Chag HaShavuos - The Day of Moshe Rabbeinu, Dovid HaMelech, and the Baal Shem Tov - Rabbi Asher Parkesh

00:01 This is a story about the Baal Shem Tov, one that the Frierdiker Rebbe would often tell on Shavuos, 19 Iyar. Shavuos is also the day of the holy Baal Shem Tov’s passing. Once, the Frierdiker Rebbe told the story in public. In general, our Rebbeim would tell this story about the Baal Shem Tov on Shavuos. The story goes that the Baal Shem Tov once came to Slutsk. He had been invited to the dedication of a beis midrash. When he arrived, he was welcomed with great honor, and there was a great, joyous celebration. They brought out a stone they wanted to incorporate into the beis midrash, which had not yet been placed in the building. The Baal Shem Tov sat on the stone and told the story related in the Midrash about Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa. He wanted to bring a gift to the Beis Hamikdash, so he took a stone and worked hard on it, but he could not bring it there by himself. The Midrash tells that some people came and offered to help him, and before long they were in Jerusalem. When he wanted to pay them, he could not find them. They were angels from heaven. The Midrash says that those who carried the stone told him merely to place his finger on it; they would take care of the rest. The Baal Shem Tov told the story and spoke of how precious in the eyes of the One Above is a stone brought for the building of a beis midrash, like the stone Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa brought to the Beis Hamikdash. Afterward, the Baal Shem Tov shared words of Torah with great joy. There were Torah scholars there; Slutsk was a city full of scholars. They asked the Baal Shem Tov what he had added to Torah. After all, they had studied Torah before. It says, “For I have given you a good teaching.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the people the Torah, and Torah is also a matter of intellect.

02:34 That was their question to the Baal Shem Tov, and he answered: “I did not come to sharpen your minds; I came to teach the simple meaning.” Regarding the verse they had cited, the Baal Shem Tov said: It says, “For I have given you a good teaching; do not forsake My Torah.” What, seemingly, is the verse saying? “For I have given you a good teaching” refers to the Torah. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the people the Torah: “I have given you.” And “I have given you” means that the Torah descended below, as the Gemara says, the Torah is not in heaven; it was given here below. But because of that “given you,” a situation can arise in which people want to study Torah and think it is only “yours,” that it is only about producing new insights, and they forget, G-d forbid, the Giver of the Torah. The verse continues: “Do not forsake My Torah.” “My Torah” refers to the inner dimension of Torah. The inner dimension of Torah reveals Divine Providence and the Divine life-force present in everything. That is “My Torah”: a Jew who connects to the inner dimension of Torah and believes in Divine Providence will fulfill “do not forsake it.” He will not abandon or forget Hakadosh Boruch Hu, but will see G-dliness in everything. That is the story about the Baal Shem Tov. Shavuos is approaching, and it is also the day of the Baal Shem Tov’s passing. We find that there are three tzaddikim with a special connection to Shavuos. There is Moshe Rabbeinu, of course, who received the Torah at Sinai; the whole matter of Matan Torah and Shavuos is connected to Moshe Rabbeinu. Then there is King David. The Jerusalem Talmud says, “David died on Atzeres”—in other words, Shavuos is the day of King David’s passing. And then there is the Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem Tov passed away on Shavuos. As is known, there is a discussion about whether he passed away on the first or the second day of Shavuos.

05:06 What is clear is that the Baal Shem Tov passed away on a Wednesday. [unclear] In any case, these three tzaddikim have a special connection to Shavuos, the time of the giving of our Torah. We need to understand the significance of this. What can we learn from the fact that these three tzaddikim in particular are connected to this day? Divine Providence applies to everything. The Baal Shem Tov revealed that everything happens through Divine Providence. Nothing in the world happens by chance. Everything is watched over from Above. Certainly, when it comes to matters involving tzaddikim, there is Divine Providence. So what is the significance of the special connection that Moshe Rabbeinu, King David and the Baal Shem Tov have to the day of Matan Torah? There are a number of explanations. Let us focus on a few central points. The first thing we find, a point shared by Moshe Rabbeinu, King David and the Baal Shem Tov, is that all three were shepherds, each tending his flock. With Moshe Rabbeinu, we find that when Hakadosh Boruch Hu wished to choose him, the Midrash tells us that Moshe was tending sheep. In his younger years, Moshe Rabbeinu was a shepherd. While he was out with the flock, Hakadosh Boruch Hu saw a little lamb run away. Moshe Rabbeinu ran after it, gave it water to drink and carried it on his shoulders, as the Midrash relates. Then Hakadosh Boruch Hu said that Moshe Rabbeinu would lead His flock.

07:31 He would be the shepherd of the Jewish people. We find something similar regarding King David: “He chose David, His servant,” it says in chapter 78 of Tehillim. Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose King David when He saw how he treated the flock. He gave to the little ones, providing for each according to its needs—the small and the young. The Midrash describes in detail how King David cared for them. And Hakadosh Boruch Hu said that just as he cared for the flock, so he would shepherd the flock of Israel and lead the Jewish people. We find something similar with the holy Baal Shem Tov. He was an assistant to a teacher, while he was still a hidden tzaddik. He would take the children to cheder and bring them home. He would get them ready, kiss them and give them what they needed, doing everything he could so they would go to cheder with energy and joy. This was like tending a flock, and from there he went on to become the holy Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Chassidus. This is a central point, also connected to the time of Matan Torah. Something new happens for the Jewish people [unclear] when Shavuos arrives. And the Chassidus works of the Baal Shem Tov’s students say that every year, when Shavuos arrives, everything returns and happens anew: a new flow of blessing is drawn down, a new vitality, a new light. Every year on Shavuos, Matan Torah is drawn down anew.

09:22 With everything as it was the first time. So we need to take the lesson we learn from these three tzaddikim—Moshe Rabbeinu, King David and the Baal Shem Tov—about how a Jew should act. One lesson concerns education and devoting ourselves even to ordinary Jews or young children. Because often, when it comes to Torah, a person thinks: I am busy studying. I need to study Gemara, study Torah, study deep subjects. Why should I spend my time on small matters, dealing with young children—young in age or limited in understanding? Why should I occupy myself with seemingly trivial things that take time, when I could be sitting and studying a page of Gemara, developing new insights into Tosafos, new insights into halachah, and studying in depth, each according to his level? To give up some of my time to go help a Jew materially or spiritually, to teach a child the alef-beis, whether the literal alef-beis or the alef-beis of Yiddishkeit—the lesson we learn from these three tzaddikim is that this is the entire foundation: to devote ourselves to these simple things. And it is precisely in these simple things, as the Rebbe points out, that a true shepherd of the Jewish people, a true leader of the Jewish people, is recognized: in how he attends to the needs of every Jew and gives

10:54 him what he needs. That is a lesson we can take from these three tzaddikim. But let us go deeper, especially in connection with Matan Torah. One of the central themes of Matan Torah is connected to a sicha the Rebbe delivered at one of the Shavuos farbrengens. At the Rebbe’s Shavuos farbrengens, the usual practice was that on the second day of Shavuos—outside the Land of Israel, of course, there are two days of Yom Tov—toward the end of the day, before sunset, people would wash for a meal and a farbrengen. The farbrengen would continue into the night, until very late, long after the time for the bedtime Shema, and sometimes even until the early morning. At every farbrengen, one of the subjects the Rebbe would speak about for many hours was these three tzaddikim. Each time there was a different explanation, a different theme. We will discuss one point the Rebbe once spoke about at a farbrengen, another point we find: something all three share that is especially connected to Matan Torah. On the one hand, it is a shared point; on the other, each has his own distinctive contribution, something he accomplished. When the Jewish people came to receive the Torah, the Chumash tells us that they arrived at Mount Sinai on Rosh Chodesh Sivan, and on the second of Sivan, Moshe Rabbeinu said,

12:33 Hakadosh Boruch Hu said to the Jewish people: “Thus shall you say to the house of Yaakov and tell the children of Israel: You have seen.” Later in the passage it says: “And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu tells the Jewish people: You are a kingdom of priests—and as Rashi explains, “priests” means “princes.” The Jewish people became kings and princes. What was new at the Giving of the Torah? The Jewish people became kings over the world. What does it mean to be kings? What does it mean to be princes? How does this relate to the Giving of the Torah? What is a king? Simply put, a king is someone whom everyone fears, as the Gemara says. The king speaks, and things get done. A king is not subordinate or subject to all these constraints. On the contrary, he is the one who directs affairs, the one who decides, the one who determines things with authority—and what he says is done. That is what a king is. That is the nature of kingship: it expresses itself in authority and exaltedness. A king is also called a nasi—a word associated with exaltedness. He is elevated and raised above all the affairs of the country, and he is the one who leads it. What does “a kingdom of priests” mean for the Jewish people? That a Jew is a king, a nasi, and a prince. That a Jew leads the

14:05 world. A Jew knows that he has no reason to be intimidated, no need to calculate his course according to what nature or the world says, and nothing to fear from them. When it comes to studying Torah and observing mitzvos, a Jew knows that he is in charge, that he is a king. Everyone is in awe of him; he is the king. “Who are the kings? The rabbis,” as the saying goes. In other words, through the power of Torah, a Jew leads the world, and the natural order is subordinate to him. The natural order has been placed in his hands. “If you walk in My statutes, I will give your rains in their season”—the entire natural order is subject, as explained in the sefarim, to “if you walk in My statutes,” to the Jew’s observance of Torah and mitzvos. This was what became new at the Giving of the Torah: “a kingdom of priests,” which Rashi explains as “princes.” Jews became princes and kings. As the Maggid of Mezritch explains the verse “And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests,” you are the ones who bring forth kings and princes. Jews are the ones who lead all these things; they lead the natural order and the way the world operates. That is what became new at the Giving of the Torah. But when a Jew is in the world, he might think: Very nice, very good—all this is true of the soul. It is true of my soul, which is truly a part of G-d above. I have a connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and therefore I am above nature. But the soul has descended here below.

15:33 The soul has clothed itself in this world. We are in the world, and particularly in a world of exile, a world in which [unclear], and when we are in exile, we are subject to the rule of the nations. “The law of the kingdom is law,” as the Gemara says. So a Jew might ask: How can we be kings in this world, in the situation we actually find ourselves in? When we look around us, we do not see things working that way. How can we bring this about? For this purpose, Hakadosh Boruch Hu established tzaddikim in every generation. The tzaddikim are called the nesi’im of the Jewish people; nasi is associated with exaltedness. In every generation, Hakadosh Boruch Hu established a tzaddik, a nasi, a Rebbe, who is a nasi in the sense of exaltedness. He brings about exaltedness. The tzaddik himself is elevated, and he brings about—he creates—exaltedness among the Jewish people. He elevates Jews. Yes, each nasi in his generation, each tzaddik in his generation, elevates Jews above nature, above the world. He enables us not to fear or be intimidated by anything in the world, and to truly be kings in everything concerning Yiddishkeit and mitzvos, recognizing that nature is subordinate to a Jew. This was true, broadly speaking, of the three—the three nesi’im,

17:06 the three kings we are discussing here: Moshe Rabbeinu, King David, and the Baal Shem Tov. Each was a king and a nasi of a particular kind. There were, of course, nesi’im in every generation, because “an extension of Moshe is present in every generation.” But what is distinctive about these three is their exaltedness and leadership: each was a first, someone unique who brought something new in his own sphere. With Moshe Rabbeinu, it is straightforward. Moshe Rabbeinu was a king. He was the first nasi, the first leader of the Jewish people, the first shepherd of Israel—the leader who brought the Jews out of exile and gave them the Torah. Moshe Rabbeinu was the first in this. Then there is the kingship of the House of David. As the Rambam writes, the kings of the House of David hold a distinctive place in kingship. Kingship was given to the kings of the House of David, and King David was the first of them. He was the first of the enduring kings. King Shaul did precede him, but his kingship did not endure. The enduring kingship, of which we say, “David, King of Israel, lives and endures,” is King David’s kingship—the kingship of the House of David, which will continue until the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu. Then there is the Baal Shem Tov, who was the first to reveal the teachings of Chassidus, in preparation

18:31 for the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu. As is well known, the Baal Shem Tov received the message “when your wellsprings spread outward” from Moshiach himself: Before the coming of Moshiach, during exile and in the darkness of exile, at the end of exile, in the footsteps of Moshiach, Hakadosh Boruch Hu sent the Baal Shem Tov’s soul down into the world to illuminate it and bring Chassidus. Through Chassidus—through “your wellsprings spreading outward”—we prepare for “the coming of the Master, the King Moshiach.” So these three were each the first of their kind, each in his own sphere. And all three indeed led with an exaltedness that was entirely above the natural order. With Moshe Rabbeinu, as the Chumash relates, when he led the Jews in the desert for forty years, everything in every detail was above the natural order: the manna, Miriam’s well, the Clouds of Glory, and all the accounts in the Torah about Moshe Rabbeinu. It was a miraculous way of life, in which the Jews were completely above nature and above all worldly concerns. With King David, there were all the wars he fought, until he brought about peace. Peace was what he brought in his days, and it began with King David: “And Hashem gave him rest from all his enemies around him.” It then reached its fullness with King Shlomo, when the Beis Hamikdash was built. King David laid the

19:58 foundations, and from there it continued with King Shlomo’s building of the Beis Hamikdash, when there was [unclear], and in actual fact, the entire world was subordinate to the Jews. This was a way of life above the natural order. And then, with the Baal Shem Tov, we all know that his conduct was entirely above the natural order. [unclear] the stories of the Baal Shem Tov’s conduct. This was [unclear] above the natural order, and it continued through the Baal Shem Tov, whose conduct truly was above the natural order. In all three, we find kingship, exaltedness, and leadership. And this is what all three accomplished for Jews: that a Jew should know his worth through the tzaddikim, the nesi’im of the Jewish people in every generation, and that he too should be a nasi and a king—“a kingdom of priests”—in everything connected with Yiddishkeit and life in the world. This is what they all have in common. But each accomplished something distinctive, at his own level and in his own sphere, and at a particular time. Moshe Rabbeinu was a king and a nasi in the desert. In the desert, the Jews lived outside the natural order, and their way of life was entirely removed from the world. In that setting, in the desert, in a place that was entirely [unclear], the Jews lived above the natural order through Moshe’s power. With King David, the way of life was different. The Jews entered Eretz Yisroel, and there their way of life was [unclear] within the natural order. Because

21:35 When we are in the world, amid its natural order—a world with natural needs, where we have to work to obtain food, drink, and everything else we need, because we are not always in the desert with the manna—we might think that living within nature and attending to worldly affairs means we are subject to nature. King David came and revealed that even when Jews live within the natural order, they are not intimidated by the world; their conduct within the world is above nature. A Jew does not bow down to the world. He stands above it and is a king even within nature itself. This is what King David introduced. After all, his was a time in the Land of Israel, “a land upon which the eyes of Hashem your G-d are set from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.” There was a revelation of G-dliness, and there was the Beis Hamikdash. Then came the era of the Baal Shem Tov, a time of the darkness of exile outside the Land of Israel. And within that darkness of exile, those were among the hardest times, with the most difficult trials of this world. To be a king in such a time of darkness—the Baal Shem Tov came and revealed faith and joy within Jews. He revealed that one must not be intimidated by nature or afraid of the world’s natural order,

22:58 even in times of redoubled darkness. He did this by revealing the principle of hashgachah pratis, Divine providence, and the G-dly life-force within every thing and every detail. The Baal Shem Tov revealed the meaning of “Forever, Hashem, Your word stands firm in the heavens,” and the Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya that the world is renewed at every moment. Every detail in the world—even in the inanimate, plant, and animal realms—and everything that happens is all by hashgachah pratis from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And every Jew carries within them a soul, “truly a part of G-d above.” All these teachings that the Baal Shem Tov revealed gave Jews the strength, even in the deepest, most redoubled darkness, not to be subject to nature or to the darkness of the world. A Jew stands above the world, and through this illuminates it and lives a life of Geulah—to be a king during exile. This is the “kingdom of priests” that Shavuos brings with it. And from time to time, a Jew must remember that Shavuos, every single year, is a special day: “And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” A Jew must know that he is a king. When we go with the strength of Moshe Rabbeinu, King David, and the Baal Shem Tov, a Jew stands above the world, above nature, and above exile. And so we find here three aspects of Geulah. For Moshe Rabbeinu was

24:21 the first redeemer, and in the words of the Midrash, “Moshe is the first redeemer and the last redeemer.” King David was the first of the kings of the House of David, for Moshiach is a descendant of David: “May You speedily cause the scion of David Your servant to flourish,” referring to Moshiach. And the Baal Shem Tov’s mission, as we discussed, is “Your wellsprings will spread outward,” which is the introduction and preparation for “the Master will come”—Moshiach. All three prepared the world to be a world of Geulah, a world of Moshiach. And so we find here, by way of allusion, as the Rebbe discussed at a Shavuos farbrengen, a hint in the Rambam’s wording in Hilchos Teshuvah: “The Torah has promised that ultimately the Jewish people will do teshuvah at the end of their exile, and immediately they will be redeemed.” The Hebrew word for “immediately,” miyad, is an acronym: mem for Moshe, yud for Yisrael—the Baal Shem Tov—and daled for David. “Immediately they will be redeemed”: through their strength and in their merit. When, on Shavuos, we study, follow their paths, and draw strength from these three kings—Moshe Rabbeinu, King David, and the Baal Shem Tov—we must be certain that, very soon indeed, this miyad will become “immediately they will be redeemed,” with the true and complete Geulah. And may every Jew receive the Torah with joy and inwardness. Along with that, we should also be certain about the Torah of Moshiach: “A new Torah will come forth from Me,” in the words of the Midrash. And thus be certain that we will receive

25:49 the Torah, including the Torah of the inner dimension of Torah, the Torah of Moshiach. “For I have given you a good teaching”—the Torah is always that. May everyone have a joyous Yom Tov and receive the Torah with joy and inwardness.