or that he pronounces a curse. “Through their secret arts, through their incantations.” He says some curse, and it takes effect. What was exceptional about the miracle of the earth swallowing them—something unlike any earlier miracle—was that Moshe did not perform any action. Follow the verse. It does not say that Moshe raised his hand and then the earth split open. It does not say that he struck the ground with his staff and split it open. It does not even say that he spoke to the earth. Had he said, “All of you, go into the ground,” then his words would have had an effect. What do we actually see? He only made an arrangement with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Before Hakadosh Boruch Hu and all of the Jewish people, he set out two possibilities. He said, “Everyone, look, I am doing nothing. If they die as all people die, in the ordinary way, that proves they are right. Hashem truly did not send me. But if you see the earth open its mouth and swallow them”—he did not tell the earth, “Open your mouth.” He performed no action; he merely presented it as a possibility. You, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, decide. And here there is an astonishing, very straightforward verse. The Torah says in verse 31, “And it came to pass, as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground beneath them split open.” Well, obviously it did not split open before he spoke.

34:42 Why does it need to say, “As he finished speaking”? The moment he finished proposing that possibility, before he had time to perform any action or utter any curse, the ground immediately split open. Who did it? Did he do it through occult powers and sorcery? He did nothing. Here no such claim is possible. Even a skeptic cannot say that he performed some act of sorcery. Everyone saw that he did nothing. He merely proposed that Hakadosh Boruch Hu act, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu acted. So we gained two things here. Hakadosh Boruch Hu did not need to reveal Himself again on Mount Sinai, because the Torah had already been given, and they were not denying the mitzvos. Their doubt concerned only this one small point: perhaps political appointments do not fall under the same principle that “Moshe is true and his Torah is true.” So here Hakadosh Boruch Hu intervened without Moshe lifting a hand, without any curse from him. Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself intervened on Moshe’s behalf, and everyone saw it. That is astonishing proof. And if you wish, we can demonstrate this explicitly from the Rambam’s own wording. Let us recall once more: we said that the Rambam states in Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah that signs are not proof of Moshe’s prophecy, because someone could claim that they might have been done through occult powers and sorcery. So he asks: Why, then, did Moshe perform the signs? And he answers: he did them only when there was a need, not to bring proof of his prophecy. Now I will read you the Rambam’s continuation in his own words. What does it mean that he acted according to the need? He says this: The Egyptians needed to be drowned, so he split the sea and sank them in it. We needed food. In every sense, we needed it. He brought down the manna for us. They were thirsty, so he split the rock for them. Notice that in all these miracles he uses active language: he split, he parted, he

37:18 Lowered it. Then he comes to the miracle of the earth swallowing them, and the Rambam says: “Korach’s assembly denied him; the earth swallowed them.” Here he does not say that he made the earth swallow them, because he did not make it swallow them. He took no action at all. An astonishing proof. Ah, but we still have a difficulty. Why does the Rambam say in his Commentary on the Mishnah that what proves the principle of Torah from Heaven is the verse, “By this you shall know that Hashem sent me”? That seems to contradict what he said—that Moshe’s prophecy is not established by miracles. We can say that the Rambam did not mean that the miracle of the earth swallowing them proves the whole idea of Torah from Heaven. They had seen with their own eyes that Hashem spoke. Rather, he means: Who says that there is even such a fundamental principle of the Torah, that we must believe the Torah is from Heaven? After all, there is debate about what counts as a fundamental principle of faith and what does not. Not everything in the Torah is a fundamental principle of faith. Building the Beis Hamikdash is very important, but it is not one of the fundamental principles of faith. Shabbos, too, is not one of them. It does not say, “I believe that Hashem rested on Shabbos.” Who says that... Perhaps there is a fundamental principle requiring us to believe that Matan Torah at Har Sinai took place, that the Torah is from Heaven. But what is the proof that Moshe’s prophecy has to be such a principle? So he says: Moshe said, “By this you shall know.” Why does that need to be demonstrated? If you do not want to, do not believe it. It shows that there is an obligation to know that Hashem sent me, including in these actions—not only in matters of Torah and mitzvos. So this proves that there is a fundamental principle of Moshe’s prophecy: everything Moshe said, word for word, came from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. With this, let’s conclude with a beautiful thought: Why, when Korach’s sons did teshuvah, did they cry out, “Moshe is true and his Torah is true”? Their voices were heard from the depths of Gehinnom: “Moshe is true and his Torah is true.” The question is: What does “Moshe is true” mean? Did anyone think Moshe was

40:00 imaginary, an illusion? The debate was whether the Torah he taught was true or not. So why did they need to say, “Moshe is true”? Did anyone say Moshe was not true? They said his Torah was not true. But the answer is that there are two things here. “His Torah” means the Torah, the 613 mitzvos. It is clear that this is true. What did they say before that? “Moshe is true.” Not only is his Torah—the Torah and the 613 mitzvos, which he says are from Heaven—true beyond question, but Moshe himself is true. Even if he does something that looks like a political appointment, a suggestion, an idea, and, let’s say, he did not say at all that it came from Hashem, I might think that it is not true. Their teshuvah was to understand that Moshe could not do anything untrue. Moshe smiles a genuine smile; when he gets angry, his anger is genuine. He appoints Aharon not because of his own interests. Moshe is not a man with personal interests, because Hakadosh Boruch Hu would not give the Torah through someone with personal interests. So the new insight here is not only that his Torah is true, but that Moshe himself—all his words—are true. Perhaps we can end here with a story that appears in Shemuos Vesippurim. In the time of the Rebbe Rashab, there was a Chabad chossid whose son, in that era of the Haskalah, had strayed from the path and become modern, and he wanted to emigrate to the United States. That was the big world; there was a life to be had there. His father was strongly opposed, because he knew that of all those who had gone there, nothing remained of them spiritually. So he asked his son not to go, but the son would not listen and insisted. His father said, “You know what? Just do me one favor. Let’s go to the Rebbe Rashab, a righteous and wise Jew. Whatever he advises us, we’ll do.” The son agreed. He was sure he

42:26 could explain to the Rebbe Rashab all the opportunities opening up in America, and then the Rebbe would let him go. The Rebbe Rashab heard everything he said but gave no explanation. He said, “I don’t think it would be advisable for him to go. He should not go.” Well, the son was not a chossid. If the Rebbe had explained his reasoning, he would have understood. But he had simply said not to go. That was his suggestion. So the son did not listen. He went and sailed on the luxury liner Titanic, which sank with him aboard. His father, who had lost his son, came to the Rebbe Rashab in tears and complained: “Rebbe, why didn’t you tell him why you didn’t want him to go? If you had told him what would happen, he would not have gone.” The Rebbe Rashab said, “Believe me, I knew nothing. But with us, our Rebbeim—when we say something, one must listen.” That is what “Moshe is true and his Torah is true” means. This is what we learn about a Rebbe: the Rebbe is true not only in his maamarim and sichos, and in his observance of Torah and mitzvos. In every individual gesture, it is impossible for anything about the Rebbe to be untrue, because something untrue can come only from personal inclinations and interests. Someone with personal inclinations and interests has a sense of self. And if he still has a sense of self, Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not dwell within him to the point of saying, “I speak to him mouth to mouth.” And since you saw that Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose Moshe at Matan Torah at Har Sinai as His prophet, you must know that there is no difference between his giving a halachic ruling about mitzvos and his simply expressing an idea. He suggests a shidduch, or he says, “No, I don’t think this shidduch is right.” That, too, is “Moshe is true and his Torah is true.”