שבועות

Should We Be Happy We Received the Torah? A Critical Examination of Simchat Torah and Religious Obligation

Chapter 1: The Central Question – Genuine Joy or Religious Performance?

Framing the Problem in Two Languages

Instructor: We can say that I have a question, or I often want to answer, but mainly a question, and my question is if we should be happy that we got the Torah, which means, or another question, the way to say it in the frum [religious/observant] language would be why we should be happy. But in the non-frum language, it’s the same thing as if we should be happy.

Because we have this Yom Tov [holiday] called Zman Matan Torateinu [the time of the giving of our Torah – referring to Shavuot]. And supposedly the Olam [world/community] was happy because they received the Torah.

Now I’m not so sure. Let’s be real. What’s this pretending? Right? This is their pretense. Okay, I’m going to ask you about the Torah. I don’t know if it would make a whole Yom Tov.

The Reality Check: Torah as Source of Problems

But now I’m the killer, I’m going to be the nominator is the master, be real. So I’m best made, I’m not doing them, I want, I want, I want, I want Sarah, see if she’s been out to my house.

You don’t have to drug the kids anymore. And I heard you’re strong, by the way. Yom Tov is over, bro. Right after Shachar [morning prayers], it’s over. Whatever, okay.

It’s a good question, no?

Student: Yeah, yeah, okay.

Instructor: Serious question. We’re adults. We’re allowed to ask normal questions. Chvay tzemes medrash’tum [we need to be honest], and if not, follow the pretendant. But that’s why we come here.

It seems to me that Torah is a source of problems, not a source of solutions. Right? How do we make chayim [life]? Okay, it’s a problem. We have to make chayim. Then you’re not happy.

Chapter 2: The Midrash of Refusal – Turned Inward

The Deal-Breaker Exercise

Instructor: I once had a sif and shviz [Shavuot night learning session] by night in my house. I told everyone that everyone knows the story that the all the going [nations] and everyone said there’s one thing that’s a deal breaker, right? Can’t have that.

So I said, imagine if they come to you, could you think of one thing that you would say no because of it? I got a big list. Then we’ll be fine, okay. We said otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten it either, right? That’s the trick.

Real talk, real talk. They said, I didn’t want to hear. I heard, I heard once that if they would have told them we would have never gotten the title.

Student: White collar crimes too?

Instructor: Yeah, only do it when nobody sees. Okay.

The Seriousness of the Question

So this is a serious question. I think it’s a serious question. Must come to a serious question. I told this question to my daughter. She said, so everyone thinks that’s already an answer. Maybe there’s no answer. You don’t understand, you don’t understand, you don’t understand.

Chapter 3: First Proposed Answer – The Torah as Mold and Structure

The Student’s Interpretation

Student: Explain. If you would just allow yourself just to be like, just always able to do everything, right? Like the internet, which is just you’re available for everything and anything at any time and nothing to mold you to a specific thing, right? That’s not a life.

So the Torah is like this thing that hones you in.

Instructor: So you’re saying that, Berksham [with God’s name], there’s a thing. A thing.

In other words, you’re interpreting my question as the question which most people think like the guy in the what’s-his-name’s book said without a God everything was permitted and you’re coming to say that seems like most Eden [people] when I tell them this question they’re interpreting what right what’s the other side like what would have happened if it would not be a Torah and the answer that most frum people think it would be is that everything would be permitted or something like we would be able to do what I could give you the exact language we would be able to do whatever we wanted.

Student: Yeah, right, yeah, yeah, we’d be wild, right?

Instructor: That’s the outcome of being able to do whatever you want, don’t have to be down.

Student: No, it’s telling somebody, meaning somebody who has the terror [Torah], ask him right what what would you do it would be wild you know what I’m saying.

Instructor: Yeah, yeah, that’s what they were saying, right? Right? Not thinking of an alternative to that.

Clarifying the Blob Metaphor

I asked a very broad question, so you give a certain interpretation of the question, which is probably what most people, at least in some way, think. And then you give an answer to that interpretation.

I don’t mean because everything would be mutter [permitted]. It’s not really what I’m saying. I think it’s just a toilet. You’d be free to do whatever you want.

Student: No, it’s a way of, no, it’s the mold of this chayim [life], meaning you’re just a blob, right? And in order to make you, let’s say, into a table or into a something, right? And not just to be anything.

Instructor: But this blob is a name for free will, right? For being able to do whatever you want. That’s what we mean when we say that, right? That’d be nothing or what some people think is everything, right? It’s like being able to choose whatever I wanted to want, whatever I wanted to do whatever I want. That’s basically what it is, or you have a different shot of what it is.

Student: That’s what I thought it was also.

The Computer Science Analogy

Instructor: But that’s only if you interpret that the Torah is very restrictive, right? I don’t know if it needs to make your life restrictive. I don’t know if it needs to be restrictive. It’s just telling you what the good way is to be.

Anyway, it’s not all of them, it’s one of them, right? Or at least, not infinitely all of them. Maybe it’s a lot of them, but not all of them.

Student: I mean, let’s just say the old said, there’s no lobbying, let’s say, yeah, just do this and this and this and this. Let’s say the goal is to be a computer scientist, right? So I’m telling you to do this and this and this and this and this, and then you become a computer scientist, okay? So now you mold it into a computer scientist, right? That’s a good thing. In other words, that’s the goal, right?

Versus not having anything, and then you just, one day you’re on the couch, the next day you’re on the beach, the next day you’re playing guitar, right? Just nothing ever because you’re able to be everything, so it’s different than nothing. That’s all I’m trying to say.

Chapter 4: Critique of the Structure Argument

The Limitation of the “Any Structure” Defense

Instructor: But it doesn’t have to be Zotoid [this Torah] for that reason. Very good. So that would be a good argument for something, a something. It’s not a very good argument for this specific something, not an argument.

I can still say, it becomes harder to say a little bit, but I can still say something like, I could still have certain criticisms of specific things, like say, I don’t actually have an answer for this question, but I could say something like:

Did we need this thing about being the best, about having this advice, about not marrying wherever you want, only people from a specific, how do you call it, tribe? Maybe that’s just the cause of most of our problems. Maybe we should tell ourselves to blame for that. But anyways.

Student: Yeah, like…

Instructor: In other words, all the particular things. Or maybe even, maybe even if someone says, well, you need certain particular things, we might not be happy with specific things. Maybe there are some things that are bad.

The Instructor’s Honest Position

Maybe there are some parts of, I mean maybe there’s some parts of the Toyota [Torah] that cause us problems and are the source of issues. We should be sad about them at least. We should look for solutions. Are you so happy about it?

By the way, I’m, I don’t know, I don’t have an answer this question. I think that there are parts in the Toyota [Torah] that are bad for us, as far as I can tell, and to say that it would have been better to have a different one, that was a comparative question, like is there a different one that’s better, you have to weigh all the options, but at least in the, and that’s not, I don’t think that’s really the question we should ask.

The question we should ask is it true that everything, the Toyota [Torah], and the Toyota [Torah] means something very broad here, right, the whole Masada [tradition] and everything, right, and maybe it’s only if you include all of that, there are definitely some parts of it that are not helpful, that are even the opposite of helpful.

The Request for Examples

Student: Like?

Instructor: Like? Everyone should think of their example. You want me to tell you my problems?

Student: No, tell me a problem that is like a universal problem.

Instructor: There’s no universal problem.

Chapter 5: The Problem of Defending the Torah’s Ideal: Why We Should Ask Better Questions

A Concrete Example – The Problem of Chosenness and Pride

I mean, universal problems, yeah, like, for example, with something that I think is a problem, is this thing with being so special. I think that *Atah Bechartanu* [the liturgical phrase “You have chosen us,” expressing Jewish chosenness] is a big problem. I’m not saying it’s not true, but I said that it’s a big problem that leads to some very bad *middos* [character traits], which are not helpful.

But *ga’avah* [pride, arrogance] is not a good *middah* [character trait], and *ga’avah* about being with *Yiddish* [being Jewish] doesn’t make it better. At least not when it’s overdone. Maybe we have a *shalef middercham tsui* [unclear Yiddish phrase, possibly “a measure of moderation”], maybe there’s a *middah beinonis* [moderate measure] of *ga’avah*. Okay, some pride is important. I think it’s true. I don’t think a person could live without some pride, including pride in his people or so on.

But I think that too much of it is definitely horrible and leads to very bad results. And therefore, and since this is something very integral to *Yiddishkeit* [Judaism], it’s very hard to imagine *Yiddishkeit* without it. It’s not like something that you could easily—you could try, many people have tried to refine it and explain it better, but it’s at least a challenge for almost everyone, for everyone basically, besides for people to just embrace it like we should take any bad *middah* if it’s in the Torah, if we could have an excuse for the Torah for it. But that’s something that’s a problem and it actually causes us many problems.

The Practical Consequences: Anti-Semitism and Jewish Responsibility

Like half of the problems we have with other nations is just because of our bad *middos*, and we have to be real, right? The anti-Semitism—half of it, half of anti-Semitism is the *goy’s* [non-Jew’s] fault, but the other half is *Yidden’s* [Jews’] fault.

I don’t know why am I saying this, cut it out of the video. Okay, then we get—I’m not—I don’t want—okay, I’m gonna soon, in a minute we’re gonna talk about this. It’s like the Torah, that’s what I said when I say the word Torah, to show that God is not great because all the things, whatever, right now.

Now, and I think, very good, very good, I’m talking about this.

Student: No, I don’t think it’s not at all. I actually think that that argument is the correct argument, and we should take it seriously.

Instructor: Why? I’ll tell you why. Because—

Student: I don’t know that argument, so…

Instructor: Okay, I know what he means. Now, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. This is not *mareh mekomos* [source references], right? This *shiur* [class/lesson] is not about *mareh mekomos*. We don’t have to know anything. No prerequisites. Only what I’m discussing.

Why am I—I should stop saying this *shiur*. It’s causing me issues. No, let’s say it’s very clear and correctly.

Chapter 6: Refining the Core Question: Should We Be Happy We Have the Torah?

Well, we started with a question. Question is, should we be happy that we have the Torah? Or why are we happy? More of a way of asking the same question.

Now, we have to refine the question a little bit. We discussed, because it’s very general, it doesn’t—most of what we can do really is to refine questions randomly.

Disposing of the “Easy Mode” Version: The Freedom Fantasy

One way of talking, what Ari talked about was, does this mean like—like, this funny imagination that most *frum* [religiously observant] people have, and maybe most people have in general in regards to their little, whatever culture they have, is like, without this, I would have been more free. I would have been able to do whatever I wanted.

And the answer to that, I think, is relatively trivial:

First: You wouldn’t be able to do whatever you wanted because you don’t know what you want. That goes back to a different *shiur* where what you want is not a good source for anything, I think.

And secondly: It’s not good to do whatever you want. It’s another word for doing nothing.

Okay, now those are very good points, very good. So we don’t—not really talking about them. But I’d said it’s that’s—that’s easy mode, right? Because instead of asking a specific question, which was the question we started with, which is why we people in Lakewood in YouTube 2025 should be happy, or should we be happy with having received *Torah*, you’re asking a general question: should human beings have a culture? Should we have laws? Of course the answer is yes.

So we have tradition, that’s a more complicated question, we can get to that. But really the heart—which is not a question to say easy questions, right? We should ask the hard questions, which is: should it be happy that he has this *Torah*, which includes all of these books?

Right, now we have to refine that question a little more. And this also, I think it’s also a key for a solution. It’s not only making the problem, but I think it’s important.

Chapter 7: Splitting the Question: The Ideal vs. The Reality

Then we can split this question also into a bunch of questions. In other words, we can split at least to the two questions.

Question A: Is the Ideal of Torah Good? (The “Banner” Question)

One is like the question that most people think that they’re asked when they ask this question and they get defensive about it. I also am getting defensive about it, right? Which is—being defensive is depending on which context. But the question is like there’s this ideal ideology belief, something like that, which we like believe in the Torah—like you say “the Torah” with the capital T-H-E and capital T—and it’s questions on it like: are you happy with it? Is it good? Almost the same question.

And of course the answer has to be that it’s good. We’re not even allowed to ask that question, or at least we don’t allow ourselves to ask that question. And I also think it’s a less relevant question.

The Typical Defensive Move: Separating Ideal from Practice

And then we could say like this: let’s say if that would be the question, then we could have this question, this difference between—how does it go?—love Judaism and not the Jews, or like the Christians say, love Christ and not the Christians, or like that. Let’s say, I don’t have a problem with Christ, only with his fan club, right? That would be like an answer, right? That’s a good answer for people that think that the primary question is to defend some ideal of the Torah—capital T-H-E and—or the whatever thing he believes in.

And since there’s some people that, you know, like 99% of the apples give a bad name to the other 1%, so he’s worried about the bad name of this headline thing, so he’s going to justify it, he’s going to make apologies for it, he’s going to say, oh, you know some *Yid* [Jew] that’s bad, yeah, but that’s not *Yiddishkeit*, God made him bad, the *Yiddishkeit* was trying to make him good, it’s he’s bad, he’s a bad *Yid*, right? Same joke, right?

Critique of the Defensive Move

Now what’s the problem with this argument? Is that a true Scotsman argument? Sort of. What’s the problem with this argument? What’s the problem that I have with this argument? Or if some people—

Student: How do we know it didn’t make you that way?

Instructor: Okay, no problem. Maybe it did. And of course, there’s ways in which it did. But I have a bigger problem with this argument, which is that I don’t care about this headline.

I am not here—I don’t think anyone should care. When I say I don’t care, I think you should not care. You should not care about the banner that says “Judaism.” All the banners, that just should be good. Who cares what’s happening from there? What are we going to gain out of having that banner be right?

Okay, there’s like a *emunah* [faith]—people think that *emunah* means to be a big fan of that banner and to make sure that it doesn’t get sullied by any arguments or anything. But I don’t see how that’s useful to anyone. It’s a question of *kavod* [honor]. I don’t know what it’s a question of. It doesn’t seem to be useful.

That’s not a question you should be asking. You should never be asking if this headline thing called *Yiddishkeit* or Torah or whatever it is that you’re defending is good or bad. Why would anyone—to whose life is this question relevant? Only to people who are having fights on YouTube. But other than that, *lema’an ha’kavana* [for what purpose/to what end].

Student: Can I just say one thing? I know you’re not saying these words, but are you also saying that *lema’an zeh* [for this purpose], in the time was the *Rishonim* [early medieval rabbinic authorities], all these bad things in this *lema’an* wouldn’t come out. Is that what you’re saying?

Instructor: No, what I’m saying is, even imagine you could have—if you would convince me, okay, that all the bad—now maybe there’s a *mitzvah* [commandment] to convince yourself of that, but it’s not the question that I care about.

The Karaite-Style Defense and Why It’s Irrelevant

You convince me that all the bad things that you find in—let’s say someone would be like a Karaite-style argument, right? So there’s a bunch of bad things that we assume are bad—again, we can discuss if they’re bad or not, but we’re just assuming—there’s a bunch of bad things in religion so-and-so, in state so-and-so, and group so-and-so. And now I have a problem: this is a bad group because they’re full of bad things.

So someone comes and says, look, I have *hasbara* [explanation] for you. This group, they’re not really about what they’re doing. They’re really about this book that they claim to believe in, which nobody really opens or cares what it says. Nobody in that group cares. But suddenly we care. And that book is really very high. It just happens to be there’s a lot of *mefarshim* [commentators] on that book that are bad. But you should really hold of this book because it’s only the commentaries that are bad, but the book itself is good and says only good things.

And I’m going to answer this guy: why in the world should I care about what these people claim to be about? I don’t care about what they claim to be about. I care what they were actually about. Now this is a bad group of people.

Illustrative Analogy: Islam and the Irrelevance of Textual Defense

People seem to keep on getting confused, right? Is Islam a problem? I don’t care if the Quran is a good book or a bad book. I’ve read it and it’s not—I’ve read it and it’s not the point. But I don’t care. That’s not the discussion. They seem to want to kill me, so I’m not a fan of them. That’s all.

Whether it’s from this book or that book, maybe it’s a tactical thing. Could we convince them that the book is wrong? It makes no difference to my life. And people get stuck with this because if we could prove that their book is bad, that helps me somehow. But if someone says, you know, someone comes and says, you know that really the book was great, just someone else corrupted it—okay, and now what? What should I do with this information? There’s nothing I can’t do anything with it.

Chapter 8: Distinguishing from Theodicy

Okay, but it’s always a question of what the argument originally was. If the argument is God’s not good—so wait, first we’re talking—I’m not talking about God being good. This is not a *shiur* in theodicy. Same thing. I don’t think that when—very good.

So if you’re interested in defending some God or something like that, because we already believe that God gave it and He must be good—

Should I Be Happy With the Torah? The Question of Practical vs. Abstract Evaluation

Chapter 9: Defining the Real Question – Torah as Living Practice, Not Abstract Text

The Constant Misdirection: What Question Are We Actually Asking?

Instructor: I think that people, I think that people right away tend to shift the conversation to the wrong question. The question that we want to know when we ask these questions is: is this good?

When I ask you the question “should I be happy?” I’m going to tell you what I meant with the question. I think that people get very easily confused—both sides of the discussion get very easily confused with the question. When I come and I say, should we be happy that we got the Torah? Right? I mean literally that. I mean this Yitzchak [Isaac] and this Torah. The one that actually exists amongst the actual people who are following it or teaching it and so on.

I don’t mean a different question, which is a very nice question. Like, I’m with you. It’s a good question. Is the idea of the God that gave the Torah and had this plan, was it a good plan? Is he a good God? Is the Torah a good book? Those are nice questions, but they’re not the questions that I asked. I don’t think I meant to ask them.

We shift. That’s why we keep on noticing this—people always shift questions that you ask as if you meant something else. And if you actually remain very mystic and you say, “well that’s hard to think what you really wanted to know,” you’ll notice that you never wanted to know that question.

The Christianity and Crusades Analogy

Instructor: Same thing like I said, it’s easier to think about—nobody cared if Christianity is the cause of the Crusades or not. If these *chevra* [group/people] with the Crusades, we don’t like them. *Chevra* that do other things, we do like them. So now is there a question of why is this abstract question so interesting? It’s not so interesting. It’s of course interesting also for political reasons, but the question that I’m asking is not that question.

The Pragmatic Criterion: Does It Work?

Instructor: And I think that if there would be such a Torah which is in itself somehow we could know that it’s very good, that all these apologetics are true, this ideal is great, but all the people that follow it are somehow bad—I say that you should be a *kofer* [heretic] in that Torah and you should disregard all the *teritzim* [apologetic answers] because it’s not relevant.

And vice versa, I think that if there’s a Torah that’s bad theoretically but somehow causes all the people to be good—now of course this is complicated because how do you know what’s good and bad, okay, but imagine that this would be possible—I think you should, there’s at least a very serious thought that you should become part of that group because it seems to be doing good for them.

Who cares if they’re—imagine there would be like a text that everyone agrees that originally it was just about murder and rape, and somehow the *meforshim* [commentators] came and said, “no, it’s about being a good guy and giving *tzedakah* [charity].” So we should become part of that group. Who cares what really the *tzedakah* was? That’s only if—

Student: *Lamei said* [unclear phrase], if it works.

Instructor: Yeah, yeah, yeah, if it works. Because that’s the much more interesting question. When I ask about the Torah, I don’t ask about some—it’s not a science question, right? It’s a question about ethics. It’s a question about the good. Torah is a system of how to live. It’s not a system of telling us a story that happened, whether the actual story of *Maamad Sinai* [the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai] or some truths about God. Those are totally separate questions. We’re asking about certain ways of living. If these are a good way of living, then that’s all.

Torah Exists in People, Not in Books

Instructor: I wish that in the *piyut* [liturgical poem], it says in the—it says in the *piyut*, I make things very simple. If it’s intertwined, then you should achieve it until it becomes simple. Very simple. Not *pashut* [simple/simplistic].

I don’t believe in the Torah as an abstract thing. I think the question that’s interesting is the one of the actual one which exists between—in the people, not in the book.

Student: I don’t understand something. Why can’t you say abstractly whatever, really the *meforshim* [commentators], the Torah is like a disaster, mentally corrupted. So explain what type of God is that God that didn’t know—

Instructor: What do you mean, what type of God is the God that gives you to screw everything up?

Student: By the way, yeah, useless.

Instructor: What, useless?

Student: Yeah, you’re just used to the—

Instructor: No, I’m asking you, is that the question? Is that your question, that you shouldn’t have—

Student: No, no, no, that was just a throwaway argument. Delete that from the record.

The Distraction of Abstract Theological Questions

Instructor: That was not the interesting thing. Is that I don’t think that this question is a distraction. You’re confusing me like many people are good at debates. They’re big Christians, but they do sleight of hand. They instead of answering your question, they make you think that you answer a different question and they have a good answer on that question and they answer it. Like media training, right? Answer the question you wanted to be asked, not the one you asked.

I think that when I ask the question, “should I be happy with the Torah,” which is sort of the same question, “should I follow it,” right? If it’s good, I’m happy with it, I’ll follow it, right? If it’s not good, I won’t follow it. The question I want to know—

Student: No, no, no, no. Okay, okay, wait, wait, wait. I’m not following the people.

Instructor: No, okay, okay, okay. I don’t believe in the concept of a Torah existing without the people.

Student: No, no, no, it does not. No, it does not.

Instructor: It does not. It does not. Okay, I’ll subscribe by the next year. Hello, you’re pushing away the thing. 99% of people made mistakes. Fine, listen to me, listen to me, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You’re jumping around, you’re jumping around, you’re jumping around.

I say that it’s distraction. People distract by saying, “okay, but the book is so good.” I have news for you: if none of the people that are good, then I have nothing to do with the book. I don’t care about the book. That’s what I say. The question that I actually want to know—okay, now if you want to tell me that you have a secret way—

Student: No, but listen, listen to what I must—listen, all the people are—

The Talmudic Proof: Torah Is Not a Book

Instructor: Because the word *Torah* doesn’t mean a book. If anyone told you it as a book, they’re an *apikores* [heretic]. Curse them. That in the *Gemara* [Talmud], if someone just thought as a book, *nizreka bo minus* [heresy was cast into him]. The *Torah* is not a book. The *Torah* is people that do it.

I make it for you *tishkach Torah* [you will forget the Torah]. *Nishmad* [it will be destroyed]. *Yannai HaMelech* [King Yannai] never made a mistake. Is that there is a book? Anyone that wants to read it should read it. I’m a bad guy, but who cares? I killed all the *chachamim* [sages], but there’s still the book. That’s a *gemul* [consequence]. But why? Because this Torah doesn’t work. The Torah is not a book.

And maybe there’s a book called the Torah, and maybe God gave that book, and maybe you could defend it as a very nice book, but no, there’s no such a thing. That’s not what we mean to say when we say Torah, or when we ask, “we should be happy with the Torah.” We don’t mean, is that a good book?

The “Follow the Book, Not the People” Counter-Argument

Instructor: Now, you came up with a nice idea, which is okay, *maskil* [enlightened person], but maybe I could be the first one to follow that book which is a good book according to the apologetics which switched the question, and I’ll be a good person by following the book. Okay, that’s what you’re saying. Then why did God give such a—wait, wait, forget about the questions on God. We’re not worrying about God. He’s worrying about him.

But then it’s such a confusion. That’s a *kasha al Hashem* [question on God], that’s a *kasha* on God. But we’re not interested in justifying God. We’re interested in finding a good way to live.

So you’re asking that even though all the people, or assuming that the people that are actually teaching this book—right, you have to remember, but when I say people following it, maybe people teaching it, right? People teaching the book don’t understand it. Mr. Ari got on the edge to his society. And since those people themselves are more that the book is better than them, right? Obviously that’s what everyone that believes in the Torah will say, that the book is better than them in some sense. I’m going to be following the book and not them, right? Be a *talmid* [student] of the Torah and not of the *lomdei Torah* [students of Torah].

So that’s another version of *Karaism*, right? You noticed, right? You just reinvented *Karaism*, right? And so that’s not an argument. That’s just me making fun of you.

The Practical Limitations of Following a Book Without Living Teachers

Instructor: But the problem with this is that I don’t actually believe that this works. I mean, it might work in a very limited way. But even though there was a sense that it works, it only works in the sense that you do find one person who thinks he’s a good person. If you say, like you say, the Rambam [Maimonides] said that 99% of people don’t understand, so you’re at the coast of the Rambam. So the Rambam is there. It’s a kind of problem.

Student: I didn’t say you have to have a live person.

Instructor: So you’re not part of the *Yiddishkeit* [Judaism] of the lake. When you’re part of a new *Yiddishkeit*, or an old one called Rambam, or any one, whatever it is, your old book they decided is good, and you’re trying to be a student of this person, it’s quite hard to be a student of that person. It’s possible somewhat, in limited ways it’s possible. You might be able to do that.

But just to go back to the question, that’s not the question that I asked, right? That’s again not going to satisfy me, because when I say, “should I be happy with the Torah,” I mean the one I was taught, right? I don’t mean one that I could invent, because I found a good book that seems to be a good book, and there’s no people that actually follow it, or maybe very few. But I’m interested in that book.

The Torah Is Not the Only Good Book

Instructor: I have tons of good books for you. *Veyafeh* [and it’s good] to get the books. It’s so easy to write a good book. It’s not that much easy—I’m exaggerating—but there’s five good books, not only one. We have to be real. The Torah, even according to the *Rambam*, is not the only good book. Someone tells you it’s the only good book, maybe they just didn’t read any other good books, which is—I’m not saying there’s not many other good books. Maybe there’s five. I think it’s very hard to write a world historical good book. It’s not simple.

In reality, how many books are there that have a million people following them? Maybe five, right? Okay, twelve if you count. A number less than twenty, I think. Okay, but I’m pretty sure all of them are as good as the Torah in the same way. Not that I know. I’m making this argument not out of knowledge. I’m just—but the most important thing is—okay, I didn’t say.

The Fundamental Problem: What Is “Good”?

Instructor: I pretend in this whole discussion that we know what is good and we can decide if the good book is good. Of course. Otherwise, nothing works, right? If we can’t decide what is good, then we don’t have anywhere to start with anyways. Of course we have to do that. But that’s the important question. Of course that’s a big question. No, I didn’t solve that at all.

If you just define good as whatever that book says, then again we’re stuck in a loop that doesn’t help us. We can’t be happy with it either. We can only be happy because it says you should be happy, so you should be happy with it. But that’s just circular. That’s just the Rebbe who said you should believe that the Torah is good.

Chapter 10: The Circularity Problem and the Criterion of Good People: What Actually Keeps Torah Alive

The Fundamental Circularity in Justifying Torah’s Goodness

Instructor: Someone that grew up in that group. Everyone should imagine whichever group he’s thinking of. And then he started asking the right questions. Of course, it’s a fantasy. It doesn’t really work like this, but let’s say really got molested by a teacher over there, but let’s say you could be like this pure version of Avram Avinu [Abraham our Father, the first patriarch].

By the way, that’s bad. That’s a reason I don’t know what I’m saying, right? That’s correct. That’s the real.

Anyway, let’s say he figures out that this is wrong, right? Because it’s not good to molest people. So, he becomes a goy [non-Jew], right?

And us, we come and tell him, what do you mean? That you’re a rebbe [rabbi/teacher], the shayigetz [derogatory term for non-Jew], he doesn’t represent the whole Torah. He had a wrong shita [approach/interpretation] in the Torah. Therefore, come to us, or you’re stupid for becoming a goy because you realize that the square rebbe is not such a tzaddik [righteous person].

Because the rebbe himself doesn’t pretend to be Moshe Rabbeinu [Moses our Teacher] — he is also modeh [admits] that the Torah is above him. Does not actually modeh by the way, but we pretend that he is. And not only he is right, but and therefore you are very dumb if you make that conclusion, right? That is what we like to say.

Rejecting the Standard Argument: There Is No Torah Apart from What Gets Taught

I think that that argument is absolutely wrong because there is no Torah besides for the one that actually gets taught in Talmud Torah [Torah study/school]. And it says in the Midrash [rabbinic commentary], right? Everyone knows the Midrash of Purim [the festival commemorating the story of Esther]. The Torah came to the Ribbono Shel Olam [Master of the Universe, i.e., God]. It says in the piyyut [liturgical poem] of Torah — Gedosh [holy] — that someone printed it into a machzor [holiday prayer book] for Shavuos [the festival celebrating the giving of the Torah]. So I sang it yesterday, that the Torah said that the Bnei Yisrael [Children of Israel] learn in one Yisroel [Israel] one Torah.

What do you mean one Torah? It’s in the Himmel [Heaven] no use, right? The Torah only exists to the extent that people read it and do it, okay?

And therefore if there’s a version of Torah which is bad, then whoever converts out of it is right and there isn’t any argument against it. He’s not making a mistake.

It could be that you could propose to him now that you got out of that, no problem, because the guy’s lost, so you’re helping him. I’m not saying you shouldn’t help him in that way. But I’m just saying that the argument that says that he’s stupid is wrong. He’s right.

The Reverse Case: The “Orthoprax” Person Who Stays Is Also Right

And I said I think it’s right versus true. If someone comes to me — and I know people that come and say this — I don’t know that it is true. It seems to me that whatever I was taught is good. It’s a good way to live. And people think that this is cynical. They call it orthoprax or something like that.

Turns out that this is the truth, right? And that’s not really what the people say, but if they would say something like this, I think that they mean to say that someone would come and say: I have no idea if all these stories are real, but I’m happy. My father seemed to be a good guy. My teacher seemed to be good people. I don’t know if there’s other ways to be a good person, but this is a good way of being a good person. I’m happy with it. I want my children to be good people in the same way. Therefore I want to accept this version of way of life.

I think that that person made the correct choice and the justified choice, right? The wise choice. Wisdom in the sense of doing the correct actions based on the correct reasons, for the correct reasons.

He has no idea if Maamad Har Sinai [the revelation at Mount Sinai] happened, so what? That was never the question. His father’s thing is based on that. Okay. So we’ll say the same story also. No problem. If it’s based on that, we’ll believe in it also. But they had to be good people.

The Central Thesis: Being Good People Is What Actually Matters

This is the argument that I make based on my question, right? I didn’t answer the question. I just assumed that that’s just because of me saying that that’s the correct question. Thanks, Mr. Maskim [one who agrees].

Turns out that it’s very important to be good people. People keep on jumping out of this and saying, I don’t have to be a good person because I believe right in the Torah. I have this banner behind me, it was good. Useless.

If you’re a bad guy, your children should become goyim. Even if you have this banner. It doesn’t save you. I think how many people sort of rely on that and their children taka [actually/indeed] become goyim.

Digression: What Really Saved Yiddishkeit — Theories or Good People?

And like I have that — I saw this discussion I was thinking about this. People who are having this machloikes [dispute]: what kept Yiddishkeit [Judaism/Jewish way of life]? This guy says it’s the Baal Shem Tov [founder of Chassidic movement, lit. “Master of the Good Name”] that’s why it is a good. After the nation was out though and this is a base. So the Torah protects itself, protects itself by — well if you care but I care about people.

And everyone was saying something else like the questions about which theory saved the Torah: is it the rationalist theory or the mystical theory? And I’m looking at these people — you people are living in la-la-land. You think that everything is about theories that you can defend and debate. It’s nonsense.

What really keeps the Torah is people being good people by it. And I think when people say before the Baal Shem Tov Yiddishkeit was going down and the Baal Shem Tov saved it, all that means is the Baal Shem Tov was a sincere person who tried to be good using the Torah. And according to the mythology, they didn’t like to tell themselves that the rabbonim [rabbis] before that were somewhat corrupt. Which just means they used the Torah for themselves instead of trying to become good people and teach their children. Of course you should become a goy, if that’s the case.

The Empirical Observation: Sincerity Predicts Continuity

I actually think this is true. Any area where you see where the teachers of the Torah are sincere — they might definitely be stupid. They could be wrong. That’s not the point. If they’re sincere, they’re trying to become better people using the Torah. Their children stay Yiddish [Jewish].

People who are very obviously not sincere, there, and sometimes not even having a problem because they think that the excuse of having the correct emunos [beliefs] saves them, their children become goyim. Look around.

It could be that you need a good theory for that. Like, if people can’t believe in the Torah without Chassidus [Chassidic philosophy/movement], then you need Chassidus in order to be able to be a good person using the Torah. Because otherwise you think the Torah is not that bad. So you can’t become a good person using it. But the thing that makes people good is only the good people, not the theories.

Brief Reference to Izhbitz

That’s the whole idea of Izhbitz [referring to the Izhbitzer Rebbe/Mei HaShiloach] the whole time, right? That’s what you’re saying?

Instructor: I don’t know, what is that, yeah?

Student: Yiddish lach kezach la-Torah [Yiddish phrase], right? That like you’re scared that someone’s gonna maybe become like bad from it. He somehow like makes it not as good.

Instructor: Does it really mean this? Maybe, I don’t know. Basically, goy avda goy, Yid bled goysha [mixed Yiddish phrase]. Like he kept Yiddishkeit.

I’m not sure what you mean, but I feel like it’s gonna get me into a whole complication if I start talking about it.

Acknowledging the Dangerous Implication

So I didn’t answer my question, I just said what the question is. Do you understand?

Student: No.

Instructor: I don’t understand.

Student: I don’t understand.

Instructor: I don’t understand. What are you doing?

Student: Yeah, because like the generations before they kept the Torah, right?

Instructor: Right.

Student: And they said, this is the Torah. The Torah says to do all these like, like, you know, that’s a smith’s thing or whatever, right? And they blame, they haven’t taught it to back them, right? So the ma’aseh [deed/action] made a bad society, yeah?

Instructor: Now, the question is, I’m not saying that any of these solutions are the correct solutions or anything. I’m just saying what kind of thing it is, what kind of question the question is. Now given that this is the correct question, we should think of what the answer is.

Student: Huh?

Instructor: Wouldn’t that be complicated?

Student: So what do I think? What do you think?

Instructor: Turns out I made my job very hard now because something — all the people listen to my classes, not all of them have the same background as me, and some of them maybe have a bad background, and I’m telling them to become goyim, and so on. Rachmana litzlan [God forbid], right?

Student: Yeah, hello.

Transition: Promising an Answer

Instructor: Okay, so I have a shtickel [small piece/partial] answer, and actually I also think that this answer is used. I also have an answer to that question, but we have to say what I think the answer is.

Student: You missed the whole part.

Instructor: I missed everything?

Student: All right, I wanted to come in.

Instructor: Now we’re going to say the peshat [straightforward interpretation/textual reading]. All right. It’s hard to start with the peshat. It’s always hard. It’s good for a challenge. All right. So.

The Nature of Virtue: Trained Likes and the Acquisition of New Capacities

Chapter 11: Returning to the Framework of Virtue (*Middot*)

Instructor: Shach HaMaas is this sheen, right? Yeah, hello. Okay, so I have a stickle answer. I actually also think that this answer is used… I also have an answer to that question, but we have to say what I think the answer is.

Student: You missed the whole part.

Instructor: I missed everything? Ah, right, I wanted to come in… Now we’re gonna say the *teretz* [resolution/answer].

Student: *Teretz*.

Instructor: It’s hard to start with the *teretz*. It’s always hard, but it’s good for a challenge, right?

So the *teretz* says—what’s the *teretz*? In Rosh Hashanah I can’t get into the actual *teretz* maybe, but I can say what kind of *teretz* there could be, right? What kind of *teretz* there could be goes back to what we discussed about virtue, right?

Student: This was a long time.

Instructor: I had to get back to our thing.

Student: Yeah, of course we’re not getting about anything else, right?

The Problem of Translating “Virtue”

Instructor: We learned that there’s something called virtues—virtues—and it’s very hard to find a good translation for it, even in English. Virtue is just a Latin word that translates a Greek word which means *arete* [ἀρετή: excellence], which means something like excellence. And in Judaism people call it *middot tovot* [מידות טובות: good character traits], but it’s apparently a bad translation, although it has something going for it—it’s traditional—but it’s not actually good for defining what it is.

Because *middah* [מידה] just means a measure, and the reason we call it *middah* was just based, I think, on the Rambam’s [Maimonides’] theory of *middah*, Aristotle’s theory of virtues being measures in between. And *middah tovah* [מידה טובה: good measure] just means the correct measure, but it doesn’t think of what—like nothing what the point of that is. The term *middah tovah* came from the Greek word?

Student: Yeah, I think so.

Instructor: Not from the Greek word. It came from the translators, like from the Rambam. The Rambam already used the word *middah*, although he called the book *Hilchot De’ot* [הלכות דעות: Laws of Character Traits], because it’s the *middah* of the *de’ot* [דעות: opinions/character traits].

Student: It’s not—but he used the term *middah* in *Peirush HaMishnah* [פירוש המשנה: Commentary on the Mishnah].

Instructor: It’s from *Chazal* [חז״ל: the Sages]. *Chazal* used the word *middah*, and possibly for the same—for the kind of thing that the Greeks call virtues. Now, I can’t deny that interpretation. *Chazal* used the word *middah* in the sense of measure, but in the broad sense of measure—like in this broad sense of measuring anything. Like things like that, they literally mean measure, but it means like the measure of a certain way of acting, I think. So something very close to what we call virtues.

And it was used by Rambam and tennis translators for virtues more generally. But it doesn’t help us to explain what it is.

Chapter 12: Virtue as a Trained “Like” of Activity

The Core Definition: Character Virtue as Liking

Instructor: The important thing to understand, or the thing that we’re struggling to understand right now—there’s something about it that we could say, right? Something about it that we could say, and this is connected to what I’m saying. Something about it that we could say, which has to do with the question of how to get *middot* [מידות: character traits], right? How to get virtues, right?

Now, we said that virtue is liking. A virtue is a like, okay? A character virtue, at least. There are other virtues, intellectual virtues, which are not like that exactly. But character virtues are likes and dislikes, which is a way of saying the love or the liking of a specific activity, right? Not of a specific thing, but of a specific activity.

Illustration: The Yeshiva System and the Love of Learning

Like, for example, if you go to yeshiva and they teach you to learn, what they teach you is not to learn—they teach you to like learning.

Student: Older yeshiva, I’m asking with this.

Instructor: They teach you to know how to learn—that’s intellectual virtue. But I’m talking about the character virtue. It’s the *middah* of liking to learn. And interestingly, anyone that went through a yeshiva system, a literature system that was successful at him—nowadays not all of them are successful, or maybe never they were all successful—but for the most part, like a successful product of a yeshiva system—we’re a bad word—a successful product of a yeshiva loves to learn, no matter if he’s a *goy* [גוי: non-Jew], if he’s a *yid* [יִיד: Jew], if he keeps Shabbos [שבת: the Sabbath] or not.

There’s all these silly stories that are supposed to make fun of this, saying, “Oh, there’s a guy that used to learn with a cigarette on Shabbos.” But that just shows that they were successful, right? That was their goal—to make you like learning—and they were successful at it. Because liking means that you like it. It doesn’t mean that you do a mitzvah [מצוה: commandment].

Like we discussed, *lishem mitzvah* [לשם מצוה: for the sake of the commandment] is that particular of liking.

The Chassidic-Litvish Debate: Which Virtues Matter Most?

*Chassidim* [חסידים: Hasidic Jews], by the way, have the same thing. They just teach you to like singing *menuchah v’simchah* [מנוחה ושמחה: rest and joy], and there’s people that did that with *Hosea Gran Shabbat* [הושע גראן שבת: unclear reference, possibly a specific Chassidic practice].

But it’s actually the whole *machloket* [מחלוקת: dispute] is very dumb, because this *machloket* all gets conducted as if the main thing is some kind of Kabbalah soil, right? And then everyone is arguing if you have the correct one. But the reality of *chinuch* [חינוך: education] is that it doesn’t work with Kabbalah soil. The reality of *chinuch* for which is that that teaches you to love certain things.

Now the *machloket* is really which—of which is more important—of singing *menuchah v’simchah* or like him to learn. That’s a fair discussion. It doesn’t get resolved by referring to how many people are like, don’t have *eretz shemaim* [ארץ שמים: unclear, possibly *yirat shamayim* יראת שמים: fear of Heaven] and do it, right? It gets resolved by: is this kind of person a better person or not? That’s a serious question. I don’t have the answers there right now. I’m just trying to give the framework of what the question is, right?

Chinuch as Training in New Likes

So that’s called training. That’s called *chinuch*. That’s called virtues.

Now, what am I getting at here? That this becomes something a little hard to define or a little hard for us. We are very used—since like we discussed a minute ago—we are very used to jumping to the like intellectual level or the like dogmatic level of things. Like, should you learn Torah? Then we pretend that yeshivas teach you that you should—that there’s a big *inyan* [ענין: matter/concept] that’s ideal to learn Torah. But that’s not—that’s not what they teach you. That everyone believes supposedly—that’s not the point, or you do or you don’t. Maybe they don’t even believe it.

What they actually teach you is the activity—not the activity, but the like of the activity, the habit, right? It’s called the habit, the hobby, the love of this, being this kind of person, alright?

Chapter 13: The False Dichotomy—Belief vs. Mere Preference

Virtue Is Neither Belief Nor Sensory Pleasure

Instructor: Now that is not the same as the banner—what we call like the belief. Like because, like I said, there’s many people that are like—all the people that write in the *Ated* [עתד: unclear reference, possibly a publication]—people that don’t learn *asachas* [אסכתס: unclear, possibly *shtark* שטארק: intensely] but they very much believe in the ideal of learning, right? Those are people for who the *chinuch* didn’t work, right? The people that did work are the people that like to learn.

But it’s also not—it’s very important to notice, right? We discussed this in the last class. It’s also not the kind of like as liking orange juice, right? It’s like the taste of orange juice.

Student: Yeah, right. You said this last one tonight.

Instructor: Okay, let’s assume that we—there is liking learning, and then there is actually when you learn that it happens.

Student: I’m not masking.

Instructor: When I said the taste of oranges, I just meant the thing that is built into you. The thing that is just sensitive pleasure. There is no sensitive pleasure in learning. There just isn’t.

Student: Say that you like the activity of drinking oranges. That would be different than the sensory pleasure of drinking oranges.

Instructor: What do you like about oranges?

Student: People have likes like that. I just said the word oranges.

Instructor: No, no. People that enjoy popcorning.

Student: Yes, yes, yes.

Instructor: No problem. But this does not exist at all for Torah, just to be clear. It does not exist.

Student: The only way—

Instructor: No, it doesn’t. No, no, it doesn’t. It doesn’t. The only way it can exist is in the way of—which is as in you should come to—because they give out cheesecake, which is like an artificial connection between the activity of learning and that. And you could do the learning not for itself, but for the purpose of *kavod* [כבוד: honor] or for money or for the *nash* [נאש: snack] that you give.

*Mitokh Shelo Lishma Ba Lishma*—From External to Internal Motivation

But that’s—let me finish my sentence—but that’s the idea of [*mitokh shelo lishma ba lishma* מתוך שלא לשמה בא לשמה: from doing something not for its own sake, one comes to do it for its own sake], which is saying that because it’s not actually because of that, the activity of learning doesn’t very well connect to this knowledge that you get. It would connect well, then you would be stuck. But it doesn’t actually connect because it’s a separate activity, which means it has its own goals.

And then, once you get into it, you notice those goals. This is an important point that we’re going to get to. You notice those goals. You notice that learning has its own goal.

Student: What is it, *chvesh* [חבש: unclear]?

Instructor: To understand the *sugya* [סוגיא: Talmudic topic/passage] well, let’s say. That’s a goal that’s entirely separate from getting the candy.

Now you could—you could work hard and you could like try to keep on remembering, “I don’t really care about learning this. Well, I only care about getting the candy in the end.” That’s called the structural learning. That’s not actually the natural situation. That’s always—that’s like where people begin. But it’s not the natural situation of anyone that likes to learn.

Anyone that likes to learn is because they like the good which is part of—which is inherent to learning itself.

Rejecting the “Feeling” Model

Student: Can you say that they like the feeling of learning?

Instructor: No, because feeling is another thing that you pretend—

[End of chunk]

The Nature of Pleasure in Torah Learning: Sensory vs. Intellectual Liking

Chapter 14: The Fundamental Distinction: Learning Is Not a Sensory Pleasure

Instructor: I don’t know what the feeling of learning is. The feeling of learning was less *hadesh* [new/novel] when you were taught to learn. When you say the feeling, you’re pretending that… I don’t know what feelings are. I know what sensory feelings are, okay? Sensory feelings, as in… There’s no sensory feeling in that. No. Absolutely not. No. It doesn’t feel like anything. It feels like… I mean, it feels… It’s an analogous use of the term feel. It feels like understanding a *pshat* [interpretation/explanation]. It doesn’t feel like sweetness in your tongue or like whatever sensory pleasure in your nerves you have from other sensory pleasure. Just not.

People like to pretend that it is but it’s not. I’m not denying that it doesn’t have some neurons firing in your brain or whatever that is, but that’s still separate than what we call sensual pleasures. It’s other neurons, let’s say. It’s also neurons, I’m not getting into materialism, but it’s other neurons, other nerves. And those nerves do not act—they’re not the same ones. You can’t reduce it to “I feel good.” What does feeling good even mean? The feeling good of learning is a different kind of feeling good than the feeling good from drinking something sweet or getting drunk or whatever it is. And that is the feeling good that belongs to learning.

The Historical Confusion: The Degel Machaneh Efraim and the Loss of Aristotelian Categories

This is what confused so many people when they started getting into pleasure of learning, all these things. They’re all just confusions for not understanding this. Yes, absolutely. Just confused. Entirely confused. Because the *Degel* [Degel Machaneh Efraim, a Chassidic text] thinks that *lishmah* [for its own sake] means something a third thing, which is closer… No, no. The *Degel* thinks… Again, the *Degel* doesn’t have this middle category like most modern people, because they forgot it, because they stopped reading Aristotle.

And since the university started reading Descartes, the *yidn* [Jews] also stopped. And therefore, they forgot about the reality that the normal way of talking about these things is not to pretend that everything you like is just a kind of sensory pleasure, which is obviously not. So, of course, everyone knows that. So we pretend that these psychological pleasures are somehow the same thing as sensory pleasures, right?

And then, since everyone still—everyone, at least everyone religious or everyone part of Judaism—still thinks that there’s something higher than that, but you don’t know of anything intermediate, so you jump to something very high. So the Chassidim jump to this idea of *lishmah*, of *dveikus* [cleaving/attachment to God], of meaning God or something like that.

Now, meaning God is a very nice ideal, but that’s not all we’re talking about over here. We’re talking about something much simpler than that. And the kind of pleasure that you have from learning is not sensory. Why would you even think that? It’s a thing itself.

Now, is that good? By the way, I didn’t say that it’s good to pursue for itself. I don’t know if it’s a good… The Tal’s question is a different question. Or the question of, is it good, is it really the thing you should pursue? But I don’t actually think… I’ll say something later.

The Inseparability of Liking from Learning Itself

Student: No, to answer your question—it does not… It can’t be distinct. The pleasure… The kind of pleasure… If we call this pleasure… If we call this liking… The liking of the learning is not separate from the learning in the same way that the liking of… Like the first division that we made, like the liking of ice cream and the liking of eating ice cream. It’s not… It doesn’t separate in that way.

Instructor: Because the whole… The whole of this thing is that now you have—I installed you a new liking thing. That’s all it means. Of course there’s an activity of learning. Maybe not always you like it. Maybe the like comes in the beginning. That’s already how it works. But the liking is the same thing.

That the *Degel Tal* [Degel Machaneh Efraim] does get this right. The liking is part of the learning. It’s not possible for someone to be a *loymid* [learner]. The *middah* [character trait/quality] is a *loymid limit*. You could be a… Then you’re not a *loymid*. Then the yeshiva’s education failed on you. You’re a *tzaddik* [righteous person]. You’re not a *loymid*. You’re a *choviv tzadikim* [one who fulfills commandments]. You never like learning. But if they succeed, then you like it. And this liking is not the same kind of pleasure.

Well, if it’s *lishmah*… If God cares about it, that’s a separate question. We have to ask that question. The Chassidim will definitely say that it’s not enough. I’m not arguing with that. I’m just saying that it’s not the same. When they criticize the Chassidim, they sometimes reduce it to the lower kind of pleasure, which it isn’t. It can be criticized, but not in that way, right?

Addressing Objections: Why Learning Is Not Like Sensory Pleasure

Student: You’re saying that if it would have been such a type of sensory pleasure, then no one would have to teach you this type of liking. Then all Torah that isn’t that…

Instructor: Again, I don’t know if it wouldn’t be a have to teach, but that’s just not what it is. I don’t know why anyone would think it’s a sensory pleasure. It just isn’t. Which sense is it?

Who cares what it’s called—sensory this, sensory that? I just know for myself, right? There’s two different likings. There’s one, like, before you get up, like, get a *cheshek* [desire/urge] to go over, yeah? If I was about to advise, that’s a *geshmak* [delight/pleasure]. But if you like the activity of learning, in other words, right? Like 2 o’clock in the morning, get this *cheshek* to learn, let’s say, or 2 o’clock in the afternoon, whatever, right? Just go, right?

One second, and then what do you do? Besides, these are details within the thing. I don’t see that. It’s not like he’s liking the activity of learning for the learning itself. Some people like this, but no, I don’t think it’s… I don’t think it’s… It doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t matter to me. These are interesting discussions to have if we’re talking about actually the virtue of learning. We’ll get into all the different parts of it. But since I’m just trying to find what a virtue is… And all of those are in the same category to me.

Psychological pleasure—I don’t know what that means. It’s just a word that seems to make people think they know something.

The Pizza Analogy and Its Rejection

Student: I want to say something very, very simple, because I want to understand this. Since I one time ate pizza, now I like pizza. In other words, forget about the taste of pizza. At this point I already like pizza eating, right?

Instructor: I don’t know. But we’re not talking… Again, we’re not talking… We can’t… No. Again, I’m not… How do you understand that? I like pizza. What does that even mean?

Student: Yeah, I think that it’s… I actually think that you’re wrong because you’re jumping within that. You’re connecting them too much, right? You’ll remember. You’ll remember.

Instructor: Don’t… Let’s do… Let’s keep things simple. Listen, listen. That’s not it. Wait, so let’s keep things very simple and never talk about the same thing which has both, because that’s just confusing, okay? We’re going to use examples where it’s clearly distinct, okay?

Eating and other physical pleasures are one kind of like, and *kavod* [honor] and *gaiva* [pride] and *ka’as* [anger] are another kind of like, okay? As simple as that. *Kavod* doesn’t mean I get a tingle in my spine or something. It just means I like that, okay? It’s a social thing. It exists somewhere. I’m not getting into the materialism thing question. Just a different kind of thing, okay?

Student: Is *ka’as* a different kind of thing?

Instructor: There you go. That’s all. Now Torah is the kind of… Learning is the kind of thing that *kavod* is, not the kind of thing that food is. That’s all. There’s a third thing? Not a third. Same. There isn’t a third thing. It’s a better one, but it’s the same kind of thing. There’s a third thing which is intellectual. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about the virtue of learning.

The Key Distinction: Natural vs. Socially Constructed Liking

Student: Can you give two regular examples, let’s say, of like *gaiva* and let’s say, I don’t know, the food thing, whatever, the pleasure thing?

Instructor: Yeah, what do you mean? Once I feel *kavod*… Why is it so difficult? The generally big difference is that one is social—in other words, it’s taught—and the other one is more natural. Isn’t… We, again, to use a simplified example, sensory… You don’t have to be taught to like food, but you do have to be taught to like *kavod*.

Student: Everyone is taught that because it has to do with the sensory pleasure?

Instructor: Yes, whereas *gaiva* has nothing to do with the sensory pleasure. Exactly. It’s something you’re taught. Maybe you’re taught… You have a natural disposition to it because you have a natural disposition to everything, but you’re taught in the sense of it’s a social… They’re cultural. *Kavod* is a cultural institution, right?

If you’re a critical theory person, you say it doesn’t really exist. Only literal pleasures might exist. Even that’s culturally construed because they get into that level of that. But we’re trying to make it simple. But it’s a… How do they call it? How do they call it? A paradox? Not a paradox. A constructive thing, right? Something that doesn’t live in your body in the same way that food-loving, eating, lives in your body. As simple as that. It lives in the relationship between me and you.

Does that have some representation in my body, in my brain? Not my question. But it doesn’t live in my body in the same way. Yes. You have to be taught. And liking it is not a reduction of one to the other. It’s not that now I just like it in the same way I like food. I like it in a different way.

Now, you could say that all of these kinds of likes are still selfish and bad. I’m not getting into that question. That’s the Chassidish criticism, the Platonic criticism. Plato already had that criticism. But that’s not my point. It’s still more that it’s a different kind of thing, and people seem to be missing this because it just… In other words, if there’s no value… Like, I don’t know, value… It’s not different. It’s not different at all. Like some people like pizza and some people like Torah. That doesn’t really follow. It’s true, but it’s a different kind of thing.

Responding to Further Objections

Student: To be able to like pizza is a simple thing. To be able to like Torah you need training, you need *chinuch* [education/training]. This is important. It’s socially constructed, okay. And if taste needs *chinuch* also, then it wouldn’t be the same.

Instructor: It doesn’t. There’s other differences. It’s a different thing. I just told you one difference between them. It’s a different thing. Even for… There wouldn’t be… There’s still a different thing. We’re just trying to define why it’s a different thing.

Student: No, I said one, because I didn’t say this is what made the difference. Obviously a different thing. It’s just I don’t think I need to explain why it’s a different thing.

Instructor: It’s a kind of… What do you mean? It’s a different thing. It’s like a sense. Feeling is a kind of thing. Do you understand what that means? A pleasure of the sense is a kind of thing. Do you understand what that means? And sense of… of liking to it. It’s a different kind of thing. You don’t feel it in the same place. I just want to say that. It doesn’t exist in the same part of the soul. Absolutely. It’s not the same.

Student: One is an activity and one is liking the actual item. But if you come out with examples where it’s not an activity, correct?

Instructor: No, absolutely not. This is just a nice fantasy that people like to tell themselves. I don’t know why people got this. You literally don’t feel the same. I don’t know why. Look in your experience, okay? You could look and do introspection for this. This is totally not the same thing, okay?

Conclusion: The Flattening of “Liking” Into One Undifferentiated Category

Very nice. No, *hamevul* [confused/mixed up]. So it’s not the same like, the same thing. Why do people go around that? These people have just invented this category called liking things, and then like, you like soda, I like pizza. That’s true in a very broad sense if you like to use the word “like” in an undefined way. But it’s like saying this is the table and that’s… and that’s a star. Both are things. Very nice. But there’s a table, that’s a star.

Chapter 15: The Nature of Pleasure: Sensory vs. Intellectual Enjoyment

The Fundamental Distinction Between Types of Pleasure

Instructor: I don’t know why. Look in your experience, okay? You could look and do introspection for this. This is totally not the same thing, okay?

Student: Yeah, it doesn’t hit my taste buds. It’s in some other sense.

Instructor: Very nice! It’s in some other sense. So it’s not the same thing. Why do people go around… People have just invented this category called liking things. And then like, you like Toyota, I like pizza. That’s true in a very broad sense if you like to use the word “like” in an undifferentiated way. But it’s like saying, this is a table and that’s a star. Both are things. Very nice. But this is a table, that’s a star. So, two different things.

So, why should I care about this? There’s nothing to do.

Student: I didn’t say that you should care. I just said first that it’s a different thing.

Instructor: Fine.

Student: I didn’t say anything about caring. I’m just trying to tell you the most basic fact that it’s different. And for some reason, I don’t know why. I do know why. Because it’s basic. If it’s something else, it’s basically you’re messed up. No, I mean this for real.

Student: I’m actually thinking the way you usually teach the thing. But I don’t see why the taste bud, because it’s a tongue and a piece of something hits it.

Instructor: I don’t understand what you’re saying. We know what that is and we know what this is. They’re not the same thing. If that’s why—it’s like yellow marker different than the blue marker. I don’t know. It’s one is yellow, one is blue. What is the question? Those are different, right?

Student: Of course those are different.

Instructor: Very nice. But they’re the same—

Student: Okay, no no no, they’re the same kind of thing, right? We have this—

Instructor: Okay, did you—okay did you—did you ever figure out this category called senses? Do you know what a sense is?

Student: Oh, so you decided there’s five senses?

Instructor: I decided? Yes.

Student: And that’s it? It can be another—

Instructor: Again, again, again, we have to be—we have to be very—no, there’s not one in five. But we have to be real in this sense. In this sense, maybe in a different sense, and we have to be real, right? It’s not a *chochma* [wisdom/cleverness] to just go and take words—this is sophistry, right? Let’s take words and pretend we can make them all sound the same. They’re not the same. There’s no real—like it’s the opposite. If someone wants to claim they’re the same, they have to prove it. The normal way of thinking is that they’re not the same. It’s not the same kind of thing.

The Burden of Proof and the Problem of Equivocation

Instructor: I don’t know why. Like tell me why. Even me, when you say the same kind of thing, I have no clue what you’re saying. No, it’s not. It’s absolutely not. It’s not the same as what? It’s not the same as feeling something in my mind, as feeling something in my tongue. What are you telling me?

Student: Oh, so once again, so the other sense called hearing is also not the same as saying—

Instructor: Again, when you say music, just to be clear, no, because you made me complicated examples. I’ll tell you why. Because we can’t—people always like escaping complicated examples. Because music is not a pleasure for the ear. If you say something very simple, like the kind of music that babies like, then yes. But if you talk about appreciating music, that’s something—

Student: No, I’m not appreciating. I’m talking about what babies like.

Instructor: Then of course it’s just a pleasurable sound. It’s not simple that there’s such a thing, but I’m assuming that there’s such a thing. Yeah, of course. Very loud sounds hurts you and a nice pleasant sound likes you. That’s the same exact kind of thing, of course. It’s a kind of—I could even give you some definition for what a sense means, but why would I have to go there? Like I feel like it’s something we all know.

And I think that the other thing—I’m telling you this, I’m making this argument, okay? I think that the other thing, this assumption that it’s the same kind of thing, like a *stickl* [piece of] Tosfos [medieval Talmudic commentary], is something that nobody knows. It’s a *stickl* philosophy that makes no sense that you were told by someone and you decide that it’s basic, and it’s nonsense. Just think of it for one second and you see that it’s nonsense.

Student: I’m trying to figure out when you say—I’ll tell you this. I understand so much when I sleep and when I go home it’s over.

Instructor: No, you don’t know that. You actually don’t know that. No, no, it’s not a *metzius* [reality/fact]. That’s what I’m telling you. It’s brainwashing by a *kat* [sect/group] that told you this.

Student: I know you’re not—you have to come to me whenever I say something that’s not a *metzius*, I know it, okay?

Instructor: No no no, I’m doing a shortcut because I don’t have a good—I’m doing a shortcut because I don’t have—I don’t have to name a *chalik* [difference]. You’re the one that’s connecting two things just to have the same word. It makes totally no sense. And for some reason you’re pretending that it’s me that has to prove you that it’s different. It’s so funny. It’s no *shaych* [connection/relevance]. It’s these two things.

And I’m not even getting—actually your other question was a better question. What is the *shaych* between enjoying a touch and enjoying a taste? That’s a good question. It’s actually a pretty easy way of answering it, why they’re similar. But what you’re saying is something totally different.

The “Plenjoyment” Thought Experiment

Instructor: Word—like for both, or enjoy for both, which is very not accurate because it’s not the same kind of enjoyment. It’s the same kind just in the sense that, you know, like in the same but similar—like I sometimes make these funny things like my chair likes to be on the floor, both likes and never jumps up by itself, so I must like it. And that’s the same kind of thing as me liking pizza. It’s just a word that we use the same, but it’s just sophistry. There’s nothing—there’s nothing—this, the same word refers to in your experience or in your in anything that you’re making them pretend to be the same thing. I have no idea why anyone would say this.

Student: I use the *mashal* [parable/example] of hearing for a very simple reason, okay? Because you said that hearing is one of the five senses and that has type of enjoyment, right? So then you said, no, I’m using a complicated *mashal*. I wasn’t using a complicated *mashal*. I’m trying to tell you a *mashal* that hearing has pleasure from, right? There you go. So that you understand that hearing’s pleasure and touch pleasure is different, even though they’re from the five senses. I just, did I—so, dude, the brain—

Instructor: Tzadik [righteous one/my friend], did you answer? Did you answer? Did you listen to what I said or you just were thinking of what you’re going to answer? Because I just repeated this question that you said to you.

Student: No, you said about the difference in touch and taste. And I specifically said hearing.

Instructor: No, because I think I specifically gave you the—do you understand why we came up with this concept of the five senses? What do we mean when we say senses?

Student: I have an example of not the five senses. What about hearing a joke? Now, I’m not talking about the physical feeling of laughing after you hear the joke.

Instructor: That’s like appreciating music.

Student: Yeah, it’s like music, but the music is one of the five senses. And that’s like understanding touch.

Instructor: Yeah, yeah, that’s not hearing. It’s not a pleasure of the ear. Of course not. Of course not. It’s a social thing. I don’t know what—yeah, of course. It’s a social thing. Of course, of course. That’s not social—by social I don’t mean that no one’s around. I mean it’s something you’re taught. It’s a cultural thing. Of course. Different cultures like different jokes. Okay, that’s not entirely a proof, but in some sense, yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. It’s not the same kind of thing as liking, as the pleasure of senses. Of course not.

Defining What Makes Something a “Sense”

Instructor: I didn’t convince you that anything better or anything. I’m just telling you it’s different. We just use this word “feel good” for everything. We just use this word “feel good” for everything, as if we know what that is. But we don’t know what that is. We know what feeling good means in a sensory sense. We also know what it means in a different sense. But it’s not the same thing. It doesn’t—I have no idea why you keep on pretending it’s the same thing. It’s just the same word. It’s not even—you should use a different word and you’ll see that it’s not the same thing.

I could call it differently. Let’s call—let’s decide to call it differently and then I’ll be right, right? I can’t just come—what’s the difference? *Deh sabah khalif, deh sabah khalif, deh sabah khalif* [this is different, this is different, this is different – Yiddish/Aramaic]. Again, again, I’m not hooked—I’m hooked on you being so brainwashed and you’re repeating words to me that mean nothing.

Let’s make a new language. We’re not allowed to call these things enjoyment. We have to call one enjoyment and one “plenjoyment,” okay? Now you understand that’s two different things, right? This I enjoy and this I “plenj oy.” Finish. Did I solve your problem? Now give me something besides for the words to tell me why I said something wrong.

Student: Let’s say liking to drink, talking about alcohol—alcohol, liking to get drunk, right? It’s a perfect example for you. You can’t—you have to make a distinction between, of, of, of why—not why you like to drink, but meaning you can’t bring taste into the matter, right? Because it’s disgusting, right?

Instructor: No, no, sensory-wise, right? Like it’s nothing to do with the good taste, right? It’s the social aspect of it, right? So I’d like—I’d like to drink. I’d like to—

Student: I don’t think Ada disagrees that it’s different. He disagrees that therefore we should say that it’s different.

Instructor: I don’t know why. It’s the opposite. If you want to connect things, you have to connect them.

Student: Within learning you’re saying you have sensory. I don’t think you have both things. I don’t know which sense enjoys learning.

Instructor: I don’t know which sense enjoys learning. If you want to tell me which one it is, or in which sense it’s a sense—so why would you even call it a sense?

Student: I don’t know where it is, but I know for sure that I like it.

Instructor: Very cute. If I’m asking that you like it, but you’re just—no, because senses have a meaning. It’s not just a word that we made up. A sense has a meaning. Tzadik, when we call it senses, it’s not because we randomly decided to call these things senses.

Student: No, but if you say there’s five senses, then you’re taking away from other things that have the same feeling you could call senses, but they’re not senses because they’re not—

Instructor: Okay, a sense is something that gives me information about the outside world in a way of touch, or in a kind of way—now just a touch, yes. With sight is touch.

Student: Yeah, kind of touch, everyone—

Instructor: Of course. The ancient theories were sure like that, but nowadays it’s also like that. Just a light wave is hitting your cornea or whatever. Yeah, of course. That’s what a sense is. There might actually be more than these five, but it’s hard to find them. Like there’s many more. And this is not touching your brain or touching your whatever—not in, not in the same way. Like again, in analogous way, yeah, we have these analogies, like—but not in—it’s just an analogy. It’s the same word for a different thing.

The Categorical Difference: Marriage, Nachas, and Other Examples

Instructor: I don’t see why I have to explain to you that it’s different, because it’s obviously different. It’s you that has to explain to you why it’s similar. I can explain to you why it’s analogous, but I don’t know why you would assume that it’s the same thing.

And just to be clear, I’m not saying—I didn’t make any moral claims here. I didn’t say that it’s a better kind of pleasure. I just said it’s a different kind of thing that happens. They get called feeling good in the same way, but it’s a totally different thing. It’s the same thing, okay? Let me tell you clearly. People seem to be very confused about this. I don’t know why. I know why—because I’m brainwashed by a bunch of hundreds of years of philosophers that try to pretend that this is the basic facts, but it’s not.

The enjoyment of being married is not the same thing as the enjoyment of having sex. And some people think that it is, but it’s not. It’s that both enjoyable, both are pleasurable, but the word pleasure literally means something else in both cases, okay? *Nachas* [satisfaction/joy, especially from children], in Yiddish it’s called *nachas*. *Nachas*—what’s *nachas*? Basically the same thing as enjoying some sex? No, it’s not *nachas*. There’s some Yiddish that make that argument, but it’s nonsense. Maybe they’re both selfish. I didn’t say that one is better than the other or any of that. All I said is that it’s a qualitatively different thing.

It’s like saying you’re telling me the floor and the ceiling are both the same. Yeah, they have some similarity, but they’re two different things. Like why would you even connect them?

The Key Implication: Non-Sensory Pleasures Must Be Taught

Instructor: Okay, let’s get back to this thing. I’m going to finish my *shiur* [lesson/class]. So now, the important thing about this kind of thing is that you have to be taught, okay? You have to be taught. It’s not natural. There’s actually very few things that are really natural, or at least whatever—this distinction is more complicated. But at least in some simplification level: sensory pleasures don’t have to be taught to humans. But other pleasures, or other likes—we shouldn’t use the word pleasure because it confuses us, but of course it is pleasurable—have to be trained, okay?

And that’s what Shlomo Hamelech [King Solomon] said and Plato said.

The Nature of Cultural Training and the Meaning of Receiving the Torah

Chapter 16: The Insufficiency of Rational Argument Alone

Instructor: There is no way to make you like [Torah] without training. We did this right last week. I don’t know. I did it in my Yiddish. You have to be trained. And this also means that both—even if I could give you an argument for why it’s good, which would be a different discussion, it wouldn’t be enough. Because you still won’t like it.

If I give you an argument for why it’s good, you’re going to agree that it’s good, but you’re not going to like it in the same way which you like food, for the different way that we’re talking about here, right?

And vice versa, if I don’t give you the argument why Torah is good, I can still make you like it. Maybe slightly less successfully, but I can still do it. You know how I know that it can be done? Because many people have been doing it all the time.

The Yeshiva System as Evidence

And like with yeshiva, they don’t really explain to you why Torah is good. They just tell you you should believe it, but they do make you like it, at least in some cases. And it even works very well. They even make you like it in the ways that they would not agree with, right? Because people that went to the yeshiva like also learning other things that the yeshiva doesn’t approve of, which just shows you that this is like a kind of thing that you could—you could be trained into liking learning, and it doesn’t translate into liking following what the yeshiva says. It’s not the same thing. That’s how you get into it, maybe, but that’s not what you get. Just like it’s a kind of way of getting you into it.

Student: Make sense.

Instructor: Make sense?

Chapter 17: Culture as Universal Training

Now, just to be very clear, every single culture that ever existed does this, besides for a few that pretend that chinuch [חינוך: education/training] is not necessary, but they also do it. They just don’t talk about it, right? Belonging to a culture literally means this. That’s what it means. That’s what culture means.

This word “culture,” which, by the way, tarbut [תרבות: culture] is literally what Chazal [חז״ל: our Sages, of blessed memory] called culture, and tarbut means chinuch. Kasheh tarbis ra’ah betokh beito shel adam [קשה תרביס רעה בתוך ביתו של אדם: difficult is bad training within a person’s house]. Tarbis means being raised—the raising of people, not the raising of people the way of raising animals, the way of raising people, which means teaching them some more human rights. Obviously animals don’t literally have, at least not to the extent that we do. And this is something that at least tarbis defines as human.

Middot [מידות: Character Traits] as Cultural Products

And when you grow up, you are taught to like certain things and dislike certain things that is not very much connected with the beliefs of this society. The word “virtue” is weird, but the kind of thing that a virtue is—virtue just means the good ones. That’s why it’s a de’ah [דעה: disposition/opinion] without being a middah [מידה: character trait]. This is what culture does.

Chapter 18: The Lasting Impact of Childhood Training

And this is why culture—and even to some extent this leads to some scary conclusions for us, which were said already, drawn by the Mishlei [משלי: Book of Proverbs] and by Plato and Aristotle—that the kind of things that you start doing when you’re a child, there are going to determine your whole life, basically. Whatever you are trained into doing as a child in a childish way, you will remain with you for the rest of your life.

Examples of Persistent Training

Which is why if you go to a Christian school, if they teach you to respect the Rabbis, you can always respect Rebbe [רבי: Rabbi/teacher]. It might be a different Rebbe, but that’s a middah. Or if you’ve got a literature school which teaches you to be critical in some sense, you’re going to remain with this middah, and so on.

Student: Wait, wait. We’re going to figure out how to switch.

Instructor: I don’t think people entirely switch. People refine. Very few people entirely switch, actually. Maybe none, or maybe very few. But very few people entirely switch, and I don’t think that’s what we need to be doing. Well—but let’s get to that in a second.

Chapter 19: What It Means to Be Happy About Receiving the Torah

But this, I said before my question of what’s okay. Now, when someone says I’m happy to be—if I am happy to have received the Torah, and like we gave in the first half hour of the shiur [שיעור: lesson], that we don’t mean the Torah that’s in the banner [the physical book]. So the only thing it could mean is that I am happy with certain virtues that I was made to have. Certain things that I was made to like.

It’s not that I choose to like, right? This is even something that’s weird to talk about choice. The choice is—it’s a choice, but in a much broader sense than what we think about choices, like I choose to this action or that action. You can’t literally sit down and choose to like learning. You could choose to get into a path that will cause you to that. You could choose to train your children to do that. It’s a much broader thing than individual particular action choice.

The Only Coherent Kavanah [כוונה: Intention]

But if you were received a training, you received a kind of that made you like certain things and dislike certain things, and those things are good—now we’ll have to have some way of evaluating whether they’re good—but if you realize them to be good, then you should be happy with receiving the Torah.

If anyone says, you should tell me, because this seems to be the only kavanah that’s possible to have: that your culture that you were brought up in, if that was the culture you were brought up in, has given you certain likes that you would not have had otherwise. It’s not possible to get them otherwise. There is nobody that gets them without being trained in them, without being cultured and educated into them.

Chapter 20: Addressing the Misframed Question

And we have to talk about what do you do when you’re stuck, but we’re talking about when we talk about being happy with the Torah, we’re not—this is, by the way, very clear, right? We’re not talking about the last time, right? Again, people like to go to the extreme cases for some reason, right?

When I ask you a question, are you happy with—hello? When I ask you the question, are you happy with having received the Torah, I don’t mean hello. I don’t mean the question of would you have been—would you have taken the Torah if you would have been born in Honolulu or something, you’ve been born differently, which many people think that that’s the question. I don’t know why that would be the question. That’s nice for some reason.

Why People Switch the Question

This is another one of the ways in which people switch the question to a different one, which is either harder or easier to talk about, right? If I—before I asked this question of—I said that we should ask, we should all think of if we’re happy to have received the Torah, and for some reason people think that this question translates to a different question, which is if I would have been born in—halilah [חלילה: God forbid]—would have been this guy. It’s entirely besides—besides for that not being a realistic question, it’s also not the question that I asked you.

When I asked you if you’re happy, I mean the one that you have, actually. Not a different one that you would have theoretically had. Why do people keep on changing it to that one? I don’t know. I actually know what you should think about.

Chapter 21: The Framework for Refinement and Teshuvah [תשובה: Repentance/Return]

And since the question is on this actual one that you were given—and “given” doesn’t mean there’s a book that you believe in; “given” means you were trained in, that’s what chinech means—therefore, the question is: if the virtues—not the values—if the virtues that you were trained in are good, now to the extent that they’re good, they should be happy. To the extent that they’re not good, they should do something very simple.

The Process of Refinement

And what does refining them mean? That it’s probably very hard to think of a society that has zero virtues, or that has no virtues at all, because that would be an impossibility. And since everyone has some virtues, then the job of growing up, or doing teshuvah, which is what we do when we’re more than fifteen and so on and we can’t relive our childhood—is childhood, not only childhood, right? Youth.

Then the answer is you need to know what those virtues are, and you need to know what the good parts of them are—what the good things that you were taught to like that you would never have liked otherwise—and then you find out what the bad things are, what are the bad things that you were taught to like and you would never have liked otherwise.

And what you would have to do is like the work of philosophy, or the work of teshuvah, like the work of growing up: it’s to make the good ones interpret the bad ones instead of vice versa.

Chapter 22: A Concrete Example: The Lakewood Virtue

Student: What does that mean?

Instructor: Ah, now I have to—I’ll tell you the answer also. The answer—yeah, I could tell you one example, but I have to finish. The answer would be something like—like, I was brought up to—let’s do something like this, right? This is really what all the middas [מידות: character traits] are about, the Middas HaMitzvot [מידות המצוות: the mean/measure of character traits]. And the Middas HaMitzvot shows you that there isn’t, like, really such a thing as a totally bad thing. It’s only a question of when and where and how and how much, right?

The Raw Disposition

So, for example, if someone was brought up in some kind of society which taught him, like, to not care about what anyone else says, right? Okay, this is a virtue that you get from—I’m going to tell you about it. Okay? We are the best. We talked about this. We are the ones that know the truth, and everyone else can farshtayn [פֿאַרשטיין: understand/get lost—Yiddish]. Yeah, one of the basic virtues.

Just very clear, again, we escape to the truth of it when we talk about it, but this is a virtue. This is a kind of way of being. We like it. We like to be the ones that know what they have to do, and we absolutely don’t give a gornisht [גאָרנישט: nothing—Yiddish] what anyone else thinks, right? That’s a virtue. It’s an excellence. It’s a thing that you get. Okay, what?

Student: But it’s good or bad?

Instructor: It’s a virtue.

Student: Okay.

Instructor: Yeah, I don’t have a different word. It’s a way of thinking.

Good and Bad Interpretations

Now, this has a too much, which is bad, and a too little, which is bad also. And which virtue is this? This is something like the virtue of courage. I’m giving you an interpretation of this. This is what I mean.

Now there’s a bad interpretation of it, which is called the vice of egoism. Okay? Which is not caring about other people. That’s how you become a bad talmid [תלמיד: student] of Lakewood. But the way to become a good talmid is to interpret it as the virtue of courage, which is the idea that you as a human being need to have some sense of what he is doing and not be the opposite of that, which would be the vice of being a chanef [חנף: sycophant/flatterer], someone that just does what everyone else wants him to do, which is not good—not for himself and not for anyone else.

You need to have that kind of—I’m calling it courage. Maybe there’s a different word for it. I’m not sure if it’s exactly courage. It’s courage—it has more to do with facing danger and stuff. But self—some kind of virtue of having a backbone. Okay?

Student: Integrity.

Instructor: Integrity. Integrity, you could call this. We’ll figure out. You understand more? That’s what I mean. And some kind of integrity—

Integrity, Practical Wisdom, and the Preconditions for Receiving Torah

Chapter 23: The Virtue of Having a Backbone

Instructor: The opposite of that would be someone that just does what everyone else wants them to do, which is not good—not for himself and not for anyone else. You need to have that kind of… I’m going to get courage. Maybe there’s a different word for it. I’m not sure if it’s exactly courage—it’s hard to have more to do with facing danger and stuff. But some kind of virtue of having a backbone.

Okay, integrity. Integrity, you could call this. I will figure out—you understand more or less what I mean—some kind of integrity. I don’t know. I’m trying to use ancient words. So some kind of integrity or courage or backbone.

Chapter 24: Applying Virtue Through Practical Wisdom

Okay, now that’s the good interpretation of it. And you take—you understand it in that way and use it in that way. And this is—there’s no way of applying virtue without using your *seichel* [practical wisdom/reason], which is called practical wisdom. And you apply it in the cases, or in the way, or in the amount which is needed for that, and not in the amount which is needed to be a *gas ruach* [arrogant/inflated person]—like some other people apply it.

Chapter 25: Becoming a Mensch and the Right to Receive Torah

That’s called becoming a *mensch* [morally mature person] when you’re already an adult. That’s called—and then, then you have a right to say that you’re happy to receive the Torah. Otherwise you don’t have the right, because it only made you worse.

Chapter 26: The Unanswered Question

So it still didn’t have to be this Torah. I didn’t answer that question because I—okay, I’m going to stop here. You can think about it yourself. It didn’t have to be nothing.

Erev Shavuos: The Secret of “Sheva Shabbosos Temimos” – Cycles of Nature versus the Uniqueness of History

Introduction: The Capstone of the Seven-Week Series

Rabbosai, it’s erev Shavuos. Let’s now carry out a piece, the capstone piece of the small series that we’ve been learning these last seven weeks, which is the secret of “sheva shabbosos temimos” [sheva shabbosos temimos: seven complete weeks, the counting of the Omer between Pesach and Shavuos].

We learned that this is the secret of “kol yemos olam” [kol yemos olam: all the days of the world], as the Ramban [Ramban: Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, Nachmanides, 1194-1270] said. We learned that this is the secret of the order, the wheel, the circuit, the cycle that the world turns, that the world turns whether in general, in the greatest world, which is the essence of understanding the entire world, the greatest circles of the world, that the world turns and it always returns to the beginning. And this is the entire order of history, of kol yemos olam.

And how there is in each day, or in each week, or in each day that represents an entirely different week, more generally, an entire sphere, an entire world that one can open to understand an entirely new way to understand everything.

The Fiftieth Day: Mincha Chadasha LaHashem

So finally we arrive toward tonight, comes “sheva shabbosos temimos tiheyena” [sheva shabbosos temimos tiheyena: seven complete weeks shall be], yes. It’s an interesting explanation that one must wait for a complete day, not wait bein hashmashos [bein hashmashos: between sunset and night], which will be complete seven weeks, not miss, and arrive at “ad mimochoras hashabbos hashevi’is” [ad mimochoras hashabbos hashevi’is: until the day after the seventh Shabbos], which is the fiftieth day, when then “vehikravtem mincha chadasha laHashem” [vehikravtem mincha chadasha laHashem: and you shall bring a new meal-offering to Hashem], one brings a new mincha, the mincha of shtei halechem [shtei halechem: the two loaves], the bread of the new tevuah [tevuah: grain, produce]. One makes it chametz [chametz: leavened], one makes tenufah [tenufah: waving, a type of service in the Beis HaMikdash] with it, one brings a new korban, a chiddush [chiddush: something new], a new chiddush, a davar chadash [davar chadash: a new thing].

One already brought a small chiddush already on Pesach, yes, “uvkutzrechem es omer reishis ketzirchem” [uvkutzrechem es omer reishis ketzirchem: and when you cut the omer, the first of your harvest], the beginning of the katzir [katzir: harvest], like the eshkolos hakatzir [eshkolos hakatzir: the bundles of the harvest], zecher la’avodas hakatzir [zecher la’avodas hakatzir: a remembrance of the work of the harvest], one brought a piece of omer se’orim [omer se’orim: an omer-measure of barley], one also made from it a tenufah lifnei Hashem [tenufah lifnei Hashem: waving before Hashem].

And now on the fiftieth day one brings truly, it’s called truly chadash [chadash: new], the Gemara [Gemara: the Talmud] calls it that this is matir chadash lamizbe’ach [matir chadash lamizbe’ach: permits new grain for the altar], one brings from the new tevuah that has newly grown and one makes from it a complete bread, and this one brings bayom hachamishim [bayom hachamishim: on the fiftieth day].

The Contradiction: Chadash versus Torah Shelo Tishtaneh

Everyone knows that the yom hachamishim is also the yom matan Torah [yom matan Torah: the day of the giving of the Torah], the day when one ascends [oleh: goes up] to Har Sinai [Har Sinai: Mount Sinai] and receives the Torah, which also has a connection to something of chiddush.

There is like a bit of a stirah [stirah: contradiction] between the two inyanim [inyanim: topics, themes] apparently [lech’orah: at first glance]. Of course everyone will easily jump and say the answer [teiruts: answer], but one must be very deep here. There is apparently a stirah between the two inyanim of the yom tov [yom tov: holiday].

Inyan A: Yom HaBikkurim – Mincha Chadasha

Simply, the inyan, the day, the essence is yom habikkurim [yom habikkurim: the day of the first fruits]. Yes, bikkurim [bikkurim: first fruits] is a translation of reishis [reishis: first, beginning], one begins to bring bikkurim from all fruits etc., but primarily bikkurim means itself the shtei halechem, one brings bikkurei ma’asecha [bikkurei ma’asecha: the first of your works], and one brings the beginning, the first bread that has grown, the first wheat, the first tevuah from which one brings a korban mincha [korban mincha: a meal-offering] for the Almighty in the Beis HaMikdash [Beis HaMikdash: the Holy Temple]. But this is, the word is called chadash, the primary name that this has is chadash, mincha chadasha.

Inyan B: Zman Matan Toraseinu – Chukas Olam

And on this day one celebrates the Torah, that which the Jews received [mekabel gevein: accepted], zman matan Toraseinu [zman matan Toraseinu: the time of the giving of our Torah] as it says in the siddur [siddur: prayer book], that which the Jews received the Torah on this day. And this is the Torah achas [Torah achas: one Torah], chukah achas yiheyeh lachem [chukah achas yiheyeh lachem: one law shall be for you], chukas olam [chukas olam: an eternal statute], as the Rambam [Rambam: Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, Maimonides, 1138-1204] brings in Yesodei HaTorah Perek Tes [Yesodei HaTorah: Foundations of the Torah], chukas olam, davar barur umefurash baTorah shehi mitzvah la’ad ul’olmei olamim [davar barur umefurash baTorah shehi mitzvah la’ad ul’olmei olamim: a clear and explicit thing in the Torah that it is a commandment forever and for all eternity], a very old Torah, it’s la’ad ul’olmei olamim. It’s the Torah, this is, on this day the Torah began, one celebrates the day, one makes a situation from it, one speaks about it, that this is the opposite of chadash.

Yes, bipshitus [bipshitus: in the simple understanding], the simple meaning of matan Torah is that this is the Torah, it doesn’t change, lo sosif alav velo sigra mimenu [lo sosif alav velo sigra mimenu: you shall not add to it and not subtract from it], one doesn’t add and one doesn’t subtract, this is the Torah, and it’s not a new Torah every year.

The Sharp Formulation of the Contradiction

In other words, let’s be clear, in other words, when one wants to formulate [menasach zein: formulate] the question in the language of the discussions we’ve had about the cycles of the world, Torah is not in the cycle.

By matan Torah there is a cycle, every year comes the same winter and the same summer comes fresh, yes, one can call it the same, but one can call it new. Mincha chadasha simply means there comes a new wind, a new summer, a new time of harvest, a new time when there comes a new tevuah, from this new one brings it over.

The Foundation: Cycles of Nature versus the Uniqueness of History

Teva = Cycle = Understandable

This is in the cycle that one calls teva [teva: nature], yes, this is the wheel of teva of seven times seven, this is indeed the meaning, yes, seven times seven it goes with a cycle, and the cycle is called seven, yes, one can think concretely how the cycle of the tevuah is seven, but in any case [al kol panim: in any case], cycle means seven, so the cycle of the world, sheshes yamim veyom hashevi’i [sheshes yamim veyom hashevi’i: six days and the seventh day], and it comes back every week, every year, the same, but entirely new one can say it, it’s a new chiddush ha’olam [chiddush ha’olam: renewal of the world], as mechadesh betuvo bechol yom ma’aseh bereishis [mechadesh betuvo bechol yom ma’aseh bereishis: He renews in His goodness every day the work of Creation].

What is the simple meaning of the statement [ma’amar: saying] that one says in Birchos Yotzer [Birchos Yotzer: the blessings of “Yotzer Ohr”]? That every day comes in the morning again the cycle, the sun rose the first time in sheshes yemei bereishis [sheshes yemei bereishis: the six days of Creation] bayom harevi’i [bayom harevi’i: on the fourth day], and every day it rises, the same thing is there by tekufos hashanah [tekufos hashanah: the seasons of the year], which this is a chiddush ma’aseh bereishis. The same every year comes from fresh the tevuah, the first tevuah comes from fresh every year, it’s new every year.

One can call it new and also the old, because it’s the same cycle, it’s chozer chalilah [chozer chalilah: returns around and around] all the time, but it’s a cycle where there is in it ma’aseh chadoshos [ma’aseh chadoshos: new things], there is in it ma’aseh chadoshos in a chazarah [chazarah: repetition], it’s chadoshos that happens from chazarah of a cycle, it becomes again the same wheel, the same cycle becomes again.

History = Unique = Not Understandable

But when we speak even of Yetzias Mitzrayim [Yetzias Mitzrayim: the Exodus from Egypt], of matan Torah, it’s obvious that the entire point of speaking about it is that it’s not in a cycle. One can call it history. One can say history is the contradiction of it. History is a problem to learn. Why? Because one cannot understand it.

What Does “Understand” Mean?

What do I mean to say? I’m saying a fundamental point that all Acharonim [Acharonim: later rabbis and commentators] say, I don’t know how many Jews speak about this, but the modern scholars [chokrim: researchers], meforshim [meforshim: commentators], who bring out the sugya [sugya: topic] of history, they explain [mesbir: explain] this way to the world [alma: the world]. History is the limit of things that one cannot understand. Why? Because it happened only once, velo ya’avor [velo ya’avor: and it doesn’t pass], velo yosif [velo yosif: and it doesn’t add], kol hagadah velo yosif [kol hagadah velo yosif: the entire telling and it doesn’t add]. It doesn’t continue.

What do I mean to say? I mean to say this: The teva, that is what one can understand. As we say, the basic, the first teva, and perhaps the first science, is the science of the seasons. People see that every year returns the sun, the levanah [levanah: moon], the stars, it goes in a cycle, and from this grows every year again. This is a thing that one can understand. One can say one can predict it, one can understand that it comes every year from fresh.

Of course, one must do avodas Hashem [avodas Hashem: service of Hashem], one must do teshuvah [teshuvah: repentance] so that the rains [geshamim: rain] of the year should succeed. There is in this a judgment [din: judgment], beRosh Hashanah kol ba’ei olam nidonin [beRosh Hashanah kol ba’ei olam nidonin: on Rosh Hashanah all who come into the world are judged], everything fine and well. But the judgment is a thing that one understands. It’s not a davar shelemala min hazman [davar shelemala min hazman: a thing that is above time], it’s not a thing that doesn’t have in it any science. Science indeed means one makes rules [klalim: principles]. And what does understand mean? Understand means as we spoke last week. Understand means that one can make from it a rule.

I can say in a general way [be’ofen klali: in a general manner] there is a wisdom [chochmah: wisdom], “od kol yemei ha’aretz zera vekatzir vekor vechom vekayitz vechoref veyom velaylah lo yishbosu” [od kol yemei ha’aretz zera vekatzir vekor vechom vekayitz vechoref veyom velaylah lo yishbosu: yet all the days of the earth, seed and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease]. There is the cycle, there is an order, I can make a rule. That which you see every time, it’s hischadshus [hischadshus: renewal] indeed, and the details [peratim: particulars, details] is hischadshus, but in a general way there are divrei chochmah [divrei chochmah: words of wisdom], one can understand it according to order [keseder: according to the order].

Teva and Science

This is the meaning of teva, what we call teva, or what we call the natural world, which is a cycle. And consequently [memeilah: consequently] there is in this a science, there is in this knowledge [yedi’ah: knowledge], one can know it, because it repeats itself. As we say, because it repeats itself there is also a new one every year, because it repeats itself. When it repeats itself, that makes a new one, it’s perhaps again, you can call it a copy, I don’t know if it’s a copy, again the same thing, but again, not again like a complete chiddush [chiddush legamrei: a complete novelty], not again unpredictable, again predictable according to an order.

This is the topic [nosa: topic] of nature, of teva, which the cycles, which all science, the many understandings [havanos merubim: many understandings], wisdom in leadership [nesi’us: carrying, leading], is built on observing the patterns, the cycles that are in nature, and understanding it, making from it rules, afterwards one can predict it, afterwards one can understand it, one can ask why it is, what is the cause [gorem: cause] of it, etc.

History Is Not Understandable

When one says history, history is the opposite, history is exactly the thing that one cannot explain [mesbir zein: explain], one cannot say it, one cannot predict it, one cannot say when it will happen, when it happened, why it happened, and there is not in it any explanation [hesber: explanation], there is not in it any rule, there is not any general category [kategori klaliyus: general category] called matan Torah or Yetzias Mitzrayim, that happens once in I don’t know how many years, and consequently, if there is a rule, one knows when it happens, every time that there is such a wind, such a sun, every year in such a type of season it happens? No. It happens once, and from that once one must remember it, because it happens only once, a unique thing.

Unique things are such things that don’t repeat themselves, and are consequently such types of things that one cannot understand, one cannot predict it, no one can tell you when it will happen, it won’t happen again, no one can tell you why it happened then. If one could know why, one would know the rule, one would know what type of thing it is and when such types of things happen.

If one says that it’s history, the meaning is it happened once, it doesn’t repeat itself, and it has no reason [ta’am: reason], it has no science, there is no understanding [havanah: understanding] in it. One can only remember it, one can only know what happened, one can learn history, investigate [choker zein: investigate] whether it happened, yes, one can only investigate if it happened.

The Limits of Historical Research

Let’s say clearly, the one who understands matan Torah as [besoras: as] history, so they say very clearly, one can investigate whether it happened, one can search for proofs [re’ayos: proofs], evidence, know whether it happened, but what happened, to understand is impossible [min hanimna: impossible], one cannot understand what happened, because it’s not such a type of thing that is understandable, in a certain sense all history is not such a type of thing that is understandable. You cannot ask why there was a king such and such [kach vechach: such and such] who conquered [kovesh gevein: conquered] a country [medinah: country] such and such in the year [bishnas: in the year] such and such.

Matan Torah: Teva or History? — The Radical Chiddush of Pnimiyus HaTorah

Chapter 1: The Historical Understanding of Matan Torah and Its Deficiencies

What Does “History” Mean in This Context?

If one could know why something happened, one would know the rule — what type of thing it is, and when such types of things happen.

But if one says that something is history, this means:

– It happened once

– It doesn’t repeat itself

– It has no reason

– It has no science

– There is no understanding in it

One can only remember it, one can only investigate whether it happened — but what happened, to understand, is impossible.

Let’s say clearly: Those who understand matan Torah as history, so they say, this is their rule: One can investigate whether it happened, one can search for proofs, evidence, know whether it happened. But what happened, to understand is impossible. One cannot understand what happened, because it’s not such a type of thing that is understandable.

History in General Is Not Understandable

And in a certain sense, all history is not such a type of thing that is understandable. You cannot ask why there was a king such and such, who ruled in a country such and such in the year such and such. There is not in this any explanation.

Consequently, what do historians do? They don’t seek to understand, they can seek causes, but all causes that they seek is still a piece of history. He can find evidence and search for proofs that it was before. Okay, this caused that, and that caused this. In this sense there is something of an explanation that one calls historical explanations.

But the entire thing — why does the whole thing happen at all, why at that time, why for those people, why in that period, in that manner — this by definition has no explanations, because history, what we now call the word history, is not a thing that is explainable.

Miracle versus Nature — A Precise Definition

Okay, it’s as if, one can say this now, it’s as if a miracle. In the aspect of miracle, which we called a minute ago.

In the aspect of teva means:

– What one can predict

– What there is a cycle

– It repeats itself

– One can know when it repeats itself

– There is in this a rule

In the aspect of miracle is:

– What there is not in this a rule

According to how one understands history here, it means that there is no rule in this at all, there is no understanding, you cannot say why, no one understands it, there is no wisdom in it. There is only testimony, there is only, as one can say, only prophecy about it, there are only the details, there is only the fact that it happened this way, it happened once, and therefore one simply counts, one only remembers the one time that the Exodus from Egypt happened, the one time that the Giving of the Torah happened.

How Most People Understand the Giving of the Torah

This is how most people understand the topic of the Exodus from Egypt, according to this, and the topic of the Giving of the Torah, all these historical things upon which the Jewish faith, the Jewish religion, the Jewish Torah is built.

According to this understanding, most people think that it has not a drop of connection back to our initial question, it has not a drop of connection to the sweetness of the new mincha offering, where “new” means it is a novelty, but not a novelty in the sense of history, it is a novelty because every year comes a new novelty, one can plan it, there is a rule in this, because this is the faith, it is not, yes, nature.

Note: “Nature” Does Not Mean Heresy

When I say nature here I don’t mean heresy. Yes, often when one learns books, nature means apostasy, I don’t mean apostasy. I mean the sort of order, the sort of regularity that exists in the world, because this is “mechadesh betuvo” [He renews in His goodness], the Almighty does this, and for this one thanks the Almighty, and with this one serves the Almighty, and with this one praises Him, etc. etc. etc.

It is very religious, it is very faithful, it is absolutely not anti-faith, it is absolutely not anti-Judaism, anti-faith, anti-service of God, this sort of perspective, but it is one sort of perspective.

The Problem: The Giving of the Torah and the New Crop Become Two Separate Things

And most people when one tells them something that is the Giving of the Torah and the like, they only think in terms of history, in terms of miracle, in terms of each time it happened is unique, even what happened twice, is twice that a unique thing happened, one cannot know why it happened, there is no rule in this, one can only know if it happened.

And about this, most people who hold that their Judaism is built upon the Giving of the Torah, they need to strongly establish that it happened, they have proof, there were six hundred thousand people, they have testimony, it happened, but what happened has no introduction in this, and has no understanding in this.

It is by definition a miracle, and by definition miracle I mean to say something that one cannot understand, because one cannot predict it, there is no rule in this.

And if so, the topic of the new crop, people say, this is a natural thing, as if for some reason they have in their head that this is something not religious, this is something natural, as if the Almighty doesn’t do this, as if this is a cycle of nature.

The six days of Creation, they already believe in Shabbos, yes? Shabbos is the meaning of nature, they only believe in Yom Tov which is the meaning of miracle. Okay, in a certain sense, one can understand that Yom Tov is indeed a miracle, and they say that the new crop and the Giving of the Torah are two different things.

The Giving of the Torah is a unique thing, because it remains forever. Precisely because it remains once forever, because there is only one of them. And the new crop is a natural thing, it comes anew every year, there are new processes, it is very pleasant, people are happy, summer comes, harvest comes, which has nothing to do with the Torah at all.

Chapter 2: The Radical Innovation of the Inner Dimension of Torah

Everyone Who Learns the Inner Dimension of Torah Knows This Is Not Correct

Okay. Now, everyone who learns a bit of the inner dimension of Torah, whoever has once opened a Sefer HaZohar [Book of Zohar], or later commentators from the Kabbalists, yes, the Arizal [Rabbi Yitzchak Luria], the Ramak [Rabbi Moshe Cordovero], the Chassidic books, everyone who opens one of these books, the whole thing that he just said, he must immediately say that it is not correct, it doesn’t make sense, it is not true.

That the Giving of the Torah happened once, it is not a unique thing. And when one says that it is not a unique thing, what does that mean to say according to what we have explained? It is not something that one cannot understand, it is not something where one can only ask “did it happen” and one cannot ask “what happened.” It is not that sort of thing.

Everyone who learns Kabbalah, everyone who learns Chassidus, everyone who learns any sort of book of Jewish wisdom, even if he learns Rambam [Maimonides], even if he learns other approaches that exist, I know, almost everyone, except for really some very late books that think the way I just said, almost none of them say that one cannot understand what the Giving of the Torah is.

There is not a single Jewish book that I know, not one exists, there is one, but the normal mainstream path of the Kabbalists, of the Chassidim, of the Rambam, everyone agrees on this, that the Giving of the Torah is indeed something that one can understand.

Of course, no one says that it is simple to understand, no one says that it is on the level that Moshe Rabbeinu [Moses our Teacher] understood, we will speak about this in a minute, but no one says that this is simply a unique thing and one only needs to know if it is.

Note: The Deficiency of Historical Faith — Spiritually

Therefore, I can say this as a note, an important note. There are many Jews that one speaks about now, we are speaking of basics of faith, yes, there are many Jews that one tells them, what is the foundation of faith? That there was the Giving of the Torah, as it says in Rambam, it says in the Kuzari and the like, and he has proofs, yes, it is reasonable that it indeed was, because there was enough evidence and the like.

And I look at this Jew, and I see that his faith has no vitality. It is something dead. He has no vitality. When he speaks of the Giving of the Torah, it is an obligation. Yes, he believed that it was, and therefore one must follow what it says. The Almighty came and told what one must do, and how one will have a good life. Everything is fine and well. He explains that there is good evidence for the gathering at Mount Sinai.

With all due respect, he is a respectable Jew. But with all due respect, I don’t see that about this one dances “elyonim sassu vetachtonim alzu” [the heavenly beings rejoiced and the earthly ones exulted]. I don’t see that about this one writes a ketubah [marriage contract] between Knesset Yisrael [the Assembly of Israel] and HaKadosh Baruch Hu [the Holy One, Blessed be He], which Rabbi Yisrael Najara or another wrote, which one reads in Satmar on the eve of Shavuos. I don’t see what it means. Not about this does one say the Akdamus Milin [liturgical poem] that one sings before one speaks of the Giving of the Torah, that it teaches us that they have proof, the gentiles, “those abundant in intellect and important as masters, man and woman.” The Anakim had only three people who saw the miracles of the Anakim, and we have six hundred thousand people.

With all due respect, perhaps I am the strange person. I don’t see that for this one gets excited. I don’t see that in this there is vitality.

The Foundation of Faith in a Spiritual Sense

The foundation of faith, the foundation of faith must be… let us establish a simple thing. There is something called principles of faith or foundations of faith. Foundations of faith means foundations for a person’s life, yes? You can prove to a gentile, “your wife like a fruitful vine,” “your children like olive shoots,” the answers… okay, very good answers, whatever the arguments that the apologetics say.

But I am speaking here of the foundation of faith in a spiritual sense, yes? The Friday shiur [Torah lecture], the Erev Shabbos and Yom Tov shiur is to speak what truly speaks vitally to the souls of Israel. The foundation of faith means, what is the real thing that makes you alive? What makes you alive in the matter of your Judaism, in the matter of your Torah that you do in your life, that you eat on Shabbos, that you celebrate Shavuos, and so on? What is the living thing?

I know, I don’t believe that one will do like a priest, an autopsy, one will go in and look in a person’s soul and find the most, the thing that makes him the most alive, and one doesn’t find any knowledge, any evidence that there were 600,000 people at the gathering at Mount Sinai, one doesn’t see it on any stone, not even by the people who give the sermons. Certainly one must tell them, in order to settle the hearts of the world, but one doesn’t find this.

And certainly on the other hand, there must lie the gathering at Mount Sinai, there must lie the gathering of prophecy. It can be a person has other sources, give thanks to God for He is good, for His kindness is eternal, but it is certainly a correct thing to understand how there is the vitality, the light, the wedding, the aliveness of the gathering at Mount Sinai. There must be vitality in this, and every Jew identifies with this, he says, “we are those who received the Torah there, we are the receivers of the Torah, and You brought us near, our King, to Your great Name in truth with love,” yes? As one says in Ahavah Rabbah [prayer]. This must be.

The Conclusion: The Giving of the Torah Is Nature, Not History

If it must be so, everyone will understand, it must be that our inner faith, the inner dimension of Torah — the inner dimension of Torah means what settles upon the heart, what is correct, and therefore this is also the truth — is not that the gathering at Mount Sinai is history. It is not a unique thing that one cannot understand, that one can only know that it happened and therefore one is obligated to follow it. It is not this.

It is nature. It is something that has an order, one can understand it, there is in this a certain rule even. One says that it is unique, we will speak about this, it is a different sort of unique. There is in this a certain rule, there is in this a certain understanding.

Whoever Learns This Way — Sees Clearly

And whoever learns this way, whoever learns a Chassidic book, whoever learns Ramak and Arizal, sees very clearly, and especially whoever learns the sharper Chassidic books that say this in the sharpest way that can be, sees that the gathering at Mount Sinai is something that one knows how to do, we know how to make it, we know how to do it. It is not something that we don’t know how to make, it is something that we do know. Of course, each according to his understanding, of course, one must believe that there is more than what we understand, but fundamentally it is not the sort of thing that is unique.

In Every Chassidic Book This Is Written

And every Chassidic book says this. Master of the Universe, I wanted one to grasp what a radical thing they are saying, what a novelty they are saying.

In every single Chassidic book in the world it says that presumably this is not a unique thing, it repeats itself every year.

True, it says in every Chassidic book in the world. Whoever knew, whoever once opened, even non-Chassidic books already say it, but the Chassidic books spoke about it very strongly, especially the foundation. It already says in the Arizal, and in the early Kabbalists it must say, someone once spoke with me that it says.

The Deeper Order of the Giving of the Torah: From Nature and Miracle to the Greater Cycles of the World

Chapter 3: The Chassidic Foundation — The Gathering at Mount Sinai Repeats Itself Every Year

The Radical Innovation in Chassidic Books

In every Chassidic book it says, I tell you my teachers, now they begin to grasp what a radical thing they are saying, what a novelty they are saying. In every single Chassidic book in the world it says that the gathering at Mount Sinai is not a unique thing — it repeats itself every year. True? It says in every Chassidic book in the world.

Whoever knew, once opened, even non-Chassidic books already say it, but the Chassidic books spoke about it very strongly — this is a foundation. It already says in the Arizal [Rabbi Yitzchak Luria], and in the early Kabbalists it must say. I once spoke, it must say explicitly, or why it doesn’t say exactly in these words, and so one must struggle, but it is certain that he also believed this way, and the like. And the Ramban [Nachmanides] perhaps it says explicitly, also one must know where to read these words. But certainly in Chassidic books it says explicitly — the gathering at Mount Sinai repeats itself every year.

The Parable of the Harvest — The Yearly Repetition

Just as the harvest is new every year, and it is the same every year, and we know to say the seven types of punishments can come, one must still have the Almighty make a moment, one must still have everything work out — but there is a rule in this, one can understand it. Upon this is built human wisdom, the wisdom of human beings, the wisdom of the Creator, yes? The Creator of the Creator of worlds. This is built upon what comes every year. Just so every year comes Shavuos, it comes every year.

Avraham Avinu and Shavuos Before the Giving of the Torah

The Question: What Was the Sixth of Sivan Before the Exodus from Egypt?

And one will look in certain Chassidic books, they will even ask as a question: and what was the sixth of Sivan, what was in the period before there was the event of the Exodus from Egypt and the Giving of the Torah?

They say explicitly, and it is built upon statements of Chazal [our Sages of blessed memory] that say such a thing: it was already then also Shavuos. “Avraham Avinu kept the entire Torah before it was given,” says the Tzanzer Rav and others — I remember the Tzanzer Rav says it explicitly, and others.

The Parable of Avraham’s Cheesecake

What does it mean? That Avraham Avinu on Shavuos morning ate cheesecake, and he was asked: why are you eating cheesecake? Because the Jews received the Torah today, and I am very pleased with this, and whatever the intention is, and one eats cheesecake.

One will ask: what does it mean the Jews received the Torah? The Jews are your grandchildren who will happen, and the event hasn’t happened yet, they haven’t yet gone into Egypt. What are you saying?

The Answer: There Is an Order in the World

He answered — the answer was a bit spiritual from the physicality, but he said: what does it mean? There is an order in the world, and in this order, at the appointed time, is a time of the Giving of the Torah in itself. Because there is an order that exists, it is a good time to make the Torah, yes?

Just as it is a good time in Nissan to go out from Egypt, it is a good time in Sivan to receive the Torah — according to the order of nature, according to the way the weather works. It must be good weather, as it says in the Midrashim: the time of Pesach, at Pesach in the future, it is the best weather — it is not too hot, not too cold, there is a pleasant time to go outside, to make a great gathering at Mount Sinai.

The Clarity of the Time

And the clarity of the day brings out the clarity of the world — the time of favor to know that Hashem is God, the seven heavens that open, is something that comes out from the clarity of the nature that exists in the season, as it says in the Midrashim, and the Ramban brings it out, and the Zohar brings it out, other books.

The Distinction Between Nature and Miracle — Not What One Thinks

The Question: Is the Giving of the Torah Simply a Natural Thing?

And the Ramban made Shavuos in the Giving of the Torah. We will ask: is it the same thing as nature? Is the Giving of the Torah simply a natural thing, the same level as simply the normal cycles of the year, of the day, of the week, of the month?

Certainly not! What does certainly not mean?!

Two Things

First of all! When we say that there is an order, a process how things mean, I mean it will still be the same thing — I still don’t mean that everything is exactly what one sees, what is visible to the eyes in the first minute. People think that nature is the same thing as superficiality — nature is not the same thing as superficiality.

The Distinction Between Shabbos and Yom Tov

It can certainly be, there is a distinction, there is a true distinction between Shabbos and Yom Tov, because one sees another level of distinction. But the first thing is: there is a true distinction between nature and miracle.

The Categories of Nature and Miracles – Two Different Levels

The categories called nature (teva) and miracle (nes) – although they don’t appear in the Torah explicitly at all, you need to know this: It doesn’t say in the Torah, neither nature nor miracle is written – everything is the same God who does everything. But let’s say, the world has been talking about this for a long time, and there is a true level to it.

Shabbos and Yom Tov – Two Categories

And in the Torah you also see that there are ways of peace (darchei shalom), and there are Shabbos and Yom Tov, which are two different types of things – although Yom Tov is called Shabbos, and Shabbos is called Yom Tov perhaps, moed, mikra kodesh – but they are still two categories.

And the difference is:

Shabbos is something that’s easily seen – every child understands that it’s Shabbos. Yom Tov is a broader system. You can even say simply, yes: Shabbos is that people work six days, rest the seventh day.

Yom Tov is that there is a cycle of nature. It took a few years until Adam HaRishon, yes, caught on that every summer the warmth returns, things grow. That’s one thing.

Yom Tov in the Historical Sense – A Deeper Order

And if you speak of Yom Tov in the historical sense, when we talk about the Exodus from Egypt – here is an even deeper order. There is an even greater order, as we spoke about in previous weeks: there is an even greater order of kol yemos olam (all the days of the world), the world.

Not only is there a cycle every year where the harvest returns, where things grow again every year – but in humanity there is an order. As we spoke about arba me’os shanah (four hundred years), about the ketz (end), all these things. There is a greater order in the world. There is an order when people receive a Torah, there is an order when they go into exile, when they leave exile. True, the order isn’t as precise as what you calculate mathematically, as we spoke about, but there is a greater order, there is a deeper order.

Therefore: A Miracle Is Not One-Time

Therefore, when we say that Yom Tov is a greater thing than Shabbos, that there is a difference between a miracle and nature – we don’t mean to say that the miracle is random, that the miracle is one-time. The miracle is not one-time.

Why Does It Appear One-Time?

But let’s say this: why does it appear one-time to us? You can even say this, let’s say that in our cycle (machzor), as the Ramban would say, in our cycle of shemittah, in our seven thousand years – there was only once the giving of the Torah (matan Torah) that we speak of. True. It’s certainly true in one sense, yes? There is indeed every year, but that’s a small matter. The great matter was only once.

That doesn’t mean there’s no cycle – that only means that we are small people. We only remember a few thousand years of the world. Our Torah, in the plain meaning (peshat) the Torah speaks of only a few thousand years of the world. Still doesn’t mean anything.

The Greater World – What Science and the Mekubalim Say

The World Is Much Greater

Everyone knows today, science has told us that the world is much greater than a few thousand years. And science isn’t new science, as Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan already noted: the mekubalim have long thought that the world is much greater than seven thousand years.

The Foundation of Kabbalah: The Torah Is Greater Than Your Mind

This is of course the foundation of Kabbalah: that what we see of the Torah, yes – not because they don’t believe in the holiness of the Torah, on the contrary, they believe more in the holiness of the Torah, right? They say: how do you see the Torah? What is the combination of letters (tzeiruf osiyos) that the Torah is written in? What is the way that you interpret the Torah? According to the small-mindedness that you are in.

Hashem Lowered Himself

You bring the Torah down to a lowly level – Hashem lowered Himself, speaks a Torah that everyone can understand. A person, a normal person, cannot understand more than a few thousand years, and the Torah speaks of a few thousand years. And the few thousand years that we can grasp begins the cycle of Creation (ma’aseh bereishis), goes through the Patriarchs (avos), to the Exodus from Egypt, to Mashiach – the whole cycle. That’s just one small thing that you can see.

Greater Interpretations of Torah

Hashem is much greater than this, and the Torah is much greater than this. There is an interpretation of the Torah that speaks of much greater cycles, which stands in the way of hint (derech remez), in the way of exposition (derech drash), in the way of secret (derech sod).

And there are even greater interpretations that take from even greater cycles, where the Torah doesn’t speak at all about the World of Action (Olam HaAsiyah), it speaks entirely about angels, about Atzilus (the highest world).

The Zohar’s Strong Rebuke

The Torah that we can see, yes? Whoever says that what is the plain meaning of Scripture (peshuto shel mikra) must be true and that’s the only thing – doesn’t make the Torah greater, he makes the Torah smaller.

Everyone who learns a bit of Kabbalah, everyone who learns a bit of Zohar, sees this: how the Zohar rebukes so strongly the one who says that in the Torah there is nothing but the plain meaning (ein baTorah ela peshat), yes?

The Right Balance

People say: of course, the plain meaning is also – you must believe that the plain meaning isn’t the truth, you need to know that there is a plain meaning of the plain meaning. And whoever says that he knows the plain meaning of the plain meaning, and that’s the whole truth – not only is he a denier of the greatness of the Torah (kofer bigdulas haTorah), he thinks that the Torah is as small as his mind, he is also a tremendous arrogant person (ba’al ga’avah). This plain meaning, that’s the whole plain meaning, and whoever believes otherwise is a heretic. Hello?

But One Must Take One’s Plain Meaning Seriously

Of course a Jew must believe that his plain meaning that he believes in the Torah – that’s his portion (chelek) in the Torah, that’s what Hashem gave him, and he must take it seriously. A person who doesn’t take seriously what he understands is just a sleeper (lulov), he doesn’t take anything seriously. A person must take seriously what he understands, and he must believe.

The Torah Like a Kaleidoscope

The Torah is indeed like a kaleidoscope – it appears to the person according to his understanding. Hashem gave the Torah on this condition (al menas kein), that you, people, should look and see that Hashem created the world in six days, in six thousand years – it fits perfectly, it makes sense in his mind. On this condition there is a true portion in the Torah.

But if a person should say that this is the entire Torah, if a person should say that the Torah is not greater than this – he is simply a heretic, simply a small-minded person who cannot see that there is greater than him.

The Parable of One Person’s Life – How We See Miracle and Nature

The Person Who Sees Only Himself

And therefore, our Torah stands only – and if you look, you have a limited vision, you are a person, you can barely see. “A thousand years in Your eyes” – a person can barely see a few years, a few thousand years. And the few thousand years is indeed a one-time event, the standing at Mount Sinai (ma’amad Har Sinai).

Just as a person should think, yes, think this way: imagine a person lives only once (veigt nor ein gol), let’s take him in a simple cycle, how will we speak of the cycle of a person’s life? A person is born, he grows up, he becomes old, he becomes middle-aged, and later he declines and he dies.

From the Individual Perspective – Everything Is a Miracle

A person who sees only himself, an egoist, one who is like that one who thinks that his plain meaning is the simple plain meaning and everyone must believe this, there is nothing more than this – what does he see? He says: I was born, it was a miracle. No one could have predicted, I didn’t know before I was born, I didn’t exist. He is literally something from nothing (yesh me’ayin).

And when he became bar mitzvah, it’s also a miracle. Who said? He’s already thirteen years old, then he became bar mitzvah, ah, fine, he became bar mitzvah. And afterwards he had a wedding, afterwards he went middle-aged, he had children, and so on the whole order of life (seder hachaim), until he died. Every thing is for me a miracle.

Your Wonders That Are Every Day (Niflosecha Shebechol Yom)

And so it indeed is. From the, one should say “Your wonders that are every day” (niflosecha shebechol yom), from the perspective of one individual, of one particular – every thing that happens to him in his life is a miracle, is a wonder, he cannot predict himself. One indeed cannot predict the particular, right? Exactly when will you get married, when will you have children, when will you become sick, when will you die – a person doesn’t know, right? “The day of death is hidden from man” (yom hamitah ne’elam min ha’adam), it’s a miracle. From the perspective of his particular, if he looks in his narrow world (olam hametzumtzam), it’s a miracle.

But From a Broader View – We See Nature

But if a person is a bit wise, he’s not such an egoist, he’s not so stuck in himself, he looks around at other people – he sees: ah, wait, the particular details, how much, actually when will you die, when will you be born, no one can know. This one perhaps needs prophecy (nevuah) or something else to know. Or perhaps there is a pleasure, who knows.

But there is such a nature, that generally (al pi rov) people in order (keseder) are born, and in order grow up, and in order become greater, and they decline, and they die. This cycle, afterwards returns, resurrection of the dead (techiyas hameisim), whatever the cycle is – the cycle can be seen.

How Does One See It?

How does one see it? Not from one particular, but from looking at a broader view. You look around, you make a generalization, you see all people, every person this happens to. Ah, you’re not the first who was born, you’re not the first who died. There is a rule (klal).

Hashem Runs the World with Wisdom

Hashem runs the world with wisdom (chochmah). Wisdom means with rules, just as we saw understanding (binah) means with rules. There is a rule, there is a natural thing, one can expect that most people are born and grow up and die. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the person has no free choice (bechirah), it doesn’t mean that the person doesn’t need to do what he has to do, as everything we’ve spoken about – but this is still the general principle (klal hadvarim).

On the World-Scale: The Giving of the Torah at Sinai – One-Time Only From Our View

The Same Way on the Entire World

And the same way, and the same way that it’s true about the person, it’s true about the entire world. How we look at our small portion of history that we are part of, our world, our shemittah where we were born – we see, yes, there was once the giving of the Torah at Sinai, once the Exodus from Egypt.

The truth is, even in our world one can already see more times than it seems, but let’s speak of the sense that there is only once, only once. But look a bit greater – we cannot look greater, because that is our truth.

The Giving of the Torah in the Greater Cycles of Shemittos and Yovel: From History to Eternity

Chapter 4: The View of the Shemittos and the Genius of the Mekubalim

World History in Greater Cycles: The Limits of Our View

In the same way, let me say another parable, in the same way that it’s true about the person, it’s true about the entire world. Where we look at our small portion of history, which we are part of in our world, our shemittah, where we were born, we see, yes, there was once the giving of the Torah at Sinai, once the Exodus from Egypt. True, even in our world one can see more times if one understands, but let’s speak of the instance that there is only once, only once.

But look a bit greater, we cannot look greater, because here we are truly limited. Imagine that a person truly couldn’t see another person, because he truly couldn’t see, he would have to say yes, perhaps he can believe that there is a second one, but he doesn’t see the second one. But on this perhaps one may not look forward and backward (meila far un meila okach), we truly cannot, we can speculate.

Revelation of the Secrets of Torah: The World Has Become Greater

Today we have on certain natural things, namely yes science, we have yes, and many secrets of the Torah (sodos haTorah) have been revealed. We know to know more things than the few thousand years that the Torah, according to what our receiving vessels (mekabeldige keilim) could grasp, told us. But and certainly this is called revelation of the secrets of the Torah (giluy sodos haTorah), yes, the world has become much greater for people.

And everyone who learns in the Rambam Laws of the Foundations of Torah (Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah), or even in mathematical books, how great is the world of the stars (olam hakochavim), knows that this was a very limited view, which people is true in a certain sense, and it’s not false, it’s true from a perspective (nekudas mabat), from the perspective as we see, true their calculations fit. But today much more has been revealed which we call the wisdom of Creation (chochmas habriah), much more wonders of the Creator (niflaos haborei), we know that the world is millions of times greater than they could imagine.

The Same Thing for History: Not Everyone Needs to Know This

And the same thing for history. We as well know our agenda is already investigation of details (chakirat pratiyos), but we know that it is much greater than this. And thank God, not all people have a sense (kelum) for this, they all need to continue believing in the simple plain meaning (pashut peshat). But whoever has a sense, whoever can understand that what they tell him in simple plain meaning, is only according to the small sense that he has, that it was said to his great-great-great-grandfather there once in Egypt, and according to what their small mind small vessels could be, the Rishonim literally said so.

Sefer HaTemunah, the Ramban, the Rashba: The Giving of the Torah in the Shemittos

And we have made clear that it’s not enough to say that it’s a parable with an application (mashal im nimshal), or that it’s the same “as it is above so it is below” (kemo shehu lema’alah kein hu lematah), just as by a person there are different character traits (midos), so too by Hashem, or the deeper things that the mekubalim say, that a person who conducts himself in the traits of kindness (midos hachesed) awakens (me’orer) by Hashem the traits of kindness.

Sefer HaTemunah and the Ramban, the Rashba, they all believed that if you want to tell us a story that was in the year 2448 there was the giving of the Torah (matan Torah), that is 2448 of the second shemittah (shel hashemittah hasheniyah), they said. There was already once a whole world with a giving of the Torah before this, and there can still be afterwards, and here there is a certain rule (klal), after two thousand years of a world usually approximately comes a giving of the Torah.

The Analogy of the Cycle of a Person

Because they thought this way, and it makes a lot of sense, of course it’s beyond our knowledge (chutz lidei’ah), we haven’t actually seen the previous shemittos because we cannot, we weren’t born there. But think of the analogy of the cycle of a person, it makes total sense that here there is an order (seder), here there is a thing that one can indeed understand. The plain meaning is just such a great cycle that we see only once of it, therefore (memeilah) it appears to us like a one-time thing.

But if you could look from the perspective of God, if you could look from the perspective of a malach (angel), from something that knows much greater, you would see that matan Torah (the giving of the Torah) also makes sense.

The Genius of the Mekubalim: Matan Torah is a Davar Hahaveh Tamid

And the genius, the perspective that shows us that matan Torah is not a one-time thing, it’s a davar hahaveh tamid (something that is constantly happening), it’s mechudash (it is renewed), just as there is “mechadesh betuvo bechol yom ma’aseh bereishit” (He renews in His goodness every day the work of creation), so there is “bechol yom yihiyu be’einecha kachadashim” (every day they should be in your eyes as new) says the midrash (aggadic interpretations of Chazal), and the mekubalim (kabbalists) and the Chassidic sefarim take this midrash literally, not every midrash is literal, this midrash is literal, the Torah is new every year.

It’s not just new every year, like the tevuah (harvest) is new every year, there is a certain way how the Torah is born, and be’ofen klali (in general) in the tekufat hashanah (the time of year), be’ofen prati (in particular) every day, be’ofen klali yoter (in a more general way) in the life of every person, be’ofen klali yoter in every generation, be’ofen mer klali in every cycle of dorot (generations).

The Structure of the Cycles: From Day to Shemitah

Every generation has a connection one with the other, there are like groups of generations, and each one of them has a bechinat (aspect of) matan Torah that happens at a certain time, after a certain hachanah (preparation) of sheva shavuot (seven weeks), after a certain mahalach (process). The Torah is not the first thing, the Torah always comes late in reality, because it takes time to arrive at it, but there is a cycle, that is the Torah.

The Power of the Mekubalim: Looking from the Perspective of Sha’ar HaChamishim

And this has come to us from the koach (strength) of the mekubalim, from the mit’amkim (those who delve deeply) who dared, perhaps they weren’t allowed to, a person shouldn’t look too much, but they had the yecholes (ability) and had the truth to look at the world as it is, “ke’elef shanim be’einecha” (like a thousand years in Your eyes), they can look at all the shemitot together, kim’at (almost) from the perspective of the sha’ar hachamishim (the fiftieth gate), can see everything at once.

They told us what? That matan Torah is not a one-time thing, it’s a constant thing, it’s something that one can cook in it and one can extract it. Certainly, we don’t have… as we say, we only say beyesod (in foundation), it doesn’t mean that we know every detail, but nevertheless you can also say in your life, nevertheless you can also say in your year, nevertheless you can also say in your nekudah (point), that what?

Laying Down the Larger Cycles into the Smaller Ones: Shavuot Every Year

That every summer, every tekufat Sivan (the time of the month of Sivan) comes a new light of Torah upon the world. Because what? This is the bizhar anpin (in the beauty of the face), the bifratiyut (in detail), the way the cycle works. Just as after seven… I don’t know what, after several generations, after sixty-six generations in the world, in the world, in the cycle of the world that we know, there was a great matan Torah on Har Sinai (Mount Sinai), so every year after chodesh Iyar (the month of Iyar), after seven weeks, which roughly matches the calculation similar to sixty-six generations, comes matan Torah, comes Shavuot (the holiday of Shavuot).

Shavuot is a Natural Thing

And Shavuot is a natural thing. Not natural that not every gentile knows about it, not every fool knows about it, because he doesn’t understand the greater cycles of nature, he can only see what he sees. But one who does, he looks greater. And afterwards, when they saw the greater, they laid it down also in the smaller, and showed that there is a small bechinat matan Torah (aspect of matan Torah), a hitchadshut (renewal) that comes here. This is the yesod (foundation), and I hope it came out clear, because I think it’s tremendously the clarity that he says here.

Chapter 5: Sha’ar HaChamishim and the Understanding of “Above the Cycle”

Going Even Further: The Question of Shabbat and Yom Tov

And now I can go even further. I hope that one won’t get lost and confused if I go even further, but I want to go even further and say another point, and then go even further. I want to go further like this, and I want to tell us another teirutz (answer) to the question that we had.

We asked earlier, that if we say that matan Torah and all these things are also natural things, they repeat themselves every year, as the Arizal Hakadosh (the holy Arizal, Rabbi Yitzchak Luria) taught us, so if so, what is the chiluk (difference) between Shabbat and Yom Tov? What is the chiluk between teva (nature) and nes (miracle)?

First: Nes is a Greater Cycle

First we said that nes is a greater cycle, that’s one thing.

But Truly: Shabbat of Yamim Tovim Versus Sha’ar HaChamishim

But truly, the havanah (understanding) that we have said until now is only the havanah of like the Shabbat of toch hasfirah (within the counting). Sheva Shabbatot (seven Sabbaths), there are seven Sabbaths, and every week there is a bechinat Shabbat, this is the Shabbat shel yamim tovim (of the holidays), shel hasfirah (of the counting).

But, we learned last week that there is also a sha’ar hachamishim. Sha’ar hachamishim was explaining, and this is the perspective, how the whole thing is only one thing, “kol haTorah kulah inyan echad” (the entire Torah is one matter). Yes, the entire Torah goes history from Bereishit (Genesis) to Ezra, very good, but there is only one word, one can say it in one second, one can understand the whole thing lemafre’a (retrospectively).

The Same Way: Torah is Higher Than Teva

And the same way there is here another havanah which explains what we mean when we say that the Torah is higher than teva, that the mitzvot are lema’alah (higher), it says olam hashemini (the eighth world), right? As now comes certainly from here, from shemitah veyovel (shemitah and jubilee), from matan Torah, and matan Torah is the yom hachamishim (the fiftieth day), it’s punctual, and here one can certainly say, it’s punctually the thing that comes after the whole cycle, which is lema’alah from the whole cycle.

No One Says That Everything in Torah is in a Cycle

No one says like it says yes, Torah is historical things, the census of nesi’im (leaders) that we said, only once was it said, once it’s not in a cycle, meaning one can’t understand it.

So it’s understood that the Torah is truly, the simple Torah has here a kesher (connection), as we have already spoken.

Sha’ar HaChamishim According to the Baal Shem Tov: Another Cycle

That when we say that sha’ar hachamishim is lema’alah min hasaykel (above the cycle), according to how the Baal Shem Tov (the Baal Shem Tov, founder of Chassidut) explained, that this means it’s the hasagah (understanding) of another cycle, like yovel. There is a machloket (dispute) whether shenat hayovel olah min haminyan (the year of jubilee counts in the number), which has to do with the yesod, which has to do with the same chakirah (investigation) whether keter is from the first sefirot. It’s all the same idea. Okay.

But Truly: Above Our Understanding

But la’amito shel davar (in truth), when we say it’s lema’alah min hasaykel, we mean to say that it’s lema’alah mehavanatenu (above our understanding). It doesn’t mean that there isn’t truly here a seder, it only means, as the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, Maimonides) says about ta’amei hamitzvot (the reasons for the commandments), there are those who say that the mitzvot have no ta’am (reason), there are those who say that the mitzvot have a ta’am, but it’s bechochmato shel Hakadosh Baruch Hu (in the wisdom of the Holy One Blessed Be He), not our chochmah (wisdom), we are small people, we don’t understand it.

It’s different than saying that it has no ta’am, it’s just random, it’s beyesodo (in its foundation) without a ta’am.

This is Simple Pshat, But in a Deeper Pshat…

This is simple pshat. But in a deeper pshat it’s connected with what we spoke about earlier, what we spoke about last week. When we say that the Torah is sha’ar hachamishim, and we say that the Torah is yes lema’alah min hazman (above time), it’s not a cycle, what do we mean to say?

Chapter 6: Shem Havayah and the Understanding of Eternity

One Must Remember Here: Hayah Hoveh Veyihiyeh

One must remember here, let’s say in the simplest way that one can say it. Sodot verazim yedu’im (secrets and mysteries that are known), everyone knows that it says in Shulchan Aruch that the Almighty is hayah hoveh veyihiyeh (He was, is, and will be), that yud-hei-vav-hei, the mechaven (intention), one of the kavanot of shem Havayah is that He is hoveh, hayah hoveh veyihiyeh, He is always.

The Question: Why Does It Say Primarily Hoveh?

If so there is a question, if so, why is the yud-hei-vav-hei, the shem Havayah, this is the ikar Torah (essence of Torah)? Yes? “Kol haTorah kulah shemotav shel Hakadosh Baruch Hu” (the entire Torah is the names of the Holy One Blessed Be He), “kol haTorah kulah echad” (the entire Torah is one), it says in Sefer Brit Menucha, the entire Torah is the peirush (explanation) on the four otiyot (letters) yud and hei and vav and hei. The Torah brings it out, yes, it’s a peirush, the Torah brings out better the shem.

So, why if the Havayah means hayah hoveh veyihiyeh, “Hashem malach Hashem melech Hashem yimloch” (Hashem reigned, Hashem reigns, Hashem will reign), why does it say primarily hoveh? It doesn’t say with a yud, it doesn’t say with a… It doesn’t begin hayah, it begins with a yud and a hei? It doesn’t say only yihiyeh? It says primarily with a vav, the vav is very important, yes, the vav is the seder ha’olam (order of the world), this is very deep. It says hoveh basically, with a yud. That which is hoveh tamid (constantly is).

The Answer: Eternity Doesn’t Mean “Forever Old”

The answer is, that the world has a bit of a mistake in what the meaning of netzchiyut (eternity) is, and what the meaning of hoveh is. The world, I mean people, the haskalot hasechel shel adam (the understandings of the intellect of man) doesn’t grasp. For us, to say that something is eternal, we mean to say that it means it’s very old, yes? It gets older every day, it was always and it will always be. It was always as if millions of years, I don’t know what, before earlier what it was, and after millions of years in the future, and also now. That’s how we mean is the meaning of a davar nitzchi (an eternal thing), a davar hayah hoveh veyihiyeh. There are three things.

The Truth: Eternity Means Always Hoveh

The truth however is, and this is written in sefarim, this is not a chiddush, everyone who has learned Chabad for example, speaks about the yesod a lot, and whoever has a sechel probably grasps that it’s simple. The truth is that the Havayah, Havayah netzchiyut, a better way of saying it is that it’s always hoveh, that’s why it’s called hoveh and not atid (future) and not avar (past).

In Other Words: Something That Doesn’t Get Old and Doesn’t Get New

In other words, it’s something that doesn’t get old and doesn’t get new. One can call it not chiddush, or one can call it chiddush tamid (constant renewal). It’s only a question of lashon (language), but the kavanah is the same thing.

Netzchiyut = Presence, Not Eternity

Or one, I have a friend who says that one shouldn’t translate netzchiyut or Havayah, hayah hoveh veyihiyeh, as “eternity,” one should translate it as “presence.” And what is the kavanah of this? The kavanah of this is simple. A thing that lies in time, in other words, a thing that is in the cycles that we have now spoken about, in olam ha’asiyah (the world of action) and olam hateva (the world of nature), perhaps even only in our world, which have a cycle in yetzirah and so on, is a thing whose chalakim (parts) of time keviyachol (so to speak) are mechulek zeh mizeh (divided one from the other).

The Unity of Torah: The Eternity of Torah and the Sha’ar HaChamishim

Chapter 7: The Nature of a Davar Nitzchi – The Unity in Torah and Sha’ar HaChamishim

The Difference Between a Davar Shebizman and a Davar Nitzchi

And what is the intention of this? The intention of this is simple. A thing that lies in time – in other words, a thing that is in the cycles that we have now spoken about, in olam ha’asiyah and olam hateva, and perhaps even higher worlds have a cycle in yetzirah and so on – is a thing whose divisions of time keviyachol are mechulek zeh mizeh, right?

He was a bit yesterday, that is after all keviyachol a part of his existence, right? Just as a person’s history is a part of his existence, only it’s over the length of time. Just as a person is divided in place – a bit of me is on the left side, a bit of me is on the right side, I am divided, I have parts, I am not simple, right? I have parts, I have parts in place. The same thing I have parts in time.

I was yesterday, and what was yesterday is not exactly the same as what was today. He has some connection – not that he was completely another crazy person, he had no connection from today with yesterday – he has some connection, he is the same one who was yesterday and today. But on the other hand he is different, he wasn’t completely the same. There are parts, there are divisions, he is divided in time. Yesterday I was a bit like this, today I am like this, tomorrow I will be different still, and so on.

And so is every davar tiv’i (natural thing), every living thing that has a cycle, that has a time – he is born, he dies, he has in between. This is the basic time: hayah, hoveh, veyihiyeh – born, he is, he dies.

The Nature of a Davar Nitzchi: Always Hoveh

A davar nitzchi – like chochmah be’ofen klali, kal vachomer the Almighty, but even chochmah, even the Torah which is only a peirush on God, even the Torah – is a thing that is always hoveh. This is the hagdarah (definition), a better hagdarah: he is always present.

In other words, he is not divided into divisions in time. All his divisions keviyachol – there are no divisions. The hayah is the same as the hoveh, and the yihiyeh is the same as the hoveh. He is always in the hoveh. There is no part of him that goes out.

The Parable of a Person Who is Divided in Time

It’s not pshat when you meet me today – let’s say a better one, right? As the Baal Shem Tov said “lavan chavrei ad sof” (learn with a friend until the end), that the right way of learning Torah – there are many torot from the Baal Shem Tov that go on this point.

Okay, we have now come to – we have a Baal Shem Tov shiur (lesson) that teaches about tefillah (prayer), but one must also learn the Baal Shem Tov that is peshat (the plain meaning) in Torah, which is the same thing, because it’s the same letters, just from above to below. Okay, our shiur is not officially a Baal Shem Tov shiur, but I’m saying, it’s more simple, or more in the old style, that a davar hanitzchi (eternal thing) is a davar hahaveh tamid (thing that is always present).

That means, when you meet me – yes, someone meets me today, talks about my shiur today, hears Yitzchak’s shiur from erev Shavuos 5786. When you don’t meet me completely – it’s not completely me, because a part of me is what was yesterday at the shiur, and you hear the shiur you don’t also hear yesterday’s shiur, and you hear the shiur you also don’t hear tomorrow’s shiur. It’s divided.

And you want to know me – how can one know a person? Someone wants to know his friend? One cannot. One must be born with him until death, be every minute with him. Perhaps then you can say you know him his whole life, because a person’s whole life is divided in time.

You know me – you know a bit of time from me, from the period that you’re involved with me, from the shiur that you hear from me. You hear the half hour from me – what I thought before, what I said later, what I’m going to say – that you don’t know. It’s always lacking.

The haveh (present) within it, the haveh of adam hanivra (created man), adam sheyesh lo zman (man who has time), is always lacking the past and the future. It’s missing, it’s not completely you. I am not – a person says one must be present – I am never completely present with you in the moment, from the side of my body at least, from the side of what I can tell you, from the side of binah (understanding) that counts in time. Why? Because my present is cut off from my past and my future. You don’t know my what I saw yesterday, you don’t know what I’m going to be tomorrow, you only know what is now. It’s very partial, it’s partial.

Divinity, Torah, and Wisdom: Always Completely Present

But Divinity, but the Torah, but chochmah (wisdom) which is not the Almighty Himself, but it’s a spark from the Almighty – yes, it has similarity to the Almighty, it’s also eternal, it always was, it’s kodem l’olam (before the world), it will always be.

So from the side of the true point, certainly in the Torah there is also binah, which is in our understanding which is actually very small, that when it speaks to us it becomes very small divided over time. But the Torah as it is, the chochmas Elokim (wisdom of God) as it is, how it is completely – when you encounter today a davar Torah (Torah matter) and you learn it lishmah (for its own sake), not you learn it practically and how one must understand it, you learn it lishmah, you learn it that you grasp the chochmah within it – you have the nekudas matan Torah (point of the giving of the Torah), the sha’ar hachamishim (fiftieth gate) within it.

Sha’ar Hachamishim: The Place of Union of Chochmah and Binah

This is the sha’ar hachamishim that comes in Kabbalah it says. Sha’ar hachamishim is the place where binah calls into chochmah. Times belong to binah, and the sha’ar hachamishim this is the makom hayichud (place of union) of chochmah and binah.

And the Arizal calls it: “A path no bird knows, and the vulture’s eye has not seen it, the proud beasts have not trodden it, and the lion has not passed over it, and where is wisdom found and what is the place of understanding” [Job 28] – no one can know it. There connect the thirty-two nesivos (paths) [the thirty-two paths of chochmah] with the forty-nine sha’arei binah (gates of binah) [the forty-nine gates of binah]. This is the point.

In Sha’ar Hachamishim There Is No “Once” – The Unity in Torah

There, at this point, there is no “once.” There is no when you learn this davar Torah in the aspect of Divinity within it, in the aspect of truth within it, it is not cut off from all other parts of the Torah.

“One who learns from the intention of the letters of unity” says the Baal Shem Tov – he learns it in the aspect of unity, then he has already learned the entire Torah.

“One who grasps in its part unity” says the Baal Shem Tov a language that he brings from the early kabbalists, “grasps in its entirety.” Unity is such a kind of thing that one cannot grasp a part – it has no divisions, it has no divisions not in place as it were and also not in time.

When you are today in matan Torah (the giving of the Torah), you are the entire matan Torah.

The Parable of Prayer: The Shechinah Does Not Divide

When a person prays to the Almighty, to ask, prays standing before the Shechinah (Divine Presence), and the friend is also standing before the Shechinah – so what is, has the Shechinah divided itself? No. Has the Shechinah become more? Also not.

Both pray before the entire Shechinah, before the entire Divinity. This is “Hashem echad” (God is one). This is one of the basic yesodos ha’emunah (foundations of faith).

Why There Is No Contradiction: The Difference Between Physicality and Spirituality

Ah, you will ask, it’s a contradiction. The contradiction is on physical things, on things of binah and below there is such a contradiction – things that divide in time. Things that are not divided in time are always completely everywhere.

That means, when I am – even I, or my hand – I have a body that takes up space, it’s not completely in all places. That means my hand, in a certain sense my hand is connected to the entire body, but it’s not a complete unity. My hand is only on the right side, and my left hand is here.

But the chochmah – one can even say the general part of the soul – when I am here, is completely everywhere. In the hand of chochmah as it were there is exactly as much chochmah, there is the entire chochmah exactly as much as there is in the foot, exactly as much as there is in the head.

“The Entire Torah of Hashem Is Perfect” – The Entire Torah Is the Names of the Holy One, Blessed Be He

This is the secret that we say that the entire Torah is the names of the Holy One, Blessed Be He. And the language of the Rambam says: “And there is in ‘do not give your yield’ no less holiness than ‘Hear O Israel,’ for the entire Torah of Hashem is perfect and holy and pure” [Laws of the Foundations of the Torah].

This means that if one learns it – but if one learns it as you asked it’s not so, that is only a hint to yesod (foundation), to Kabbalah, to pnimiyus (inner dimension). If one understands the unity in Torah, the sha’ar hachamishim in Torah – the sha’ar hachamishim is that you are not once a part in time, it’s always complete.

Summary: To Have the Torah As It Is

And we have made clear that it’s not enough to say that it’s a parable with a lesson, or that it’s the same “as it is above so it is below” – just as by a person there are different midos (character traits), so too by the Almighty. Or the deeper things that the kabbalists say, that a person conducts himself in the midos of chesed (kindness) he awakens by the Almighty the midos of chesed.

I should have my proper chiddush (novel insight) in Torah. But I have already arrived that it is sha’ar hachamishim. This is the end of Chanukah back into delving deeply into that, but it’s as simple as it has worked itself out until now. It’s a bit refined sides, it’s very refined points, but I think I have brought it out as clearly as I could for today.

Blessing for Conclusion

And may we all merit the Torah, to understand, to have a chochmah, a comprehension in the Torah, to have the Torah as it is, to have the Torah as it is once and always at the same time.