Parshas Yisro, Matan Torah - What was so tremendous about the giving of the Torah?

00:01 This Shabbos is Shabbos Parshas Yisro, the Shabbos of the Giving of the Torah. The Frierdiker Rebbe tells a story in his sichos about his father, the Rebbe Rashab, and the Rebbe Maharash. When the Rebbe Rashab was a small child of five, on Shabbos Parshas Yisro 5626, his grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek, was nearing the end of his life. The Tzemach Tzedek passed away on 13 Nissan 5626; this was two months earlier, on Shabbos Parshas Yisro 5626. The Tzemach Tzedek was very weak and in poor health. The Rebbe Rashab came with his father, the Rebbe Maharash, to visit his grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek. The Tzemach Tzedek asked his five-year-old grandson, the Rebbe Rashab, “What did you learn? What did you do this week? What did you learn this week?” And the child, the Rebbe Rashab, answered, “This week is the week of the Giving of the Torah, Parshas Yisro.” The Tzemach Tzedek said to him, “The week of the Giving of the Torah? But the Giving of the Torah is on Shavuos.” His grandson, the Rebbe Rashab, said, “Actually, I don’t understand how the Giving of the Torah belongs to this week. Perhaps you can tell me, Grandfather,” the grandson said to his grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek, “perhaps you can tell me,

01:54 what is the meaning of this? How does the Giving of the Torah belong to now? After all, the Giving of the Torah is on Shavuos.” The Tzemach Tzedek said, “I don’t know.” His grandson, the Rebbe Rashab, said, “What do you mean, you don’t know? You ought to know. You’re a grown-up. You were there.” The Rebbe Maharash, the Rebbe Rashab’s father and the Tzemach Tzedek’s son, was there. He said to the Tzemach Tzedek, “He’s right.” And the Tzemach Tzedek called the child over and told him, “Shavuos is the king in his palace. This Shabbos is the king in the field.” That was the answer. The Rebbe Rashab later related that ten years later, or some years later, he received a lengthy explanation of this answer from his father, the Rebbe Maharash. And in general, we know from the maamarim on Elul and Tishrei, which explain at length the difference between the king in the field and the king in his palace. This, too, is not a lengthy explanation of the matter, but the point is understandable. The king in his palace represents the principal time of his reign. Similarly, Shavuos, the Giving of the Torah, is the principal time for receiving the Torah. That was when the central event of receiving the Torah took place; that is its time, like the king in his palace. And here, in the middle of the year, when we read the parsha, Parshas Yisro, this is the king

03:29 in the field. In other words, the whole matter is revealed here. The king in the field is there among all the [unclear]. As the maamar on Elul says, the king in the field “receives everyone with a pleasant countenance,” and the king is there with his entire essence and all his authority. But he is dressed differently; he is more accessible, and you can approach him without all the surrounding formalities. Similarly, this is the [unclear] that comes when we read about the Giving of the Torah in the middle of the year, on Shabbos Parshas Yisro. And it is all the more understandable because we are speaking about Shabbos—an actual Shabbos, the Shabbos of the Giving of the Torah. When we look at the Giving of the Torah, the familiar question arises, one asked in all the sefarim, and especially in the works of Chassidus. It is a well-known question, particularly [unclear] in the maamarim on the weekly parsha, Parshas Yisro, and also in Likkutei Torah on Shavuos. The familiar question is: What happened at the Giving of the Torah? What was its great innovation? After all, there was a tremendous commotion surrounding it. We read in the weekly parsha, Parshas Yisro: “And all the people saw the sounds and the flames and the sound of the shofar; the people saw, trembled, and stood at a distance.” There was a great [unclear] at the Giving of the Torah. And the Gemara also says, in the well-known passage in Pesachim, “If not for this day that caused it, how many Yosefs”

04:58 [unclear]. Yes, we know that the Giving of the Torah is something momentous, and the question is: What happened then? What was added to what had existed before? Seemingly, the Torah existed before the Giving of the Torah. The holy Torah already existed, “a hidden treasure”; the holy Torah existed beforehand. And we find that the Patriarchs studied Torah: “Our father Avraham observed the entire Torah before it was given”; “From the days of our Patriarchs, a yeshiva was never absent among them.” Yes, “Avraham was old and sat in a yeshiva; Yitzchak was old and sat in a yeshiva; Yaakov was old and sat in a yeshiva.” There was a yeshiva of our forefathers in Egypt; there was a yeshiva there [unclear]. In other words, yeshivos and Torah study were not innovations of the Giving of the Torah. The same is true of observing the mitzvos: “Our father Avraham observed the entire Torah before it was given”—all of that existed before. What, then, was the great Divine innovation, the great commotion, at the Giving of the Torah? And beyond that, there was a complete upheaval, with all the commotion, the sounds and lightning, with all the [unclear], with all the commotion. Why? What was it all about? What is the whole meaning of the Giving of the Torah? The Alter Rebbe asks this question here in Torah Or. One explanation—there are many explanations in the works of Chassidus, and several explanations from the Alter Rebbe himself, but [unclear]—one of the points the Alter Rebbe explains in a maamar in Torah Or, Parshas Yisro, the maamar

06:30 “In the third month after the children of Israel left the land of Egypt.” There, the question is asked, and it is explained that the innovation of the Giving of the Torah lies in the word “saying”: “And G-d spoke all these words, saying.” Here the familiar question arises, which everyone asks: What does “saying” mean here? Usually, “saying” means that Hakadosh Boruch Hu tells Moshe to tell the Jewish people, to convey the words to them. But here all the Jewish people stood at the Giving of the Torah. And not only the people of that generation; the Midrash says, as everyone knows, that the souls of all future generations stood there at the Giving of the Torah and received “I am Hashem your G-d.” If so, what does “And G-d spoke all these words, saying” mean? Saying them to whom? What else does the Alter Rebbe ask there? One of the answers the Alter Rebbe explains, in a very rich way, is that “saying” refers to every Jew when he studies Torah: he repeats and says Hashem’s words exactly as they were spoken at the Giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. That is the meaning of “saying” in “And G-d spoke all these words”: At the Giving of the Torah, when the Ten Commandments were spoken, Hakadosh Boruch Hu said, “I am Hashem your G-d,” and there was the revelation of “And Hashem descended upon Mount Sinai.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself was revealed and told the Jewish people, “I am Hashem your G-d,” amid everything that took place there—the awe, the fear, the trembling and the perspiration. About this the Torah says “saying”—to say the

08:08 words that Hakadosh Boruch Hu spoke. When a Jew sits down years later—whoever he may be, a Torah scholar sitting today, thousands of years after the Giving of the Torah, studying a verse in Chumash, a Mishnah or Gemara, and learning “Rabbi says,” “Rabbi says”—he must know that he is repeating the words of Hakadosh Boruch Hu from the Giving of the Torah. “And My words which I have placed in your mouth”: I have placed My words in your mouth. These are the words of Hashem speaking from his throat; Hakadosh Boruch Hu speaks through his mouth. And when he hears today that he is repeating Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s words, that Hashem’s words are passing through his mouth, then his study is undertaken with a similar devotion, a similar sense of self-nullification and a similar great awe, and with mesirus nefesh. As the Gemara in Kiddushin says about Torah study: “The day you stood before Hashem your G-d at Chorev”—“Just as there it was with awe and fear, trembling and perspiration, so too here it must be with awe and fear, trembling and perspiration.” A Jew must study Torah as though he is standing right now at the Giving of the Torah, seeing Hakadosh Boruch Hu, with Hashem’s words passing through his mouth. This is the innovation of the Giving of the Torah, the exalted quality of the Torah and of studying it, which a Jew can attain through his Torah study. Before the Giving of the Torah, the Torah did indeed exist, and it was present in all these ways, but not like this, not with the full exalted quality it gained at the Giving of the Torah. And the exalted quality of the Torah, of studying

09:43 Torah, is not merely a matter of wisdom, knowledge or understanding. Rather, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present in every word you study. You need to hear and feel Hashem’s words, the Divine power, the “to them,” the “I.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu—“I,” as the Gemara in Shabbos says: “I”—“I wrote and gave My very Self.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu put Himself into the Torah. And when you study Torah, you become one with the soul of the Torah. This is what was new about the Torah at the Giving of the Torah. The point emerges from the well-known Midrash on “And they shall take a contribution for Me,” which the Rebbe cites in Tanya. On “And they shall take a contribution for Me,” the Midrash explains that “contribution” refers to the Torah: the Hebrew word for “contribution” alludes to “Torah given in forty days.” And “for Me” refers to Hakadosh Boruch Hu: “And they shall take a contribution for Me”—“They shall take Me.” When a Jew studies Torah, he takes hold of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Midrash gives a wonderful parable: There was a king who had an only daughter whom he cherished and loved. When the time came for her to marry, he married her off and gave her to the man she was to wed. And when they built their home and needed to prepare a place where the new couple would live, the king told the couple: When you build yourselves a home, I ask you

11:15 One small thing: make a small room, a little chamber, so I can be there. I want to be part of your lives, to be together with you. The Midrash says that the same is true of Hakadosh Boruch Hu: His only daughter is the Torah. The Torah is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s only daughter, as the Midrash says in Parshas Terumah. The groom is the Jewish people, who were wed to the Torah. “Moshe commanded us the Torah as an inheritance”—the word for “inheritance” can also be read as “betrothed.” The Torah is betrothed; the Torah is the bride, and the Jewish people are the groom. And when the wedding takes place, when Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives His only daughter, the Torah, to the Jewish people, to the groom, He is saying, in effect: “I have been given along with her,” so that I can be together with you. “You are taking Me.” “I have been given along with her”—I want to be together with you in the Torah. When you study Torah, you need to hear, feel, and sense that within the Torah is the soul of the Torah, the G-dliness within it. That is the main point, the central innovation of the Torah: that a Jew studying Torah should feel that the Torah contains its soul, the G-dliness within it. This was one of the foundations of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings, which he revealed and emphasized.

12:43 When a Jew studies Torah, the soul of the Torah must be felt in that study. There is a fundamental teaching about this, one of the earliest teachings of the Baal Shem Tov. The Frierdiker Rebbe’s sichos recount at length how it happened: the Baal Shem Tov was at a gathering of rabbis in the kloiz in Brody, and the story is told there in detail. The Baal Shem Tov offered a teaching. What was it? “For I have given you a good teaching; do not forsake My Torah.” The Baal Shem Tov explains that “teaching” refers to the Torah, particularly the revealed dimension of Torah. “For I have given you a good teaching”—Hakadosh Boruch Hu says to the Jews: I gave you the Torah, Torah from Heaven, so that you can become scholars and rabbis, use your minds and your understanding, and grasp what the Torah says. But “do not forsake My Torah”—there is also the “My Torah.” Do not forget that within the Torah is “My Torah”: the soul of the Torah, the G-dliness within it, its inner dimension. “Do not forsake it”—in other words, do not become disconnected from “My Torah.” This is one of the things the Baal Shem Tov revealed. Kesser Shem Tov tells a story about the Maggid of Mezritch. Chassidim tell several stories about how the Maggid of Mezritch came close to the Baal Shem Tov.

14:21 There are several details, several stories, and several versions. One of the stories about this appears in Kesser Shem Tov. As is well known, the Maggid of Mezritch was a tremendous scholar, a towering genius, even before he came to the Baal Shem Tov. He was a student of the Pnei Yehoshua and a great scholar of the revealed dimension of Torah, Kabbalah, and every part of Torah. When he decided to travel to the Baal Shem Tov, he wanted to go and see for himself what he would find. He hired a wagon driver and asked him to take him the whole way. During the journey, he regretted setting out and thought he should not have gone. But he continued until he reached the Baal Shem Tov. He stayed there for a while and wanted to hear Torah from the Baal Shem Tov, but the Baal Shem Tov said simple things, and he did not understand what the Baal Shem Tov was hinting at. He thought the Baal Shem Tov was saying things beneath his level, simple things. He regretted coming very much and wanted to return home. He told the wagon driver that as soon as day broke, they would set out. In the middle of the night, when he was already prepared to leave, the Baal Shem Tov sent for him and asked him to come into his room. The Baal Shem Tov was sitting with a

15:44 book. I think it was Eitz Chaim, a book of Kabbalah by Rabbi Chaim Vital, and he was sitting and studying. The Baal Shem Tov asked the Maggid of Mezritch to explain a passage, a chapter in Eitz Chaim. The Maggid of Mezritch took the book and began to study and explain it. After he had explained it, the Baal Shem Tov said his explanation was not accurate. The Maggid studied the passage again and explained it again. He said, “As I understand it, this is the explanation, and a better explanation than this [unclear].” The Baal Shem Tov took the book and began to study and explain the passage. The moment the Baal Shem Tov began to study and explain it, [unclear]. There was an immense light and great flames. Everything the Baal Shem Tov studied there in Eitz Chaim—the names of angels, the names of the sefiros, and the names of higher spiritual matters—the Maggid saw with his own eyes. He saw it all vividly. The Maggid of Mezritch was overwhelmed by what he saw, and it bound him to the Baal Shem Tov. I once heard the story as the Rebbe of Lubavitch told it in one of his sichos. He added that the Maggid of Mezritch said that he then grasped what the Jews heard at the Giving of the Torah. In other words, the revelation that took place when the Baal Shem Tov studied was something like

17:19 what happened at the Giving of the Torah. When the Baal Shem Tov studied the passage in Eitz Chaim, he told the Maggid of Mezritch that, in fact, he had explained it correctly, but his study was without a soul. It lacked the G-dliness, the Divine revelation, the soul within it. When the Baal Shem Tov studied it, his study had a soul: he brought his vitality, his soul, and the G-dliness into the learning, and so the learning was altogether different. This was the revelation of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings, and of the Baal Shem Tov himself, to the Maggid of Mezritch. Of course, this is a story about very high, exalted levels. But when we study Chassidus and the maamarim that explain the spiritual work of the Giving of the Torah, we understand that this is the central point of what was new at the Giving of the Torah: when a Jew studies Torah, he must have this feeling. The Rebbe spoke about this at length already in Tanya: a Jew must know that the Torah contains Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s wisdom and will, and that “the Torah and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are entirely one.” When Torah study is approached this way, it is “a wondrous union, the like of which, or anything comparable to it, is not found at all in the physical world—a union in which they become one and united from every side and angle.” The Rebbe spoke about this in the opening chapters of Tanya. There is a verse in several

18:40 Earlier, we spoke about what was new at the Giving of the Torah, and how the Giving of the Torah reveals G-dliness, reveals Hakadosh Boruch Hu, in everything. There is a verse in our parsha, immediately after the Ten Commandments: “And all the people saw the sounds and the flames.” There is a Midrash on this verse. The Midrash asks: What does it mean that they “saw the sounds”? Rabbi Akiva says: “They saw what is normally heard and heard what is normally seen.” This was one of the great Divine miracles, one of the great wonders at the Giving of the Torah: “They saw what is normally heard and heard what is normally seen.” Sounds are something we naturally hear. But it says they “saw the sounds,” not that they “heard the sounds.” A sound is something you hear; flames are something you see. The verse says, “And all the people saw the sounds and the flames,” and Rabbi Akiva explains: “They saw what is normally heard and heard what is normally seen.” Now, we know that Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not perform miracles for no reason. There is another view here, that of Rabbi Yishmael, who disagrees with Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Yishmael says: “They saw what is normally seen and heard what is normally heard.” In other words, things happened according to nature. The words “saw the sounds and the flames” are not interpreted in the order they appear in the verse. “Saw” does not refer to the sounds but to the flames: “They saw what is normally seen and heard what is normally heard.” What could be seen, they saw; and what could be heard, they heard. That we can understand. What we especially need to understand is the view of

20:23 Rabbi Akiva. Clearly, Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not perform miracles for nothing. If He performed a miracle here, it is because the miracle is relevant to the Giving of the Torah. Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not simply perform miracles. Yes. So the question is: What is the point of the miracle He performed there? “They saw the sounds”—“They saw what is normally heard and heard what is normally seen.” That means that something one hears, in the words of the Midrash, [unclear]—one could see the sounds; one could hear the flames. That is “seeing what is normally heard.” It goes against nature, and it happened at the Giving of the Torah. What does it mean? The Sages ask the question differently. [unclear]. But how do we explain it? Yes. And then we need to understand the reasoning behind the disagreement between Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva. That, too, requires explanation. Yes, and the explanation comes from the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching on this Midrash. It relates to what we discussed earlier, to understanding the central point of the Giving of the Torah. Let me explain it to you. What is the significance of “seeing what is normally heard and hearing what is normally seen”? These are two ways a person relates to the world: sight and hearing. What is the difference between seeing something and hearing something? When a person sees something, it is clear to him. It is certain. There are no doubts. I have no doubt; I saw it with my own eyes. I saw it myself. Someone can come and raise questions, or say it cannot be so because of this or that objection. And I say: I have no answer. I

22:15 I don’t know all the answers, but I saw it myself. I have no doubt about it. “My own eyes saw it, and not another’s.” That was the revelation at the Giving of the Torah: I saw it myself. When a person sees something, it is absolutely clear to him; there is no doubt. We find this in the Gemara in Kiddushin: a witness cannot serve as a judge. When a person sees an event as a witness, he cannot later serve as a judge in that case. Why? Because a judge must be able to consider both sides, as the verse says, “The congregation shall judge, and the congregation shall save.” There must be two sides. But for someone who saw what happened, there are no two sides. It is so clear to him, so certain, that he cannot be a judge. That is what the Gemara says. Therefore, “A witness cannot become a judge.” Similarly, in serving Hashem, sight gives a person certainty and clarity, with no doubt at all. Hearing, though, is more distant. A person hears something and understands it. Hearing does not mean only hearing with the ears. It also means understanding—“shema” can mean understanding. To hear, to understand. He may understand it, understand it well, understand it thoroughly. But it is not the same certainty. Hearing is more distant. A person may understand something today and think the opposite tomorrow. It does not stand before him as a certainty. It could be otherwise. It may be true, but it does not remain clear to him; it remains distant. In other words, something a person sees is self-evident to him, certain. Something he hears is more of a new idea to him, a discovery. With a new idea, a person must work his way toward it; he must then become convinced of it and internalize it. That is one of the main differences. And then there is another [unclear].

24:09 The simple distinction is that what a person sees is physical. Physical things are seen; that is sight. Hearing, by contrast, relates to something spiritual. We hear a voice, we hear an explanation, we hear an interpretation. So hearing is more closely connected to the spiritual side, while sight is more physical. And these two things are connected. Because we are physical people, physical things are certain to us. I see it; I have no doubt. I see a table, I see a stone, I see a tree. I see these things. They are absolutely clear to me; I have no doubt. So the fact that sight is connected to physicality is also connected to the certainty that sight brings. Hearing is different. Hearing relates to the spiritual, and spirituality is distant, something remote. That is why spiritual matters—and, in general, matters of serving Hashem, matters of G-dliness, of greatness, matters of the soul—are truly a discovery for a person. They are not so clear to him, not really certain. He needs to contemplate them, think about them deeply, and reach a conclusion. Really, throughout life, all of this work is not something a person can say is self-evident to him; it comes through understanding. What does this mean for them? This is what seeing and hearing mean.

25:38 Sight belongs to physical matters, to this world. For Jews before the Giving of the Torah, this world was experienced through sight. That is what they saw. Sight is sight. What did they see? They saw physicality. The physical was something seen, something obvious and clear. A person lives in the world, sees the world, and the world seems self-evident to him. G-dliness, greatness, and spirituality, by contrast, were experienced through hearing, as something distant. They accepted them on faith, understood them, heard about them from their parents and grandparents; it was a matter of hearing. But to say they were truly clear and certain—no. They remained distant. Rabbi Akiva comes and says, “Do you know what happened at the Giving of the Torah? What was the tremendous thing that took place then?” He says, “The Giving of the Torah was a revelation of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. ‘Hashem descended upon Mount Sinai.’ Hakadosh Boruch Hu revealed Himself on Mount Sinai.” And the entire world fell silent, as the Midrash says, with all its beautiful descriptions of how the whole world stood in a state of bittul. Throughout the world, the oneness of Hashem was heard. Then it became a revelation. The entire order changed; everything changed. “They saw what is heard”: spirituality, which had been something heard, everything that had been experienced through hearing as something distant, was then experienced through sight.

27:07 What had been heard, something distant, became something seen. Suddenly, a complete transformation took place in the human soul. Among Jews, the direction was reversed. Things that had been heard, distant things, spiritual things, became things seen. “You were shown so that you would know that Hashem is G-d”; “Face to face Hashem spoke with you”—this became a matter of sight. It became self-evident, certain. For Jews, it became certain that “there is nothing else besides Him,” certain that “Hashem is one and His name is one.” Greatness and G-dliness became certain. Physicality became distant. G-dliness is utterly self-evident. When a person feels, as a simple certainty, that “He alone exists and there is none besides Him,” that “there is nothing else besides Him”—then where is the world? Where did the world come from? How does this world enter the picture? The existence of a world is the new idea. Because Hakadosh Boruch Hu created it, because it says, “In the beginning G-d created”—that is something we grasp through understanding. And this transformation began at the Giving of the Torah. We see in Chassidus, in my maamar on Chassidus—one of the things we see in Chassidus, one of the things I examined on this subject: After all, we say, and it is written, “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is one,” and “You were shown so that you would know that Hashem is G-d; there is nothing else besides Him,” along with other verses in the Torah about His oneness. Surely it follows that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the only reality. That is the plain meaning: Hakadosh Boruch Hu alone exists; there is no other reality. There are statements like this about Hakadosh Boruch Hu, such as [unclear].

28:37 And the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov revealed, in this whole matter of “Forever, Hashem, Your word stands firm in the heavens,” that the word of Hashem underlies everything at every moment. In the Rebbe’s teachings it says that, consequently, the world is not a reality—and then comes the new idea. This is how Chassidus puts it: But there is a world; it says, “In the beginning G-d created.” Only on the basis of proofs from halachah do we reach the conclusion that we must say there is a world. But that is a new discovery. The point is that this is what the Giving of the Torah accomplished. Rabbi Akiva comes and says: “They saw what is heard and heard what is seen.” The Giving of the Torah brought about a transformation in the Jewish soul. It gave Jews a way of looking at everything: what belongs to heavenly and spiritual matters became something seen, something self-evident and certain, while physical matters became distant, further removed. This is a foundation for serving Hashem throughout life: A Jew who devotes himself to Torah, who studies Torah and becomes united with it, undergoes a change, a change in his entire being. Torah causes matters of Torah, G-dliness, and greatness to become self-evident and certain for Jews, while matters of this world become something new, something additional, something more distant. Yes, that is how it is; after all, the Torah sometimes says so.

30:02 From this comes an entire foundation for life, for how a Jew looks at everything. What the Torah says is true, certain, self-evident. What the world says—possibly, but not entirely. What one sees is not necessarily certain. This is the foundation of the whole matter, and much follows from it. I mean, it finds expression in the saying, “The outlook of householders is the opposite of the outlook of Torah.” What does that mean? The outlook of Torah is the outlook of Torah. “The outlook of householders” does not necessarily mean the opinion of any particular person. It means the outlook of a householder, a Torah-observant Jew, yes, but because he is not immersed in Torah and is instead connected to the world, his perspective is the world’s perspective. So he takes things in as the world sees them. By contrast, when a Jew devotes himself to Torah, the Giving of the Torah causes him to live differently: all matters of G-dliness are self-evident to him. In the language of Chassidus, G-dliness and greatness become self-evident certainties for him, while physicality becomes something additional, something secondary. The well-known speaker, Reb Yosef Yitzchak Jacobson, tells a story: He was a child with the Rebbe Rashab. I remember this from Hayom Yom, where it is told, yes. He was with the Rebbe as a child, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, and the Rebbe—

31:27 At a farbrengen, the Rebbe spoke about how a Jewish child should be educated in cheder and yeshiva: that Torah is life, it is truth, it is certainty; that lofty matters, matters of G-dliness, are straightforward, while matters of the world should be [unclear]. The Rebbe spoke about this with the intensity and richness of a chassidic farbrengen. He was a child then, sitting at the table at the farbrengen. In the middle of the farbrengen, as the Rebbe spoke about this with passion, the Rebbe pointed to him, turned to Reb Jacobson, looked at the boy and gestured with his finger: “Child, how do you know there is a world?” And he said: “The only way I know there is a world is from the words, ‘In the beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth.’ Because it says, ‘In the beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth,’ I know there is a world. That knowledge comes from the Torah. If the Torah had not said that [unclear], who would simply know that there is a world at all? The Torah says there is a world. And that is not proof that there is a world.” This is the foundation established among Jews through the giving of the Torah. That is how the Rebbe spoke about this Midrash. The Rebbe says something remarkable—

32:54 Look, take a look at Rashi on the weekly parsha. You see something striking: Rashi quotes Rabbi Akiva, but brings only half of what he says. On the verse “And all the people saw the sounds,” Rashi says: “They saw what is heard.” Rashi does not say, “And they heard what is seen.” The question is: Why does he say only half? The Rebbe offers a remarkable insight, and it is a foundation of education. A father, a mother, a melamed—they need to educate children. After all, Rashi is the teacher of the child learning Chumash, the plain meaning of the text. When learning Torah with a child, you need to educate him from the age of five; from childhood, you need to invest effort in making “seeing what is heard” a reality for him. You need to educate him so that G-dliness, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, Torah and mitzvos are certain to him, straightforward and simple, without clever arguments or questions of “how.” There is no need to explain these things to him; you need to state them with complete simplicity and put effort into it: Hakadosh Boruch Hu fills everything, and He is the only true existence, the only reality. You need to instill in him the Torah’s “all the people saw,” its “seeing what is heard”—so that what is spiritual is as real to him as something he sees. This is how you can educate a child with simplicity: so that learning Torah, keeping mitzvos, serving Hashem, Hakadosh Boruch Hu and all spiritual matters are completely straightforward to him. When you speak to him about them, with stories of tzaddikim suited to his age, and speak about these matters simply, he absorbs them with simplicity and certainty.

34:33 “Hearing what is seen”—what does that mean? That physical things should feel distant to him. A child is not always capable of that yet. He is still young; he understands games, he understands food. To speak to a child about “hearing what is seen”—he may not yet be capable of that, and you may not yet be able to discuss it with him. Rashi wants to teach us that although the child is not yet capable of “hearing what is seen,” and physical things are still just as certain to him—a child understands games, likes to eat, likes to drink and likes to play. That is his world, and his mind does not yet have the clear discernment that would let him grasp that the spiritual is what is truly real. So physical things are straightforward to him too. But you do not need to wait until then. First of all, turn his attention away from the opposing side. Even if he has not yet reached “hearing what is seen,” you must already educate him toward “seeing what is heard.” This is a foundation in educating Jewish children, particularly in our generation, when we are already in the years approaching the Geulah. Moshiach is coming immediately; the light of Moshiach already shines in the world, as the holy Baal Shem Tov revealed. And since the light of Moshiach is already in the world, this is the time,

35:56 today is the time when Jewish children can be educated to “see what is heard”: for the oneness of Hashem, “there is nothing else besides Him,” and matters of G-dliness to be absorbed by them so that they sense that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is existence itself, the only existence. We must prepare them for “Hashem is one and His Name is one,” so that they understand it and it becomes plainly revealed in their service of Hashem: that G-dliness, Torah and mitzvos are the true reality and the true existence. Then they will learn Torah and keep mitzvos with greater vitality. Yes, “the word of Hashem speaks through your mouth”—to learn Torah with G-dly vitality, with delight, G-dliness and warmth. And through serving Hashem in this way, we will very soon merit the revelation of Moshiach. Then, specifically, the verse will be fulfilled: “Hashem will be King over all the earth; on that day Hashem will be one and His Name one.” And we will merit to hear Moshiach’s Torah from Moshiach himself—the inner dimension of the Torah, the secrets of the Torah and the Torah’s lofty teachings, which will be revealed by Moshiach Tzidkeinu speedily in our days, amen.