The Significance of Shavuos - Rabbi Isser Springer shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to “Lema’an Yishme’u,” a podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 We’re preparing for Shavuos. The smell of cheese delicacies, blintzes, and omelets is already wafting our way, so let’s use the time to learn about Shavuos, a very unusual holiday: a holiday without a date. Shavuos has no fixed place on the calendar. Don’t check your calendar, because there it does have a date. But when we look in the Torah, we see that Shavuos is a holiday without a date. What does the Torah say about Shavuos? It falls on the fiftieth day of the Omer count. The Omer count begins on 16 Nissan, the second day of Pesach. Starting from 16 Nissan, we count forty-nine days, and the fiftieth day is the holiday. So what is the date of Shavuos? As we said, there is no fixed date. In practice, what date will it be? There are three possibilities. We’ll soon see that there may even be more than three, but in earlier times, when the months were established on the basis of witnesses’ sightings of the new moon, there were three possibilities. What does that mean? If both Nissan and Iyar were full months, each with thirty days, we would reach Sivan later, and Shavuos would already fall on 5 Sivan. That would be the fiftieth day, because we had an extra day before then. If, when the months were established by witnesses’ sightings, both Nissan and Iyar were short months, with only twenty-nine days each, we would reach the fiftieth day only on 7 Sivan. We would have reached Sivan earlier in the count, so we’d need more days in Sivan to get to fifty. And if one month was full—Nissan full and Iyar short, or the other way around? Nowadays Nissan is always full according to the calendar established by Hillel—not Hillel the Elder, but his descendant

02:19 Speaker 2 Hillel, the Nasi from the era of the Amoraim. Under the rules of the calendar Hillel established, Nissan is always full and Iyar is always short. That means Shavuos falls on 6 Sivan. The date can vary, but it will always fall on the same day of the week on which the Omer count began. If, just as an example, we begin counting the Omer on Sunday, on Saturday night, then Shavuos will be on Sunday. If we begin counting the Omer on Monday, Shavuos will be on Monday. If we begin counting on Wednesday or Friday, whatever day of the week the Omer count begins is the day of the week on which Shavuos will fall. What’s more, what happened when the Jewish people left Egypt? Something very interesting. They left Egypt on a Thursday. That year, 15 Nissan was a Thursday. Shabbos Hagadol, as we know, was 10 Nissan. 11 Nissan was a Sunday; all the farbrengens of 11 Nissan were on a Sunday. The Seder night, the beginning of 15 Nissan, was Wednesday night, the start of Thursday. On 15 Nissan, “on this very day, all the hosts of Hashem went out from the land of Egypt.” When was the Torah given? Based on what we said earlier, the Omer count began on Friday, the day after the first day of Pesach, 16 Nissan. So Shavuos should have been on Friday. What happened that year? The Torah was given on Shabbos. It is well known and explained in the Gemara that everyone agrees the Torah was given on Shabbos—on the fifty-first day of the Omer count, not the fiftieth. The Alter Rebbe asks: What happened there? That year the months were established by witnesses’ sightings—it was still the time of Moshe Rabbeinu, before the fixed calendar was established. And when the months were established that way, as we said, both Nissan and Iyar could be full months. That is indeed what happened that year. The Torah was given on 6 Sivan, but

04:21 Speaker 2 6 Sivan was not the fiftieth day of the Omer count. It was the fifty-first day, because both Nissan and Iyar were full months. So they entered Sivan later in the count and had already counted more days by the time 6 Sivan arrived. On Shavuos, we say in the prayers, “the time of the giving of our Torah.” But that isn’t necessarily the case. Shavuos does not have to coincide with the time of the giving of our Torah. The Torah was given on 6 Sivan, while Shavuos could fall on the fifth or the seventh. We say “the time of the giving of our Torah” on Shavuos when it falls on 6 Sivan. Nowadays we always—soon we’ll see a slight qualification—but nowadays we always say “the time of the giving of our Torah” on Shavuos. It’s written that way in our siddur, too. Why does the siddur say “the time of the giving of our Torah”? Because nowadays Shavuos always falls on 6 Sivan. That year it was 6 Sivan because Nissan and Iyar were both full. Today it is 6 Sivan because Nissan is full and Iyar is short, according to the rules of the calendar. Why, then, in the year of the Exodus, wasn’t the Torah given on the fiftieth day, but on the fifty-first? This question appears in the Magen Avraham. The Magen Avraham was one of the great halachic authorities—or, more precisely, one of the great commentators on the Orach Chayim section of the Shulchan Aruch. In his own Shulchan Aruch, the Alter Rebbe relies primarily on the Magen Avraham. It does say in the sefarim that toward the end of his life, the Alter Rebbe regretted relying too heavily on the Magen Avraham. He said he should have relied on him a little less, and so in the siddur he revised his position on several matters. But for our purposes, the Alter Rebbe relies on the Magen Avraham a great deal. He is an important commentator—that remains certain even after the Alter Rebbe revised his position. The Magen Avraham remains an important commentator.

06:15 Speaker 2 At the beginning of the section dealing with Shavuos, section 494, the Magen Avraham asks: The giving of the Torah took place on the fifty-first day from the start of the Omer count, while today Shavuos is on the fiftieth. The Magen Avraham brings two answers. One answer is from the Rema of Pano, Rabbi Menachem Azariah of Pano. We’ve heard about the Rema of Pano before. One point we mentioned is that he was the first to define the four pairs of tefillin as four pairs. Until the Rema of Pano, people understood there to be three pairs of tefillin. We won’t go into the details now; there’s a separate class on that. In his book Asarah Maamaros, the Rema of Pano offers an explanation. He says: Why was the Torah given on the fifty-first day? Because it wasn’t given in Eretz Yisroel. Where was it given? Outside Eretz Yisroel, in the Sinai Desert—and outside Eretz Yisroel there is a second day of Yom Tov. A second day of Yom Tov in the Diaspora. I’ll read his words: “Hashem desired, for the sake of His righteousness, to give us a share in His Torah, for the Divine will agreed to celebrate, Himself in His glory, the second day of Yom Tov in the Diaspora.” The reason the Torah was given on the fifty-first day is that it was, so to speak, the second day of Shavuos, since it took place outside Eretz Yisroel. Until now, we understood that the second day of Yom Tov in the Diaspora exists because of uncertainty about the date. In those days there were no telephones, no iPhones or smartphones, no computers, no emails or Twitter or any of those things. How did they get word from one place to another? It was rather complicated. They had to send messengers, and it was a whole ordeal. So, because of the uncertainty, they observed an extra day. That’s what we understood until now. But Rabbi Menachem Azariah of Pano says here that the root of the second day of Yom Tov in the Diaspora lies in the giving of the Torah. Hashem made the giving of the Torah take place, so to speak, on the second day of Shavuos. That’s one point, and so we can understand

08:02 Speaker 2 That we are doing something different. The Rema of Fano offers another explanation. The Gemara says that Moshe added one day of his own accord. Moshe gave the Jewish people another day to prepare, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu agreed with him. So those are the two answers to why we celebrate today on the fiftieth day, unlike at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, when they celebrated on the fifty-first day. And now let’s see how, even in our time, it’s possible to celebrate Shavuos not on 6 Sivan, but on the fifth or the seventh. There could be two Jews sitting next to each other on the same bench in the same shul, one of whom is celebrating Shavuos right now and one of whom is not. How can that be? It’s because of something called the International Date Line. What is the International Date Line? Our earth is a globe, and the days are determined by the sun. We know that if we go east from here by a quarter of the way around the globe, we move forward in time, because the sun rose there earlier. So if it’s twelve noon where I am now, for example, and I travel a quarter of the way around the globe to the east, it’s six in the evening there. If I keep going, it’ll be midnight, then six in the morning, and if I keep going I’ll reach twelve noon tomorrow—which, of course, makes no sense. In other words, as I go around the globe, I keep moving the clock. Just as we know there’s a seven-hour difference between here and America, every time I move farther around the globe, I change the hour. But if I go all the way around, I’ll arrive at the same

10:01 Speaker 2 hour—just yesterday’s or tomorrow’s, depending on which direction I went. That’s the International Date Line. There’s a line that changes the date when I cross it. I could be in the same street, in practically the same place, a minute apart: here it’s Friday, and here it’s Shabbos. That’s the International Date Line. There are many disputes about what to do with it and where it runs. Obviously, it makes no sense for the Date Line to run through the middle of a populated place. It makes no sense for it to run through the middle of a shul, so that some of the people davening there have Shabbos and read the Torah, while others put on tefillin because for them it’s a weekday. There are many discussions and complications about this, and it’s a subject for a class of its own, perhaps even several. But the point for us is that this line exists. A person can leave home on Sunday and arrive at his destination on Tuesday, skipping Monday because he crossed the Date Line. Or he can leave on Tuesday and arrive on Monday: he has gone back a day and starts Tuesday all over again. He finished Tuesday, and now he starts Tuesday again. He has skipped a day. What happens when someone flies in a way that makes him skip a day during Sefiras HaOmer? The Rebbe says in several sichos and letters that Sefiras HaOmer is not tied to a particular date. If it were tied to a date, then when you arrived in the new place, its date would determine things. But with Sefiras HaOmer, the Torah did not give a date. The Torah said that your fiftieth day, the fiftieth day of your counting of the Omer, is the day on which you celebrate Shavuos. And because that is the day on which you celebrate Shavuos, there could be two people in a shul, one of whom crossed

11:46 Speaker 2 the Date Line and will therefore celebrate Shavuos on 5 Sivan, while the other was there all along and will celebrate on 6 Sivan. Or someone crossed the Date Line in the other direction and will celebrate on the seventh, while the other celebrates on the sixth. But it’s important to note that one should, of course, avoid crossing the Date Line during the days of the counting. In practice, chassidim have always tried to avoid it, but when traveling to Australia it happens. Now, the person celebrating Shavuos on 5 Sivan will have one difference. What will it be? In davening, he will not say “the time of the giving of our Torah.” The Alter Rebbe says: When do we say “the time of the giving of our Torah”? Only when Shavuos falls on 6 Sivan. If it falls on the fifth or the seventh, we don’t say it. And the Rebbe says that the Jew who crossed the Date Line will have Shavuos on a different day, but will omit those words, “the time of the giving of our Torah,” from his davening. He will have the day of Shavuos, but not “the time of the giving of our Torah.” There’s an interesting story about this from 5721, more than sixty years ago. It appears in several sources as told by the chief chozer, Reb Yoel Kahn. He relates that in 5721, Shavuos fell on Sunday—outside Eretz Yisroel, Sunday and Monday. He had a guest who came to him for Shabbos. Shabbos was 5 Sivan; Sunday was 6 Sivan, and Monday was 7 Sivan. During the meal, he says, this Jew was talking and talking, and suddenly mentioned, among other things, that he had been in Japan. Reb Yoel became alert. You were in Japan and then came here? That means you crossed the Date Line. That means it’s already Shavuos for you. He checked and checked, and yes, the man had crossed the Date Line from Japan to the United States during Sefiras HaOmer. If so,

13:37 Speaker 2 Shavuos should already have begun for him on 5 Sivan. Before this incident, before Shavuos 5721, the Rebbe had not spoken much about the matter, so there was some doubt. But Reb Yoel Kahn told him, “You need to daven Maariv again now—the Yom Tov Maariv—because for you it’s Shavuos. For you it’s Shavuos. Don’t say ‘the time of the giving of our Torah.’ And besides that, you need to make Kiddush again, the Yom Tov Kiddush.” All right, the man did so, but Reb Yoel said, “Tomorrow we’ll ask a rav about what to do next.” The next morning, Shabbos morning, they came to 770, and there was confusion. The rabbis weren’t sure what to tell him. The Rebbe had not spoken so clearly about this before. Some people were even upset that Reb Yoel had told him to daven Maariv and make Kiddush again. Reb Yoel says he saw there was no alternative. He told the man, “When the Rebbe comes out, stand there. When people say ‘Gut Shabbos’ to the Rebbe, tell the Rebbe, ‘I was in Japan,’ or ‘I came back from Japan,’ or ‘I came from Japan.’ Just say those words to the Rebbe: ‘I came from Japan.’ Whatever the Rebbe says, that’s what you’ll do.” The man stood there, and when the Rebbe passed, he said to the Rebbe, “I came from Japan.” The Rebbe replied, “Gut Shabbos, gut Yom Tov”—both gut Shabbos and gut Yom Tov. The Rebbe went on, then turned back and said to him, “A joyous receiving of the Torah, a joyous receiving of the Torah.” So, first of all, he knew that for him it was Shavuos, and because he had crossed the Date Line, his Shavuos fell on 5 Sivan. But people still had a question. The Rebbe had said, “A joyous receiving of the Torah,” yet the Alter Rebbe says, as we mentioned earlier, that it was not yet the receiving of the Torah. The receiving of the Torah depends on the date,

15:30 Speaker 2 On 6 Sivan. Why did the Rebbe wish him a happy receiving of the Torah? Was the Rebbe telling him to say “the season of the giving of our Torah” on 5 Sivan too, contrary to the Alter Rebbe’s ruling? The Rebbe later explained that on 5 Sivan we do not, in fact, say “the season of the giving of our Torah.” So it was a puzzle: why did the Rebbe speak of a happy receiving of the Torah, when it was not yet the day the Torah was received? Later, at a farbrengen, the Rebbe explained—I think the sicha appears in Likkutei Sichos, volume 3—that there are two aspects to receiving the Torah. One depends on a person’s avodah, on our work, on what comes from below. That is one aspect. There is another aspect that does not depend on a person’s avodah, but comes from Above: the giving of our Torah. That took place on 6 Sivan. So, the Rebbe said, in our prayers we speak of “the season of the giving of our Torah,” which is from Above, from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and that is on 6 Sivan. But to that Jew I did say, “A freilichen kabbolas Aseres Hadibros”—a joyous receiving of the Ten Commandments. The Rebbe did not refer to the incident, but the sicha made it clear that the Rebbe had wished that Jew a joyous receiving of the Ten Commandments because the aspect of receiving the Torah takes place on the fiftieth day. From the person’s side, it takes place on the fiftieth day; from Above, on a level we cannot reach, it takes place on 6 Sivan. Usually those are the same day, but not always. So, as we have seen, two Jews can be together in the same place at the same time, yet one will celebrate Shavuos on 5 Sivan because he arrived from Japan, while the other will not celebrate Shavuos on 5 Sivan, but will wait until the next day, 6 Sivan, like everyone else. We have seen, then, that Shavuos can occur without the giving of the Torah, and that at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, the giving of the Torah was on the fiftieth

17:33 Speaker 2 and first day of the Omer count. Now for an interesting question. There were Jews, as we know—the Patriarchs and the tribes—who observed the entire Torah before it was given. In that year, the year of the Exodus from Egypt, the journey through the wilderness and the giving of the Torah, when did they celebrate Shavuos? The Torah was given on Shabbos. Did they celebrate Shavuos on Shabbos, or on the fiftieth day, 5 Sivan? Because, as we said, a straightforward reading of the Torah does not say that it has to be specifically on the day the Torah was given. A straightforward reading says it has to be on the fiftieth day. If so, at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, they should have celebrated the festival then. Those Jews who observed the entire Torah before it was given should already have celebrated the festival on 5 Sivan. The later authorities disagree on this. One of the prominent later authorities is the Minchas Chinuch. The Minchas Chinuch is a well-known sefer that deals with—discusses Sefer Hachinuch. Sefer Hachinuch discusses all 613 mitzvos. With Hashem’s help, we will get to it shortly, in the next topic of this class. But Sefer Hachinuch discusses all 613 mitzvos, and the Minchas Chinuch presents discussions, in-depth analyses, explanations, original questions and distinctive answers concerning the 613 mitzvos. When the Minchas Chinuch discusses this matter, he says: Those who say the Jews left Egypt on a Thursday—which is, of course, our main tradition, that they left Egypt on a Thursday and the Torah was given on Shabbos, as the Gemara says, everyone agrees that the Torah was given on Shabbos—will hold that in that year the festival was not on the day the Torah was given. The Jews who observed the entire Torah celebrated the festival on Friday. If, hypothetically, they ate dairy foods then, they did so on Friday. If, hypothetically, they recited Tikkun Leil Shavuos then, it was on Thursday night. After that, the Torah was given on Shabbos. And why?

19:29 Speaker 2 Because, as we said, the festival does not depend on receiving the Torah. The festival is on the fiftieth day. That is what the Minchas Chinuch writes. There is an important sefer, the responsa Oneg Yom Tov, a collection of questions and answers called Oneg Yom Tov. It is an important sefer. It is not an ordinary book of responsa. Usually, a book of responsa deals with halachic questions people have asked a rabbi: What do you do in this case? What do you do about this refrigerator, this washing machine or this radiator? What about the internet, lashon hara on the phone, embarrassing someone publicly, “all rights reserved,” downloading files, and so on? New questions that arise, situations people find themselves stuck in. Oneg Yom Tov, like some other responsa works, deals with theoretical questions for study. In any case, in Oneg Yom Tov he writes that at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, the Jews—the festival was on the fifty-first day. He gives a whole explanation there of why that year, at the time of the Exodus, was exceptional. We will not go into his entire explanation, because it appears from the Alter Rebbe’s words that, as the Minchas Chinuch says, at the time of the Exodus from Egypt they celebrated Shavuos on the fiftieth day, and received the Torah on the fifty-first. And in light of the Rebbe’s words that we learned earlier, it fits beautifully. In light of the Rebbe’s words, it fits beautifully. They celebrated on the fiftieth day because that was the day they completed their part in receiving the Torah. The fifty-first day was the day when “Hashem descended upon Mount Sinai.” That was the day the Torah was revealed from Above to below. So let us finish—summarize this section. In this section we learned about Shavuos. We saw that it is a festival without a fixed date, so it can fall on the 5th, 6th or 7th. At the time of the Exodus from Egypt it fell on the 6th because Nissan and Iyar were both full months. Today it falls on the 6th because Nissan is full and Iyar is short. We saw that at the date

21:25 Speaker 2 line, when someone crosses the date line, its date changes. We saw that this is indeed what the Rebbe instructed Maisel [?], that visitor from Japan. But the Rebbe also explained that there is an aspect of receiving the Torah on the first day, though one cannot say “the season of the giving of our Torah.” We saw that, historically, the Minchas Chinuch says Shavuos was not on the day the Torah was received in the year of the Exodus from Egypt. Shavuos has no single defined subject. We know Shavuos is called “the festival of the rabbinic halachic authorities.” Rabbis cannot travel to the Rebbe on Sukkos: there are many questions about the sukkah, kashrus and the Four Kinds. On Pesach there are endless questions about chametz, matzah, the whole commotion, utensils. Shavuos is the festival when they can travel. There are not so many halachic issues specific to Shavuos. That is on the one hand; on the other hand, the entire Torah is connected to Shavuos. Shavuos is the season of the giving of our Torah. So which subject is most closely connected with the season of the giving of our Torah? The most closely connected subject is the 613 mitzvos. The 613 mitzvos are the most relevant topic. They are a summary of the entire Torah: we received 613 mitzvos. Indeed, it has become customary among the Jewish people—most Jewish communities recite the 613 mitzvos on Shavuos. Like other communities, we customarily recite them during Tikkun Leil Shavuos. Some communities recite them during the prayers, adding a piyut connected with the festival—with the 613 mitzvos. But in many, many communities, the 613 mitzvos are clearly associated with Shavuos. So we will say a few words about a subject that seems simple but is actually complex and important. We will speak about it briefly now, but there is a great deal to learn about this subject called the 613 mitzvos. In the teachings of our Sages, there are countless sources for the number 613. It says that “Torah” has a numerical value of 611. “Moshe commanded us the Torah”: we received 611 mitzvos through Moshe, and another two mitzvos, “I am” and “You shall have no other,” we received directly from

23:18 Speaker 2 The divine might. Altogether there are 613 mitzvos, and there are many, many more sources. The 613 mitzvos fall into two categories. The positive mitzvos, the commands we were given to do, number 248. The mitzvos commanding us not to do something number 365, and everyone agrees on that. There is no disagreement here: of the 613, 248 are positive mitzvos and 365 are prohibitions, making 613 altogether. Some disagree with the basic premise that there are 613, but they are few, and we will not discuss them now. Among nearly all the great Torah scholars throughout the generations who agree that there are 613 mitzvos, there is also agreement on the division: 248 positive mitzvos and 365 prohibitions. What do these numbers correspond to? The 248 positive mitzvos are generally said to correspond to the 248 limbs. There are 248 limbs, and Chazal detail what the 248 limbs of the human body are. Corresponding to those 248 limbs are 248 positive mitzvos, as though each limb says to a person, “Do a mitzvah with me.” As for the 365 prohibitions, there are two explanations in Chazal of what they correspond to. The better-known one is what is written in Kabbalah; the less familiar one is what is written in the revealed teachings of Torah. Kabbalah says that the 365 correspond to the 365 sinews of the human body. There are 365 sinews, corresponding to the 365 prohibitions. The Gemara says at the end of Makkos: 365, corresponding to the days of the solar year. To explain very briefly—this really calls for a separate class on the calendar—the sun circles the Earth each day at a slightly different angle. It shifts north and south; each day it moves a little from where it was the day before. The sun completes its annual cycle after 365 days, when it reaches the same position at the same angle.

25:27 Speaker 2 That is the briefest explanation I can give. So the days of the solar year number 365. That is why we have leap years: we want to stay aligned with the solar year as well. In any case, this is what the Gemara says: 365 prohibitions. Why 365 prohibitions? Corresponding to the days of the solar year, as though each day says to a person, “Do not commit a transgression on me.” So far we have seen that the 613 mitzvos are divided in two: 248 positive mitzvos and 365 prohibitions. What are the 613 mitzvos? On that there are countless debates and differing opinions. Countless debates and differing opinions about exactly which mitzvos are included among the 613. On the night of Shavuos, we recite one approach and a little more. What does “one approach and a little more” mean? On the night of Shavuos, we recite the 613 mitzvos according to Sefer HaChinuch. In general, Sefer HaChinuch follows the Rambam’s approach. We will discuss the Rambam’s approach a little, and only his approach. We will not cover it completely either, but we will talk about it shortly. Sefer HaChinuch, written by one of our early Torah authorities who lived approximately three or four generations after the Rambam, follows the Rambam’s approach. Whatever the Rambam includes among the 613 mitzvos, he includes too, but he arranges them in a particular order: according to the weekly parshas. On the night of Shavuos, for each parsha we first recite its positive mitzvos and then its prohibitions. Positive mitzvos, prohibitions. Each parsha: Parshas Yisro, positive mitzvos and prohibitions; Mishpatim, positive mitzvos and prohibitions; and so on. There is much more to say about this, but this is neither the time nor the place. Sefer HaChinuch presented the mitzvos in the order of the parshas. He writes that he did so to... He also explains the mitzvos

27:40 Speaker 2 in a straightforward way. He wrote it to draw the heart of his young son and the hearts of his friends, so that they would stop playing around in the city streets and come into the synagogue. In practice, on the night of Shavuos we recite only the headings—the 613 headings of the 613 mitzvos. I said we recite one approach and a little more because Sefer HaChinuch follows the Rambam on the 613 mitzvos except for one. For 612 mitzvos, he agrees with the Rambam. He replaces one mitzvah with a different one. We recite both Sefer HaChinuch and the Rambam, so it turns out that we recite 614 mitzvos on the night of Shavuos. All right, we will not dwell on that... Let us explain in a few words what it means that there is a disagreement. What does it mean that there is a disagreement about which mitzvos make up the 613? Are there 613 mitzvos in the Torah? The answer is that this is not at all the case. There are many, many mitzvos to consider; according to everyone, the Torah contains more than 613 mitzvos. No one disputes that. There are far more than 613 mitzvos. So when we come to determine what belongs among the 613 and what does not, it is a complex challenge, and there are many, many opinions about it. Today we will focus on the Rambam. How did the Rambam come to address the 613 mitzvos in the first place? Why does he enumerate them? In his introduction to the 613 mitzvos, the Rambam explains that the 613 mitzvos were not really his primary purpose. He had another goal, and he did this along the way. He had another goal, and he did this along the way. Namely, he wanted to write the Mishneh Torah, the Yad HaChazakah, the book that encompasses all 613 mitzvos and all their details. For that purpose, the Rambam says, “I wanted to put a long list of all 613 mitzvos at the beginning of the book.” Let us read his words: “For this purpose, I saw fit”

29:43 Speaker 2 “to begin the introduction to the book by enumerating all the positive and negative mitzvos, so that we would not miss any mitzvos, the book’s divisions would include them all, and no mitzvah would remain whose laws we had not discussed in full.” We will cover everything, making sure, so to speak, that we do not miss a single mitzvah. Once I have a list, I can see that I have all 613 mitzvos: explain this mitzvah, explain that mitzvah, and so on. So the Rambam set out to do something very simple, and he did it. At the beginning of the Yad HaChazakah there is indeed a straightforward list of the 613 mitzvos. But the Rambam says: “When this matter became clear to me and I wished to compose the book”—remember, all I wanted was to mention all the mitzvos briefly. I am reading from the introduction to Sefer HaMitzvos, which Jewish women and girls and dear Jewish children recite. Just to mention all the mitzvos, to enumerate them in the introduction to the book, just to provide a list. The Rambam says: “I was overcome by a distress that had troubled me for years.” I remembered something that had caused me great distress. What was it? The enumeration of the mitzvos had become a complete mess. He says: “When I considered this, the magnitude of our misfortune grew in my eyes.” I realized how great our misfortune is. “And the warning of the Blessed One against us has already been fulfilled.” Hashem warned us, and now I see that it has come to pass. He says: “And the vision of everything shall be to you like the words of a sealed book, which they give to someone who can read, saying, ‘Please read this,’ and he says, ‘I cannot, for it is sealed.’” He says, this is what is happening, this is what is happening. Sefer HaMitzvos, enumerating the 613 mitzvos—it is as though people regard it as a sealed book. They do not know. He says: “Whenever I heard the Azharos.” What are Azharos? Azharos are liturgical poems. Many communities have such poems: the Azharos of Rabbi Eliyahu HaZaken, the Azharos of Rabbi Yitzchak bar Reuven Al-Bargeloni, the Azharos of Rabbi Shlomo ibn Gabirol, and—the ones by Rav

31:34 Speaker 2 Saadiah Gaon. There are various azharos, liturgical poems that set out the 613 mitzvos. The Rambam says, “When I looked at these poems”—listen carefully—“I was seized with anguish when I saw how widely they had become known and how far they had spread.” The Rambam says, “I couldn’t find a place for myself.” He says there is no reason to blame their authors: they were poets, and they perfected the rhyme and the poetry. But there is a serious problem with the content. So the Rambam says, “I knew that everyone was familiar with the other lists of the 613 mitzvos: those of the poets, those of the author of Sefer Halachos Gedolos, those of Rav Chafetz Alluf, and so on.” Those were the lists everyone knew. The Rambam says, “If I give a short list, everyone will say I’m wrong.” Why would everyone say he was wrong? The Rambam says, “That is how even most of the exceptional scholars of our time think.” Even most of the exceptional scholars. How do they check whether something is correct? He says they don’t consider whether it is actually right or wrong. “They do not examine the truth of a matter on its own merits.” So what do they check? Whether it matches what they were told before. “Instead, they check whether it agrees with the words of those who came before.” They don’t check whether the first person who explained the matter to them explained it correctly. No, they don’t check that. So what do they do? What do they do? They compare it to—well, the first person who told me this must be right. The second person comes along, so he must be wrong. That is why the Rambam says he couldn’t make do with a list, a simple shopping list of the 613 mitzvos, because everyone would think he was wrong. He had to explain. That is why the Rambam wrote Sefer Hamitzvos. He wrote Sefer Hamitzvos so that he would be able to make the

33:18 Speaker 2 simple list of the 613 mitzvos. For that purpose, the Rambam begins with an introduction. He explains how he decided which mitzvos belong among the 613 and which do not. The Rambam lays out fourteen principles, in which he explains why he disagrees with the author of Sefer Halachos Gedolos and with others. As we said, Sefer HaChinuch follows the Rambam except on one mitzvah, but many people disagreed with the Rambam afterward, too. The Ramban disagreed with him on many points; the Semag disagreed on a few; there is the Semak, and there are other works. There are many, many possible views on exactly what the rules are for the 613 mitzvos and exactly how to count them. We’ll look at just a few examples from the Rambam’s principles and a few examples of disputed points. One example is the well-known mitzvah that the Rambam counts as the first mitzvah. What is the first mitzvah he counts? Everyone knows it by heart. I can’t hear you because I’m on video, but everyone is saying it now: “To know that there is a First Being.” The commandment to believe in and know Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is the first mitzvah, and many disagreed with the Rambam. How can you say that this is a mitzvah? You can’t command a Jew to believe in Hashem, because the very first thing—the first requirement—is that a Jew believes. For a Jew to listen when you tell him about a particular mitzvah, he must first believe. Only then can he hear what mitzvos the One he believes in has commanded him to observe. So there is a debate over exactly whether this mitzvah exists or not. That is one example of a dispute over a mitzvah: whether to count it. Another example that leads to many differences is what the Rambam writes in his sixth principle. We’re

35:21 Speaker 2 only looking at examples. The sixth prin—this is a very broad subject, well worth spending time on and studying in depth. The sixth principle: Sometimes there is both a positive and a negative commandment concerning the same matter. For example, on the one hand, we must rest on Shabbos, and on the other, we may not perform melachah. The Rambam says that whenever there is both a positive and a negative commandment, we count them twice. The positive commandment goes into the group of 248 positive mitzvos, and the negative commandment goes into the group of negative mitzvos. Twice. Others disagree and say no. The Rasag, Rav Saadiah Gaon, apparently disagrees and says: If there is both a positive and a negative commandment, I’ll count one of them. Of course, that affects many, many mitzvos, and the Rambam must then include other mitzvos in their place. Another thing the Rambam does not count: he states a rule that mitzvos ordained by the Sages are not counted among the 613. The 613 include only mitzvos from the Torah, mitzvos given to Moshe at Sinai. Here, too, some mentioned Purim and some mentioned Chanukah. There are major debates about this. When those Geonim mentioned Purim and Chanukah, did they mean mitzvos ordained by the Sages, or did they mean particular elements connected to a Torah commandment? We won’t go into that either. Another thing the Rambam says not to count: mitzvos that do not apply for all generations. A mitzvah that applied only while the Jewish people were in the desert, a mitzvah destined to cease to apply—the Rambam says not to count it. We count only mitzvos that continue to apply in later generations. This is also something we know from many of the Rebbe’s sichos. The Rebbe discusses a particular mitzvah: if it will cease to apply, how can it be among the 613 mitzvos? After all, one of the Rambam’s rules is that mitzvos destined to cease to apply at some point are not counted, regardless of when that point comes.

37:05 Speaker 2 Mitzvos destined to cease to apply at some point are not included among the 613 mitzvos. The thirteenth principle is that the number of mitzvos does not increase according to the number of days on which a particular mitzvah is observed. For example, Sefiras HaOmer, which we’re observing now, is not forty-nine mitzvos. It is one mitzvah, and so on. There are many principles, and many debates about them. Let’s briefly mention the leading figures in this discussion of the 613 mitzvos, and then we’ll finish. The first source to enumerate the 613 mitzvos is Sefer Halachos Gedolos. It is a well-known work of halachah, one of the early works written after the completion of the Talmud, perhaps even the earliest work of halachah. In its introduction, it lists the 613 mitzvos. The Rambam’s main disagreement is with Sefer Halachos Gedolos. According to the Rambam, its author includes mitzvos ordained by the Sages and various other things, including mitzvos that do not apply for all generations. He includes various other things, too, and disagrees with the Rambam. That is one figure. Another is the Rasag. The Rasag wrote a liturgical poem briefly listing the 613 mitzvos, but in our time it has been published in a large book with extensive explanations and analysis. What did he mean by every word? How would he answer the Rambam’s question? How would he answer this person or that person? How would he explain it, and what would he say? The commentary was written by Rabbi Yerucham Fishel Perla. In the Rebbe’s sichos, you’ll sometimes see a reference to “Riyap Perla.” We mentioned the Ramban earlier. He challenges the Rambam and writes about a number of points. He explains why the author of Sefer Halachos Gedolos did say what he did. Usually, the Ramban ultimately accepts the Rambam’s position, but he always tries to defend the earlier authorities. That is what he writes in his introduction to Sefer Hamitzvos: he strives to be a student of the earlier authorities, to uphold

39:00 Speaker 2 and establish their words. But on the other hand, “I will not always show them favoritism in matters of Torah.” So the Ramban discusses their words and tries to uphold them, but if he cannot accept them, he does not. We have had a taste—not even standing on one foot, but on half a foot, on the very tip of one prong of the fork—of this vast subject of the 613 mitzvos. It is a very extensive subject.