Shavuos 5786 "Toras Hashem Temimah" - How Does One Receive the Torah Completely?

00:00 I heard this from the chossid Rabbi Yoel Kahn, who was the Rebbe’s chozer. He told me that when he was young, in his yeshivah years, he used to travel to yeshivos in America. These were yeshivos for students of Torah, and he would give classes there in Tanya and Chassidus. Many of the students were drawn to Chassidus through those classes. Once, at one of the yeshivos, there was a young man considered one of its most brilliant students, an accomplished scholar and one of the most prominent students there. He would sit and study Gemara. He did not think he needed to study Chassidus, and he did not come to the classes. But he sat and learned diligently, devoted to Torah study and avodah. Once, the young man approached Rabbi Yoel Kahn and said he had heard that the Lubavitcher Rebbe was an extraordinary genius, and he wanted to discuss Torah matters with him. He had a number of questions and doubts—matters of halachah and Gemara, difficulties for which he had no answer and had found no explanation—and he wanted to discuss them with the Rebbe. Rabbi Yoel thought this was an opportune moment, and that getting to know the Rebbe might give the young man a connection to the study of Chassidus, the inner dimension of Torah. So, through the Rebbe’s secretary,

01:38 his attendant, Rabbi Chadakov, a”h, he arranged a yechidus in which the young man could meet with the Rebbe, as was possible in those years, and discuss what he wanted to discuss. And that is what they arranged. A few weeks later—it took time to find an opening—the young man came to 770 and went in for yechidus with the Rebbe. He went in alone and stayed for quite a long time. Later, Rabbi Yoel met him and asked him to tell him what had happened inside. He did tell him: with tremendous brilliance, the Rebbe had answered him, explained everything clearly, and resolved all his questions and doubts. He said that after the Rebbe had finished answering and explaining all the answers to his questions, the Rebbe asked him how his study of Chassidus was going. The young man said he did not study Chassidus very regularly. He had no time; he was busy studying the revealed dimension of Torah and had no time to study Chassidus. It was not something on his mind. The Rebbe then said to him: “Do you know what it means to study Torah lishmah? What genuine Torah study is—studying Torah for its own sake, studying Torah out of love—as

03:11 the Rambam writes at the end of Yoreh Deah, that one studies Torah out of love? Do you know what that means?” And the Rebbe gave him an analogy. The Rebbe said that the true way you should study Torah—Torah for its own sake, Torah out of love—is like a child who has been away from his father. They have not been together for some time, and when he comes home and sees his father, he embraces him with love, affection, and longing. The closeness, the hugs and kisses between the child and his father after they have not seen each other for a long time, after all that longing—that is the genuine love a Jew feels when he comes to study Torah. The Rebbe told him: When a Jew finishes davening, having contemplated G-dliness during davening, and afterward goes over and takes a Gemara from the bookcase, he holds that Gemara like a child embracing his father whom he has not seen in many years—with that same affection and longing. The Rebbe asked him: “Have you ever seen such a connection, such love, in a Jew’s relationship with Torah study?” The young man said, “No.” “And you know,” the young man said,

04:44 perhaps with a bit of chutzpah, and asked the Rebbe whether he himself had ever seen such a thing. The Rebbe told him: “Yes, I have seen it. And the only way something like that can happen is through Chassidus. Through Chassidus, we have the Giver of the Torah; we have Hakadosh Boruch Hu within the Torah. Then the approach to Torah study is entirely different—an entirely different bond, an entirely different attachment.” As is known, there is a teaching of the Baal Shem Tov. After all, Shavuos is the day the Torah was given, and it is also the Baal Shem Tov’s day. The passing of the holy Baal Shem Tov was on the first day of Shavuos, as is well known and accepted. So besides being the day the Torah was given, it is an opportune time, a day of special significance, connected also with the inner dimension of Torah—the Torah that the holy Baal Shem Tov revealed, the wellsprings of the inner dimension of Torah. There is a teaching of the holy Baal Shem Tov about Torah, quoted in Me’or Einayim, where Rabbi Nachum of Chernobyl cites it in the Baal Shem Tov’s name, on the verse “The Torah of Hashem is perfect, restoring the soul.” The holy Baal Shem Tov says: “The Torah of Hashem is perfect” means that the Torah of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is whole, perfect. The Baal Shem Tov says that “perfect” means the Torah is still whole, because no one has yet grasped it; no one has yet reached the true Torah.

06:17 “No person has ever touched it.” No one—not even a single person—has yet touched the Torah, the truth of Torah, and it remains whole. The Torah is whole, perfect and complete, because no one has yet reached it. In other words, what the holy Baal Shem Tov wants to convey here is the wonder, loftiness and greatness of the Torah. After all, the Torah is the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, which are infinite—the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the Torah of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In the words of the Gemara in Shabbos, it is a “hidden treasure”; it is connected with Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. So however much a person studies and studies and studies, he still has not exhausted it, explored it fully, or touched the truth of what Torah is. Torah is far more exalted than anything a person can grasp with his human intellect. For “no person has ever touched it”—no one has yet reached the truth of Torah, and it remains whole. The Torah is whole. The Rebbe once spoke about this teaching of the Baal Shem Tov at a farbrengen, on Purim 5721. What is its point? What new insight does it offer? What does the Baal Shem Tov want to express? And the Rebbe gave a wonderful interpretation of this teaching of the Baal Shem Tov. On the face of it, the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching expresses how wondrous the Torah is. Indeed, “no person has ever touched it.” But the Rebbe said that there is actually another interpretation—quite the opposite: the Baal Shem Tov wanted to tell us how

07:47 a person can reach the Torah and receive the Torah, the true Torah. What the Baal Shem Tov says is: “No person has ever touched it.” He emphasizes specifically the word “person”—adam. An adam is someone who approaches the Torah with intellect. Chassidus explains that adam represents the quality of intellect, the quality of understanding—the human being as a thinking, rational being. Approaching the Torah as an adam means approaching it as an intellectual. One examines the Torah and looks for its intellectual reasoning. But about that he says: “No person has ever touched it.” If the approach to Torah is nothing but intellect and understanding, then “he has never touched it”—he cannot reach it at all. He explains this in light of the well-known teaching, brought in various sefarim and in Chassidus in the name of the Kabbalistic works, that there is adam and there is me’od. Me’od is made up of the same letters as adam. The idea of me’od—and, incidentally, “with all your might,” bechol me’odecha—appears in connection with Moshiach. The Arizal says this about Moshiach: the verse in Yeshayahu says of Moshiach, “Behold, My servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and raised, and shall be very high”—me’od. Regarding the word me’od used of Moshiach, which has the same letters as adam, the Arizal says—and this is explained at length in Chassidus—that adam and me’od are opposites. Adam represents intellect, the ordered progression of spiritual levels, a person made up of ten sefiros. Me’od is the exact opposite. Me’od is “with all your might.” Me’od means exceedingly.

09:35 It is something beyond measure and limitation, a departure from all measures and limits. The Arizal explains that adam is an acronym for Adam, David and Moshiach. These are three souls that encompass all the souls of the Jewish people. Adam Harishon was the first, and all souls were included in him. As explained in the teachings of the Arizal, Adam Harishon’s soul included all souls: “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” Afterward, this passed to King David, who possessed the collective soul of the Jewish people: “David, King of Israel, lives and endures.” And finally it will be so with Moshiach, who will possess the soul of the entire Jewish people, the collective yechidah of the Jewish people. This is the usual sequence, the order of the generations: Adam, David, Moshiach—the initials spelling adam. But in the future there will be something more: “Behold, My servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and raised, and shall be very high”—me’od. In the future, the greatness of Moshiach will be revealed, and he will be higher even than Adam Harishon. And the Arizal says: even higher than Adam Harishon as he was before the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, when he was in a state of complete perfection. Adam Harishon was fashioned by the hands of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Moshiach will be higher still, because yechidah is higher than all other levels, and this is Moshiach’s level of awareness. Moshiach is described as me’od, which is higher than adam. Returning to Torah, the Baal Shem Tov says something wonderful about this. The Baal Shem Tov says: “No person has ever touched it.” Adam—when a person studies Torah only as an adam, only

11:05 With his intellect and understanding, he has “not touched it.” But when a Jew approaches the Torah with “ma’od,” with bittul, with devotion and self-sacrifice, seeking to receive the Torah that is beyond “man,” that ma’od reveals the yechidah of his soul, which connects with the very Essence, beyond the Torah. Then he can truly reach the true Torah. This is what the Baal Shem Tov meant when he said, “No man has ever touched it.” “Ever”—the meaning is clear: because the Torah is perfection. It is Hashem’s perfection, infinite perfection, the infinite perfection of everything, the perfection of the Essence. The Torah is Hashem’s truth and the perfection of His truth, utterly beyond “man,” beyond the chain of spiritual worlds, beyond order, sefiros and levels. “No man has ever touched it.” But when a Jew approaches with ma’od, with the devotion to receive the Torah, he can truly receive the very essence of the Torah, because “Yisroel, the Torah and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are all one.” And this is truly connected with receiving the Torah. The holy Baal Shem Tov has an interpretation of the verse, “For I have given you a good teaching; do not forsake My Torah.” There is a story, told earlier at the Shavuos farbrengen, that the Baal Shem Tov once went—he once entered the city of Brody, where there was—

12:33 It was a city with a large kloiz where great Torah scholars, learned sages, studied. The Baal Shem Tov came there for a visit and shared a Torah teaching with the scholars on the verse, “For I have given you a good teaching; do not forsake My Torah.” At first glance, the wording seems repetitive. The Baal Shem Tov explains: “For I have given you a good teaching”—Hakadosh Boruch Hu says to the Jews: I have given you the Torah. The Torah is “a good teaching,” a good gift. “I have given you”—this is what I have given you: Torah that can be understood intellectually. A Jew who studies Torah must study it with understanding and comprehension, and grasp it. “I have given you”—Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave it to a person so that he would understand the Torah and study it with his intellect. But that is still not the whole Torah. That is why the verse says, “My Torah”—My Torah. One must sense the inner dimension of the Torah, the soul of the Torah; “do not forsake it.” A Jew must hold fast to “My Torah,” remembering the soul of the Torah while studying it. We reach this through the inner dimension of the Torah, the soul of the Torah, which reveals the “My Torah” within it. This is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s Torah, the “I”—“I wrote and gave My very self.” This is the way of Torah study that Chassidus, the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, revealed to us: when a person studies Torah, he brings the soul of the Torah into his study, and that is only through studying

13:56 the inner dimension of the Torah, Chassidus, which reveals the Torah’s soul. Then one reaches the soul within the Torah, and then one embraces Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Alter Rebbe says in Tanya that it is as though one embraces the king. When a Jew studies Torah and fulfills a mitzvah, he embraces Hakadosh Boruch Hu. As he puts it there, this is “a wondrous union, the like of which, or anything comparable to it, is not found at all in the physical world: to become truly one and united in every respect and from every angle.” This is what Torah study and receiving the Torah are about. May Hakadosh Boruch Hu help us, during these great days of Shavuos—the day of Moshe Rabbeinu, King David and the holy Baal Shem Tov—to receive the Torah with joy and inwardness: both “I have given you a good teaching” and “do not forsake My Torah.” And may we bring the vitality of the Torah and the vitality of its inner dimension into our Torah study. Through this, may we merit to hear the new Torah, the Torah insights of King Moshiach: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth”—what has not been explained until now. Its hidden reasons and concealed mysteries will be revealed: the secrets of the Torah, its inner dimension, the Torah of Moshiach—“A new Torah will go forth from Me.” May we receive the Torah with joy and inwardness.