We have a
tradition that all of our Yom Tovim (including Chanukah and Purim) are more
than mere markers on the calendar to commemorate events from the distant
past. They are all alive and kicking in
real-time with their historic significance being transposed into the present.
In the same way
that the first Pesach was all about our freedom, those days on the calendar
that we refer to every year as Pesach are infused with the attribute of
freedom. And so on for all the other Yom
Tovim.
On the chag of
Shavuos that we celebrated yesterday and the day before (in chutz L’Aretz), we
were once again zoche to the hashp’ah of receiving the Torah as we are every
year at that time.
Rav Shimshon
Pincus z”l, says that the truth is that every time we learn Torah we are
experiencing a Mattan Torah.
And then he asks
the obvious question:
“Then what’s so
unique about Shavuos?”
Based on a
Shavuos ma’amar by Rav Pincus, Rabbi Yerachmiel Goldman answers in his name as
he tells us that it’s Chag HaShavuos that makes it possible for us to
receive the shefa of Torah all year round.
It’s the shoresh for all of our Torah.
From that yesod,
Rabbi Goldman then reveals to us in the name of Rav Pincus z”l, the
unbelievably holy and mystical process by which all of us learn Torah.
For starters we
are reminded that Mattan Torah also means a matana, not in the sense that we
were incredibly fortunate to be given such a gift but rather that it was impossible
that we should have been given such a gift because Torah is beyond human
comprehension. Unlike chochmah b’almah
where we are hard wired to be able to receive Hashem’s Siyata D’shmaya in
understanding the Second Law of Thermodynamics and such, Toras Hashem comes to
us by virtue of a wireless hookup because we are only able to understand it
because the Shechina is here with us.
Without the active work-a-day presence of the Shechina we would have no
chance of understanding Toras Hashem.
By definition
that means that if you learn Toras Hashem, the Shechina is there with you. And as a caveat that means that Torah has to
be learned as Toras Hashem, not as just another chochmah, chas v’shalom.
But Rav Pincus
z”l, doesn’t stop with the Shechina. The
process of our learning is even on a more rarefied and personal madreiga
because we are told that any Jew sitting and learning Torah is receiving it
from the Mouth of Hashem Yisborach.
Or put another
way, every time you sit and learn you are learning b’chavrusa with Hashem.
Rabbi Goldman
tells us in the name of Rav Pincus z”l, that if Moshe Rabbeinu had to learn
from Hashem all the more so us. If the
learning of Torah was up to us it would be constricted by our own limits.
When learning
with Hashem there are no limits because it’s Hashem that gives wisdom.
