This is the mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah. Last week the topic was the first mitzvah of the Torah, which was the mitzvah of פרו ורבו, of being fruitful and multiplying, and as I explained that because that this is the first mitzvah, obviously it's the most important mitzvah, because that sets the tone, that's the beginning. So too, the last mitzvah is also the most important mitzvah, because since this is the end, obviously it shows that this is with what we finish. This is the climax, this is the end. So this is to what you're looking up to, so this must be the most important. There is a halacha by a שטר, by a document, that הכל הולך אחר החיתום, everything follows the end. Sometimes in a document you have a mistake and the law is in a legal, halachic legal document, at the end of the document you have to repeat the details that were written before of how much money it was or whatever the document is about. And if there is some kind of contradiction between the way it's written before to the end, we say הכל הולך אחר החיתום, everything follows the end. The end is what counts. So from there we learn out that anything in the Torah, or anything surrounding the Torah, the end is the most important thing. And it's self-understood also, because whatever you have, what's left in your mind, what's the impression that's left is always the end. You could speak about many things and the last thing is the one that sticks into your mind because the other things, even though you heard it, but there were other things on top of that, afterwards you said more. But the last thing, that's the one that stays with you. So always the last thing shows the most important part. So when we talk about the order of the mitzvot, since this is the last mitzvah in the Torah, this must be the most important one, or at least from a certain perspective, this is the most important mitzvah. The mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah is the last mitzvah because it's taken from the end of the Torah. It's taken from a pasuk where the pasuk says, ועתה כתבו לכם את השירה הזאת. Hashem said, now you shall write down this song. This refers to the שירה, the song of Haazinu. Haazinu, which is the end of the Chumash, Parshas Haazinu towards the end, and the pasuk says that there is a commandment that you have to write down the פרשה of Haazinu. And the law is you cannot write down פרשיות פרשיות, separate פרשיות. So in order to be able to write down the פרשה of Haazinu, you have to have a whole Sefer Torah. So from here, the chachamim learn out that there is a mitzvah to write a Sefer Torah. And let me read the halacha in the Rambam where he describes what the mitzvah is. This is the beginning of Hilchos Sefer Torah, of the laws of a Sefer Torah. The Rambam writes like this: מצות עשה על כל איש ואיש מישראל, there is a positive commandment upon every Jewish man, לכתוב ספר תורה לעצמו, to write a ספר תורה for himself. שנאמר, as it says, ועתה כתבו לכם את השירה, now it says you shall write this song to you. כלומר, it means, כתבו לכם תורה שיש בה שירה זו. What it really means is write the whole Torah, which will automatically include this שירה. How do we know that's what the pasuk means? לפי שאין כותבין את התורה פרשיות פרשיות, because you're not allowed to write separate portions of the Torah, and if the Torah wants us to write a certain portion, what he means is write the whole Torah so you'll have this. So from here we know that there is a mitzvah to write a ספר תורה. ואף על פי שהניחו לו אבותיו ספר תורה, and then the Rambam adds, even if a person inherited a ספר תורה, his parents left him a ספר תורה, מצוה לכתוב משלו, there is a mitzvah that he should write himself his own ספר תורה. ואם כתבו בידו, and if you write the Sefer Torah with your own hand, הרי הוא כאילו קיבלו מהר סיני, it's as if you received the Torah from הר סיני. So the Rambam describes that when you write this Sefer Torah, it's as if you receive the Torah from הר סיני. ואם אינו יודע לכתוב, if you don't know how to write yourself, you can't, not everyone is a סופר, אחרים כותבין לו, you can have others write for you. Which is like many mitzvot where you could have a shaliach, you could have an agent do it for you, and it's as if you did it. So you should write it yourself, and if you can't write it yourself, you should have at least somebody else write it for you. וכל המגיה ספר תורה ואפילו אות אחת, and if you fix one letter even in a ספר תורה, which means there's a mistake, and many times we find a mistake, and if you fix that, הרי הוא כאילו כתבו כולו, it's as if you wrote the whole Sefer Torah. Because when that mistake was there, the Sefer Torah was pasul, and therefore you did not have a Sefer Torah. The moment you fix the mistake, now you make the Sefer Torah כשר, so now it's as if you wrote the whole Sefer Torah, and you have fulfilled the mitzvah of Sefer Torah. This is where the Rambam, what at how the Rambam explains what is the mitzvah of Sefer Torah. There is a mitzvah on every single person to write a Sefer Torah, and if you write a Sefer Torah, or if you can't, you have someone else write for you, it's as if you received the Torah from Har Sinai.

The obvious question that comes right away to everybody is, if it's a mitzvah upon every single Jew to write a Sefer Torah, then why don't we find that every single Jew writes a Sefer Torah? Now, it's true that not every single Jew is able to write, as I said before, not everyone is a sofer, but the Rambam says that you could have someone else write the Sefer Torah for you as a shaliach, and then you fulfill the mitzvah as if you wrote it yourself. So why isn't it that every single Jew does this mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah? Hires somebody to write a Sefer Torah for him to fulfill this mitzvah. It's one of the 613 mitzvot. And it's not one of those mitzvot that don't apply nowadays. There are certain mitzvot among the 613 mitzvot that only apply in the time of the Beit HaMikdash, when we had Eretz Yisrael and the Beit HaMikdash with korbanot. So those mitzvot we don't have now. This, it doesn't say anywhere that this mitzvah is limited to the time of the Beit HaMikdash. So now we have a mitzvah, and it's a mitzvah on every single Jew. It's not a mitzvah on the community. Some people make a mistake and they think it's a mitzvah on the community to own a Sefer Torah. I'll repeat the Rambam again: מצות עשה על כל איש ואיש מישראל, it's a mitzvah on every single Jew man, Jewish person, Jewish man, לכתוב ספר תורה לעצמו, to write a Sefer Torah. So why isn't it that we all write a Sefer Torah, or have a Sefer Torah written for us at least? And we cannot say, well, this is one of those mitzvot that for some people, some some reason was neglected, and therefore, so we just don't keep that mitzvah. It's not true. גדולי ישראל, great tzadikim throughout generations, did not fulfill this, did not write a Sefer Torah. Great, and we can't say of those tzadikim that they did not fulfill the mitzvah. See, on us you can say, well, maybe we neglect, I mean, it's a hard mitzvah to do, we neglect it, which is not an answer anyway. There are many hard mitzvot and we don't neglect it, and even if it cost a lot of money, if that's the mitzvah, that's the mitzvah, we have to do it. But certainly concerning Gedolei Yisrael, we cannot say that they just neglected it and they didn't keep the mitzvah. So how is it that they don't keep the mitzvah? That's a very, very strong kashya. The answer is that the Rosh, one of the Rishonim, one of the great codifiers, poskim, the Rosh writes like this. He says that the purpose of the mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah was in order to be able to learn from it. The pasuk says, write the שירה, ללמדה, to be able to learn, you shall have the book to learn. So he says, those days, in the time of when the Chumash was written and later on the time of the Gemara, the Sefer Torah was the sefer in which they learned. And therefore, there was a mitzvah upon every single person to write a Sefer Torah, which would be the book in which you would learn, and that's part of this mitzvah. Nowadays, he says that we don't learn in the Sefer Torah anyway. Now what we do with the Sefer Torah is we only read on Shabbos, or whenever there's a קריאת התורה, we read from the Sefer Torah. So we don't use the Sefer Torah to read, what to learn. What we do use to learn are sefarim. Now we learn Mishnayot and we learn from the Gemara and we learn from Chumashim. So he says now the mitzvah is to have sefarim. The same mitzvah, now the mitzvah is to have sefarim. Sefarim, Gemarot, Chumashim, poskim, Shulchan Aruch, all these sefarim that we learn in, that's what the mitzvah is. And that's how the Shulchan Aruch paskent. So therefore, we see that why The question was, why don't we fulfill this mitzvah? Because now, as if to say, the mitzvah changed and now the mitzvah is to have sefarim, and therefore we don't have to write a Sefer Torah. But the question is, the Rambam says here that the mitzvah is to write a Sefer Torah, not just to own, to write. He says if you inherit a Sefer Torah, you do not fulfill the mitzvah, because the mitzvah is to write. So let's say that the mitzvah changed and now it's not a Sefer Torah, but it's sefarim. But the mitzvah still should be you should have to write sefarim. So the din should be that every single person should have to write the Gemara, should have in order to fulfill the mitzvah, should have to write chumash, write Gemara, write Shulchan Aruch, write the sefarim that we, to fulfill the mitzvah. And besides that, what is the meaning that the mitzvah changed? Did we ever hear of a thing as a mitzvah changing? Originally, the mitzvah was one way, then the mitzvah changed? We know one thing, that the mitzvah doesn't change. Lehavdil, the Conservative, the Reform, they say the mitzvot change. Used to be one way, now it changed. We know the mitzvah doesn't change. Mitzvah is נצחי. The Torah is eternal. Whatever the mitzvah was when Hashem gave it, the same mitzvah is now. So how can we say that originally the mitzvah was to write a Sefer Torah, and now it changed and the mitzvah is to have sefarim? How could we do that? And the answer to this is that the mitzvah didn't change. The mitzvah never was to write a Sefer Torah. The mitzvah originally was that you should have the books in which to learn. So the mitzvah is having the books in which to learn. The fact that the Rambam says that you have to write the Sefer Torah, it's not because that's part of the mitzvah of Sefer Torah. That's because it used to be that the book was the sefer Torah. Part of the halacha of a sefer Torah is for it to be written. In other words, it's not because of the mitzvah that we have to have a sefer Torah that we have to write it, it's because it's a sefer Torah. Now that the mitzvah changed—not because the mitzvah changed, because now we learn in other sefarim. Other sefarim don't have that concept of being written. Sefer Torah, we know, one of the things that come along with a sefer Torah is you have to write it. If the mitzvah is to have a sefer Torah, and by a sefer Torah there's a concept of writing, so the mitzvah is to write a sefer Torah. Now that the mitzvah is not a sefer Torah, because we don't learn from it, and the mitzvah really is to have what to learn from, so now that the mitzvah is sefarim, you don't have to write it, because there is no concept of writing when it comes to sefarim. What's wrong if it's printed? And what's wrong if you don't if you buy it? There's nothing wrong. You have to do an act to fulfill the mitzvah. Now the act could be through buying a sefer. That's the act. But in those days, when it was through a sefer Torah, then there was a mitzvah of writing. Just to use an example, I'm getting a little bit too much involved in the lamdut of it, but this is what we're doing here. There is a mitzvah, for instance, on Yom Tov that you have to be happy, ושמחת בחגך, you have to be happy. How are you happy on Yom Tov? So the Gemara says, אין שמחה אלא בבשר. The way you can be happy is if you eat meat. Originally, it meant that you had to bring a korban, a special korban, a special sacrifice, and you would eat the meat of that sacrifice. And there are many halachot that involve meat of a sacrifice: how you could eat it, where you could eat it—you can't eat the meat all over, only in Yerushalayim, and can't eat it for more than a day, two days and a night, all kinds of laws that apply. It says, nowadays, that we don't have a korban, so there are opinions that hold that with just eating regular meat, we fulfill the mitzvah of ושמחת בחגך, of being happy on Yom Tov by eating meat. Now automatically, all those laws that applied to eating the meat of the korbanot don't apply nowadays, because it's not a korban. But someone might ask, how did the mitzvah change? The mitzvah used to be that you have to eat meat and you can't eat it out of Yerushalayim and all kinds of laws. Now we eat meat, for to fulfill the mitzvah, and there's a new law, that we could eat it after three days and you don't have to eat it in Yerushalayim. The answer is, the fact that you had to eat it in Yerushalayim had nothing to do with the mitzvah of שמחת יום טוב. שמחת יום טוב is the mitzvah. If the mitzvah is done through a korban, then all the laws of a korban apply. When the mitzvah is done through regular meat, those laws don't apply. The same thing here. The mitzvah is to have a sefer in which to learn. When the sefer was a Sefer Torah, so all the laws that are connected to Sefer Torah would apply to that mitzvah. The law is, a Sefer Torah has to be written, so you'd have to write it. Nowadays, that the mitzvah is through other sefarim, and there is no concept of writing other sefarim, so then you don't have to write the sefarim. And that's why we fulfill the mitzvah now through buying a set of Mishnayot, through buying a set of Gemara, through buying any sefarim that you learn, Shulchan Aruch. Doing that, we fulfill this mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah. But the question is it's still not finished 100%, this still doesn't answer the question 100%, because if this is so, then why don't we pasken, why don't we say that every child who becomes bar mitzvah and is automatically obligated to fulfill every mitzvah, the moment he becomes bar mitzvah he has to do every mitzvah like any adult, why isn't a din, why don't we find that a child who becomes bar mitzvah, the night of his bar mitzvah should have to go out and buy sefarim? Because you have to do an act to fulfill this mitzvah. You don't have to write because sefarim has no din of writing, but you have to go and buy it. Now, a bar mitzvah bachur gets a lot of presents, so he gets a lot of sefarim as presents, fine. And what happens if he happens not to get a present, sefarim? And what happen- and even if he gets it, since you have to do something for the mitzvah, you would have to at least do the act of buying. If the mitzvah is that we have to buy sefarim nowadays like it used to be the mitzvah to write a Sefer Torah, so every bar mitzvah boy should have to, the night he becomes bar mitzvah, right away to be able to go and buy sefarim. He should, not be able, he should have to go out and buy sefarim. And besides, even if we claim that nowadays we fulfill this mitzvah by sefarim, it definitely is better if we do it through a Sefer Torah. So why don't we find that all the gedolim, the tzaddikim would try, even though they had a lot of sefarim, but wouldn't they try at least to write a Sefer Torah, to fulfill the mitzvah more b'hidur, which would be better? And there were many that didn't do it, and even those that did do it, didn't do it the first chance when they became bar mitzvah or as soon as they could. Many of them throughout their lifetime, years later at one point they wrote a Sefer Torah, if they did. And it's definitely a greater hidur, it's better if you would fulfill it through writing a Sefer Torah. So why is it that they didn't write a Sefer Torah? Now, it's possible to say that being we belong to a community, and the community owns a Sefer Torah, the shul here, the shul owns a Sefer Torah, and we are all members or part of the shul, so we are all partners in this Sefer Torah that is owned by the shul. So m'meila maybe we fulfill the mitzvah by doing that. The truth is it's not so. Many opinions hold that you do not fulfill this mitzvah through a ספר תורה של שותפים, of partners. You have to have your own Sefer Torah. If a few partners together, together would buy a Sefer Torah or have a Sefer Torah written, many opinions hold that you do not fulfill the mitzvah of כתיבת ספר תורה, having a Sefer Torah. It has to be your own personal Sefer Torah. You have to have a Sefer Torah written for you. So we can't answer that we fulfill the mitzvah besides the sefarim, but we fulfill the special mitzvah of the Sefer Torah by the shul owning or the tzibbur, the community owning a Sefer Torah. So there must be something more to it. So again I get, to get a little bit into the lamdus and then I'll go to the other direction of more of the derush of it, but the lamdus of the Sefer Torah, so the Rebbe says, to explain this he says he's going to say a chiddush. A chiddush, he's going to give a new insight into the mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah. And the Rebbe says like this:

We find a halacha, sounds like a pilpul, but it is, we find a halacha that an etrog, in order to fulfill the mitzvah of etrog it has to be yours. You can't borrow an etrog. It has to be yours. The pasuk says ולקחתם לכם, ye shall take to you, it has to be yours. You can't be yotzei with an etrog that belongs to partners, you can't have five people together owning an etrog, it has to be yours exclusively. Nowadays, thank God, we're able to afford, and everybody's able to buy an etrog for himself. Years ago, people were poor and they would probably have one etrog to a city, one etrog to a community. So, the Shulchan Aruch it says that when the community buys an etrog, when every person, each individual takes the etrog and makes the blessing over it to fulfill the mitzvah, at that moment the etrog becomes his. The etrog is given over to him. It belongs to everybody, but everybody who is a partner gives up their partnership to this individual when he bentshes the etrog. That's the halacha, and therefore at that moment it becomes his and he has a Sefer Torah. And therefore we could say the same thing with a Sefer Torah: the Sefer Torah that belongs to the community, every time a person gets an aliyah on the Sefer Torah, and he layns in the Sefer Torah, when you get an aliyah you read it, actually there's someone else who reads it with you out loud, but you read it along, at that moment, everybody else gives up their right, and it becomes your Sefer Torah. So you own the Sefer Torah when you use it to read. But the question is that doesn't help because we said before that the mitzvah is to write the Sefer Torah. It's not enough to own it, so that time it becomes yours. So when you have an aliyah, you didn't write it now. So let's say a person gets a present, a Sefer Torah, for 10 minutes. So now he owns it, but he doesn't fulfill the mitzvah anyway because you have to write it. So the Rebbe says, we go a step further. When the Sefer Torah is written for the community, it's he calls it לב בית דין מתנה, it's as if it's an accepted fact that the one that writes the Sefer Torah, writes it for each individual person's sake in a way that when this person will get the aliyah, this person will own the Sefer Torah. So it turns out that when it was written, it was written for him, so he has the Sefer Torah. Which by the way, this is just a by the way thing, that's why it's important from time to time to have an aliyah, besides all other reasons why it's important to have an aliyah. Because when you get an aliyah, so then you have all kinds of you learn Torah and all kinds of great things of segulot, we once spoke about, had a shiur on having an aliyah. But besides all that, when you have an aliyah, that's when the Sefer Torah becomes yours, and retroactive it works from the time the Sefer Torah was written, so it was written for you. And what about those children that became Bar Mitzvah after the Sefer Torah was written? So when it was written, they weren't born yet, or they weren't Bar Mitzvah yet, so it can't be written for them. So the Rebbe says, that's not a problem either, because from time to time you fix the Sefer Torah. And when you fix the Sefer Torah, we said that's as if it's written then. So when it's fixed, it's fixed with in mind whether the people have it in mind or not. It's automatic. Hashem had built it into this mitzvah that when it's fixed, or when it's written, it's on the mind that this is going to be for all the people who later on will have aliyot, and when he has an aliyah, it becomes his, so he owns the Sefer Torah when he learns and it's written for this person. We see that this actually happened the first, first beginning when this mitzvah was given. Let's think about it. This mitzvah was given, we learn about it as we said before, it's the last mitzvah, it's the end of Chumash. The end of Chumash talks about what happened the day Moshe Rabbeinu passed away, which is very, the very, very end of the 40 years in the desert. On that day, Hashem commanded Moshe Rabbeinu to write this mitzvah, that everyone has to write a Sefer Torah. Now, we would imagine that when Hashem commanded them to do a mitzvah, they would right away do it. Now, how is it possible for 600,000 people to be able to fulfill the mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah right then and there? You know what you need for that, for 600,000 Yidden to write a Sefer Torah? You know how much time you need, how much סופרים you need, you know how much parchment you need, you know how much ink you need, you know where would you get it? How did they do it then? How did the Jews fulfill the mitzvah right away? And if Hashem told them to do it, it only makes sense that they would do it right away. How did they fulfill the mitzvah? Impossible. The answer is on that day Moshe Rabbeinu wrote 13 Sifrei Torah, which is also how did Moshe write 13 Sifrei Torah in one day? What was the חשבון of 13? 12 for each שבט, he gave each שבט a Sefer Torah for his שבט, and one was left in the משכן to be together with the ארון. When Moshe Rabbeinu gave the Sefer Torah to the שבט, and he wrote a Sefer Torah for that שבט, Moshe Rabbeinu had in mind that each person, this is written for each individual, that when each individual Jew is going to use the Sefer Torah to look into and to read, it is for his sake that he wrote it. And that's how every single Jew fulfilled the mitzvah of כתיבת ספר תורה. And the Rebbe says, this is how we fulfill now. In other words, we fulfill it by buying Sefarim, but buying Sefarim is not the hiddur, not the best, because the best way to do it is through writing a Sefer Torah, actual Sefer Torah. So we fulfill it this way, by having an aliyah, and being part of the community, that the Sefer Torah was written for this community and you're part of it, it was written for you, that's how we fulfill the mitzvah. So, by the way, what we see from here is the importance of having Sefarim, and we also see the importance of buying a letter in a Sefer Torah. We know that many times there are letters sold, different communities write a Sefer Torah, you buy a letter. So even though, as we said before, many, many poskim hold that by owning a ספר תורה בשותפות, in partnership, you do not fulfill the mitzvah, so if you have 100,000 people buying letters in one Sefer Torah, so the Sefer Torah is owned by all these partners, according to them you do not fulfill the mitzvah, but nevertheless, you have a you're doing an act in connection to the mitzvah of a Sefer Torah, and that's a very important mitzvah.

Now let's get to the point of how is this mitzvah the most important mitzvah? I started out by saying that this mitzvah, being that's the last mitzvah, and הכל הולך אחר החיתום, everything goes at the end, and we know the order in Torah, not only what it says in the Torah, but the order of mitzvot is also exact, and since this is the end, obviously there is something very special about this mitzvah. So to tell you to understand what is so special about this mitzvah, I'll look and repeat the Rambam again. The Rambam says here that when a person writes a ספר תורה, הרי הוא כאילו קיבלה מהר סיני. By fulfilling the mitzvah of write כתיבת ספר תורה, it's as if you received the Torah from הר סיני. Imagine what this mitzvah means. We hardly say by any other mitzvah that when you do this mitzvah, it's as if you're standing by הר סיני. Imagine, the beginning of everything was מתן תורה by הר סיני. That's the most important thing. That's the first, that's the foundation of all mitzvot is standing by הר סיני. This mitzvah, the Rambam says, when you do this mitzvah, it's as if you're standing by הר סיני. So that's why this is the end. The beginning of all mitzvot is הר סיני, that's where all mitzvot come from, and the end, the last mitzvah of all mitzvot, is a mitzvah which makes you relive, it's as if you're standing by הר סיני. When you do the mitzvah of writing a ספר תורה, now the truth is even if you do it through ספרים, but if you really do it through writing a ספר תורה, or owning one and you fix it, mamash it's as if, Hashem says it's as if you received the Torah from הר סיני. Because this is such an important thing that by writing a ספר תורה it's as if you received it from הר סיני, this explains an interesting point when it comes to this mitzvah. As I said before, this mitzvah was given mamash the last day before Moshe Rabbeinu passed away. And the question is why did Hashem wait with giving him this mitzvah of writing a ספר תורה till the very, very end of the 40 years in the desert? We know that throughout the 40 years in the desert, Hashem gave them all the mitzvot, slowly: this mitzvah, that mitzvah. Why did he wait with this mitzvah till the very end? Now, some might say, very simple reason: because the mitzvah is to write the whole Torah, so you have to wait till the end till the whole Torah is there to be able to write it. But that's not so. We find other mitzvot which did not apply till later, and nevertheless, Hashem told them earlier. For instance, the mitzvah of tefillin. What's the mitzvah of tefillin? The mitzvah of tefillin is to have the box, and inside the box, we have the four portions that are written on the parchment. Now part of it, שמע ישראל, ואהבת, and והיה אם שמוע, which are the two of the four portions of the of the tefillin, were not said to the Jews till the last few weeks of the 40 years. When was the mitzvah of tefillin told to them? When they left Mitzrayim! 40 years earlier they were already told that they have to put on tefillin. So we see that the Torah didn't care to tell them a mitzvah to do even though it wasn't possible till do it later. Many mitzvot only applied to begin with when the Jews were in ארץ ישראל, and Hashem told them all the mitzvot earlier. Even concerning a ספר תורה, earlier we find in Chumash that one of the mitzvot is that a king must have an extra ספר תורה. Besides the ספר תורה that everyone is supposed to have, a king is supposed to have an extra one. And that was written in earlier פרשיות, and that's concerning a ספר תורה. So why is it that Hashem waited with telling the Jews this mitzvah that they have to write a ספר תורה till the very, very end of the 40 years? And the answer is, as I just said, the mitzvah of writing a ספר תורה, the quality of the mitzvah, the meaning behind the mitzvah is as if the Jew received the Torah from הר סיני. When the Jews were at the end of the 40 years, and Moshe Rabbeinu was going to pass away, that era, that period of מתן תורה was coming to an end. And Hashem wanted that that should continue. As long as Moshe Rabbeinu was alive, even though the generation was a new generation that did not re- remember were not by מתן תורה, because throughout the 40 years, the people who came out of Mitzrayim and stood by מתן תורה had already died, and this was already a new generation. But as long as Moshe Rabbeinu was alive, and Moshe Rabbeinu was the one that brought them the Torah, they constantly felt מתן תורה. Moshe Rabbeinu was going to pass away, now Hashem said, now is the time for to give them a mitzvah that will re- make them relive מתן תורה. And the truth is, there is a mitzvah of remembering מתן תורה every day. We know there are six mitzvot that you have to remember every day. We say it at the end of davenen every morning, שש זכירות. Think, six things to remember. We have to remember Yetziat Mitzrayim, we have to remember the story with Miriam, we have to remember Amalek, and one of the things that you have to remember is מתן תורה. So we have a mitzvah to remember it. But still, we all know that remembering is one thing, which means knowing about it in your mind is one thing, and seeing it is something else. We have a rule, אינה דומה ראיה לשמיעה. Seeing is believing. Hearing is one thing. When you hear something and it's true and it's fine, you know it, fine. But when you see something, it's really, really true in your mind. As long as the people remembered מתן תורה, or as long as they were able to see Moshe Rabbeinu, they actually saw the person that gave them the Torah, so they lived מתן תורה every day in a form of seeing. Afterwards, what is it? We remember מתן תורה. Every day we have to remember it, remember it, we hear it. That even though Moshe Rabbeinu is going away from this world, and they will not see him, this will be a mitzvah that they will relive מתן תורה. And this is the mitzvah. The mitzvah is הרי כאילו קיבלו מהר סיני, as if you received the Torah from Har Sinai. And that's why it was given at the end. Till then there was not only the mitzvah didn't apply, the whole mitzvah is based on the fact that they're finishing with the 40 years. Because they're finishing, that's why there is a mitzvah. That's why Hashem gave them this mitzvah then. The truth is, there is another mitzvah that was also given to them the same day, right before this one, and we have the same question: why did Hashem wait with that mitzvah? And I spoke about this once, and that's the mitzvah of Hakhel. The mitzvah of Hakhel is that Hashem said that every seven years, the year right after Shemitah, like this year, all the people have to gather in the בית המקדש during Sukkos. Besides the people who would come anyway for Yom Tov because there was a mitzvah of עלייה לרגל, they had to go up for Yom Tov, but everybody, men, women, children, babies, would have to be brought to the בית המקדש, and the king would read for them certain portions of the Torah. And that mitzvah was given also at the end of the 40 years the same day. And we have the same question: why did Hashem wait with this mitzvah till the end? And again, we can't say because it didn't apply till afterwards, because many mitzvot didn't apply till the Jews entered Eretz Yisrael, and Hashem gave them the mitzvah earlier. Why did he give them this mitzvah so late? And the answer is the same answer. When we look into the Rambam, when he describes the mitzvah of Hakhel, you know what he says? I'll read you certain words here. He says everybody has to listen to Hakhel, everybody has to come to listen to the king, even people who don't understand have to stand there and listen. And know what he says? ויראה עצמו, every person would feel at the time when they stood by Hakhel listening to the king, כאילו עתה נצטווה בה as if now he's being commanded, ומפי הגבורה שומעה as if he's listening to Hashem speaking. שהמלך שליח הוא להשמיע דברי האל, because the king was the shaliach of Hashem to give over the words of Hashem. Which means that the mitzvah of Hakhel was another mitzvah that was supposed to make the Yidden relive Matan Torah. That was the purpose of the mitzvah. And it's the same reason why Hashem waited with this mitzvah till the end, because this whole purpose of the mitzvah is because now that you're finished with the 40 years, and Moshe Rabbeinu is now going away from this world, and you will not see the person that brought you the Torah, so you will remember Matan Torah, fine, but you will not see anything that's connected to Matan Torah. So Hashem said, now is the time to give you a mitzvah that by doing this mitzvah you will relive Matan Torah. So he gave them the mitzvah of Hakhel, and he said, do this, and every seven years by doing this you will relive Matan Torah, you will see Matan Torah. And the same is with the mitzvot of writing a Sefer Torah. At the end of this 40 years, when Moshe Rabbeinu was going away from this world, Hashem said, now I'm giving you this mitzvah. By doing this mitzvah you will as if you received it from Sinai, and therefore you will be reliving Matan Torah. The only question that comes up, as everyone would probably ask, but why do we need these two mitzvot? If the whole reason was that the Yidden should be able to relive Matan Torah, then one mitzvah would be enough. Give him one mitzvah, or the mitzvot of Hakhel, which would make him relive Matan Torah, or the mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah, which makes them relive Matan Torah. Why two mitzvot? And the answer is very simple, because Matan Torah had two aspects to it. And it's because of these two aspects that we need to relive both, and that's why there are two mitzvot. What are the two parts of Matan Torah? Very simple, I mean, it's something that's it's very obvious. What were we given by Matan Torah? Everyone knows we were given the Torah and the mitzvot. We always use the term Torah u-mitzvot. We were given the mitzvot to do, and we were given the Torah to learn. You learn Torah, from there you know what to do, true. But still there are two separate ענינים. There is the concept of learning Torah, so we have the Torah to learn, and we get we got the Torah by Matan Torah, so we have the books, so to speak, to learn. And then we have mitzvot that we were given that we have to keep. When we look into the reasons of the mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah and the mitzvah of Hakhel, we'll see that it fits to these two. The mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah, we said before, was to learn. As we said before, it's not even a mitzvah to write a Sefer Torah, but there's a purpose, so we should have the books in which to learn, which therefore nowadays you're יוצא also through the write through having sefarim. So, the mitzvah is to learn. What was the purpose of the מצוה of הקהל? The purpose of the מצוה of הקהל was to strengthen the yirat Shamayim, the fear of Hashem, to strengthen the fulfillment of mitzvah. Now, I'll read you what the Rambam says, when the Rambam speaks about הקהל, מצות עשה. There is a מצוה להקהיל כל ישראל, to gather all the יידן, אנשים, נשים וטף, men, women, and children, בכל מוצאי שמיטה, every year after שמיטה, בעלותם לרגל, when they would go up to יום טוב to ירושלים, ולקרות באזניהם מן התורה, to read in their ears from the תורה פרשיות, those portions, שמזרזות אותן במצות, those portions that strengthen them in doing מצוות, ומחזקות ידיהם בדת האמת, and strengthen their hands in the true religion, which is the fulfillment of the מצוות. And later on again, the רמב\"ם says that everyone had to listen, even those people who couldn't understand, חייבים להכין לבם, they had to put their heart, ולהקשיב אזנם, and to listen, לשמוע באימה ויראה וגילה ברעדה, to listen with fear, כיום שניתנה בו בסיני, as if they were standing by הר סיני. ואפילו חכמים גדולים שיודעים כל התורה כולה, on the other hand, even the greatest חכמים that know the whole תורה, חייבים לשמוע בכוונה גדולה, you're supposed to listen with great כוונה, שלא קבעה הכתוב אלא לחזק דת האמת, because the Torah only established this mitzvah of הקהל to strengthen the religion, to strengthen the fulfillment of the mitzvot. In other words, they're two sep- they go together, but they're two separate details. The mitzvah of הקהל is to strengthen the קיום המצוות, the fulfillment of the mitzvot, and therefore the means is that by fulfilling the mitzvah of הקהל, what happened was we felt as if we were standing by matan Torah and received the mitzvot. And when we write a Sefer Torah, we also feel and relive matan Torah. Which aspect of matan Torah? The fact that Hashem gave us the Torah which to learn. Which by the way, explains an interesting point. There's these are two mitzvot we're talking about, the two last mitzvot of the Torah, the mitzvah of hakhel and the mitzvah of writing a sefer Torah. It's interesting that the mitzvah of hakhel is not a mitzvah on each individual person. It's a mitzvah on the community. Hakhel has to be done, and it's actually the mitzvah on the king, that the king should gather the people, but it's not a mitzvah that each individual is supposed to fulfill. The king is supposed to make sure that everyone comes, but not a mitzvah on the on the יחיד. The mitzvah of writing a sefer Torah is a mitzvah on each individual person. And I'll tell you why. The mitzvah of learning Torah is something that has to do with each individual. Not everyone is the same. Some people understand more, some people less. Even how much to learn depends. In Shulchan Aruch we find different הלכות. Some people have to learn all day, and some people who are busy or can't learn fulfill the mitzvah of learning by learning less. So, the mitzvah of learning Torah is an individual mitzvah. It's tailor-made to each individual person. But the concept of doing mitzvot is not tailor-made. It's one mitzvah for all. There's no such thing as one person could do the mitzvah one way, and one person could do the mitzvah the other way. Everyone does the mitzvah the same way. And therefore the mitzvah of hakhel, which has to do with mitzvot, is a mitzvah that has to do with everyone equally. The mitzvah of writing a sefer Torah, which is connected to learning, that's an individual thing. Everyone has his own individual mitzvah. And by matan Torah, we see there were both things. Hashem, when by matan Torah, gave the Torah individually and gave the Torah to everyone together. How does matan Torah start? With עשרת הדברות: אנכי השם אלקיך אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים. I am God your God, singular. Why did Hashem say it singular? Why didn't He say plural: I am Hashem the God of all of you? Why did He say, I am Hashem your God? And there are two opposite reasons, and they're both true. One reason is because Hashem spoke to all of the Jews as one, as one unit, to the whole community as one. That's why He said it singular. On the other hand, there's another interpretation that Hashem spoke to every single individual person separately. When He said the עשרת הדברות, He spoke to him and to him, so He said to him individually, I am your God. I am your God. I am your God. Two opposites. On one hand, we're saying it's to all together, and one is saying to everyone individually. It's both true. He spoke He gave the Torah to everybody and He gave to each one individually. And where do we see the difference? The difference is between learning Torah and doing mitzvot. Learning Torah is something that's individual, every person could learn according to his level, but doing mitzvot is one for everybody because we all do the same thing. And that's the difference between the mitzvah of Hakhel, which is for mitzvot, and that's why it's a mitzvah on the community, and it's a mitzvah that reminds us of מתן תורה, the mitzvot aspect of מתן תורה, and the mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah is for the learning, and that's each individual, that's why each individual has his own mitzvah.

But from all this, what comes out, the bottom line is, we see from here the importance, number one, of if a person is able to write a Sefer Torah, he certainly fulfills this mitzvah in a better way than doing it through the other ways, and therefore those that are fortunate and do it, very good, but on the other hand, we also see how other people who don't do it are not neglecting this mitzvah. Number one, because of what we said, the aliyot we have in the Sefer Torah belongs to the community, and number two, the sefarim that we buy, which by the way brings out another point: the importance of having sefarim, buying sefarim. Some people think that you buy sefarim, it's just, yeah, it's fine, but there's nothing so special. According to the Rosh, and that's the halacha, we fulfill a mitzvat aseh, positive commandment in the Torah, by having sefarim, by buying sefarim. And every time we buy a sefer, we fulfill that mitzvah. And that helps us in learning. Besides, there's another thing: when you have a house full of sefarim, if it's a בית מלא ספרים, a house full of sefarim, then besides fulfilling the mitzvah of every time you have the sefer of writing a Sefer Torah, similar to writing a Sefer Torah, it brings a different atmosphere into the home and it gives the home a kedusha. What makes the home holy? Number one, doing the mitzvot that you do in the home. Make a bracha when you eat, you do other mitzvot, but the home should have sefarim, and it becomes part of the home. You see, it's not just that there is a home and in the home you have sefarim, what you have to do is make that the home is a home of sefarim. If it's a home of sefarim, then the home is a holy home. And the Rebbe once expressed himself that if you have a house of sefarim, when the בית דין של מעלה, the בית דין of above, judges a person, and they say, \"Well, we got to see how this person behaves,\" so they say, \"Well, let's go down, let's check him out, let's see what's happening.\" And if the בית דין של מעלה and the malachim and whoever they are come down, and they peek through the window, and they say, \"Yeah, we don't know, let's see what kind of home this is,\" and they see from far, \"Oh, there's a big bookcase here, and it has all kinds of sefarim instead of lehavdil having all kinds of books, goyishe books, or lehavdil having all kinds of videos, they have This is a house that has, look, it has chumashim and mishnayot and Gemara and and Rambam and Shulchan Aruch, and it has sefarim.\" Ah, straightaway, ודאי דער בית דין של מעלה says, \"We have nothing to check out here. We see this guy's a good guy.\" And they leave. And they have they don't judge the person in a negative way, because they see where this person belongs to. And this is why one of the mivtzaim, you know the Rebbe came out with the 10 mivtzaim, one of the mivtzaim is that people should have a house full of sefarim. And people ask, when the Rebbe came out with mivtzaim, meaning, he chose specific mitzvot were very important, and he said if you do those, this will be the foundation of becoming more frum, what were the mivtzaim? The mivtzaim was tefillin, mezuzah, kashrut, taharat hamishpachah, well, these are all things we could imagine, these are the foundations of Yiddishkeit. But then, one of the mivtzaim is to have a house full of sefarim, to buy sefarim. Well, why is that a foundation of Yiddishkeit? So the answer is, number one, it is a mitzvah, as we said before, and not just a mitzvah, but the last mitzvah, which means it's the most important mitzvah. But besides that, it is a foundation in the person's attitude. If a person knows that his house has to be a house full of sefarim, then automatically this brings the whole atmosphere of the house to a higher מדריגה, and this brings Yiddishkeit and kedushah into the home. And that's why Korach, one of the טענות he had against Moshe Rabbeinu was connected, he came to him and he said, \"A house full of sefarim needs a mezuzah?\" It still needs a mezuzah, but there is a concept of a house full of sefarim, the importance of it. And what's important to the shiur tonight is that by having sefarim, we fulfill this last mitzvah of the תרי״ג מצוות, which is the mitzvah of by of of the writing a Sefer Torah, by doing this, we have this מצות עשה. Yes. This is a mitzvah for men, right, this mitzvah is for men. Yeah, like tefillin is for men. Other mitzvot aren't, mezuzah is for everybody, this mitzvah happens to be a mitzvah for men, right. But as I explained last week, when it comes to other mitzvot, if the women help the men do the mitzvah, they encourage them and they help them, they have a share in the mitzvah. So if the wife makes sure that her husband buys sefarim, or when she wants to buy him a birthday present, and she chooses to buy him a sefer, and now he has a sefer, she has a share in this mitzvah. So even though she wasn't told to do it, but she has a share in the mitzvah as if she was a mitzvah v'oseh, as if she was commanded to do it. So it's important for the men, but it's also important for the women. Okay.