What Does Hashem Care How We Slaughter? The True Purpose of the Mitzvos | Shavuos Shiur

00:00 One of the things we received on Shavuos, at the Giving of the Torah, was a great abundance of Torah and mitzvos. Until the Giving of the Torah, there had been seven mitzvos—the Seven Noahide Laws—and suddenly we received 613 mitzvos. We know, of course, that the Avos observed the Torah even before it was given, as our Sages tell us at the end of Tractate Kiddushin. But they were not obligated to do so under Torah law, under halachah. Until the Giving of the Torah, the Jewish people had the legal status of Noahides and were obligated in only seven mitzvos. When we received the Torah, we received 613 mitzvos. That is regarding the mitzvos; and of course, regarding Torah itself, there was also a great abundance. All of this was new after the Giving of the Torah. This brings us to the famous, important mishnah that the Jewish people customarily say at the end of Pirkei Avos each Shabbos during the summer. Rabbi Chananya ben Akashya says: “Hakadosh Boruch Hu wished to grant merit to the Jewish people; therefore He gave them an abundance of Torah and mitzvos, as it is said: ‘Hashem desired, for the sake of His righteousness, to magnify the Torah and make it glorious.’” This mishnah is not actually from Pirkei Avos. It is from Tractate Makkos, at the end of the tractate. Jewish custom incorporated it at the end of each chapter of Pirkei Avos, to conclude with something good, in praise of the Jewish people. Similarly, we begin Pirkei Avos with praise of the Jewish people, saying before the chapter the mishnah from Tractate Sanhedrin: “All Israel have a share in the World to Come, as it is said: ‘And your people are all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, in which to take pride.’” So we speak of the praise of the Jewish people: every Jew will merit life in the World to Come, and they are Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s “branch of My planting, the work of My hands, in which to take pride.” At the end of Pirkei Avos, too, we conclude with praise of the Jewish people, for whom the Torah was given.

02:10 All the ethical teachings, character traits, and ways of conduct that Pirkei Avos teaches us concern the Jewish people, and we conclude with this wonderful praise of them. Rabbi Chananya ben Akashya tells us that because Hakadosh Boruch Hu wished to grant merit to the Jewish people, He gave them an abundance of Torah and mitzvos. The abundance of Torah and mitzvos that came with the Giving of the Torah was for the benefit of the Jewish people. “Hashem desired, for the sake of His righteousness, to magnify the Torah and make it glorious.” This magnification of Torah—“to magnify the Torah and make it glorious”—and all its abundance, in both quantity and quality, is entirely for the benefit of the Jewish people. So today we will discuss this mishnah. As I said, it is the mishnah with which we conclude Pirkei Avos each week. There is also a custom to say it before reciting Kaddish after studying Mishnayos, and so on. It is a well-known custom throughout the Jewish world: this mishnah was chosen as a very familiar mishnah to say before Kaddish. What is special about this mishnah? What is special here? When we think about it—and today we will try to delve into it and understand its depth—what does this mishnah tell us, especially now, during the great days of Shavuos, the days of the Giving of the Torah? If we understand its depth, we will understand exactly what its message is. We will gain a new, refreshing, profound, and wonderful perspective that will let us see differently everything we receive on this great day of the Giving of the Torah. A simple question arises here, one that all the commentators ask. What does it mean that “Hakadosh Boruch Hu wished to grant merit to the Jewish people; therefore He gave them an abundance of Torah and mitzvos”? Because Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants to grant us merit, He gave us an abundance of Torah and mitzvos? It is a simple question. The Rambam raises it, as does the Maharal of Prague, and all the commentators ask it: If Hakadosh Boruch Hu truly loves us and wants to grant us merit, He should give us less work, not more.

04:22 Why give us more? If you want to benefit someone, why increase his burden and give him so much more work? If I love someone and want to reward him, I would tell him, “Do a little, and you’ll receive a lot.” If He wants to give us a great reward, He can give it to us even if we do only a little. That would be granting merit to the Jewish people. But the mishnah says no: because He wished to grant merit to the Jewish people, He gave them an abundance of Torah and mitzvos. What is the meaning of this abundance, and how does it become a benefit to the Jewish people? And the verse that the mishnah cites—what exactly did Rabbi Chananya find in it? There even seems to be a slight contradiction between the verse and the mishnah. Rabbi Chananya says, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu wished to grant merit to the Jewish people.” In other words, the reason Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave an abundance of Torah and mitzvos was for the benefit of the Jewish people; He did it for them. What does the verse say? Quite the opposite: “Hashem desired, for the sake of His righteousness, to magnify the Torah and make it glorious.” It is for the sake of His righteousness—that is, for the sake of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Where does it say here that it is for the Jewish people? The verse emphasizes the opposite: “Hashem desired.” It is something Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants. And why does He want it? “For the sake of His righteousness.” Yet the mishnah says it is to grant merit to the Jewish people. How does the verse fit with what Rabbi Chananya is telling us? This brings us to another very fundamental, basic, and central question about Torah and mitzvos, a broad question that great Torah scholars have discussed since the time of the Rishonim: Who are the Torah and mitzvos for? Are the mitzvos for us or for Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Are all the mitzvos for the person, so that a person can attain some kind of

06:27 perfection and conduct himself properly—for us and for the world? Or are the Torah and mitzvos for Hakadosh Boruch Hu? He needs our Torah and mitzvos; they are for Him. Verses and teachings of our Sages seem to point in both directions. Take the simplest example: several times the Torah says, “You shall love Hashem your G-d and serve Him with all your heart.” That means a Jew is like a servant to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and a servant serves his master. The master has needs and wishes, and we are servants who serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu to fulfill His will. In other words, the Torah and mitzvos are for Him. He is the master, He needs our Torah and mitzvos, and we serve Him to fulfill His will. On the other hand, we all know the teaching of our Sages, the famous Midrash that says: “Does it matter to Hakadosh Boruch Hu whether you slaughter an animal from the neck or from the back of the neck? Rather, the mitzvos were given only to refine people through them.” The Midrash bases this on the verse in Tehillim, “The word of Hashem is refined.” It tells us that the entire purpose of Torah and mitzvos is to refine people. To refine means to purify and make a person more sensitive, more refined. So what is this Midrash telling us? That Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not need it; it does not matter to Him whether you slaughter here or there. All those details are not what concerns Him. Why, then, did He give us the whole Torah and all the mitzvos? To refine people. In other words, the mitzvos are for us, not for Him. So how do we explain this? If we return to the mishnah we are studying, Rabbi Chananya ben Akashya’s words, it seems that this is the difference between what Rabbi Chananya says and what the verse says. Rabbi Chananya says, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu wished to grant merit to the Jewish people.” The entire purpose of the abundance

08:37 The Torah and mitzvos are meant to give the Jewish people merit. The verse says, “Hashem desired, for the sake of His righteousness, to magnify the Torah and make it glorious.” Hashem desires it. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants it. It is for His sake, “for the sake of His righteousness.” So there is something interesting here: are the Torah and mitzvos for us, or for Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Listen to the wonderful explanation in Chassidus of how this teaching of our Sages is understood differently from its simple meaning. The Midrash asks, “What does it matter to Hakadosh Boruch Hu whether you slaughter an animal from the neck or from the back of the neck?” It sounds as though it is saying that Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not care, and that the mitzvos were given only to refine His creatures. It is not for Him; it is for us. Chassidus says otherwise. That is not the meaning. Rather, the Midrash is telling us: Yes, it matters to Him. A person asks, “What does it matter to Hakadosh Boruch Hu?” And the Midrash answers: It certainly matters to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants the Torah and mitzvos, He needs them, and they are important to Him. They matter to Him. In the language of Kabbalah, “mitzvos are a need Above.” Serving Hashem is a need Above, a need of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What is that need? To refine His creatures through the mitzvos. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants His creatures to be refined. We are creatures here in this physical world. The soul is down here in this physical world, in a material body, with physical limbs, with a yetzer and an animal soul, in a physical world full of kelipos and sitra achra, as the Tanya says. And here we refine ourselves by observing Torah and mitzvos. So that is what matters to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It matters to Him, it is important to Him, that His creatures become refined and purified, becoming vessels for G-dly light. And this goes together with the well-known Midrash that the Alter Rebbe

10:51 brings in Tanya, which is explained in many maamarim of Chassidus. This is the familiar Midrash that the entire purpose of the world’s creation is what Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired: “Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired to have a dwelling place in the lower realms.” In other words, Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted His dwelling place to be in this lowly physical world. That is His desire, His delight, and His innermost will. That is what the Midrash says. Accordingly, the two parts of the Mishnah actually complement each other. Rabbi Chananya ben Akashya is coming to tell us the deeper meaning of Torah and mitzvos. So let’s try to explain the Mishnah. Let’s understand a little better what exactly it means that Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted to give the Jewish people merit. What is he trying to say by that? What does “give merit” mean? And “therefore He gave them an abundance”—we asked what this abundance of Torah and mitzvos means. What is he talking about? It’s interesting. Before we get into the explanation in Chassidus, the wonderful explanation the Rebbe gives us of this Mishnah, let’s first look at what the commentators who explain its plain meaning say. The Bartenura, Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura, in his commentary in Makkos, explains what it means that Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted to give the Jewish people merit. He offers an interesting explanation: We see that there are many things in the Torah that did not really need to be written. There are many mitzvos we would observe even if they had not been written. There are many things the Torah did not really need to address. Take, for example, creeping creatures. The Torah forbids eating them—things a person finds repulsive. Who would want to eat them? Why does the Torah need to command us not to eat creatures that an ordinary person finds repulsive? And there are many other things in the Torah that, even without the Torah, we would

12:50 do. We do not need the Torah to command us to do them. The same applies to various Midrashim and teachings of our Sages: we could have managed without them; they did not have to be written. We could understand these things even without all those verses, teachings of our Sages, and Midrashim. That is what Rabbi Chananya ben Akashya is coming to tell us. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted to give the Jewish people merit simply because He wanted to give them merit. He wanted to give us abundant reward. That is why He gave us an abundance: He gave us many parts of the Torah, even though they were not strictly necessary, and many mitzvos we would observe even if they had not been commanded. But He wanted to give us the merit of receiving that reward, to increase our reward. So He gave us many commands and instructions, including things we would do even without a command. Now they also have the force of a mitzvah, and we receive a special reward. It’s a nice explanation, a wonderful explanation, but it does not fit the wording so well. The Mishnah says, “He wanted to give the Jewish people merit.” It does not say, “He wanted to increase our reward.” Why use the expression “give the Jewish people merit”? And it says, “Therefore He gave them an abundance.” It does not say that He gave us things that are not important. There is something about the abundance itself—that is really the point of the wording. There is a wonderful explanation from the Rambam. In his Commentary on the Mishnah, the Rambam gives a wonderful explanation of what “therefore He gave them an abundance of Torah and mitzvos” means. He says that a person lives in this world, and fulfilling a mitzvah properly, perfectly, is almost impossible. There are always things—inclinations or thoughts we have, or things we do with motives that are not, not, not one hundred percent right, not entirely for the sake of Heaven. We do not fulfill

14:52 the mitzvah as we should. To fulfill a mitzvah as Hakadosh Boruch Hu truly wants is very difficult. Therefore, he says, Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave us an abundance of mitzvos. This way, with all the mitzvos there are, it cannot happen that a Jew has never fulfilled a mitzvah properly. If we had only a few mitzvos, a small number of mitzvos, it might be possible for a Jew to live his entire life without fulfilling a single mitzvah properly. But because there are so many mitzvos, surely over the course of a day, a week, a month, a year, a lifetime, we fulfill a number of mitzvos correctly and perfectly, in accordance with the Divine will. We can also expand on the Rambam’s words, as some commentators have written: Even a Jew who, may Hashem protect us, is completely distant and disconnected from observing Torah and mitzvos—whether he has no real interest in observing them, or he is a tinok shenishba, someone raised without a Jewish education, living somewhere he never received that upbringing—with so many Torah teachings and mitzvos, it is impossible that over his lifetime he has not fulfilled a number of mitzvos. If there were very few mitzvos, a person could live an entire life without fulfilling a single mitzvah. But now that there are so many mitzvos, every Jew certainly fulfills mitzvos. This connects with the Mishnah we say before Pirkei Avos: “All Israel have a share in the World to Come, as it is said, ‘And Your people are all righteous.’” For our Sages said that even the sinners of Israel are as full of mitzvos as a pomegranate is of seeds. A Jew may fall into the category of the sinners of Israel, but he must have mitzvos, and therefore all Israel have a share

16:43 The World to Come. For “Your people are all righteous,” because every Jew fulfills mitzvos. This connects with the teaching that Hashem “gave them Torah and mitzvos in abundance.” With so many Torah teachings and mitzvos, every Jew is bound to have mitzvos—many mitzvos. That, too, is a wonderful, sweet explanation. But now we come to the deeper meaning once again. How is all of this contained in the words “to bring merit to Israel”? Here we reach the depth of Chassidus, which opens our eyes and gives us a wonderful way to understand the whole purpose of Torah and mitzvos, and how it is contained in those words. The wording is precise: “to bring merit to Israel,” and “gave them in abundance”—the abundance of Torah and mitzvos. This brings us to a very simple, basic question. We can look at the Torah and mitzvos in two ways. On the one hand, we can see them all as one single point, with no separate details or parts. After all, all the mitzvos come down to one thing: the Supreme Will, the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is one, singular and unique. He cannot be divided into parts. His will, too—He and His will are one—is one, singular and unique. So all the mitzvos and all of Torah are contained in one single point: Hashem’s will. If we look deeply at what will means, it cannot be divided into parts. Either you want something or you don’t. Either you did it as desired, and then you did it right, or you did not do it as desired, and then you accomplished nothing. Will, by its very nature, is one point. Take a person, for example—a king.

19:01 The king asks his people to build him a palace. He has a very specific wish: “I want the palace to be this way.” There is one point here: he wants a palace built in a particular way. If they build the entire palace but even one part of it is not made as the king wants, then it is not the palace he wanted. The king’s wish has not been fulfilled. We did not do what he wanted; we did not hit the mark. So even the whole palace is not enough if one point is missing. That is the very nature of will. Will is one point that must be fulfilled completely, with every detail fitting that point. If one point is missing, the wish has not been fulfilled: “You did not do what I wanted.” We can look at all the mitzvos as one point like this. In serving Hashem, there is the idea that you say, “I am a Jew: Who has sanctified us with His mitzvos and commanded us.” All the mitzvos say one thing: “He has sanctified us with His mitzvos and commanded us.” They are Hashem’s mitzvos, Hashem’s will. From this perspective, there are no 613 mitzvos, no Ten Commandments, no number at all. What do these numbers mean? There is one single point: the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. If you are missing one, you are missing everything; you have not fulfilled His will. On the other hand, there is the other perspective: the abundance of Torah and mitzvos. Torah and mitzvos were given not as one point, but in great variety. Torah has many parts. There are positive mitzvos and prohibitions; chukim, eidos and mishpatim. There are mitzvos connected with the head, with the heart, with the hands and with the feet. As the well-known Sefer Chareidim explains, it divides all 613 mitzvos according to

20:58 the limbs of the human body. Every limb has its mitzvah, and every mitzvah is connected specifically with particular details. That is where we speak of 613 mitzvos—the familiar number cited in many sefarim. The Gemara in Makkos already discusses the precision of this number: 248 positive mitzvos corresponding to the body’s limbs, and 365 prohibitions corresponding to its sinews. In other words, the mitzvos are specifically connected with limbs and sinews. Each mitzvah acts upon a particular limb. Each mitzvah acts upon a particular part of the world, in a particular place. Each is connected with something specific in the world and must be performed in its particular way. When you perform a mitzvah, you have to enter into its details and engage with them. Through that, you have an effect in that specific place—in your body, in your soul, and in the world. Some mitzvos involve animals; others involve inanimate matter, plants or living creatures. Some depend on the Land of Israel, on a particular place or thing, or on a particular time. This is the opposite of a single point: it means dividing things into parts. Now we can read the teaching in an entirely different way. Its question is: Why is there such abundance in Torah and mitzvos? As we said, if we look at the mitzvos as Hashem’s will, at their source in Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who is one, singular and unique, there should be no numbers, no parts, no combination of elements. There should be only one single point: Hashem’s will, and that is all. Hashem is one, His will is one, Torah is one; it is all one, without details. Why, then, did He “give them Torah and mitzvos in abundance”? We see that Torah and mitzvos were given specifically in great variety. As we said, there are 613 mitzvos. In Torah, there are four ways to study every verse:

23:12 through pshat, remez, drush and sod, and there are seventy facets to the Torah. There are numbers everywhere—parts, different approaches and different forms. And there is a reason to divide them into parts. You cannot simply derive one from another. In halachah there are all kinds of distinctions: you cannot derive halachah from drush or from aggadah. This whole division seems the opposite of the single point of oneness and uniqueness—Divine oneness. Why the abundance? Rabbi Chananya ben Akashya tells us: “Hakadosh Boruch Hu wished to bring merit to Israel.” Here we come to the key word, “to bring merit”—which can also mean “to refine.” Let us recall the teaching of our Sages with which we began the lesson: “The mitzvos were given only to refine people through them.” The Divine purpose, the Divine intent, the Supreme Will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu—His desire, so to speak, in creating this whole world and in giving Torah and mitzvos to the Jewish people—was not merely to reveal His will. He wanted to refine people. The Supreme Will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is that a person refine himself. “To bring merit” can mean “to refine,” to become refined. Refinement has to be specific and precise; it has to reach into the details. If the entire purpose of Torah and mitzvos were only for a person to submit to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, like a servant submitting to his master, then all of Torah and mitzvos would be nothing but submission. Submission would mean: “What I feel does not matter. I set myself aside and do what Hashem wants.” Then we really would need to emphasize that one point: submission to the Supreme Will. There is one will, and I do not exist—my head, my heart, my intellect, my character traits, my feelings, my limbs. There is no person; there is only the Supreme Will and complete submission. But Hakadosh Boruch Hu did not want only submission. He wanted that, after submission, there should also be the detailed inner work of refining each limb according to its nature—every faculty and every trait,

25:30 Every character trait, every emotion, every detail of the human body, of a person’s limbs and soul—and also of the world, of the inanimate, plant, animal, and human realms: the Divine light must penetrate every detail in its own particular way, refining it. That is why there must be multiplicity. The multiplicity is there to refine and purify the created beings. That is what the Midrash tells us. Rabbi Chananya ben Akashya said: “Hakadosh Boruch Hu wished to make Israel meritorious.” What is Hashem’s inner desire in creating the world and giving us the Torah and mitzvos? It is to bring about inner refinement, to make us meritorious; “therefore He gave them Torah and mitzvos in abundance.” The Torah and mitzvos were given to us in such abundance so that every part and every detail could be reached—the multiplicity of the world, the public domain, and the person who is made up of many limbs and parts. Hashem’s will, the Torah and mitzvos, must penetrate each part inwardly, transforming every part of a person, so that the intellect, in all its details and all its different forms, becomes united with the Divine light. As the verse says: “Hashem desired, for the sake of His righteousness, to magnify the Torah and make it glorious.” So that is the higher will: to purify the created beings through them. This purification, this refinement, is the inner desire expressed in “Hashem desired, for the sake of His righteousness.” These are not two opposing ideas. On the contrary, they depend on each other; one brings about the other. You want to know what matters to Hashem, what He wants? “For the sake of His righteousness, to magnify the Torah and make it glorious”: there should be abundance so that, through it, every detail of creation cries out, “There is nothing besides Him,” and reveals Hashem’s presence in its own particular, personal way. This brings us to the great principle the Baal Shem Tov revealed about Divine providence

27:38 over each individual thing: every detail of creation, in the inanimate, plant, animal, and human realms, is subject to its own particular Divine providence. For through every single detail, the higher intent—Hashem’s will in creating the world and bringing creation to its completion—is fulfilled. May we merit this with the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu. And this is what we celebrate on Shavuos. On Shavuos we celebrate the great gift Hashem gave us. So it is not merely a matter of numbers. Before the Giving of the Torah, we had seven mitzvos. Now we have 613 mitzvos. That is a numerical difference, a difference in quantity. But that is not what makes the Giving of the Torah so extraordinary and new. Its real innovation is, as we said, this abundance. The emphasis here is on making us meritorious: a Jew must know and seek to have the Torah and mitzvos we received at the Giving of the Torah bring him to inner refinement. Every part of the person should be refined, clarified, and perfected in every detail. That way, he becomes a vessel for the infinite light, for the Divine light that Hashem desires to reveal here in creation. This revelation will reach its fullness soon, with the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu. And this is really the purpose of Pirkei Avos. That is why this Mishnah appears in Pirkei Avos: Pirkei Avos is about refining the person, as the Gemara and all the commentators explain. The Rambam tells us that our Sages wrote Pirkei Avos to explain how a person should cultivate and refine himself. The good character traits and conduct taught in Pirkei Avos are not merely a matter of behavior. You can learn about behavior from psychology books, or even from ethical works written by other nations. We do not need the Torah just for that. But for a person to be truly refined—to “make Israel meritorious”—we were given the Torah and mitzvos in all their details and fine points, down to the details that Pirkei Avos teaches us,

29:32 so as to refine a person and make him a fitting vessel for the Divine light revealed at the Giving of the Torah. Hashem reveals Himself to each and every person in a particular, detailed way. And thus we will soon merit the complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu, when “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.” We will merit the secrets of the Torah that King Moshiach will reveal to us. May we merit, this very Shavuos, to see and hear and receive, and to see the fulfillment of the prophecy, “For they shall see eye to eye when Hashem returns to Zion,” speedily in our days. Amen, may it be His will. May we receive the Torah with joy and inwardly.