The sicha is about Rosh Chodesh Shevat, which is going to be next week. The sicha is from חלק ל\"ו and this sicha explains a very interesting inyan gives a certain insight into the whole idea of learning Torah in English, or in every language. So, the Rebbe starts off with the פסוק ויהי בארבעים שנה, it was the 40th year, when the Yidden were in the desert, they were 40 years in the desert, this is the 40th year, בעשתי עשר חודש, the 11th month, and the 11th month is חודש שבט, because if you start counting from Nisan, Shevat is the 11th month. And the real way to count is from Nisan, because the pasuk says that before the Yidden went out of Mitzrayim, the Aibishter said to Moshe: \"החודש הזה לכם ראש חדשים ראשון הוא לכם לחודשי השנה\", that Nisan is considered the first month, so we have to count usually Nisan as the first month. So when the Torah always talks about the number of months, always starts from Nisan, so the 11th month is Shevat, באחד לחודש is the first day of the month, that's Rosh Chodesh Shevat. Just want to mention has nothing to do with the sicha, it's just derech agav, that because of this pasuk where it says that Nisan is the first month, there are she'eilot in the poskim whether you're allowed to write when you write a date and you write the English date, are you allowed to write it with numbers? Lemashal now today is, what's today? December 14, 20 I mean 23rd, December I not 14, I meant 24th, b'foal it's 23rd. December 23rd. So people write 12/23. That means that you're saying that December is the 12th month. And when you write in January, you write 1. That means that you're counting the months by January and that's the first and this is the third, when the Torah says: \"החודש הזה לכם ראשון הוא לכם לחודשי השנה\", Nisan is the first month, how could you write that January is is the first month? So there are some poskim who make a she'eilah if you're allowed to do it. B'foal mamash the minhag is, and I think it's based on the Teshuvot HaRema, you are you are allowed to write the number of the months. And bichlal you have to know that counting by the goyishe dates is not a goyishe thing. There is a cycle of the sun. There is a cycle of 365 days a year, the cycle of the sun. We follow the cycle of the moon, which is 29 and 1/2 days and 793 chalakim every cycle, that's a month, and the sun has a cycle of 365 days, and that's a year. So there is such a thing as counting the year 365. The only goyishe thing behind it is, what makes you start the year from January? Why happens in January? What happened then that makes the beginning of the year? Could have started anytime. What it means is that there's a cycle, the sun started here and comes back to the exact same place, takes 365 and 1/4 days. Wherever you're going to start, you could start at any point and say from now on till it comes back to this point, the 365 cycle uh 365 uh uh days it takes for the cycle. What decided January? That's because of goyishe things, but the עצם זאך is not, v'ha raya, we find the number 365 days, we find it l'gabei many things. Every day in davenen, we say, how many מנים were there for ketoret? שלש מאות וששים ושמונה, 368, 365 for ימות החמה, for the days of the sun, and then three more because of Yom Kippur. So, the cheshbon was 365. The Rambam, at the end of his הקדמה, which by the way soon we're going to have the siyum Rambam, we're going to start over, the Rambam at the end of the הקדמה says that there are 365 negative mitzvot, three 250 and 84 48 positive mitzvot, 365 negative mitzvot. So, the 365 negative מצוות מצות לא תעשה is keneged what? The days of the sun. See, people are used to saying that the 365 negative מצוות כנגד the גידין. You have רמ\"ח אברים ושס\"ה גידין, 348 limbs and 365 veins, or whatever it means. But the Rambam doesn't say that, the Rambam says 365 keneged the days of the year. So there is such a thing as 365, there is a cheshbon like that. That's why some people even wonder, is the English birthday something to consider? Because it's the same day according English birthday, it's not a English thing, it's not a goyishe thing, it's a goy We call We call it the goyishe birthday, it's not a goyishe thing, it's the same day according to the cycle of the sun. Is there any חשיבות in it? Especially that it says in Yerushalmi that on the day of a birthday the mazal of a person is strong. Isn't the mazal connected to the cycle of the sun? It has connection to that too, so maybe it would be. So they always tell this story. Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky was here in ישיבה once. He was one of the big Litvishe gedolim, and I remember I drove him back to his hotel, and I when I parked the car and I walked out, I walked out together with him, helped him, escorted him to his hotel, and he turns around to me on the way and he says in Yiddish, \"I want you to know today is my birthday.\" I said, \"Oh, mazal tov aich.\" And then he smiles and says, \"לפי שנת החמה.\" It was his English birthday. לפי שנת החמה. So he did celebrate celebrate and made a point of his English birthday because it goes according to the cycle of the sun. So it's no problem. But anyways, but there's a sheilah if you're allowed to write numbers. Lafoal it says in poskim that you're other altered the numbers. But getting back here to the sichah, this has this has nothing Huh? Why? What's the issur of doing the day of the month? No, here the question is because it says ראשון לכם לחדשי השנה. Day of the month, you could ask, what makes a month start at a certain point? That's also a goyishe thing, that's also not not true. There's no such thing in the solar calendar in the cycle of the sun, there's no such thing as months. The fact that a year is divided into 12 months is a made up thing. There's no such thing. If we count the days the year by the cycle of the sun, nothing happens after 30 days, a certain unit, there's nothing there. It just has goes on for 365 days till it comes back. The reason they divided it into 12 months is a simple thing. Imagine if you wouldn't divide the year into months. I want to meet you, no, I have an appointment on year on day number 276. Who's going to know when that is? So in order to make it easier, so you divided it into into months. Why 12 months? I would advise them to make into 10 months. It's much easier, 10 is a much straighter number. Ah because you because there is cheshbonot, the moon, how many cycles of the moon is there in one cycle of the sun? בערך 12. So they divided it by 12. But really it would make much be much make more sense to have 10 months a year, every month should be 36 days. It's 10, 10 is a even number, so you divide it. Okay, it wouldn't fit exactly, cuz it's it's it would be not always the same, but if you have a half, you could have mixed it up. Anyway, it's all because of the moon, cuz there are enough cycles of the moon, 12 cycles of the moon in the sun. There is no for us there is no year. The moon doesn't have a year. The year moon goes every 300 every every 29 and a half days, it goes over and over again and again and again and again. Nothing happens after 12. But because there is a גדר of a year by the sun, that's why the Torah wanted we should have a cheshbon of 12. But because that sometimes the cycle of 12 cycles of the moon are less than one cycle of the sun, because 12 cycles of the moon is 300 and how many days? 54 or 55, that's why the word שנה is ש-נ-ה, cuz there's sometimes that's 355 or 354, so there's 11 days difference. That's why after every once in a while, we have a leap year that we have a extra month. And with the extra month, we straighten out, but then we go ahead, now sometimes we fall behind. After 19 years, there's a cycle of 19 years, we even out. Sometimes a difference in a day. That's why every 19 years your birthday, your English birthday and your Hebrew birthday come out the same day. Sometimes, it's not exact, sometimes there's a difference in a day.

Okay, we'll get back to the sichah here. This is all זייטיגע זאכן, have no shayachut to the sichah. So the pasuk says Depends how we count. לגבי what? We can't call them חודש השני, we can't call them second. They don't write Hebrew month, they I mean, the the banks and things, they don't write the Hebrew month, they write everything So we don't write numbers. No write numbers, you write Tishrei. למשל in Tanach, when it says the second month, the third month, not only in Chumash, what does it mean? למשל the תעניתים, there's a there's a תענית of תשעה באב, what month what is that called? שבעה עשר בתמוז is called the the the תענית of חודש הרביעי. Then you have חודש החמישי, that's Av. That's how it goes. So it goes all according to the numbers, it goes all from the month of Nisan. So the 11th month after Nisan, which is the 40th year when the Yidden were in the desert, so what happened that day on the first day of that month? הואיל משה באר את התורה הזאת לאמר. Moshe was מבאר, explained the Torah. ואמרו רז״ל, the Chazal say, the חכמים tell us, הובא בפירוש Rashi, Rashi brings it, what does it mean that he explained the Torah? בשבעים לשון פירשה להם. He explained the Torah to the Yidden in all 70 languages. That's very strange. וצריך ביאור, the Rebbe says, we have to understand it. בשביל מה הוצרך משה רבינו לפרש את התורה לישראל בשבעים לשון? Why did Moshe Rabbeinu have to repeat the Torah to the Yidden in 70 languages? We're talking to the Yidden. See, if you're talking to goyim, and there are all kinds of goyim, and they have all kinds of languages, you want all the goyim to understand. But the Yidden all spoke לשון הקודש. So they all knew. So why did Moshe Rabbeinu have to bother himself and tell the give them the Torah in Egyptian, and in Arabic, and in English, and why did he do it to all these languages? See הערה six: שהרי בני ישראל דיברו בלשון הקודש. They all spoke לשון הקודש, and the חכמים tell us, שלא שינו את לשונם. They kept the language throughout the whole time in Mitzrayim, they didn't speak Egyptian, they spoke Yiddish, I mean לשון הקודש. So why did Moshe Rabbeinu have to tell it to them in the מדבר, the last year of the מדבר, in all the languages?

והלבוש כתב, the Levush writes a peshat like this: דחשש, משה רבינו suspected, was afraid, אולי אינם כולם בעלי לשון הקודש, maybe they're all not people who speak לשון הקודש, ולא יבינו כלום, and they won't understand anything. דוודאי עם רב כזו, certainly such a big crowd, שהם יותר משישים ריבוא, more than 600,000, יש בהם בעלי לשונות הרבה, for sure they have people that speak different languages. ולכך אמר רש״י בשבעים לשון, that's what Rashi says, 70 languages. כלומר means, כיוון שחשש שמא יש בהם בעלי שאר לשונות, since he was afraid, maybe he's thinking there are people who speak other languages, וודאי הוצרך לפרש להם בכל שבעים לשונות. Therefore he has to say in all 70. Why all 70? דהי מינייהו מפקת, which one not? שמא מאיזה לשון שישייר, let's say he'll explain it only in 10 languages, but maybe some of the people there, שיש, some of the people from that language that he skipped will be left, שלא לפרוש, that he didn't explain to them, יש, maybe there are people like that there, והם לא יבינו, they won't understand. So the Levush says that the reason is because Moshe Rabbeinu assumed that there are people who don't speak לשון הקודש, and there are different languages, that's why he said to them in different languages. But the Rebbe says, אבל לכאורה פירושו צורך עיון גדול. I mentioned this morning in shiur, when Rabbi Akiva Eiger writes צורך עיון גדול, it means it's a big she'eilah. Not if in other, yes, today in shiur, but when the Rebbe writes tzarich iyun gadol, it's a big shaila. Not only because if the Rebbe asks that it's a good kushya, it's probably a good kushya, not only, I don't mean only because of that, because knowing the Rebbe's style, kavayachol in the sichos, the Rebbe never used, and I explained this a few times, extreme language. You always, I remember in the beginning when we started writing the sicha we used to use that leshonos, and the Rebbe would cross it out, and you say אבל על פי, let's say, אבל על פי זה אינו מובן כלל, you don't understand at all, the Rebbe would cross out the word כלל. If you would write a certain ענין, וזהו חידוש גדול ביותר, people like to write that, you know, the people in the sefarim, the Rebbe would always cross out, זהו חידוש, גדול ביותר? Wherever there is an extreme word, the Rebbe, unless if it's takeh an extreme thing, the Rebbe would leave it. So here when it says tzarich iyun gadol, it's a tzarich iyun gadol. So what's the Rebbe's kushya on the Levush? דאם משה רבינו חשש מזה, if Moshe Rabbeinu was afraid that there are people who don't understand לשון הקודש, למה המתין עד עתה, why did he wait till now, בסוף ארבעים שנה, at the end of the 40 years, לפרש את התורה בשבעים לשון, to explain the Torah in 70 languages? ולא עשה כן תיכף לאחר מתן תורה, right after Matan Torah, as soon as Moshe gave, came down and started teaching the Yidden the Torah, why didn't he speak in all 70 languages? That's one shaila. ועוד זאת, another שאלה, דהכי מפני חשש אולי אינם כולם בעלי לשון הקודש, because he was suspect maybe there are people who don't speak לשון הקודש, הוצרך משה להטריח את כל בני ישראל, so Moshe bothered all the אידן, לשמוע פירוש כל התורה בכל שבעים לשון? Every Yid had to sit through listening to the whole Torah in 70 languages. Would you be able to sit through 70 languages, not knowing a word that he's talking about? All 70 languages, the whole Torah? How could it be? Why would Moshe Rabbeinu make the Yidden go through it? Maybe a little bit you could, if you don't understand. So one question is, why did Moshe Rabbeinu wait till now, till the end of the 40 years? What happened to all the years in between, when Moshe Rabbeinu taught the Yidden Torah? There, he didn't teach it in 70 languages. If he was afraid there are people that don't understand, so he should have been afraid the whole time, so he should have taught them always in all 70 languages. And the second שאלה is, is it worth to be מטריח all the Yidden to listen to all the 70 languages, the whole Torah, because there maybe some people who don't understand? Yeah. Says the whole Torah. It was the end of the 40 years, so he had the whole Torah. He has the whole Chumash and probably more than just Chumash. Probably תורה שבעל פה. I know, the whole Torah, כללים, whatever, we don't know exactly what he taught them. But whatever he taught them was pretty a lot. And that, to listen to that 70 times, and 69 that is, not 60, 70 times, not to understand the word what he's talking about? You could manage it a while. I mean, there were people who came to farbrengens and sat through hours and hours of the Rebbe speaking in Yiddish, they didn't understand one word. But I doubt if it would be in 70 languages, נאכאנאנד, that people would be able to sit through. So the שאלה is on the Yidden, if they sit through, and the שאלה is on Moshe Rabbeinu, why did he do it? Why would Moshe Rabbeinu do such thing to bother the Yidden in such a way? No. Says he spoke to all Yidden. And and if you're in the 70th language And most of the Yidden didn't hear didn't need any language. Most of the Yidden heard it in לשון קודש and understood. It says he said it to all the Yidden in all 70 languages. It's a very strange thing. יש הכותבים, there are some that write, שמפני שראה משה רבינו עליו השלום, משה רבינו saw שישראל יגלו לבין שבעים אומות, so eventually he saw ברוח הקודש, the אידן are going to go to galut amongst the 70 nations, לפיכך באר אותה בשבעים לשון, so that's why he explained it then in 70 languages, שבאיזה מקום שישראל יבואו ילמדו באותו לשון, so that whenever place the אידן will go in the future, they will have the תורה in that language. So lechatchila Moshe באווארנט it. וגם תירוץ זה דורש ביאור. This תירוץ is also not so good, also needs further explanation. Why? דכיון שדבר זה אינו נוגע לפועל עד שיגלו ישראל לבין שבעים אומות, according to this pshat, it wasn't נוגע then. Then, all the אידן understood Lashon Kodesh. It was only noge'a in case that when that's hundreds of years later, when the Yidden go to galut. And how long was it that, by the way, between then and galut, the first galut, Galut Bavel, how long was it? How long was it between Moshe Rabbeinu spoke this on the 40th on 40th year till the Yidden went to Galut Bavel? Can someone figure that out? Make a cheshbon. Let's make a cheshbon. After the Yidden finished the Midbar that year, they came to Eretz Yisrael with Yehoshua. 14 years they used the same Mishkan as they used in the Midbar. They put up the Mishkan in the city called Gilgal. After Gilgal, which was 14, who could Big mathematicians here, let's hear. Figure this out. 14 years they were in Gilgal. Then they went, built the Mishkan in Shiloh. How long was the Mishkan standing in Shiloh? 369 years. Shiloh is not far, right? 369 years. Then they put up the Mishkan in Nov VeGivon. Between the two, 52 years. Then they built the Beit Hamikdash, it stood for 410 years, and they went to galut. How many years altogether? 845 years. So Moshe Rabbeinu was telling the Yidden in the Midbar all the the whole Torah in all 70 languages because 845 years later the Yidden will go to galut? And then, and even then, they only went to galut to Bavel. Then they'll be in second Beit Hamikdash, and then the Yidden will go to galut all over the world. So it's another 400 another 70 years and another 420 years, and then they went to galut. That wasn't galut, yeah, that So and so Moshe Rabbeinu did that then for all the years later? למה הוצרך משה רבינו ללמד כל זה, why did Moshe have to teach us all that, כל התורה, the whole תורה, שבעים פעמים, 70 times, כל פעם בלשון אחרת, every time a different language, ושרוב בני ישראל ככולם לא יבינו אותו בכלל, most of the Yidden didn't understand it, וכמאמר חז״ל שאפילו בסנהדרין רק אחדים הבינו. The Chazal tell us that even among the Sanhedrin some only few understood 70 languages. They had to have some people understanding 70 languages. Who could tell me why did they need in Sanhedrin people to understand all the languages? Okay, so why can't they have a interpreter? Oh, because you're not allowed to hear from an interpreter. You have to hear from the people themselves, מפיהם. You have to hear from the people. So you can't hear from an interpreter. So some people had to be there to understand the 70 languages. Even the Sanhedrin were few. Most of the Yidden didn't understand. So Moshe Rabbeinu then taught them all the 70 in all the 70 languages for what reason? That years, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years later they'll need it? ולא סמך על חכמי ישראל בדרא שיצטרכו לכך. Moshe Rabbeinu saw what's going to happen to taka Let's say there's going to be a thousand years. But what's going to happen to the Yidden then? Why didn't he rely on the chachamim of those generations? They'll teach. The chachamim that will be in Bavel will teach the Torah Yidden Torah in in Bavel language. Why did Moshe Rabbeinu have to do it now? And it starts sounds like a moradike kashya. Let's learn הערה 9. That will add a little bit. Be'er Basadeh על פירוש Rashi שם, in the sefer called Be'er Basadeh, says there, דאחר שבאו לעבר הירדן, that after the Yidden crossed the ירדן, שכבר כבשו סיחון ועוג, which was after they conquered before they crossed the Yarden into Eretz Yisrael, they conquered סיחון ועוג, היו אומות באים להתגייר. Many goyim came to convert, to be מגייר, שנפל פחדם על כל העמים. Because all the all the goyim got afraid of the Yidden. והם לא היו מכירים לשון הקודש. They didn't understand Lashon Hakodesh. לכן הוצרך משה לבאר התורה בע' לשון. So therefore Moshe Rabbeinu had to say it in 70 languages. This answers the she'eilah, one she'eilah. Why did Moshe Rabbeinu wait? So this According to this peshat we understand why he waited, because now was the first time it was needed. Why didn't he do it, and that's why he didn't do it before. But the Rebbe doesn't say here that what about the Erev Rav? When the Yidden went out of Mitzrayim, there was a whole bunch of ערב רב, a lot of goyim that went along. And they probably didn't speak Lashon Hakodesh. Maybe it was for them? ערב רב means only Egyptians? Or ערב רב means a mixture of many languages? They come from Mitzrayim, but it could be other other people also. Have to look up takeh. What does Rashi say ערב רב? How does Rashi teitch ערב רב? Interesting. I'm thinking myself, is there a Chumash? Shemos? Yeah. If it was only Mitzrayim, let's see what Rashi says. Where is the pasuk? Parshas Bo. ויסעו בני ישראל מרעמסס, yeah. שש מאות אלף רגלי הגברים לבד מטף. וגם ערב רב עלה אתם. So רש״י says, ערב רב, תערובות אומות של גרים. לאו דווקא מצרים. So lichorah, that's why Moshe Rabbeinu had to do it. But the question is he should have done it earlier. So if you're going to answer because of סיחון ועוג, but what about the ערב רב? If you're worried about the geirim not won't understand, Moshe should have worried about ערב רב. And he didn't do it till now, obviously he wasn't worried. But the Rebbe doesn't ask this as a she'eilah on that peshat, but it sounds like this could be a kashya. Why are these geirim better than the geirim of the ערב רב?

הערה 9, it says באר בשדה על פירוש רש״י שם. That's probably where it He brings in הערה 8 no, he brings הערה 8 brings Rashi of ערב רב. So the Be'er Basadeh says on that, so, but they didn't speak לשון הקודש. But the whole Torah later? Maybe they no, says the the מתן תורה, עשרת הדברות was understood in all 70 languages, but not everything after that. So what, for 39 years Moshe Rabbeinu was talking Torah and nobody understood? No, well, he understood. Yeah, and the other ones ta'ake didn't. But obviously he didn't care. Why all of a sudden did he decide to care now? Okay, let's just start the Rebbe's words for a moment.

יש לומר הביאור בזה. The explanation the Rebbe gives like this, we're not going to get to the whole explanation, just the beginning. ידוע מה שכתב הרמב״ן אודות לשון הקודש. We know what the Ramban writes concerning לשון הקודש, שדברי התורה והנבואות וכל דברי קדושה כולם בלשון ההוא נאמרו. The whole Torah and all the נבואות and all the holy things were said in that language, in the holy language. הוא הלשון שהקדוש ברוך הוא מדבר בו. That's the language Hashem speaks. When Hashem spoke to the Yidden, he spoke in לשון הקודש. ועל פי זה, according to this, כי משום ענינה של תורה, הוא תורת השם, תורה is Hashem's תורה, אשר נתן לנו, לנו את תורתו, He gave us His תורה, לכן היה צריך להיות לכאורה לימוד התורה בלשון הקודש דווקא. So לכאורה, in order to fulfill the mitzvah of learning Torah, you should davka learn in לשון הקודש, הלשון שהקדוש ברוך הוא מדבר בו, the לשון, the language Hashem speaks. How could you be learning Torah in other languages? Because if that's not the לשון, the original לשון of the Torah, so then it's basically not Torah, that's what it would seem like. And the Rebbe says, ולא רק Okay, it's going to go into take too long for us to go into the אריכות, but what the Rebbe is going to say here is that even Torah shebe'al peh is נוגע לשון הקודש לכאורה. So the she'eilah is going to be in the sichah, how is it that when we learn something we read a book in English, a a Torah book, but it's written in a different language, are you mekayem the mitzvah of limud haTorah? And I ta'ake heard once from somebody speaking and he said, you're not mekayem the mitzvah of learning Torah if you don't learn from lashon hakodesh, from the original. And lichorah there is a sevara behind it. If Torah was said in lashon hakodesh and the Eibershter, where did this idea of learning in other languages come from? And that's going to be the whole nekudah of the sichah, the biur, that the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu taught the Torah in all 70 languages, that made that Torah in other languages is also Torah. That's the maalah of it. See the Rebbe taka, the Alter Rebbe in Torah Or, and the Rebbe brings in many places the maalah in learning in other languages that you're mevarer the other language also. Torah Or Parshas Mishpatim, he talks about it. But we're saying now not as maalah, even bichlal, why is it Torah? It should not be Torah. And since every aspect of Torah had to go through משה, משה קיבל תורה מסיני, so this nekudah that other languages could have the kedushah of Torah if you write things of Torah in those languages had to go through Moshe. So therefore Moshe Rabbeinu taught the Torah in all 70 languages just for that reason, not for the people to understand then. That put in the kedushah of Torah into the other languages also. And now when we learn Torah in other languages, it's also Torah. But this has only been noge'a speaking the other languages. What about the books that are written? You could say like this, you read the original, but you don't understand, and someone translates it into English. What about a book that's lechatchilah written in English? Is that the kedushah of Torah? Now the Rebbe is going to go further and say that's also kedushah of Torah. Where does that come from? Also Moshe Rabbeinu, but another aspect that Moshe Rabbeinu did.