40 Years Ago: The Rebbe's Tears on Simchas Torah

00:00 Today I want to share with you a remarkable farbrengen that I had the privilege of hearing from the Rebbe on Simchas Torah exactly forty years ago. It was the night of Simchas Torah, before hakafos. The Rebbe would hold a farbrengen at the beginning of the evening. It would usually continue until midnight, and only after midnight would the Rebbe go to hakafos with tremendous joy. That year, though, the farbrengen was one that remained etched in our blood and bones. There was something extraordinary, something very special about it. That evening, the Rebbe spoke powerfully about the essence of Simchas Torah. He explained that there are really two meanings to the words “Simchas Torah.” One is that we rejoice with the Torah. That is the simple meaning: a Jew rejoices with the Torah. We finish the Torah and begin it anew, and we rejoice with the Torah that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave us. But there is a second meaning: on Simchas Torah, we make the Torah rejoice. The joy is the Torah’s joy, and a Jew brings joy to the Torah. We see this in the Jewish custom of taking a Torah scroll in our arms on Simchas Torah and dancing with it. In effect, we are making the Torah rejoice. Or, as the Frierdiker Rebbe said, “The Torah wants to dance, but it needs feet.” The Jew is the Torah’s feet. So that is our role on Simchas Torah: to make the Torah rejoice. This has a source in the Zohar. The Zohar says that Simchas Torah means that Jews adorn the Torah with a crown and make it rejoice. Where does a Jew’s power to bring joy to the Torah come from? The Rebbe explained that it comes from the source of the Jewish people. A Jew has an exceedingly lofty source. Jewish souls are truly a part of G-d above. That is why a Jewish soul has the ability to add joy to the Torah. There is a Midrash, a Midrash

02:31 called Tanna Devei Eliyahu, in which Eliyahu Hanavi is asked what preceded the creation of the world. He says that two things preceded the creation of the world: the Torah and the Jewish people. “And I do not know which came first, the Jewish people or the Torah.” Both preceded the creation of the world, but which came first? Then Eliyahu Hanavi says, “I say that the Jewish people came first.” In other words, both the Jewish people and the Torah precede the creation of the world. When we say “before the creation of the world,” we need to understand that this does not mean merely earlier in time. Before the creation of the world, time did not exist. As we know, time was created together with the world. So “before” means higher in rank, on a loftier level—not just earlier in time, but prior in quality, in a higher place. The Torah is on a level above the world, and so are Jewish souls. And of those two, we say that the Jewish people came before the Torah. Since the Jewish people came before the Torah, they have the power to make the Torah rejoice. This is the inner meaning of Simchas Torah: the Jewish people bring joy to the Torah; they add joy to the Torah itself. The Rebbe spoke beautifully about the power of joy, about the great joy of Simchas Torah: the Torah’s joy in the Jewish people, the Jewish people’s joy in the Torah, and each bringing joy to the other. This joy is boundless, great, and wonderful. The Rebbe then began a sicha about Parshas Vezos Haberachah, the parsha we finish on Simchas Torah. As the Rebbe said, the parsha we read must contain the theme of the festival. The Shelah Hakadosh famously wrote that the parshiyos are connected with each festival. It is not by chance that we read a particular parsha at a particular time; there is a connection between the parsha and the festival’s theme. The same is true

05:05 when we come to Simchas Torah. It is not simply that this happens to be when we finish the last parsha. This parsha, too, must contain the message, the essence, of Simchas Torah. When we look at Parshas Vezos Haberachah, on the one hand we do indeed find that it speaks in praise of the Torah. The opening verses of the parsha say: “Hashem came from Sinai and shone forth from Seir to them; He appeared from Mount Paran and came from among myriads of holy ones. From His right hand came a fiery law for them. The Torah that Moshe commanded us is the heritage of the congregation of Yaakov.” These verses speak about the Torah, its greatness and its power, and its being given to the Jewish people. Certainly, these are wonderful things connected with Simchas Torah. But where in our parsha do we see the greatness of the Jewish people? Where do we find this remarkable idea that Simchas Torah is not only about our joy in the Torah, but also the reverse—the Torah rejoices in the Jewish people, and a Jew has the power to bring joy to the Torah because his source is actually higher than the Torah’s? Where is that found in Parshas Vezos Haberachah? Here the Rebbe began a remarkable explanation. I call this sicha historic because I remember hearing the Rebbe speak about it at that farbrengen. The Rebbe spoke at length, for an hour, and with such emotion as he gave the explanation we are about to discuss that, in the middle of speaking, he burst into tears. It was not just for a few minutes. He continued for a long time—I do not remember exactly how many minutes, perhaps half an hour—speaking through intense tears, tears of the deepest emotion. We felt in our very bones what Ahavas Yisroel means. What it means to say that the Rebbe, a tzaddik, is the shepherd

07:24 of the Jewish people, the raya mehemna, the faithful shepherd: how he thinks about every Jew, cares for every Jew, loves every Jew. This sicha was delivered with so much emotion and passion, with an inner cry. We could truly feel the deep love for a Jew—what a Jew is, the essence of a Jew, how to look at a Jew. And all this concerns the final Rashi, on the last verse of our parsha. At the end of the parsha, the Torah tells us about Moshe Rabbeinu: “Never again did a prophet arise in Israel like Moshe, whom Hashem knew face to face.” The Torah praises Moshe Rabbeinu and speaks of all the signs and wonders and the mighty hand. Then the Torah ends with these final words: “And for all the mighty hand that Moshe performed before the eyes of all Israel.” With these words we finish the entire Torah, all five books. Rashi, on the words “before the eyes of all Israel,” tells us: “His heart moved him to break the Tablets before their eyes.” When Moshe Rabbeinu saw the grave sin of the Golden Calf, his heart moved him to break the Tablets before the eyes of the Jewish people, as it says, “And I broke them before your eyes.” Rashi cites that verse from Parshas Eikev and continues: “And Hakadosh Boruch Hu agreed with Moshe,” as we learn from the words “which you broke”—“Well done for breaking them.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu told Moshe Rabbeinu, “Well done for breaking them.” And with that, Rashi ends his commentary on the Torah. Here the Rebbe asked some fundamental, simple, and powerful questions. The first was: How is it fitting to end the Torah with something negative? The breaking of the Tablets speaks of the sin of the Golden Calf and of the Jewish people’s wrongdoing, which led Moshe Rabbeinu to break them. We know the principle that one should end on a positive note.

09:58 Yes, generally we try to end on something good. We see this in all sorts of places. But here, suddenly, not only do we not end on something good—we end on something extremely negative. And not just negative, but something that seems to run counter to the entire book we are studying here, the Five Books of the Torah. Moshe Rabbeinu brings the Torah to the Jewish people. And what ends the Torah? The breaking of the Torah? Moshe Rabbeinu breaks the tablets, and those are the last words. If we look at the commentators, there are other interpretations. Why did Rashi choose this one specifically? After all, the verse does not mention the breaking of the tablets. It says, “And for all the mighty hand that Moshe performed before the eyes of all Israel.” Look at the great commentators, especially those who explain it as referring to the miracles, wonders, signs, and marvels. Were there not enough beautiful things Moshe Rabbeinu did before all Israel? Of all these things, Rashi chooses specifically the interpretation about breaking the tablets, and with that he ends his commentary on the Chumash. Suppose Rashi holds that this is the meaning of the verse, for whatever reason, according to the plain meaning of the text. But Rashi could have added a few more words praising the Jewish people, or said something positive. No. This is where Rashi ends. This is the conclusion. So that is a very basic and simple question. We also need to understand what “his heart moved him” means. Interesting words. What does this expression mean—“his heart moved him to break the tablets”? He decided to break the tablets. And what is the emphasis on “before the eyes of all Israel”? Those are the words of the verse. How do we learn that it is talking about breaking the tablets? Because it says “before the eyes of all Israel.” What is the emphasis on that? True, it says, “And I broke them before your eyes,” but why make that the main point? And this is the conclusion of the Torah. From here, the Rebbe brought out a fundamental point, which was the basis of the explanation: since this is

12:11 the final verse of the Torah, and Rashi chose to end the Torah with this, it certainly is not something negative. On the contrary, it is something positive—extremely positive. Here we see the greatest praise of the Torah and the greatest praise of Moshe Rabbeinu. There are several verses here in which the Torah speaks of Moshe Rabbeinu’s greatness, each more than the last. So surely the final verse, the final words with which the Torah ends, express Moshe Rabbeinu’s greatness in the most magnificent way, and the greatness of the Torah in the most magnificent way. It ends with praise; it ends on the best possible note. So what is the explanation? Here we return to the words of the Midrash. To understand the wonderful depth of this Rashi, this Midrash, and this verse, we need to go back to Rashi himself in the account of the sin of the Golden Calf. In Parshas Ki Sisa, we see something interesting. When Rashi explains the breaking of the tablets, he says two things. At the beginning of the account, Rashi explains why Moshe Rabbeinu decides not to give the Torah to the Jewish people. He comes down with the tablets on 17 Tammuz, forty days after the giving of the Torah. Moshe Rabbeinu is holding the tablets of the covenant, which are the work of G-d, the writing of G-d, and he does not give them to the Jewish people. Rashi explains why: Moshe Rabbeinu reasoned by a kal vachomer. He said: If, regarding the Pesach offering, which is only one mitzvah, it says, “No estranged person may eat of it”—such a person is forbidden to eat the Pesach offering—then here, when the entire Jewish people have, Heaven forbid, sinned with the Golden Calf and become apostates, how can I give them the Torah? That is why Moshe does not give them the Torah. But then we look

14:17 further on, when the Torah says that Moshe breaks the tablets, and Rashi says something else. Why does Moshe Rabbeinu decide to break the tablets? Rashi says something remarkable. He brings a parable from the Midrash about a king who had a betrothed bride. The king traveled to a distant place and left his betrothed, his bride, with maidservants. The maidservants behaved improperly, immodestly, and did things they should not have done. When the king returned, he heard about it. Because of the maidservants’ misconduct, the bride too—his betrothed—acquired a bad reputation, and the king wanted to put her to death. What did the man do who, as Rashi says, was in charge of the marriage contract? He went and tore up the contract. He told the king, “She is not married to you. You cannot do anything to her.” Meanwhile, they began to investigate and discovered that she had done nothing wrong. The misconduct was among the maidservants’ children, and then the whole situation changed. Rashi says that this is what happened here. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the groom; Knesses Yisroel is the betrothed bride; and the maidservants are the mixed multitude. Who caused the sin of the Golden Calf? It was the mixed multitude. Because of their misconduct with the Golden Calf, Knesses Yisroel, the bride, acquired a bad reputation. Moshe Rabbeinu, the one entrusted with the marriage contract, said—he was holding the tablets. Moshe Rabbeinu went and broke the tablets, saying, “She is not married. You cannot harm her; You cannot punish her.” In the meantime, they could investigate. And they did investigate and saw who had sinned and who had not, and that the Jewish people had not, in fact, sinned. That is essentially how Rashi explains it.

16:22 So it is interesting: Rashi begins with one explanation and ends with another. But in truth, these are not two explanations; they are two aspects of the matter. The first Rashi explains why Moshe decides not to give the Torah to the Jewish people. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives you the tablets, and you do not deliver them? You are not carrying out your mission. Rashi explains that Moshe Rabbeinu reasoned: I will not give the Torah to the Jewish people because they have sinned. If, with Pesach, which is one mitzvah, it may not be given to an estranged person, how can I give the Torah to the Jewish people? That is out of respect for the Torah. But the second Rashi comes to explain not just why he did not give them the tablets, but why he broke them. He could have put them somewhere, hidden them, kept them with him—but not broken them. Why did Moshe Rabbeinu break the tablets? For this, Rashi brings the explanation of the misconduct, the wonderful parable of the betrothed bride who acquired a bad reputation, though the misconduct was actually the maidservants’. Moshe Rabbeinu breaks the tablets so that nothing bad can be said about the Jewish people. At this point, the Rebbe burst into tears. The Rebbe was deeply moved as he spoke. What do we see here? What is happening here? We are talking about the tablets, the tablets of the covenant—the Torah. For Moshe Rabbeinu, the Torah was his life. The Torah is called by Moshe’s name: “Remember the Torah of Moshe My servant.” It is called by his name. Moshe Rabbeinu gave his life for the Torah, and that is why the Torah is called by his name. For Moshe Rabbeinu, the Torah was his life. But the moment Moshe Rabbeinu hears that the Jewish people might acquire a bad reputation, and that Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants to punish a Jew—whoever that Jew may be—

18:30 Moshe Rabbeinu goes and takes the tablets, breaks them, and says: There is no Torah. She is not married. Why? So that a Jew will not be harmed. Where does Moshe Rabbeinu find the strength to do that—to take the Torah, which is his life, for which he gives his very life? He says: No, I will break the Torah to protect the Jewish people. Where does he get the courage? Because first and foremost, Moshe Rabbeinu is the faithful shepherd of the Jewish people. True, Moshe Rabbeinu gives us the Torah. “Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and passed it on to Yehoshua.” Moshe Rabbeinu is the very first, original recipient of the Torah. He is utterly devoted to it, completely bound up with it, and, so to speak, its master: the Torah of Moshe. And yet, his bond with the Jewish people is deeper than his bond with the Torah. Where does Moshe Rabbeinu get this from? From the Midrash, which tells us in Tanna D’vei Eliyahu: Which came first? True, both the Torah and the Jewish people preceded the world, but the souls of the Jewish people preceded the Torah. The Jewish people are rooted, so to speak, in Hakadosh Boruch Hu even higher than and prior to the Torah. The Torah says, “Command the Children of Israel,” “Speak to the Children of Israel,” “Say to the Children of Israel.” In other words, the Children of Israel are there before the Torah, and the Torah comes to tell the Jewish people how to conduct themselves in the world. But the Torah comes after there is a Jewish people. So the moment there is a conflict, a situation in which, Heaven forbid, a Jew might be harmed, Moshe Rabbeinu says: First of all, I will tear up the Torah. We will break the tablets so that, Heaven forbid, the Jewish people will not acquire a bad reputation. And then we will uncover the truth: a Jew is not a sinner. A Jew does not want to sin, and if he does sin, it is because of the mixed multitude, because of Satan, because of the yetzer hara, because of outside influences. That is not who he is. A Jew

20:41 Essentially, a Jew is always connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and that is how the Torah ends. That is its conclusion. It is the greatest praise of Moshe Rabbeinu. First, as we said, when the Torah comes to tell us who Moshe Rabbeinu is—“Never again did a prophet arise in Israel like Moshe”—it goes on to write verse after verse, each with another praise. And of all the praises of Moshe Rabbeinu, the greatest, most wonderful, and deepest is seeing how much he loves the Jewish people. How devoted he is, how he gives his very life and his entire self—even the Torah, which is his very life—to protect the Jewish people. Moshe Rabbeinu’s greatest praise is that he was willing to break the Tablets to protect them. But that is not only Moshe’s praise; it is also the Torah’s praise. Why is this the last verse of the Torah? And why is this the last Rashi on the Torah? Because this is the Torah’s true praise. The Torah is here to tell us the greatness of the Jewish people. That is the Torah’s deepest point. In this maamar, when the Torah tells us what a Jew is, it reaches its conclusion, its last verse, and tells me: Know that a Jew is higher than the Torah. That is why, when the Jewish people are at stake, the Jew comes first—“before the eyes of all Israel.” And this also explains why it says “before the eyes of all Israel.” Moshe Rabbeinu broke the Tablets before their eyes. Why did he break them where the Jewish people could see? To teach them the message, the lesson: How far must a Jew go for another Jew? How much Ahavas Yisroel must one Jew have for another? The depth of Ahavas Yisroel—the whole Torah,

22:42 as we know from the teaching of our Sages: Hillel said that the whole Torah is “Love your fellow as yourself.” So it is precisely at the end of the Torah, in the last verse and the last Rashi, that the love of a Jew teaches us what a Jew is. Moshe Rabbeinu could have broken the Tablets quietly, in secret. No. He wanted to do it before their eyes, to show how we must look at a Jew, how we must love a Jew. So when we come to Simchas Torah, this is the depth of the festival. On Simchas Torah, the essence of a Jew is revealed. That is why we dance on Simchas Torah specifically with a closed Torah scroll. We do not study much on Simchas Torah; there is not much time to study. Most of Simchas Torah is spent dancing and bringing joy to the Torah with a closed Torah scroll. A Jew takes the Torah scroll and dances; he becomes the Torah’s feet. In other words, the Torah wants to rejoice with the Jew, so the Jew takes the scroll and dances with it. Simchas Torah expresses this inner essence, this wonderful thing: the essential bond between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is why the Zohar says that on Simchas Torah it is revealed that a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are alone together, with nothing else there. The deepest bond between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu—that is what is revealed on Simchas Torah. We also see this in the festival offerings. Throughout Sukkos there were many offerings: thirteen bulls, twelve bulls, seventy bulls. As is well known, the seventy bulls offered on Sukkos corresponded to the seventy nations. Then comes Shemini Atzeres: one bull, one ram. The Midrash says of Knesses Yisroel: On Shemini Atzeres, “on the eighth day you shall have an atzeres”—it will be yours alone, with no strangers there with you. This is the essential bond of Simchas Torah. Hakadosh Boruch

24:54 Hu is together with the Jewish people, and here the depth of a Jew is revealed: nothing is greater than a Jew. And this is the depth of Ahavas Yisroel—to look after a Jew, protect a Jew, and want every Jew to have what is good. We take this with us for the entire year. Simchas Torah is the conclusion of the festivals. “Your parting is difficult for Me,” as the Midrash says. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants to be with the Jewish people on Simchas Torah, and He asks: Celebrate a festival with Me. I want to be together with you. And we take this festival with us throughout the year: how a Jew must look after another Jew, love another Jew, and protect another Jew, before the eyes of all Israel. May Hakadosh Boruch Hu grant each and every one of us that we should have—may we merit to rejoice in the joy of the festival, the greatest joy, which is revealed on Simchas Torah, and take that joy with us throughout the year. May each and every one of us have the joy of the Torah together with the joy of the Jewish people, who preceded the Torah. True Ahavas Yisroel. And in the merit of Ahavas Yisroel, may we merit the coming of the Redeemer speedily in our days, amen.