to prepare themselves to מתן תורה. What was it? So we all know that when a person goes to sleep at night, it says in the, in midrashim, in sefarim, the neshama goes up and learns Torah up there. שהערבס לחיים, it says the neshama goes up and gets new sources of lights. And they felt that in order to prepare themselves for מתן תורה, the best thing to do is to go up, let the neshama go up, and gain more spiritual gains, which is a very good idea, sounds right. But why did Hashem complain? The complaint was this was the wrong preparation. The whole idea of מתן תורה is not to go up and go away from the physical world. On the contrary, the whole idea is that Hashem now is coming down, bringing the highest of the highest down here. The preparation should have been from something down here, that they should prepare themselves sitting up and with their body and doing things that would prepare their body that they should be able to absorb, not to have their neshama gain more. Because the neshama matters were there before, also. We don't say there was no high levels of neshama then. The problem the thing was that the neshama matter did not mix with the physical matters. So that was the preparation they should have done. And that's why Hashem complained and that's why we stay up and learn Torah down here in a physical body, in order to have the Torah down here. But this all fits goes along with the idea of what מתן תורה is. And that's how you find in the Gemara, the

Gemara says like this. בשעה שעלה משה למרום, when Moshe Rabbeinu went up to heaven to receive the Torah, imagine, he felt a little bit out of place. Malachim are all over, angels are all all over. Here's one human being. And the malachim looked around. They just couldn't understand this. They never saw that. Never saw a human being in their territory. So they asked, \"מה לילוד אשה בינינו? What's a human being, a man born from a mother, what's he doing amongst us?\" And the answer that was given was he came to receive the Torah. They said, \"What? He's going to receive the Torah?\" They turned around to Hashem, they said, \"The Torah you going to give to him to give down there?\" \"תנה הודך על השמים,\" they said, \"Give it to us. We will take care of the Torah.\" And they said, \"It's a חמדה גנוזה. The Torah is such a hidden treasure which was hidden by You in the highest of the worlds. So keep it there. Give it to us. Why are You giving it down there?\" So Hashem said to Moshe, \"They have a good complaint. Answer them.\" So the Gemara says Moshe was afraid. He says, \"I'm afraid they'll burn me בהבל פיהם, with the fire of their mouth.\" So Hashem said, \"Don't be afraid. Hold on to My כסא הכבוד, to My throne, and answer them.\" Moshe

got the courage and says to the malachim like this, \"Do you know what it says in the Torah? It says in the Torah, 'כבד את אביך ואת אמך.' Honor your father and mother. נו, כלום אב ואם יש לכם? Do you have a father and a mother? What are you going to do with the Torah?\" Then he says, \"Says in the Torah, you should not swear false. You do business that it might come to swear, you'll swear false? Says keep Shabbos. Well, you work a whole week and Shabbos you have to rest? What's going on? What do you want the Torah?\" And then he says, the main point he says, \"כלום יצר הרע יש ביניכם? You have a yetzer hara? You have an evil inclination? What are you talking about?\" מיד הודו, they agreed. They said, \"You're right.\" Not only they they weren't angry at him, but it says they all gave him presents. Even the Malach Hamaves it says gave him a present. What was his present? He gave him He told him a secret. He told him if there's ever a מגפה, if there's ever a plague, if you bring ketores, if you bring ketores to Hashem, if you sacrifice the spices to Hashem, it'll stop it. So that the secret it's him. He's the Malach Hamaves, he's the one that kills, so he says, \"I'll tell you. I know that.\" So that's why years, years later, 40 years later, after the story of Korach, when people argued against Moshe and it started a מגפה, and Moshe and Aharon didn't know what to do, so Moshe told Aharon, \"Now's the time. Go bring ketores.\" He brought ketores and the מגפה stopped. But this all came because the Malach Hamaves gave him a present, but other all malachim took gave him presents. But anyway, getting back to the story, what

did Moshe Rabbeinu tell them why the Torah was given down here? The whole idea is, he says, because we have a yetzer hara, we have parents, we do business. The idea is, the whole purpose of matan Torah is to take the Torah, which is the chochmah, the wisdom of Hashem, the mitzvot which are the will of Hashem, which is the most spiritual matters, and bring them down here to us low, low creatures who have parents, who physical people, who work, people who might swear false, people who have a yetzer hara. And that kedushah should penetrate into us, that's what the reason of matan Torah is. And that's why He couldn't give it to them. We find other things which are along the same lines. It says that every day, every Yom Tov I mean, there is an argument in Gemara how to celebrate it. Because in Chumash we find a contradiction. Not actually a contradiction, but it says two things in different places. One place it says that the Yom Tov should be to you, לכם. One place it says the Yom Tov should be laHashem, to Hashem. Now, to Hashem means you should be involved with spiritual matters: learn, daven. Then it says לכם means to you, means you should eat and sleep and have a good time. So the Gemara says, which one is it? So there are two opinions. One opinion is that you have a choice: or you all day have a good time or all day you sit and learn and daven. And the other opinion is חציו לכם חציו לה׳. Divide it: half for you and half for Hashem, and that's exactly what we do. We come in the morning, we come to shul, we daven, hopefully we learn, and then we also eat, we sleep, we have, we we divide it amongst the two. And then the Gemara says this is all concerning Pesach and Sukkos and Rosh Hashanah, but

Shavuos everyone agrees that you have to eat. The other Yomim Tovim, according to one opinion you could fast, as long as all day you learn so you take that side. Shavuos you must eat. Not only that, there's a din normally that if a person has a bad dream at night, he's allowed to fast, he should fast the next day, it doesn't apply nowadays, but originally the din was you should fast the day, that same day, even if it's Shabbos and Yom Tov. So if a person wakes up Pesach morning with a bad dream and he feels that he wants to fast in order to not make it come true, you're allowed to fast on Yom Tov. Shavuos you're not allowed to. You have to eat. The reason given in the Gemara is to show that this day is very accepted to us, that we really enjoy and are happy with the fact that the Torah was given. So we must eat. Now really if I understood, if we want, if we have to do something to show that we're happy the Torah was given, you know what they should have said, the din? That everybody must learn Torah on Shavuos. It would make sense. Then you would show that you are happy that the Torah was given. Or everyone must do extra mitzvot on Shavuos. Everyone must eat on Shavuos in order to show that he's happy? And the answer is, yes. When we eat in the proper way, that's how we show that we appreciate and we understand what מתן תורה is. מתן תורה was not to stay in the spiritual realms, spiritual worlds. The idea was to take the most spiritual things and bring it down into the gashmiyut. So if it would say you should learn, learn is to a degree completely ruchniyut. So it says you should eat. And when we eat, that's when we show that we bring the ruchniyut into into the gashmiyut. This explains, just for a few moments, an interesting Gemara. The

Gemara says that Rav Yosef, the great famous Rav Yosef, used to celebrate Shavuos very much, every Yid, but especially he would tell them to make a special party. And this is what he used to say: אימלא האי יומא דקא גרים, כמה יוסף איכא בשוקא. If not for this day, look how many Yosef's's you have in the street. What he meant to say, if not for Shavuos, you know how many Joes and Johns you have in the street? You have them all. It would be nothing special in me. But since this day the Torah was given, so that makes me special. So a lot of questions on this Gemara and the Rabbi has all kinds of explanations, but the main point is, part of the questions, why does he mention how many Yosef? He should have said, \"How many people you'd have?\" What does he mean how many people you have in the street? The point is like this. The word Yosef comes from the word הוספה, which means to add. When you learn Torah or you do mitzvot, you add. You add greatness into the world. You add kedushah. If not for מתן תורה, all that would happen, but the street would remain a street. In other words, like the אבות, they brought down certain levels, spiritual levels, but that never penetrated into the world. And that's what he said: if not for this day, we would כמה יוסף, we would have the Yosef, we would do mitzvot anyway if not for מתן תורה, like the אבות did. But the שוקא, the שוקא means in the marketplace, in the street. The street would remain a street. A street is always a רשות הרבים, a public domain. The word public domain, the halachah, there is a halachah, but ברוחניות it means public domain is the domain of the world. רשות היחיד, the private domain, is Hashem. He is the יחיד, he's the single. Kelipah, the evil forces of the world, anything of the world which is not connected to Hashem, that's called רבים. That's many. Hashem is יחיד and everything else is רבים. What Hashem wants is we should take the יחיד, the unity of Hashem, and bring it into the street, and make the street, which is a רשות הרבים, turn into רשות היחיד. The street should become absorbed of kedushah. But if the Torah wouldn't have been given, they would have learned Torah, but the street would not have have absorbed the kedushah. That's what he said, כמה יוסף איכא בשוקא. There would be a שוק. A שוק is a רשות הרבים, public domain without the אחדות in the world. And this is really what מתן תורה is all about. We find many other things which show the greatest comes down to the lowest. Just one more point along these lines. Says in a Midrash that the first word of the עשרת הדברות, the first first word, אנכי, which is the essence of all 10, the first word includes everything, actually is not a Hebrew word. It's an Egyptian word. So imagine, the first word of the Aseret haDibrot, which includes the whole Torah, is Egyptian. Why would it not be Hebrew? And the answer is, yes, it's exactly what it is. Hashem wants that we should take these highest levels and אנכי, the word אנכי represents the highest level. I, who's the I? Hashem, should penetrate into Mitzrayim, into the lowest. Just like Moshe Rabbeinu said to the מלאכים, maybe I didn't mention it before, when he answered them, he said, it says in the עשרת הדברות, אנכי השם אלקיך אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים. I'm Hashem who took you out of Mitzrayim. You guys went to Mitzrayim, he said? What do you want the Torah? The whole idea of the Torah is to penetrate even to Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim shows on a very low level. And it's able because by Matan Torah, Hashem gave us that koach. To finish off, that koach Hashem gave is not like some people think, he gave it to Klal Yisrael as a whole. That's true, but he also gave it to every single single individual individually. That's why when he started Aseret haDibrot, he said, אנכי השם אלקיך, I am Hashem your God, אלקיך, singular. He didn't say השם אלקיכם, which is plural. And it says the reason is two reasons, and they're both true. One reason is because he spoke to Klal Yisrael as one unit, and another thing, he spoke to every single one individually. And every single individual Jew, he gave that power that we should be able to bring אלקות into the world. And that is actually the mission that is given to every single Jew when his neshamah comes down to this world. And he's supposed to bring אלקות into himself, into his body, and also it says always בחלקו בעולם, is a certain share of gashmiyut of the world that everyone is assigned that his job is to bring אלקות there. And when everyone accomplishes it, then the whole world will be absorbed, and then the truth will be revealed, that whatever is absorbed in the world will come out and shine, and that's when will be the fulfillment of the prophecy ונגלה כבוד השם, that the kavod of Hashem will be revealed, and that's when Mashiach will come. But Mashiach will come all based on the fact that it started by Matan Torah, and then throughout all these years, we work on bringing kedushah into the world, and then the end will be that Mashiach will come and this all will be revealed. And we hope and are sure it will be bimheirah b'yameinu. Amen. Yes. You mentioned to bring kedushah like learning on a table and you said a story. If we do that with a tallit or tefillin bag that has a story and therefore, how do we treat that with the right respect when you Shouldn't throw it in the garbage. Shouldn't throw it in the garbage. It's tefillin, you're not allowed to, or sefarim, but טלית, על פי דין, you're allowed to, but not in a form of a bizayon, not in any embarrassing way. What about like a tefillin bag? Also, same thing, same thing. You should throw into shemot. Yes. You mentioned that before מתן תורה, that spiritual not connects to physical? Mhm. What about a neshamah? That did that exist at the time? How's it, a spiritual Not really. Before מתן תורה, there was no real neshamah. The neshamah, the yidden, the people did not have a din of yidden, and they did not have that special godly neshamah. And by מתן תורה, that's when Hashem gave us the neshamah. That's why we say ובנו בחרת You chose us, and it says in Shulchan Aruch that when we say these words we have to keep in mind מתן תורה, because it was by מתן תורה this happened. So how, how then do we speak about Jews before מתן תורה? Well, Jews as a nation. See, this is a subject in itself. It's Jews that we did things from our own, like Avraham Avinu recognized Hashem and he had he did everything Hashem wanted, but that part that came from Hashem down, that we didn't have. That the avot didn't have and the yidden until מתן תורה didn't have it. We're called a nation because we were different than others, we behaved differently, and that's how we became an umah. But it says like in Mitzrayim, the Rambam says it was almost forgotten and could have been forgotten and we would have lost it. By מתן תורה, it became in such a way that it can't change. Every neshamah then was a new neshamah? Yeah, yeah. If you want to look at it that way, yeah, yeah. That's why all the neshamot stood at מתן תורה, including the gerim. That's even, yeah. What is the significance or how did it come about like having milk or something? Okay. The reason we eat milchiks on Shavuot, we eat dairy on Shavuot, the reason is because the Torah was given on Shabbat according to all opinions. When the Torah was given, then the laws started applying, certain laws. All the food, the shechitah that they did before and all the fleish they had before were not kasher, they couldn't eat it. So the only things they could do is eat milchiks, because that didn't have to be prepared. See, if it wouldn't be Shabbat they would shecht right on the spot and eat. You can't shecht because of Shabbos and they couldn't do anything, so they only could eat things which had no shailos. So the only things were milchiks. There's another reason, it says that Torah is compared to milk and honey, so to show that we appreciate the Torah we eat milchiks. But the better reason, the real reason is that. Yes. What's Chabad's minhag as far as, I know we eat meat also, but I mean simple Chabad or whatever, but so, by every meal do you do or? But milchiks? Yeah, milchiks only the first day of Shavuot, that's all. No other day. By lunch? By lunch, yeah. Yeah, you had asked me, yeah. Yes, two questions. The minhag of staying up at night during Shavuot, what is the meaning and what do we do? And second, when Mashiach come, what will happen to all the mitzvot? We will have to keep them? Do we have to do Shabbos? Well, the first question of what the significance of staying up at Shavuot night, well, I just explained before what the reason is, because they didn't stay up then. And the idea is to make up the mistake that they made then, that they thought stay away from the גוף is greater, and we know that to stay in the גוף and learn, that's the important, that's what we have to do. And the minhag in, by Chassidim at least is that we stay up and we say tikkun. Not Chassidim learn, learn Gemara, whatever. By Chassidim, you stay up and you say tikkun. Tikkun was established by the Shelah. Shelah HaKadosh is one of the big מקובלים. And this tikkun is a combination of many פסוקים from chumash and פסוקים from Tanach and pieces from Gemara and we say that. Then after that, if there is time till the morning, you learn. Then early morning we go to the mikveh. Why? Because מתן תורה took place early morning, and every year it takes place again. So, in order to be ready for מתן תורה, so we go to the mikveh in the morning. That's concerning that question. Another question, Mashiach will come, we'll still do mitzvot, certainly. Because after תחיית המתים is already a different story, but this Mashiach will come, certainly we will have a Beit HaMikdash and we'll have all the mitzvot, even those that we don't keep now we'll have to keep then. Yeah. Two separate questions. One, there was a neshama for each person, Yeah. and that was there whether the neshamot were not attached, there was seen spirits were not attached to each person? Says all neshamot that from the future generations were all there too. And they were not in bodies. And I follow in my distance with everything that you spoke this evening, except I have great difficulty with the first premise that it's better that a mitzvah is better when it's ordered than when it comes free-willed. Right. To me, it seems it's so nice if you're kind to me without being forced to be kind. Yeah, good. You bring up a very good point. The truth is that there is an aspect which is special in that when you do something when you were not asked to do it. That's why it says when a person does more than he is required according to the din, that shows that he's close to Hashem and he cares about Hashem. That is true. That's one one aspect, but the other aspect which is the essence, whether we have a power, that special power the mitzvah contains, that we do not have if it's on our own, because we don't have a power but what we have, we don't have anything more. But you are right. That is true that when we do something we are not asked to do, that shows our feeling more, but that's a different aspect. That does show, that's why we should do more than we are expected. You can ask something, right? What about the neshamot? A Yid will do mitzvot, a Yid would have the neshamot? Without neshamot. Well, that's they did it like Bnei Noach, like a goy would do a mitzvah now. Okay, but it started then. Matan Torah, that's when we were commanded, we were told by Hashem. What about the neshamah? No, no. Good, but so that that aspect of what shaychut to מצות מילה, Avraham got. You see from Avraham Avinu it started already שני אלפים תורה. The 2,000 years of Torah started then. So there was some aspects, like מצות מילה started, so that nekudah in the neshamah which is connected to מילה, he got. But then not the rest. Not the whole neshamah. Then could Avraham stand with the whole neshamah? Yeah, he did. That's why he only reached, Chassidut does it, שורש הנבראים. He couldn't reach the בורא, just שורש הנבראים. Yes? This is an answer to that. As time went on,

there were several other mitzvot, very few. But were they the same nature as the mitzvot at Matan Torah? In other words, you always said Matan Torah was was You want to know the truth? You want to know the truth? It says straight that even those mitzvot that they were commanded, when Matan Torah came there was different. The commandment then was only a preparation to the type of commandment later, cuz later there was a general change in the world. Before that, it was only a beginning of that change, so there was a difference in that, too. Even the מצות מילה was a difference later than before. Okay. Good night, Rabbi. All right, very quickly, just give you guys just an idea of what's coming up. We've got Introduction to Talmud, Cults and Assimilation, Nature and Beyond Nature, and Rewards for mitzvot coming up in the month of June. Of course, Shavuos is next week, there won't be a class. Following week we'll be back, and then again the month of June will be the last classes for the summer, and then we'll be back for the first half of the summer, we won't be here all of July, and we'll be back in August. We do need one more sponsor for the month of June. Thank you. And we have two. That's it. It's a sale. And thank you all for coming. Please tell your friends.