Bamidbar: 5784 - "If He had brought us close to Mount Sinai and not given us the Torah, it would have been enough for us." How can this be, when the very purpose of the Exodus from Egypt was to receive the Torah? A sharpening of the point ahead of the Shavuos holiday…

00:00 Speaker 1 Please.

00:03 Speaker 2 In one of the passages of the Pesach Haggadah, we say: “Had He brought us before Mount Sinai and not given us the Torah, dayeinu—it would have been enough for us.” But what have our Sages explained? The whole purpose of the bondage and exile in Egypt was to be a refining furnace, preparing the Jewish people to receive the Torah. The purpose of the Exodus from Egypt was to receive the Torah. So what does it mean to say, “Had He brought us before Mount Sinai and not given us the Torah”?

00:34 Speaker 1 “It would have been enough for us.”

00:35 Speaker 2 What does “enough for us” mean? What would we have been satisfied with? There are many answers to this question. One answer is: What are we saying “dayeinu” about? About what happened on this day. We read in the Torah: “In the third month, on this day, they came to the Sinai Desert.” What does “on this day” mean? It refers to Rosh Chodesh, Rosh Chodesh Sivan. That was the day. The verse continues: “And Israel camped there opposite the mountain.” Rashi asks there: Why does it say “camped” in the singular? “As one person with one heart.” There was such unity among the Jewish people then that they were like one person. It was not merely that they all thought the same thing and wanted the same thing; they were truly like one person, one body. That happened on this day, when they came to the Sinai Desert. So when we say, “Had He brought us before Mount Sinai and not given us the Torah, dayeinu,” we are speaking about the unity brought about among the Jewish people. They had such unity: “Israel camped there,” as one person with one heart. For that, we say “dayeinu.” How great is the virtue of that unity, of peace, when everyone is like one person! We say that if we had merited only that unity, it would have been enough for us. What actually brought about the unity the Jewish people had on that day—a unity like none they had ever had before, as one person with one heart? One explanation appears in the Gemara in Shabbos, in the discussion of the Giving of the Torah. It says there: “Blessed is the Merciful One.” We bless Hakadosh Boruch Hu for giving us a threefold Torah—the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings—in the third month, through a third, meaning Moshe Rabbeinu. Some also say it was on the third day. Although the Torah was not given on the third day, it was given after the three days of preparation.

02:59 Speaker 2 Everything involves the number three. Similarly, we find many other instances in which the third thing, the number three, has something very special about it. One example is “two verses that contradict each other, until a third verse comes and reconciles them.” We also find this in Birchas Kohanim: we ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu to bless us with the threefold blessing. There is this theme of three. Similarly, we learn in the Gemara that a chazakah, an established pattern, is formed specifically through three occurrences. There is something special about the number three; it expresses something distinctive. Every day in our prayers we say, “Two verses that contradict each other, until a third verse comes and reconciles them.” Why does the third verse reconcile them? We have two views, two verses. What advantage does the third verse have that enables it, specifically, to reconcile them? It is the number three. There is a particular illumination and revelation in the number three, in the third element, and the Rebbe explains this at length. He explains the virtue of the third day: it expresses true unity and joining together. That is why three occurrences establish a chazakah. When a person holds something for three years, or does something three times, it becomes established. Why? Because there is a unique joining together in the third element, in the number three—something special that exists specifically in the number three.

04:47 Speaker 3 You see it in the faculty of daas in Chabad, and in tiferes.

04:51 Speaker 2 There are many examples, a great many. We find it in Igeres Hateshuvah as well. The Alter Rebbe explains there that one should fast three times the number of fasts required to rectify a particular matter. Why? Because the blemish that occurred also came about through... There are so many things associated specifically with the number three. What is special about it? The Rebbe explains at length: When there is only one thing, then, seemingly, there is a single thing. But that does not yet establish that it is something genuine, that it is true unity. Why? Because when something else comes along, it can contradict it. In other words, the presence of just one thing does not yet establish that it is genuine and unified. When there are two, there are two—and that certainly is not true unity. But when the third element arrives, it does not simply come to choose between the first two. “Until a third verse comes and reconciles them” does not mean that it chooses one of the verses or one of the views. Rather, the third is above both of them, so the first two become nullified in relation to it. It is a higher revelation, something far loftier, before which the first two are nullified. Then true unity and truth are revealed.

06:15 Speaker 2 That is why it says, “He Who makes peace in His heavens, may He make peace for us.” What peace does Hakadosh Boruch Hu need to make in heaven? Is there a war there? Are there disagreements? Rather, it says that Michael is the angel of chesed, while Gabriel is the angel of gevurah. Chesed and gevurah are opposites. Hakadosh Boruch Hu makes peace in His heavens. How? When Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself is revealed, both are nullified before Him, and so they do not clash or cancel each other out. That is the virtue of the third day: it brings a higher revelation before which everything is nullified. That is why it reconciles the two, and the halachah follows it. This is what is special about the third day. Since we are now at Shavuos and are receiving the Torah anew—and as the Alter Rebbe says, each year brings a loftier and greater revelation—then, after so many thousands of years, the Giving of the Torah will surely be on a much higher level than ever before. So we wish everyone to receive the Torah with joy and inwardly.

07:20 Speaker 4 Amen.