In a few days, Shavuot, the holiday of the Giving of the Torah, will take place. Every year and every day we merit receiving the Torah anew. But which Torah will we merit to receive? This depends on us. This is the subject of our discussion in honor of Shavuot.
Shavuot is the holiday of the Giving of the Torah, which was given at Mount Sinai in front of the entire Nation of Israel. The Midrash teaches: Rabbi Abahu said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: “When the Holy One, Blessed Be He, gave the Torah, no bird chirped, no chicken flew, no cow mooed, no Ophanim [Heavenly angels] flew, and no Seraphim [fiery angels] said ‘Kadosh’… And a voice rang out, ‘I am Hashem your G-d’” (Shemot Rabbah 29). The whole world held its breath at the time that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave the Torah to the Nation of Israel.
At the time when G-d wanted to give the Torah, He wanted to speak directly to the Nation of Israel. However, they pleaded to Moshe Rabbeinu: “You speak with us, and we will hear, but let G-d not speak with us lest we die” (Exodus 20:16). We have to try to understand how it was that the Jewish People gave up on this incredible spiritual experience of hearing the Ten Commandments directly from the mouth of G-d. What is the secret behind their seemingly strange request?
Let us consider a lesson that Rebbe Nachman gave in order to understand what was hidden behind the request of the Jewish people:
Every Jewish soul comes from one of the seventy souls of the house of Jacob (Genesis 46:27), which is rooted in the “seventy faces of the Torah,” the seventy paths of contemplation which is the way we can achieve understanding of the Torah’s meanings and secrets, on each and every level. Opposed to this, there are seventy nations. Each nation has evil character trait that is not found in any other nation. And these evil character traits are what distances them from the seventy faces of the Torah.
In order to attain the seventy faces of the Torah, one must first overcome the bad character traits and base desires of all seventy nations and stand up to the test. Only then can one achieve a revelation of the Torah. This is similar to a fruit which is covered by a peel; it is necessary to remove the peel before one can eat the fruit. The collective evil character trait which includes all the bad traits and base desires of all seventy nations is the desire for forbidden relations, and because of this, when one stands in this test, one can easily break all the bad desires and merit to a revelation of the entire Torah and thus acquire the seventy faces of the Torah.”
Rebbe Nachman adds that when Torah is revealed, a new understanding is born, a new attainment, as if a new soul is born. When the Tzaddik reveals a new Torah insight, he brings down a new soul to those who hear his Torah lesson, each according to his understanding and his mental capacity. Our Sages taught us that the Torah has two powers: the power to kill and the power to enliven, as it is said: “And you will place these words of mine” (Deuteronomy 11:18, and our Sages explained the word “v’samtem—and you will place” as if it were written with the letter samach (ס) instead of a letter shin (ש).) “For one who is meritorious, it is a ‘sam chaim,’ an elixir of life, and for one who is not meritorious, it is a ‘sam mavet,’ an elixir of death” (Yoma 72b).
In order to attain the seventy faces of the Torah, one must first overcome the bad character traits and base desires of all seventy nations!
Thus, the Torah of the Tzaddik is for everyone, each according to his understanding. There are people who have their souls renewed by the revelation of the Torah, and there are people who have, G-d forbid, the opposite. How is this determined? Tikun HaBrit, the sanctity of the covenant or sexual purity. The purer a person’s thoughts are, the more he understands the words of the Torah in a more precise way. This is similar to when one puts something into a vessel: if the vessel is clean, what we put inside it will remain clean, and if we put into a filthy vessel, whatever goes in will become dirty.
This also is true regarding the Holy Torah. The Torah itself is pure, clean, and without flaw. When a person’s mind is clean, the Torah adds purity and directs the person to the paths of life, bringing him closer to the Creator. However, if the student’s mind is not clean, it affects the way he interprets the words of the Torah he studies, and he may come to distort them (Likutei Moharan I, 36).
(We can add, by way of a hint, that in truth, we have seen some people who abandoned and distorted the words of the Torah, like that which our Sages taught regarding Doeg HaEdomi, who issued a warped judgment that King David was not worthy to be part of the community, and the reason we read the Book of Ruth on Shavuot is to give over the genealogy of King David who passed away on Shavuot, and all our hope is resting on that from him will come the Messiah.)
We can now return to the “strange” request of the Jewish Nation. G-d commanded the Nation of Israel: “He said to the people, ‘Prepare yourselves for three days; do not have contact with a woman’” (Exodus 19:15). For, as stated, the nullification of this desire in which all the nations are immersed, is the condition for the revelation of the Torah and for us to receive it in such a way that we will merit that our mental capacity will be worthy, and we will be able to accept the Torah in holiness and interpret it for good, as an elixir for life.
But the people of Israel asked Moses: “You speak with us, and we will hear, but let G-d not speak with us lest we die.” They feared that they were unworthy, and if G-d would speak directly to them, the words of the Torah could become an elixir of death for them, G-d forbid, because it all depends on the perception of the mind, and it might cause them to distort their ways instead of bringing them closer to the Creator.
So, they asked Moses to speak to them. Moses was the holiest person on earth, and his mind was completely holy and pure. He could certainly fashion the words of G-d for the best, as an elixir for life. Once the words of G-d had already been fashioned for good by Moses, it would be easier for all the Jewish People to accept G-d’s words, without their damaged mentalities distorting the words of the Torah and drawing them in a negative light.
On Shavuot, it is customary to eat dairy foods…
Once we understand this idea, we can contemplate two further features of Shavuot and the Giving of the Torah: the customs to stay awake all night on Shavuot and to eat dairy foods:
One’s eyes are the most influential factor, more than anything else, in increasing a person’s physical desires, as our Sages have taught: “‘And do not follow after your eyes’—this refers to illicit thoughts” (Brachot 12b). Sleep, which involves closing the eyes, hints at the strengthening of desire over the eyes, as if the light of the eyes was taken away. This is just as we say in the blessing before we go to sleep: “Who casts the bonds of sleep upon my eyes.” Therefore, on the night of Shavuot, when we want to repair the covenant to receive the Torah in purity, we try not to fall sleep, in order to expel the base desires from our eyes.
And regarding the custom of eating dairy foods on Shavuot, our Sages taught in the context of the woman who has just given birth: “The sullied blood becomes milk” (Brachot 6b). During the birth, the body undergoes a process in which the blood is turned into milk. Thus, on the holiday of Shavuot, on which the Torah is revealed, which is the birth of the mochin—mentalities, we overcome the base desires which are symbolized by blood (like dam niddah, menstrual blood). And it is refined and is turned into milk, that is, into a pure mind. As the Zohar says on the verse: “Flowing streams from Levanon” (Song of Songs 4:15, lavan, meaning “white” or “pure”) that this refers to the “purifying of the mind,” a pure brain (Zohar, Pinchas 235. See also Likutei Moharan I, 29:3-5). Thus, on Shavuot, we eat dairy foods.
We asked in the title of the article: “Which Torah do we want to receive?” The answer is clear: on Shavuot, we strive to take upon ourselves anew to sanctify ourselves and to be renewed in purity, and to merit to the sam chaim, the elixir of life, and to the revelation of the Torah in holiness and purity.
(Based on Likutei Halachot, Birchot HaTorah 1)
