The Crowning of Crowns on Shavuos - Rabbi Boruch Boaz Yurkowitz shlita

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

00:09 Speaker 2 I’ll come to Shavuos. It’s well known that a central theme of Shavuos is the crowns that the Jewish people drew down. Actually, there are three teachings of our Sages about this. One is a Midrash on Shir Hashirim, on the verse, “Go forth and see, daughters of Zion, King Shlomo, with the crown with which his mother crowned him on his wedding day.” What is “his wedding day”? The giving of the Torah. But then the Midrash asks: Who gave Him this crown? His mother. Who is His mother? The Midrash gives a parable of a king who had a daughter and cherished her so much that he came to call her “my mother.” In other words, “the crown with which his mother crowned Him” refers to the Torah, which the Jewish people acquired. She is the daughter whom Hakadosh Boruch Hu loves so much that He calls her His mother. It’s like people who call their children “my little mama” or “my little papa,” or something like that. That’s the meaning. But who is this “mother” who gave Hakadosh Boruch Hu the crown? [unclear]. That’s one Midrash. Then there’s the Gemara in Shabbos 88, which tells a different story: When the Jewish people said, “We will do and we will hear”—when they put “we will do” before “we will hear”—two ministering angels came and gave each of them two crowns, one for “we will do” and one for “we will hear.” Actually, that wasn’t at the giving of the Torah itself. It was when the Jewish people put “we will do” before “we will hear,” the day before the giving of the Torah. Then there’s another Midrash that says there weren’t two crowns; there were three. The Midrash says that the people of the realm—or there are other versions as to who the people of the realm were—

02:37 Speaker 2 or the Jewish people—gave Hakadosh Boruch Hu three crowns, making Him king. He placed one on His own head and gave two to His children. So first of all, we need to understand: What is Torah, what is a crown, and why do we need two crowns, one for “we will do” and one for “we will hear”? A person has one head. What is he supposed to do with the second crown—keep it in storage? If they were shoes, fine, he has two feet. But he has one head. Why does he need two crowns? What’s the whole idea? All right, if we have enough time, we’ll explain everything. So let’s do it this way. The Gemara says, “When the Jewish people put ‘we will do’ before ‘we will hear,’” they received two crowns. But if they hadn’t put “we will do” before “we will hear,” they wouldn’t have been given the two crowns, one for “we will do” and one for “we will hear.” Everything we’re talking about here is because the Jewish people put “we will do” before “we will hear.” If they hadn’t, perhaps the crowns wouldn’t have had the same importance, the same elevated quality. But because they did, they received them. There were three things here: putting it first, “we will do,” and “we will hear.” Yet they received two crowns, one for “we will do” and one for “we will hear.” Without that act of putting it first, we don’t know exactly what would have happened, but they wouldn’t have received them. So what is this whole matter of the crowns we receive? And just so you know, in Kabbalah, Shavuos is the festival when we crown Hakadosh Boruch Hu: “They will give You a crown”—the very highest level of the crown. Just to give us some understanding of it.

04:55 Speaker 2 So the Rebbe explains this. There are many maamarim, but I want to go into it a little. There’s a maamar from 5729 where the Rebbe explains it at length. First, we need to understand what a crown is. In the powers of the soul, a crown is will and pleasure. Now, there are different kinds of crown; will and pleasure have many levels. There’s one level we don’t even call a crown. It’s called “the skull that covers the head.” First, let’s explain. Once the Jewish people finished counting the Omer—forty-nine days, seven times seven, corresponding to the seven middos—there is the fiftieth gate. The fiftieth gate is like the crown over all forty-nine days. But the fiftieth gate is fundamentally within binah, because binah is the mother that gives birth to the middos. So the crown of binah, the crown over all the middos, is the fiftieth gate. Then there are other crowns and other ways of understanding crowns, where the crown is will and pleasure. So let’s put it this way. There is “the skull that covers the brain,” which is also a crown, like the crown we’re discussing. It’s what covers the brain in the head. But what is lacking in this “skull that covers the brain,” which we also call a crown—the crown of binah, or something like that? It’s still connected to the middos. What does that mean? When we talk about will and pleasure, there are will and pleasure belonging to the middos, or connected to them. For example, a person wants to make use of his abilities, or wants spiritual revelations and things like that. That, too, is will and pleasure, and it’s called a crown. But it’s a crown that covers the head, because it’s still part of the person. In other words, he hasn’t forgotten

07:24 Speaker 2 himself. He himself, his inner powers, are still involved in this crown; he hasn’t forgotten himself. That’s the crown of the middos. But when we speak of the crown, we mean other crowns, as the Rebbe explains. For example, there’s “the skull that covers the brain,” an encompassing level, a crown. But there is another encompassing level, higher than that, and that is the true crown we’re discussing: a crown made of gold, precious stones, and pearls, something separate from the person. That is the kind of crown we mean when we speak of the crowns the Jewish people received. So the Rebbe Maharash explains what these two crowns are. He explains it by analogy to Shema Yisroel, which has a first passage and a second passage. The first is accepting the yoke of Heaven, and the second is accepting the yoke of the mitzvos. That’s why the first passage comes before the second. This is how the Rebbe Maharash explains the two crowns: they are like ratzo and shov, ascent and return. Let me explain. Here we are in the realm of memalei kol almin—no, what is memalei? Yes, we’re thinking about ourselves. Then there’s the way we attach ourselves to sovev kol almin; that’s ratzo. That’s one crown, the first crown we mentioned. The desire expressed by this crown is to accept the yoke of Heaven, not the yoke of the mitzvos. Accepting the yoke of Heaven means: I am nothing. I don’t think about myself at all. I’m like a servant who doesn’t think about himself at all. My whole concern is accepting the yoke of Heaven. That is bittul to the One whose will it is. That’s the first level, ratzo. Afterward comes shov: you take sovev kol almin and bring it down here, where we are. You take G-dliness and make this lower world a dwelling place for Him through observing Torah and mitzvos.

09:55 Speaker 2 So the Rebbe explains that without putting “we will do” before “we will hear,” “we will hear” would have been on a lower level. “We will hear” is observing the mitzvos, and mitzvah observance can come from two different motives. It could be that you study Torah and observe mitzvos because you want to perfect yourself. Then it’s like the “skull.” It’s not the higher level, because once again you’re thinking about yourself. You haven’t gone beyond yourself. It’s connected to the powers of the soul—to strengthening them, to doing something on a very high level—but it isn’t the crown we’re talking about. It’s the crown that covers the head: it remains part of you. You haven’t gone beyond yourself; you’re still thinking about yourself. By contrast, once they put “we will do” before “we will hear,” making bittul to the One whose will it is the main thing, then even when a person goes on to carry out His wishes—that is, “we will hear”—he still has the quality, the higher level, of being utterly nullified and going completely beyond himself. So that’s the meaning of receiving these two crowns, one for “we will do” and one for “we will hear.” Because they put “we will do” before “we will hear,” their “we will do” was of such a high quality that it meant going completely beyond oneself: not thinking about oneself, only about one’s bittul to the King, with no sense of being a separate entity at all. And afterward, even their “we will hear”—the shov we spoke about, accepting the mitzvos—still has that quality of complete bittul to the King. So it, too, merits a crown. That’s the explanation. And then the Rebbe says that there is also an advantage, because whenever we speak of ratzo and shov, after the shov

12:27 Speaker 2 There is a new, higher ratzo. The Rebbe explains that after a person has this shov, which is the actual performance of mitzvos, it is kabbolas ol mitzvos. But because it comes together with the earlier idea of accepting the yoke of Heaven—being completely nullified to the King—that affects his shov too. It also affects his ratzo: he understands that I have to make a dwelling for Him in the lower realms; I have to do the mitzvos. At the very least, this explains the two things. Why do we need two crowns? Because they are two distinct things: ratzo and shov. Those are the two crowns. First of all, a crown represents desire and pleasure. If a person wants to give over his desire and pleasure entirely to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, from the heart, to set aside his own interests and not think about what he might gain—that people will call him a Torah scholar, or that he will have a great place in Gan Eden, or things like that—he does it by putting “we will do” first. So Shavuos has this special quality: a person can connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu in this way. They put “we will do” before “we will hear.” Then he is entirely given over, entirely nullified to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is what comes first. That is one point. Then there is another point, in a truly remarkable maamar from 5719. Okay. In that Shavuos maamar, the Rebbe cites a story from the Frierdiker Rebbe’s Sefer Hasichos 5701. Everyone knows the story: once, a Jew, a chossid, came to the Tzemach Tzedek with his son and asked him to bless the boy so that he would attain everything, and then fear of Heaven would come automatically. The Tzemach Tzedek replied that among chassidim, we work so hard because nothing happens automatically. It takes work, it takes work, and without work nothing is drawn down. Nothing happens.

14:59 Speaker 2 Nothing happens. Right, nothing is drawn down. And in that maamar, the Rebbe discusses the verse, “Go forth and see, daughters of Zion, King Shlomo, wearing the crown with which his mother crowned him.” It is from 5719, Shabbos Mevarchim, the eve of Rosh Chodesh Sivan. So the Rebbe says—this is the main maamar; it is worth learning. It really is... The Rebbe explains that, accordingly, there are three crowns: one placed on His head and two on the heads of His children. Yes, the king gave three crowns, placing one on His own head and two on the heads of His children. There are three crowns. And we explained what a crown is. A crown represents desire and pleasure. If it is not attached to his body, that is the point, right? If it is not attached to his body, it means that the desire and pleasure are separate from the person, entirely given over Above.

16:16 Speaker 2 So the Rebbe says that these three crowns, in the love of Hashem, correspond to loving Him “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” “With all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” The Rebbe goes into this in the maamar and explains how great the descent was when the soul came down here. It had been higher than the angels and higher than everything else. Not only did it descend here, but it was then placed in a body—and the body itself gets in the way. It descended here, and the body also interferes, so it does not feel anything. That descent has to lead to an ascent. And what is the ascent? In this maamar, the Rebbe says it is love “with all your might.” There are expressions in the maamar where the Rebbe says that if you have not reached that, the whole descent was not worthwhile. We talk about it and say the words, but he says the whole descent was not worthwhile. And love “with all your heart and with all your soul”—what about that? Okay, the entire descent is for the sake of... Look in the maamar. The truth is that many people argue: What is this talk about love and fear? We are talking about things—what connection do we have to them? First of all, that is not true. Kuntres Eitz Hachayim explains that these are all excuses from the yetzer hara. It is not true. It is so untrue that it is almost like denying a fundamental of the faith. You are saying that one mitzvah, “You shall love Hashem your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might,” does not apply to me. From that, G-d forbid, comes the opening for Reform to say that Shabbos does not apply to me, that it is not relevant to me. How can you— No, all right, we do not have to fool ourselves. To reach the level of love that chassidim of earlier generations had,

18:44 Speaker 2 or the level of tzaddikim—we have not reached that. But there has to be some feeling. As we say, there is a maamar in which the Rebbe explains, “Purify our hearts to love You in truth.” What does it mean to love You “in truth”? Truth does not change. All right, a love that does not change, that a person feels all the time—one person might feel it for a few hours a day, another for two minutes a week, another once a year, another when he travels to the Rebbe, another on Yom Kippur. Every person feels a little of it. But to say that we... It has to be there. So, all right, that is one point in the maamar. The Rebbe speaks all the time about Shavuos being the time to receive the Torah anew. If we want to receive the Torah, and we want to find delight in Torah study—in nigleh, in Chassidus, and in the avodah of davening, all three of these paths—we want to find delight in them. There are days [unclear]; it is something you have to live through. How do you say it? It is something very serious. That is the point. May Hakadosh Boruch Hu help us truly receive the Torah with joy and inwardness. The main thing is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu should have nachas from us, and that we bring the Shechinah down here—to make a dwelling for Him in the lower realms.