The holiday of Shavuot is coming up, so it's only right that we should prepare ourselves to know what it's all about, so we'll know what to do and how to celebrate and what to think about when Shavuot comes. Now we know that Shavuot is the Yom Tov, it is the holiday that we celebrate Matan Torah, when Hashem gave us the Torah. Even though as far as the date of when the Yom Tov is, it didn't always necessarily come out on the same day as the Torah was given. Now, now I mean from when this the calendar was set up, which goes back, let's say, 1,600 years, now it always comes out, Shavuot, the first day of Shavuot always comes out on the sixth day of Sivan. The sixth day of Sivan was the day of Matan Torah, that's the day that Hashem came down and gave the Jews the עשרת הדברות, spoke to them and told them the Ten Commandments. But the way it was originally, it didn't always come out on the sixth of Sivan, because as we know, Shavuot is the one holiday of the Torah that has no date. The only The only date for Shavuot is the 50th day from Pesach. Now, the way it's set up that the month of Nissan has 30 days, and the month of Iyar has 29 days, so it always comes out that from the 16th day of Nissan, which is when we start counting Sefirah, the 50th day will always be the sixth of Sivan, because counting the end of Nissan, and there are 30 days for Nissan, and counting 29 days of Iyar, and then five more days of Sivan, you will have the 50th day on the sixth of Sivan. But when they used to establish the month every month separately based on the witnesses, so sometimes it could come out that Nissan and Iyar were both 30 days. And if Nissan and Iyar would be both 30 days, the 50th day of Sefirah would be on the fifth day of Sivan. And if Nissan and Iyar were both 29 days, then the the 50th day would be on the seventh of Sivan. It's only if one is 29 and one is 30, that's when it comes out on the sixth. So it could have been, there were times that Shavuot did not come out on the sixth day of Sivan. And it says in Shulchan Aruch that in a year like that, when they daven, and they would say in the שמונה עשרה יום חג השבועות הזה, that this is the holiday of Shavuot, they would not add, as we do, זמן מתן תורתנו, the time of the giving of the Torah, because it was not the day of giving of the Torah. But since the Sanhedrin stopped, and we don't have this idea that every month the Beis Din has to re-decide, re-establish whether Rosh Chodesh is that day or a day before or a day later, so we have a set calendar, so it's set up for all generations that Nisan has 30 days, Iyar has 29, and always it comes out on the 30 on the sixth of Sivan, which coincides with the day the Torah was given. But in truth, even though even those years that Shavuot did not come out on the sixth of Sivan, still we know that the reason for the holiday of Shavuot is because the Torah was given. So we know that when we come to Shavuot, we celebrate the giving of the Torah. And this is really what we really have to discuss, what is the meaning of the giving of the Torah. Now we know what the Torah is, we have a Torah, and we know what mitzvot are. On that day we were given the commandments, we were told that we have to keep all these mitzvot, we were given the Torah to study, we all know that. It's not much to discuss about that. What we do have to discuss is what took place, what special thing took place at that time when the Torah was given, knowing that before the Torah was given, they already knew the Torah. They already knew the Torah, they knew the mitzvot. It says in the Gemara that קיימו האבות כל התורה כולה עד שלא ניתנה, the Avot—Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov—kept all the mitzvot before it was given, so they knew the mitzvot. It says that the Avot learned the Torah. That even goes back earlier. It says Noach learned Torah. How did Noach know which animals were kosher and which were not when he had to take them into the תיבה? Kosher ones he had to take in seven, the non-kosher two. How did he know? Because he learned Torah, Rashi says. Methuselah, before Noach, had learned Torah. You had Shem v'Ever who studied Torah. Avraham, the Gemara says, was a זקן ויושב בישיבה, he was a scholar, sat in Yeshiva and learned. Yitzchak, it says, זקן ויושב בישיבה. Yeshiva. יעקב, זקן ויושב בישיבה. So they had Yeshivot. Then the Gemara even adds: מעולם לא פסקה ישיבה מאבותינו במצרים. All throughout the 210 years when the Jews were in Mitzrayim, they studied the Torah. As a matter of fact, it says, it says in Chumash, that before Yaakov came down to Mitzrayim, he sent Yehuda ahead. ואת יהודה שלח לפניו להורות לפניו גשנה, he sent him ahead to Goshen to prepare. So Rashi says, to prepare what? To establish a Yeshiva, Rashi says, before Yaakov and his children would come, that when they come, there should be a Yeshiva there already. So they had Yeshivot. We even know who were the teachers in Mitzrayim: Shevet Levi. Shevet Levi did not work. They didn't work, they didn't have hard labor. Why? Because they were the teachers. So they always had the Torah. So really, the Torah was not something new. They knew the mitzvot, because many of them kept the mitzvot. So what's so special about the day of Matan Torah when we say that was a special day, Hashem came down and gave us the Torah, and Hashem made such a fuss over it, kolot uvrakim, noises and thunder and lightning and fire and smoke, and all the preparations they had to make. This was, as we know, the greatest event in history, in human history. The most important event in human history is the event of Matan Torah. To a certain degree, it's more important than the event of the coming of Mashiach, because it says that Matan Torah will not be again. This was a one-time thing. But Mashiach will come, and he's going to teach us new thoughts, new ideas, deep ideas in Torah, but it says it all comes from what was given by Matan Torah. So Matan Torah is the most important event that was and will ever be in the history of the creation. Why is it so special when this was something that they knew before? The Torah they knew before, the mitzvot they had before, so what's the big fuss? Well, the answer is, obviously, that before the Torah was given, they were not commanded to study Torah, and they were not commanded to perform the mitzvot. Using the terminology of the Gemara, before מתן תורה, they were an אינו מצווה ועושה, like somebody who does not being commanded, and after מתן תורה, after the Torah was given, they became מצווה ועושה, they became commanded to do it. And we know the Gemara says, גדול המצווה ועושה יותר ממי שאינו מצווה ועושה. It's greater when a person does a mitzvah when he is commanded than a person who performs a mitzvah when he's not commanded. So there is a change between before מתן תורה and after מתן תורה. But is the change that great that we should make such a big fuss? It's a change, true. What what happened later was גדול, it's greater, it's more important. But is it such a great difference that we should consider this such an event that took place, we got the Torah, we had the Torah before. Obviously, there was something very, very special that took place. A major, major change between before מתן תורה and after מתן תורה. And it's not whether we have more words of Torah, a few more words, or we have we know more of the mitzvot, because that's not the main thing, or when the fact that we were commanded or not commanded. This means something, but there is much more to it.

It says in a Midrash, in Midrash Shir HaShirim, it says a pasuk. It says לריח שמניך טובים שמן תורק שמך. I'll translate: The smell of your perfume is very good, but the perfume itself should be emptied into a vessel. And the Midrash says that here it the pasuk mentions two things: The smell of a perfume and taking the perfume and pouring it into another vessel. And that is the difference between what the Avot, Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, and all the Jews before the Torah was given, had, and what took place afterwards. And this is what it says in the Midrash: Till the Torah was given, it was only like a smell of perfume. When the Torah was given, it's כמערה מכלי לכלי, it's like when you take the perfume and you pour it into another כלי. What is the difference? When you have the smell of perfume, all you have, number one, is the smell. And when the perfume is taken away, the smell leaves. You don't have the thing itself. But when someone takes some of the perfume and pours it into another bottle and gives it to you, Then you don't only have the smell, now you have it, you have the perfume itself. And that is the difference between what happened before מתן תורה and after מתן תורה. What does that mean? This is just a mashal, but we have to have the explanation, the נמשל. This is a parable, which doesn't explain anything. This is just the idea, the point of what happened, and now let's explain it now based on many other things. The Midrash says, another Midrash says, on the pasuk, the famous, famous pasuk: השמים שמים לה' והארץ נתן לבני אדם. The Shamayim, the heaven is for Hashem', and the earth is given to people. And the Midrash says that that pasuk is true before the Torah was given. Before the Torah was given, there was a separation between heaven and earth. After the Torah was given, the two combined. And it gives a mashal, the Midrash gives a mashal. A משל למלך, mashal to a king who had two countries. One country was called, he says, Romi, is Rome, and one country was called Surya, Syria. That's the expression the Midrash says. And the king made a gezeirah, the king made a decree: בני רומי לא ירדו לסוריא, בני סוריא לא יעלו לרומי. People from Romi should not be able to travel to Surya, should not come down to Surya, and the people from Surya should not be able to go up to Romi. And they never met, they never traveled. One day the king woke up, וביטל הגזירה, he nullified the decree. He said, \"No more.\" From now on he said, \"בני רומי ירדו לסוריא, בני סוריא יעלו לרומי.\" People from Romi could go down to Surya, people from Surya could go up to Romi. The same here, the Midrash says. Till Matan Torah there was a gezeirah, a decree: השמים שמים לה' והארץ נתן לבני אדם. The heaven is for Hashem', the earth is for people, for people. And there was a decree that they cannot mix. And the Midrash uses the expression: we have elyonim, and we have tachtonim. We have above, and we have below. And there was a gezeirah, a decree, that התחתונים לא יעלו לעליונים, ועליונים לא ירדו לתחתונים. From below you can't go up, and from up you can't come down. There is no connection between above and below. And then it came מתן תורה, אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא, ה' said, \"From now on, I am mevatel the gezeirah, no more gezeirah, no more decree.\" And he said, \"והעליונים ירדו לתחתונים, from above should come down, should be able to come down, ותחתונים יעלו לעליונים, and from below you should be able to go up.\" And Hashem' even added, \"ואני המתחיל, I'll start. I'll be the first one. Therefore, וירד ה' על הר סיני, ה' from above came down to הר סיני, ואל משה אמר עלה אל אלקים, and to משה he said, 'You go up to Hashem'.'\" And now there was this combination between elyonim and tachtonim, the top and the below. What this really means is like this: these are just words of the Midrash, and we know that without having the way Chassidut explains it, the midrashim are not really understood. And Chassidut explains this very well. From when the world was created, the way it's set up according to nature, it's impossible for gashmiyut and ruchniyut to mix. You can't have spirituality and physicality mixing. You cannot have any spirituality in a physical thing. You can't bring down Elokut, Godliness, spirituality should penetrate into a physical thing. That's the meaning of השמים שמים לה' והארץ נתן לבני אדם. There is shamayim separately, which is ruchniyut, ארץ is separate, Elokut, Hashem' is his ruchniyut and there are רוחניותדיקע spiritual worlds. Then you have the physical world. You can't mix the two. You can't bring kedushah, holiness, into a physical object. It's an impossibility. And it's not because Hashem' decided, you know, \"I'll make a decree,\" like the mashal of the king, he decided for some reason not to mix the two. The way the world is created from its beginning, the nature of the world itself is that it can't absorb ruchniyut. Now explain it: the nature of the world is that it can't even, a physical object can't even absorb an idea, let alone, let go of ruchniyut. For instance, if someone wants to explain an idea to the table, and he'll try to explain it with all kinds of explanations, it won't work. Why? Because the table is gashmiyut, sechel is in a different world, in a different level, and the two don't mix. They just don't mix. You can't penetrate sechel into the table. Into another human being, yes, he has a bad head, he doesn't understand. So you explain it better, you give another mashal, explain it, better words, simpler. You can understand it. But as low as you'll go, and as much as you'll try to explain an idea, a sevara, a thought, to to the table, it'll never understand. Why? Because it's complete different level, they're they're different wavelengths, they they don't work, they don't they don't mix. Now if sechel doesn't mix with gashmiyut, and sechel is not godliness, sechel is not spirituality, it's part of this physical world, but within this physical world it's a little bit higher, and still it doesn't mix. Now how on the world can we imagine that ruchniyut, spirituality, godliness, Elokut, which is completely out of the framework of the creation, how can that mix with gashmiyut? So how is it possible that a physical object should absorb Elokut, godliness? Impossible! And that's what the Midrash means: before Matan Torah, that's how it was. So when a person did a mitzvah, and they all did mitzvot, Avraham did mitzvot, all the mitzvot, what happened was that physical object that they used for the mitzvah did not become holy, it couldn't have any kedushah in it. And that's the mashal of a smell. You have the smell, but you don't have the thing. And a smell doesn't last, it goes away, wears off. And the ruchniyut that they had when they brought, did a mitzvah, and they brought down all these spiritual levels, so to speak, but it didn't penetrate into the world, it didn't penetrate into the physical object. When Hashem gave us the Torah, the main thing that He did was He took away that decree, He changed the nature, and He made it possible that a physical object should absorb godliness. From the moment Hashem gave the Torah, when you take a pair of tefillin and you put it on, that pair of tefillin, which is a physical piece of leather, has Elokut in it, has godliness in it, has kedushah, holiness, has spirituality in it, and it mixes, it's in there. Now how Hashem did it, that's His thing. But this is what Hashem did. And this is basically the difference between somebody who does a mitzvah being commanded by Hashem, and a mitzvah not being commanded. If you do a mitzvah not being commanded, then you're doing it on your own. You're not commanded by Hashem, so Hashem did not give any special power into that mitzvah, because you're doing it from your side. Now we are all creatures, we are all part of the creation. The best we could do, the highest we could reach, is as far as the creation could take, could take a person. The best we could do is the most a human being could do. So you could do a lot, because a human being could be very great, but that's as far as it goes. We don't have the power to do something which is beyond the creation. This idea of combining ruchniyut and gashmiyut is beyond creation. A human being on his own, being that he is part of the creation, could never do that. As the mashal I gave more than once in these classes, imagine if a person would try to pick himself up by pulling himself by his own ears. You'll never pick yourself up. Why? Because you're doing it from yourself. The same thing here. Whatever we'll be doing will be part of the creation, part of nature, because that's where we are. So whatever we do, we could never do something which would be beyond creation, beyond nature. So this idea of combining ruchniyut and gashmiyut, which is something has to come from beyond creation, we could never do. So if a person does a mitzvah without being commanded by God, that means he's doing it all with his own koach. He could do the best he could do, but the best in this case will not work, because he's only a human being. It's only Hashem, who's beyond creation, who is the Creator, He has the power of taking the gashmiyut and combining it with ruchniyut, because He is beyond all limitation. So He could do something which according to nature doesn't work. He made the nature, so He is not limited. So it's only His koach that could make it happen. And therefore, if He commanded us to do it, oh, then He says, \"I want you to do it and combine gashmiyut and ruchniyut,\" it'll happen. So before the Torah was given, you could, we had, we learned Torah, and we did mitzvot, but it was only like a smell. It was only something that they did on their own. And later it's something that the koach of Hashem is there. So it's not just a small change: \"Oh, before it was like this, and now it's better, it's greater, גדול המצווה ועושה, being commanded is better.\" It's not better, it's a complete different thing. It's almost like the difference between the Creator and the creation. The greatest difference that exists, the furthest extremes that we could imagine is not right and left, south and north, or black and white. The two greatest extremes are Creator and the creation. And this is exactly here. What we do is part of the creation if we do it on our own, and if Hashem gives it the koach, it's from the Creator. So that's a change that changed the whole system of the whole world. That's what took place at the time of Matan Torah, and that is because Hashem commanded. It's interesting we see by Avraham Avinu, when Avraham Avinu wanted his servant Eliezer to swear, so he told him, שים נא ידך תחת ירכי, put your hand under my thigh. And the reason is because when you make a shevuah, when you swear, it says you should hold a חפץ של מצוה, you should hold an object of a mitzvah. Nowadays in a Beit Din we don't make people swear, but when they used to, they used to take out the Sefer Torah, and you would have to hold the Sefer Torah to swear, or at least a pair of tefillin. For a talmid chacham you give him a pair of tefillin. Why? Because in order for the shevuah to have its validity, you have to hold an object of a mitzvah. Now, Avraham Avinu had tefillin, he kept all the mitzvot. So why did Avraham Avinu tell him, hold your hand תחת ירכי, why didn't he give him, which is not even so צניעותדיק, why didn't he give him a pair of tefillin, hold my tefillin? At the time of Avraham Avinu, there was only one mitzvah he was commanded. All other mitzvot he did was on his own. And therefore, the tefillin that Avraham Avinu had was not holy. He did the mitzvah with it, but the mitzvah did not absorb the kedushah. It couldn't, because it's gashmiyut can't absorb ruchniyut. So he couldn't give him the tefillin to hold because the tefillin was not holy, it wasn't an object of a mitzvah. The only object of a mitzvah that he had was מצות מילה, and therefore he said, hold, שים נא ידך תחת ירכי, hold there. And this is what the specialty of Matan Torah. Then by milah, it was one mitzvah, and the reason Hashem gave him at least one mitzvah is because we know that מעשה אבות סימן לבנים, that the power, the koach that we have, the strength, has to come from our fathers, so Hashem at least gave one mitzvah to our father Avraham where He commanded him that it should have that idea of penetrating into the gashmiyut, so later on, He was able to give the children 613 mitzvot and the whole Torah were absorbed into the gashmiyut. But this is the whole, a אפטוע as they say, the chiddush, the whole specialty of Matan Torah. The idea that from that moment on, the gashmiyut of the world was able to absorb Elokut, to absorb Godliness. And this was the purpose of creation. But in the beginning, the way the creation was made, with the nature as it was, it couldn't happen till, well, at more than 2,000 years later. This was in the year 2448, when Hashem came down and gave the Torah and gave the Yidden the power of bringing Elokut into the world, gave the world the koach that it should be able to absorb ruchniyut, and that's then a Yid is able to start working and fulfill Hashem's commandments.

Now this explains another interesting thing that we find by Matan Torah. By Matan Torah it says that, actually not in פרשת יתרו, but in פרשת ואתחנן where the Torah repeats the עשרת הדברות, so there it says that the voice of Hashem was a קול גדול ולא יסף. It was a very great voice of Hashem, קול גדול. What does קול גדול mean? Great voice, how loud? So there are different interpretations in the Midrash what that means. One interpretation in the Midrash is that it was a voice without an echo. That when Hashem spoke the עשרת הדברות, there was no echo. That's what the movie had, an echo. That movie was wrong. There was no echo. Now the question is, what's the big deal? Who cares if there would be an echo? Why do they make a whole fuss, and the pasuk says there was no echo? And if there would have been an echo, I mean, why? Plus, if there naturally should have been an echo, obviously there should have been, that's why they showed in the movie, because either they don't know about this, and they imagine it was, and especially when the Midrash says that there wasn't, obviously that's something special, so there should have been. So there was a miracle that there was no echo. Why would Hashem make such a miracle? We have a rule, לא עביד קודשא בריך הוא ניסא למגנא, Hashem does not make a miracle in vain. He makes a miracle only when there's a need for it, when there's something to accomplish. Stam to make a miracle, Hashem doesn't do that. Hashem created the world with its laws of nature, and does not like to change the laws of nature. He only changes it out of necessity, so to speak, when it's needed. Keriat Yam Suf, when the Yidden had to cross the sea, the goyim, the Mitzrayim were behind them, they had no place to go, Hashem made a miracle. But just to make a miracle for no reason? There must have been a miracle here. Why did Hashem do that? The answer is there was no miracle, and this was done naturally. Why? Where does an echo come from? What's the idea of an echo? Just like when you throw a ball at a wall, it bounces back, your voice bounces off the wall, and it bounces back. That's where the echo comes from. By Matan Torah, the whole idea of Matan Torah was that kedushah should penetrate into the world. So at that time, the world absorbed the words of Hashem. That's the whole idea of Matan Torah. And therefore, there was no echo. It wasn't a miracle that there was no echo. Hashem didn't do something against nature. Because of the nature of Matan Torah, naturally there shouldn't have been an echo. Because the whole idea was, at that moment Hashem wanted to bring Elokut into the world, make the world full of Elokut, gave it that power that from now on every time a Yid does a mitzvah, the mitzvah brings Elokut, godliness, into the world. So that's the nature of Matan Torah, and that's why it happened. In truth, every time we learn Torah and we do a mitzvah, it's absorbed in the world, because Hashem gave the world that power to absorb it. That's why it says when Mashiach will come, אבן מקיר תזעק וכפיס מעץ יעננו. What it means is the stones in the wall are going to scream out. When a person will come to that day of judgment and they'll ask him, \"Did you do this? Did you do that?\" and he'll say, \"No, I never did it.\" And there are no witnesses that ever saw him do it, the wall that he was in, the house, is going to scream out and say, \"What do you mean? I saw. The kedushah that you did will come out from the wall.\" Why? Because when we learn Torah, we have that same power Hashem put into us because that's what He did with Matan Torah, that when we learn, the words are absorbed and stick inside the object which it's learned over. When we learn Torah over a table, that table absorbs kedushah. Why does it say we can't sit on a table, it's not kavod to sit on a table? So, in a house we know that a table that you eat on, you're not allowed to sit, table's like a mizbeach. But let's say a table we don't eat on, table we learn on, we're not allowed to sit because that table has a kedushah. There were tzadikim that wrote in their will that they want their aron, their casket, made from the wood of the tables that they learned over. Why? Because they wanted those tables to testify that they studied Torah. Because the table absorbs the Torah that we learn. There's a story in Yerushalmi, an interesting story, because there was once a big she'eilah, no one knew how to pasken. היה שם גלילי אחד, there was one zaken, one talmid chacham, one elder scholar came from Galil. Listen to this: והיה לו מקלו של רבי מאיר. He had Rabbi Meir's stick. Rabbi Meir, the great Rabbi Meir. והיה מלמדו חכמה. He would learn from that stick. And because of that, he was the only one that was able to pasken that she'eilah and answer that question that was asked. How in the world do you learn from a stick? How does a stick teach? It was the stick of Rabbi Meir. When Rabbi Meir taught Torah, the stick was right next to him and absorbed the Torah, and it's there. We wouldn't be able to take it out from there because we don't really see the truth. Our eyes are not so clear. We need glasses. But this great person was able to take out from that stick, he was able to take out the Torah that was there, because the Torah is absorbed. But it all started from Matan Torah. By מתן תורה, השם brought the kedushah into the world, and made it possible for the world to absorb the kedushah. Which basically means that the whole idea of Matan Torah is that we should take godliness, אלוקות, and bring it down into the world. That's what Hashem wants with Matan Torah. That's why you find certain things in connection to Matan Torah which fit along the same lines: the idea of taking the highest levels of kedushah and being able to bring it down into the lowest, which before that was not possible because you couldn't bring it down.

One of the things we see is a little bit opposite, but it just shows. This is a famous sichah of the Rebbe that the Rebbe explains: We all know that the reason why we stay up Shavuos night is because by מתן תורה, the Jews went to sleep and they overslept. Hashem said, \"Be ready for מתן תורה.\" מתן תורה was supposed to take place early, early morning. The Jews went to sleep, they overslept, and Hashem had to come and wake them up. It says a pasuk, Hashem says, \"מדוע באתי ואין איש, why did I come and there's nobody there? קראתי ואין עונה, I'm calling and no one's answering. What happened?\" So because of that mistake we made over 3,000 years ago, every year Shavuos night we have to stay up to make up. Now, let's understand, why did they go to sleep and they how could that how could we understand them oversleeping? To me, that to anybody, doesn't make any sense. This is an event that they've been waiting for for 50 days. When they went out of Mitzrayim, they counted the days. Where does the mitzvah of Sefirah come? When we spoke about Sefirah last time, where does the mitzvah of Sefirah come from? The Ran says, the Midrash, that when they went out of Mitzrayim, they were told you will receive the Torah, and they knew how important that they counted the days, they simply counted the days. Hashem said, \"So happy you counted the days for מתן תורה, I'll make it a mitzvah.\" And He made a mitzvah every year to count the days. So they counted the days! Then finally came Rosh Chodesh Sivan when they came to Har Sinai. It says that they were so excited, when they came to מתן תורה, to Har Sinai, they were so excited that they made achdus. Can you imagine? That's something that we need a lot. That they all united, איש אחד בלב אחד it says they were, because until then it was with machlokes, I mean we know what that means and thing. But that's how excited they were. And finally they prepared themselves day after day. Moshe went up every day to Hashem, he came down with new instructions, and the momentum was growing, and then finally it came to שלשת ימי הגבלה, the three days before, and they saw the fire smoking and the mountain and they made it a str- around them, you can imagine! And then say the night after, tomorrow morning it's going to be, and they went to sleep! And they overslept! A normal, we're waiting for a plane, you can't sleep at night. When we're waiting for something exciting, can't sleep. How did they go to sleep? Maybe they went to sleep to rest up, but how did they sleep? Anyone tell me, you want to go to sleep, you can't sleep when things are going, how is this possible? Obviously this was a spiritual preparation that they wanted to make in order to prepare themselves for 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. שואבת לה חיים it says, the neshama goes up and gets new sources of light. 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. Then why did Hashem complain? The complaint was, this was a wrong preparation. The whole idea of מתן תורה is not to go up and go away from the physical world. 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 the neshamah then. The problem the thing was that the neshamah matter did not mix with the physical matter. 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 matan Torah is. And that's why 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, you imagine he felt a little bit out of place. Malachim are all over, angels are all over, here's one human being. And the malachim looked around and they couldn't understand, they never saw that. They 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. So they said, \"What, he's going to receive the Torah?\" They turned around to Hashem and said, \"The Torah you're going to give 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.\" But the Gemara says Moshe was afraid. He says, \"I'm afraid they'll burn me בהבל פיהם with the fire of their mouth.\" Hashem said, \"Don't be afraid. Hold on to My כסא הכבוד, My throne, and answer them.\" So Moshe got the courage and says to the malachim like this: \"You know what it says in the Torah? Says in the תורה, 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 you might come to swear, you'll swear false? Says, keep Shabbos. Well, you work the 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? Do you have a yetzer hara? Do you have an evil inclination? What are you talking about?\" מיד הודו, they agreed. They said, \"You're right.\" Not only they weren't angry at him, but it says they all gave him presents even! The מלאך המות it says, gave him a present. What was his present? He gave him, he told him the secret. Told him if there is ever a מגפה, there is ever a plague, if you bring ketoret, you bring ketoret to Hashem, if you sacrifice spices to Hashem, it'll stop it. So that's the secret. It's hidden. 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 they Moshe and Aharon didn't know what to do, so Moshe told Aharon, now is the time. Go bring קטורת. And he brought the קטורת, and the מגפה stopped. But this all came because the Malach HaMaves gave him a present. But the other, all malachim gave him a present. But anyway, getting back to the story, what did Moshe Rabbeinu tell them why the Torah was given down here? The whole idea, he says, is because we have a yetzer hara, we have parents, we do business. The idea is, the whole purpose of מתן תורה 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 matter, 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 מתן תורה is, and that's why you couldn't give it to them.

We find other things which are along the same line. 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 להשם, to Hashem. Now, to Hashem means we should get involved in spiritual matters. Learn, daven. Then it says לכם means to you, meaning you should eat and sleep and have a good time. So the Gemara says, which one is it? 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. The other opinion is חציו לכם חציו להשם, 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 learn, and we also eat, we sleep, we have we divide it amongst the two. But then the Gemara says, this is all concerning Pesach and Sukkot and Rosh Hashanah. But Shavuot, everyone agrees that you have to eat. The other ימים טובים, according to one opinion you could fast, as long as all day you learn, so you take that side. Shavuot, 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 he should fast the day, that same day, even if it's Shabbos and Yom Tov. If a person wakes up Pesach morning with a bad dream and 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, it's not understood. If we want to, if we have to do something to show that we're happy that the Torah was given, in other words you should have said the din, that everybody must learn Torah on Shavuos. That 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 realm, spiritual world. 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 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 him 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, how many Yosef's would you have in the street? What he meant to say, if not for Shavuos, how many Joes and Johns you have in the street, you have them all. There would be nothing special in me. But since this day, that Torah was given, so that makes me special. So a lot of questions on this Gemara, and the Rebbe has all kinds of explanations, but the main point is, one of the questions, why does he mention how many Yosef's, 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 Avot, 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 Avot did, but בשוקא, Now the שוקא means in the marketplace, the street. The street would remain a street. A street is always a רשות הרבים, a public domain. The words \"public domain\", the the halacha, there is a halacha, 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. קליפה, 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 in 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 Matan Torah is all about. You find many other things which show the greatest comes down to the lowest. Just one more point along these lines: It 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. Now imagine: the first word of the עשרת הדברות, which includes the whole Torah, is Egyptian. Why would it not be Hebrew? And the answer is yes, that'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 עשרת הדברות: אנכי ה׳ 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 for? 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 that 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 עשרת הדברות He said, \"אנכי ה׳ אלקיך,\" I am Hashem your God, אלקיך, singular, He didn't say 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 Elokus into the world. And that is actually the mission that is given to every single Jew when a neshamah comes down to this world. That he's supposed to bring Elokus into himself, into his body, and also it says always חלקו בעולם, there's a certain share of gashmiyut of the world that everyone is assigned that his job is to bring Elokus 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 ה׳, 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'll be bimheirah biyameinu. Yes. You shouldn't throw it in the garbage. Tefillin, you're not allowed to, or sefarim, but טלית, על פי דין you're allowed to, but not in a form of a ביזיון, not in any embarrassing way. Also, same thing, same thing. Should throw it to sheimos. Yes. Not really. Before Matan Torah, there was no real neshamah. The neshamah, the people did not have a din of a Yid and they did not have that special godly neshamah, and by Matan Torah, 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 Matan Torah, because it was by Matan Torah this happened. So how how then would we speak about Jews before Matan Torah? 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 did everything Hashem wanted, but that part that came from Hashem down, that we didn't have yet. The Avot didn't have, and the Yidden until Matan Torah didn't have it. We're called a nation because we were different than others, we behaved differently, and that's how it became a אומה. But it says like in Mitzrayim the Rambam says that it was almost forgotten, and it could have been forgotten and we would have lost it. By Matan Torah it became in such a way that it can't change. Yeah, yeah. One way to look at that one, yeah, yeah. That's why all the neshamot were at Matan Torah, including the gerim, yeah. Okay. The reason we eat milchiks on Shavuot, we eat dairy on Shavuot, the reason is because the Torah was given on Shabbos, 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 kosher, they couldn't eat it. The only things they could do is eat milchiks, because that didn't have to be prepared. If it wouldn't be Shabbos they would shachat right on the spot and eat. You can't shachat on Shabbos, and they couldn't do anything, so they only could eat things which had no she'elot, so the only things were milchiks. There's another reason that says that Torah is compared to milk and honey, that to show that we appreciate the Torah we eat milchiks, but the better reason, the real reason is that. Yes. About milchiks? No, no, milchiks only the first day of Shavuot, that's all. The other day is Well, the first question of what the significance of staying up Shavuot night, well, like I've explained before what the reason is, because they didn't stay up then. The idea is to make up the mistake that they made then. But they thought stay away from the גוף is greater, and we know that to stay in the גוף and learn, that's the importance, that's what we have to do. And the minhag in, by chasidim at least is, that we stay up and we say tikkun. Not chasidim learn. Learn Gemara, whatever. By chasidim you stay up and you say tikkun. Tikkun was established by the Shelah, Yeshayah Horowitz, one of the big מקובלים, and this tikkun is a combination of many pesukim from Chumash and pesukim 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 mikvah. Why? Because Matan Torah took place early morning, and every year it takes place again, so in order to be ready for Matan Torah, so we go to the mikvah in the morning. That's concerning that question. The other question, Mashiach will come, we'll still do the mitzvot? Surely we will. Because after תחית המתים is already a different story, but by the time Mashiach will come, surely we'll have the בית המקדש and we'll have all the mitzvot, even those that we don't keep now we'll have to keep then. Yeah? Yeah. Well, it says all neshamot that from the future generations were all there, too, and they were not in bodies. That Right. Right. 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 is close to Hashem, that he cares about Hashem. That is true. That's one aspect. But the other aspect, which is the essence, whether we have a power, that special power that 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 and we're not asked to do, that shows our feeling more. But that's a different aspect. That does show that. That's why we should do more than we are expected. What did you ask me, Shimon? You were going to ask something, no? Ah, I see. Without? Oh, that was they did it like the בני נח, like a goy would do a mitzvah now. Okay, but it started already. Matan Torah, that was they were commanded. They were told by Hashem. No, no. Good. But so that that aspect of, what, shaychus to מצוות מילה אברהם got. Keep in mind Avraham Avinu started already שני אלפים תורה. The 2,000 years of Torah started then. So there was some aspect. Like מצות מילה started, so that nekudah in the neshamah which is connected to milah, he got, but then not the rest. Not the whole neshamah. Yeah. That's why he only reached, Chassidut says that, שורש הנבראים. He couldn't reach the בורא, just שורש הנבראים. Yeah. Very few. You want to know the truth? You want to know the truth? It says takeh that even those mitzvot that they were commanded, when Matan Torah came there was a difference. 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. Thank you, Rabbi. All right, very quickly, just give you guys 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, Shavuot 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're 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.