The subject today is a continuation of the other shiurim we had the last few weeks which is concerning tefillah, concerning davening. And we went through some parts of davening, like מודה אני and then פסוקי דזמרה, and ברכות קריאת שמע, then beginning of Kriat Shema, and then the first parashah of Kriat Shema. Today we will discuss basically the second part of the first portion of Kriat Shema, including the second parashah of Kriat Shema. The first part of Kriat Shema starts with שמע ישראל השם אלוקינו השם אחד, and continues on into ואהבת את השם אלוקיך בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך ובכל מאדך. You shall love Hashem with all your heart, with all your soul, all your life, all your might, with all your money, with all your, as we explained, בלי גבול, in an unlimited way. And that we explained in the other shiur, the difference between the three levels of love, etc., etc. And then the pasuk continues after that: ושננתם לבניך, you shall teach the Torah, which means you shall learn Torah yourself and you shall teach it to others. Then it says: וקשרתם לאות על ידך, you shall tie it as a sign on your hands and it shall be for frontlets between your eyes, which is the mitzvah of tefillin. Then it goes on: וכתבתם על מזוזות ביתך ובשעריך, you shall write these words on the mezuzot and put it on the doorposts of your home. That is the second half of the first portion, of the first parashah of Kriat Shema. Then we go into the second part of Kriat Shema, and the second part of Kriat Shema is a continuation of the first part, and there it talks about mitzvot again. As I said, the second half of the first portion of Kriat Shema talks about mitzvot, about learning Torah and doing mitzvot, and then the second part of Kriat Shema talks completely about doing mitzvot. והיה אם שמוע תשמעו אל מצותי, you will listen to My mitzvot, and it goes on about the reward that you will get and, God forbid, the punishment a person would get if he does not listen. And then it again goes back to a specific mitzvah that you shall put on tefillin, you shall learn Torah, you shall have the mitzvah of mezuzah. It goes into the concept of mitzvot. Now, it seems from here that when it talks about learning Torah and doing mitzvot, this is a continuation to the beginning of the Kriat Shema which is the mitzvah of loving Hashem. It says you shall love Hashem, and it goes through the different levels of loving Hashem, and then it says you shall learn Torah and do mitzvot, and then it repeats itself in the second parsha, you shall do mitzvot and learn Torah. And it makes sense. We understand that if a person loves someone, what will happen is he will do what that person would like him to do. He certainly will not do anything against the will of that person. And the same is concerning Hashem, that if you love Hashem, which is the beginning of שמע, ואהבת את השם אלוקיך, automatically it will bring the person to do Hashem's will. And therefore, it says you shall study His Torah, that's what He wants you to do. You shall put on tefillin, you shall put up a mezuzah, and really it means all the mitzvot, as it continues in the next portion: והיה אם שמוע תשמעו אל מצותי, you will listen to My mitzvot, meaning all the mitzvot. So, it's a natural result of loving Hashem that it will bring the person to do the mitzvot. But in truth, when we start thinking about it more in detail, when you do something, even though it comes as a result of your loving that person, the doing is not the love. The doing is just a result of loving. Loving someone is a feeling. Loving Hashem is a feeling. As the Rambam describes what loving Hashem means, in Hilchot Teshuvah he describes loving Hashem, he says, means when a person feels close, a person feels longing to Hashem. His heart feels that he wants to be close to Hashem. And he even uses an example: just like a person who loves somebody else, and he actually uses an example of a person, a man loving a woman, that's what he says, that if you really love this woman, you will constantly think about her, your heart will feel דבוק, will feel connected to the person. So, really, the love is a feeling. So, just like it's by a human being, so too by Hashem. It's a feeling that you have towards Hashem. The fact that you will do what Hashem wants you to do, learn His Torah and do His mitzvot That is a result of the love. That is not the love itself. That is a result of the love. Since you love Hashem, you will do what Hashem wants you to do. So, using the terminology of Chasidut, this is only a דבר חיצוני, this is only basically a superficial part. Just like when you love someone, the actual thing that you do is only a דבר חיצוני, a superficial part of your love. The real love is in your heart. As a result of what you love, there will be something that you will do. There's a certain behavior that comes a result as a result of the love, but this is not what the love itself is. So here in the parsha, when the parsha tells us ואהבת את השם אלקיך, you shall love Hashem, really what he should have continued is describing what it means to love Hashem. He just says you will love השם בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך ובכל מאדך, and then right away he continues into doing the mitzvot, learning Torah and doing the mitzvot, and then goes on into the second parashah, which is again about doing the mitzvot, learning Torah and doing the specific mitzvot which includes all the mitzvot, when it seems like he's missing what love of Hashem is. This should have been a separate area when we talk about doing the mitzvot, which is the will of Hashem, and we're supposed to do the will of Hashem. But since the whole concept of Shema is the feeling that we're supposed to have in our heart, so here it should have described how to love Hashem, what to think that will bring you to love Hashem. As the Rambam says, כיצד היא הדרך לאהבתו, what is the way a person could love Hashem, so he says look, you should yitbonen when you think about the greatness of Hashem, as we've been explaining all the weeks. So when you think about the greatness of Hashem, you will love him. So it should have given us some details: what love means, how you come to love. But instead, what does the Kriat Shema mainly focus on? From the second half of the first parashah, going going into the second parashah, mainly about doing mitzvot, which is a technical, practical thing, but not the feeling of love, which seems to be the mitzvah of ahavah. The mitzvah is ואהבת את השם אלקיך, you shall love. So the mitzvah is a feeling. That's what it should focus on, not on the result of the mitzvah, as important as it is, because the result of ahavah is important, you're going to do the mitzvot, but it should have focused on the ahavah itself. Why does the Kriat Shema straight from mentioning, talking about loving Hashem, go straight into learning Torah and doing mitzvot?

The possible answer to this would have been that when it comes to loving Hashem, one might say it is impossible really to love Hashem. Why? It's only possible to love something that you can grasp, something that's within our reach, something that's within our level. One human being could love another human being. A person could love food, could love certain things that are gashmiyut. But when we're talking about Hashem, and Hashem is so far removed from gashmiyut, Hashem is ruchniyut and godly Hashem, which is completely holy, which means completely removed from this world, he is something that we cannot grasp, how is it possible really to have a feeling of love to Hashem? The Ibn Ezra says, considering the aveirah, the lav where it says לא תחמד, it says you shall not desire someone else's things. So the Ibn Ezra says that this whole aveirah of desiring someone else's things only applies in something that is attainable, something that's reachable. If I see someone have something and I could get it, and I have a desire for it, that's when I transgress this לאו of wanting somebody else's things. But when it comes to something that I know I can't attain, it's impossible for me to get, something that's far from me, he says the whole aveirah of לא תחמד doesn't apply, because it's not in the category of desire. It's just a joke. You're desiring something that is out of this world, something that's far away, you'll never get it. So even though you talk, you might use the words desire, you might speak about it, but in heart, you'll never have a feeling to it because it's something that's impossible to get. So if we cannot use the concept of desire when it talks when we talk about something else, even though it's gashmiyut, but because it's far removed from us we can't actually have a feeling of desire, certainly we cannot have a feeling of desire to Hashem. Ahavah means, like I explained once before, to have it like he said before, and I explained once before, comes from the word אבה, want, a real desire, a real feeling of wanting, of connection to Hashem. But that seems to be impossible when Hashem is so far removed from us. Therefore, what we would say is that there is no such thing as loving Hashem. What loving Hashem means: behaving in a form like we love. Just like you behave towards a person when you love the person, you behave in a certain way, so we should behave towards Hashem as if we love him. What's the behavior of love? Like we said before, if you love someone, you will try to do what the person wants you to do. You will definitely not do something against the will of the person. That's the behavior. So, by Hashem, there is no such thing as really loving Hashem. What it really means: to to behave in a way as if you love. Which is similar to what some מפרשים say concerning the mitzvah of אהבת ישראל. I'd like to explain that for a moment. The mitzvah is ואהבת לרעך כמוך, \"You shall love your neighbor, your friend like yourself.\" And some מפרשים ask that's impossible. It's against human nature, it's impossible to love someone else like yourself. And therefore, there are some מפרשים that say that it doesn't mean exactly like yourself, that's impossible. That's why it says ואהבת לרעך כמוך, כמוך means like yourself, close to yourself, but not like yourself. And some מפרשים give a different answer. The פסוק does not mean that you shall love your fellow Jew like yourself. It means you shall behave to him like you behave to yourself. Which is basically what Hillel said. We know that this goy who came to Hillel, first he came to Shammai and said, \"I want to be megayer, but on condition you will teach me the Torah as long as it takes to stand, as long as I'm able to stand on one foot.\" So, Shammai sent him away. And Hillel said, \"Good, I'll be megayer you.\" So, he was megayer him and then he said to him, \"Nu, teach me the Torah.\" So, he said to him, \"Okay, I'll tell you one statement. And that is, מה דעלך סני לחברך לא תעביד, what you hate don't do to someone else. זו היא כל התורה כולה, this is the whole Torah. ואידך, and the rest פירושה, the rest is commentary. So, what did he say to him? That אהבת ישראל is the is is the whole Torah. But when he told him the mitzvah of אהבת ישראל, he didn't tell it to him in a positive way, \"You shall love your neighbor, you shall love your fellow Jew.\" He said to him, which was the explanation of what אהבת ישראל is, \"Whatever you hate that should be done to you, don't do to someone else.\" That means that he explained to him that Ahavat Yisrael means behave in a form of Ahavat Yisrael. You don't want someone to hurt you, don't hurt someone else. You don't want someone to steal from you, don't steal from him. You don't want someone to do anything negative to you, don't do to him. You want someone to make you feel good, make someone else feel good. So, the whole mitzvah of Ahavat Yisrael according to these sefarim Others argue, but I'm just giving an example from these for this opinion that Ahavat Yisrael does not mean to actually have a feeling of love to another Jew like yourself, because that's impossible. You can't love somebody else like yourself. Yourself is yourself and someone else is someone else. But what it means is behave to someone else as if you love him like yourself. So, we would say the same thing would be concerning Hashem. That the mitzvah of ואהבת את השם אלקיך, to love Hashem, does not mean to have actually a feeling of love to Hashem. But what does it mean? To behave as if you love Hashem. Which is to do all the mitzvot. And that would explain why right after ואהבת את השם אלקיך, it doesn't go into tell us what to do, how to come to love and what does the feeling of love supposed to be, but right away it goes into mitzvot, learning Torah and doing mitzvot. Because according to this, this is exactly what Ahavat Hashem is. Ahavat Hashem means, loving Hashem means doing everything Hashem wants. Learning his Torah, doing his mitzvot, mitzvat aseh, the positive mitzvot, the negative mitzvot. And if we say that way, then this would have explained what the hemshech, how the continuation of the pesukim go.

But this is only a possibility of a peshat, but this is not the real peshat. Because when we look into the sources of where it talks about the mitzvah of Ahavat Hashem, it actually tells us that the mitzvah of Ahavat Hashem is that a Jew is able to love Hashem. It says in the Rambam in the Like I said before, he describes loving Hashem, having a feeling in your heart. That just like one's heart aches when you have a real strong love to somebody, you actually feel it and sometimes your heart even pounds physically out of love. So too, you should love Hashem. That's what the Rambam says. So, obviously, the Rambam tells us that there is a concept of loving Hashem not necessarily through mitzvot, it would seem, and just loving Hashem himself. We know the famous Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh the Ohr Hachaim, the famous Ohr Hachaim, he writes in the beginning of Parashat Acharei Mot, which is the parashah that mentions the death of the two sons of Aharon, and the Or Hachaim Hakadosh explains how did they die. The פסוק says, אחרי מות שני בני אהרן בקרבתם לפני השם וימותו. It says they died by getting close to Hashem. And he explains that what happened to them, they got so close to Hashem, which means they got such a feeling towards Hashem, such a feeling of love to Hashem and closeness to Hashem, that their heart couldn't take it and they actually died. Chassidus explains it in different words, that they had a רצוא without a שוב. We know a person is supposed to have a great love to Hashem, is supposed to have his heart desire to Hashem, but he's supposed to always remember that when you come to the point when the love is so strong, and you almost would your heart or your neshamah would leave you out of love, you have to remember that that's not what Hashem wants. Hashem wants you to come back. Hashem wants you to get that feeling of love, but then bring it back and come back down into this world, and they were missing that. But what I'm trying to bring out from here is that they had, as he describes, a feeling of pleasure and desire, and he uses all kinds of Hebrew words to describe this concerning Hashem. So we see from all this that it is not like we just said, that it is impossible to love Hashem. Obviously, it is possible to love Hashem. Here we see that there is a mitzvah to love Hashem, to actually have a feeling of love, and we find tzadikim who did it, and the Rambam describes it that way. So obviously there is a mitzvah. So does that we're back to the question, why does it say after it speaks about love, right away it says do the mitzvot, when it doesn't describe what the love is? And also, how can we love Hashem? Isn't this a good question? Since Hashem is not reachable, Hashem is completely beyond us, how is it possible for us to have a feeling to something that we don't know what it is, to something that we don't really grasp? How can we have the love? Now, in some places it says a peshat, which is also not 100% the real peshat. It says that the way Hashem behaves towards us is that even though he is completely beyond the creation and he is completely beyond the world, nevertheless, Hashem was מצמצם himself. Hashem contracted himself and put himself into a position that he's able to come down and get close to us. Which Chassidus and Kabbalah says that Hashem put himself into the עשר ספירות, into the 10 ספירות. We know that we have the אור אין סוף, the true, true light of Hashem, the infinite light of Hashem, and that infinite light of Hashem is completely beyond the world, is completely beyond creation, is completely beyond our grasp. Nevertheless, that light of Hashem, Hashem put his light into different vessels, and these vessels are called the עשר ספירות, the 10 ספירות of אצילות. And Hashem works with the world through these עשר ספירות. And these עשר ספירות, these 10 ספירות, contain all possible things that are important for this physical world, actually for the spiritual worlds also. And Hashem puts himself there in a way that should be able to come down to us. So the light of Hashem should be able to come down down to us, and be we should be close to Hashem. Now this doesn't, chas veshalom, take away from the unity of Hashem. Some people will say, well, it means that there's not only one. When he comes down to this world, he's divided into 10 different parts. He's divided into חסד, when he does חסד, he's divided into גבורה, when he does גבורה, when he's strict, he's divided into other He's not divided. It's only the way he performs through this vessel, but it's still him. And the example given that the Tzemach Tzedek gives is, he speaks actually about davenen. He says when you daven, the Arizal writes different kavanos that we're supposed to have at different berachos. Different Berachos, we're supposed to think about Hashem the way he puts himself into חסד, and another berachah we're supposed to think about Hashem the way he put himself into גבורה, another one the way in תפארת. And he asks the question, what does that mean? Aren't you supposed to daven to Hashem? What do you mean we daven to Hashem through the ספירה of חסד? And that's what the מקובלים, the Arizal says we have to think in this and this berachah, think in your mind a kavanah of חסד, of Hashem to חסד. חסד is a limited thing, חסד is not Hashem. So why would we say ברוך אתה השם, we thank, we bless Hashem at a certain berachah, and he says have in mind the certain name of Hashem which represents חסד? So he explains it, gives a mashal. The mashal is, he says, imagine you have a king, and the king controls everything. And you come to the king with a request that he should give you something. Now, the right way to do it is, if you come with a request that has to do with money, with finances, you would ask the king, please direct your minister of finances to give me this and this. If you have a request concerning education, you would say to the king, please tell the minister of education to do so and so. You're speaking to the king, but you're speaking to the king the way he works, through his ministers. Now, when the minister of education does something, he has no right to do anything on his own. It's only like an extension of the king. So, it's the king working through the minister. But nevertheless, when this comes down to us, we don't have, ordinary people don't have a great connection to the king himself. In order to have something that we're able to connect to, so we connect to the minister of education, or the minister of finance, or whatever minister it is. But it's all because it's it's the king that's giving us. And he gives even a better mashal. He gives a mashal of light, because we're talking about the Godly light. He says when light comes through a glass, if it comes through a red glass, the light that will come out will be red. When it comes through a green glass, it'll be green. But it's the same light. It's not two lights. You have the same light that's shining. When it comes out, it looks green or red or whatever color it is. It looks to us. And we are able to relate to that specific color if that's what we're looking for. The same thing is concerning Hashem. Hashem performs and behaves towards the world in a way that He puts Himself into the עשר ספירות, and that's how we relate to Him. So, this might answer the question that how, not both questions, but the one question that we ask, how is it possible, actually, to have ahavah to Hashem when it's something that we can't relate to? The answer is Hashem contracted Himself, put Himself in a position that He comes through the עשר ספירות, and then we are able to relate to Him. Because He comes to us in a way that is already basically kivayachol, so to speak, limited, that we are able to relate to. But that is also not true. Because when we talk about שמע ישראל השם אלוקינו השם אחד, and we say ואהבת את השם אלוקיך, you should love Hashem, we have explained before and it says in many sefarim, we are not talking about Hashem the way He contracted Himself and has a connection to the world, we're talking about Hashem Himself, the way He is beyond His contraction, beyond His צמצומים and beyond His התלבשות, being dressed so to speak into the עשר ספירות. And that's where we are expected to have love to. So then we're back to the question, how is it possible to have love to Hashem the way He is beyond having any connection to the world, in a way that we cannot grasp? And actually, if you remember the last shiur, I think I explained the three levels of בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך ובכל מאודך, that it all comes as a result of our understanding in different levels of Hashem. When you talk about Hashem as ממלא כל עלמין, השם as He fills the world and He comes into the world and dressed into the world, you will reach the level of loving Hashem with all your heart. When you think of Hashem the way He is סובב כל עלמין, which means He surrounds the world and beyond the world, you will reach the level of ובכל נפשך. If you think about Hashem the way He is beyond any connection to the world, then you will come to ובכל מאודך, as I explained, which is the true infinity, the true בלי גבול, the true love of Hashem beyond anything. And the pasuk here, when it talks about loving Hashem, mentions ובכל מאודך. So obviously, we're talking here about loving Hashem, Hashem the way He is completely beyond any connection to the world. So the question is, being that this is something that we can't connect to, we can't reach, how are we able to have ahavah, loving Hashem that way? So now we're back to this question too, so we're back to both questions again. Number one, how is it possible for us to have love of Hashem when Hashem is so beyond this world? And second of all, why do we talk about the Torah and mitzvot here in this פרשה of Kriat Shema when we're talking about ahavah? So really what the pasuk should have explained is, what is ahavah? How do you love? What brings you to love?

The answer is that these two questions answer one each other. In truth, it is impossible for us to really love Hashem. Because as I said before, what is love? Love means deveikut, connection. In your heart, a connection to a being. That's what love is. By a human being, when we say you love the person and then we say you do something that the person wants, there the doing what the person wants is only a result of the love. By Hashem, it's not like that. And this is the point of the answer. Torah u'mitzvot, learning Torah and doing mitzvot is not a result of our loving Hashem, but this itself is the love. Since love means connection to the person, the only way we are able to be connected to the person, to the to the being which is Hashem, is only through doing Torah. And the reason is, because unlike human beings, when you do something that a human being wants you to do, you are only doing what he wants you to do. By Hashem, the mitzvot that we do is Hashem Himself. The Torah that we learn is Hashem Himself. The Rambam says concerning Torah, he says Torah is חכמתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא. Torah is the wisdom of Hashem. And then the Rambam adds, it's the wisdom of Hashem, but הוא וחכמתו אחד. He and His wisdom are one. Ayei, how is that possible? We can't understand that. We know that if you have a person and this person has a certain wisdom, a certain idea, the person and the idea are two different things. You have the person, and he has an idea in his mind. So the Rambam says by Hashem it's not like that, and there is no way we could understand what it is. There is no way we can grasp what this means. But this is the fact. The fact is that Hashem and His wisdom are one. That's why we know when it says, it says in Gemara the meaning of the first word of the עשרת הדיברות, which is אנכי, \"I, I am God, your God, that took you out of Mitzrayim\". So the Gemara says that the word אנכי is an abbreviation of four words, the four letters, אלף נון כף יוד, is abbreviation, אנא נפשי כתבית יהבית, which means, \"I, Myself, wrote Myself into the Torah. I gave Myself over through the Torah\". So when we study Torah, it is not that we're studying the wisdom of Hashem or we're doing what Hashem wants us to do. We at that moment are connected to Hashem. We have the deveikut to Hashem. We have Hashem within us. When we do mitzvot, mitzvot are רצונו של הקדוש ברוך הוא, is the will of Hashem. But the Rambam says that it's not like by human being you have the person and you have what he wants, הוא ורצונו אחד. He and His will are one. And therefore, when we do a mitzvah, it is not we are doing His mitzvot. At a time we do a mitzvah, we have Hashem. The Zohar uses the לשון, אותי אתם לוקחים, \"You are taking Me\". Actually, it says in a pasuk in Parashat Terumah, in Parashat Terumah it says, ויקחו לי תרומה. Parashat Terumah talks about Hashem wanting the Yidden to give donations, He commanded them to give donations to build the משכן. So He said, ויקחו לי תרומה, you shall take for Me donations. And the question, the obvious question is, you should have said, you shall give donations, not take donations. The Yidden were expected to give donations. So the Zohar says, what it says here, ויקחו לי, \"You shall take Me\". It doesn't mean you shall take for Me, ויקחו לי, you will be taking Me. When you give the donations, meaning you're doing the mitzvah of Hashem, you are taking Hashem. You have Hashem. So Hashem and His mitzvot are one. And therefore, this is what love is. So we have two questions. How is it possible to love Hashem when He is so far removed? And why does it talk about mitzvot rather than love? The answer is, you takeh can't love Hashem. You can't connect yourself to Hashem. We see that in the Gemara, actually. The Gemara, many times when it says in Chumash, you shall connect yourself to Hashem, ולדבקה בו, you shall be connected to Him. The Gemara asks, וכי אפשר לדבק בשכינה? Can you connect yourself to the שכינה? And it gives all kinds of answers. In other words, the Gemara makes it very clear that you can't connect yourself to the שכינה. You can't have, you can't, since He's far from you. It says in the זוהר, לית מחשבה תפיסא ביה. No thought can grasp Him. And since you can't grasp Him, there is no way you could love Him. Loving meaning connection, you can't connect. But then there's an additional part to the statement, כי אם, only כאשר תפיסא ומתלבשת, when it is, when Hashem is grasped, בתורה ומצוותיה, only through Torah u'mitzvot. So learning Torah and doing mitzvot is not just an expression of our love to Hashem, this is the love to Hashem that a Yid could have is by learning Torah and doing mitzvot. Out of the two, we know we're talking about Torah and doing mitzvot, which of the two is a greater connection to Hashem? So I want to explain that in one way Torah makes us closer to Hashem, and another way mitzvot make us closer to Hashem. And I'll explain how.

When we learn Torah, what happens is our mind, our brain becomes one with the Torah that we learn. And the truth is this is in any subject. When we learn something and we understand it, the truth is at that moment my brain is basically that subject that I've learned. When I think about something, my brain at that moment contains the subject that I'm learning, so it's almost like my brain is transformed into the subject that I'm learning. So therefore the Torah is within me. Now the same thing is by every, any subject that I learn. If a person learns lehavdil science, it's the same thing. When you learn science and you understand a certain idea, so the person's brain becomes one with the idea, but it doesn't become one with the one that made up the idea. If Mr. So-and-so came up with this idea, and then you in your brain understand that idea, you become one with the idea, but not with him. Or you don't become one with what the idea is about. For instance, if a person in his mind understands how to fix a car, it's a whole, a whole process, it's a whole חכמה, and you really understand it. So now when you think about it and you understand it, your brain is transformed into the חכמה of how to make the car, but it doesn't become one with the car. It's not transformed into a car. But when your brain understands Torah, and since Torah is not only the wisdom of Hashem, but Torah is Hashem, so basically your brain, which is one with what you understand, is one with Hashem. So in Torah you really, really become united with Hashem. When you do mitzvot, it's not like that. Torah is something that comes inside us, into our brain. Mitzvot are done superficially. We take with our hands and we do a mitzvah. We take a pair of tefillin and we put it on. We are involved in the mitzvah, our hand does the mitzvah, but we don't say that the mitzvah is within us. That's why in Chassidut based on pesukim and gemarot it says that Torah is compared to food, mitzvot are compared to garments. It says a פסוק, תורתך בתוך מעי, your Torah is in my stomach, as if we eat the Torah. We don't eat the Torah, so it says the reason is, just like food, when you eat it, it becomes one with the person, you are what you eat. The same thing Torah, you are, your brain is the Torah. If a person understands Torah, the brain is the Torah. But mitzvot are like garments. Garments are put on the outside of the person, it doesn't become one with the person. It's the person's garment, it has an effect on the person, influence on the person, but you can't say the person becomes the garment, his hand, his body becomes his clothes, it's not true. So mitzvot, you connect yourself to Hashem, and actually in the word mitzvah we have the word צוותא וחיבור, which means connection, but it's only that you are involved in doing a mitzvah, you are involved in Hashem, but we don't say you or part of you becomes one with Hashem. But in Torah, when you study Torah, yes, your brain becomes one with the thought that you're thinking, which is Torah, and becomes, we become one with Hashem. And that's why it says a halachah that you have to stand up for a talmid chacham. It doesn't say that you have to stand up for a person who does a lot of mitzvot. It does say while a person is doing a mitzvah you should stand up, but it doesn't say if a person does a lot of good deeds and he walks in, you have to stand up. But when a person, a talmid chacham walks in, you have to stand up. What is the difference? The talmid chacham you have to stand up, it would seem because since he studied a lot of Torah, he deserves the kavod. Well, this person did a lot of mitzvot, why doesn't he deserve the kavod? The reason we have to stand up is not because he studied Torah yesterday and he did a lot of studying before. The reason is because he studied Torah, and when you study a subject, it stays in your mind even while you're not thinking about it. It's still in your mind. So when a talmid chacham walks in and he has Torah in his mind, and the Torah that he has in his mind became one with his brain, that's the nature of thought that it's one with your brain. And the Torah is Hashem, so basically when he walks in, what's happening here? You're standing up for Hashem that's in his brain. When a person does mitzvot, as much as the mitzvot influence him and have an effect, and after you do a mitzvah there is a certain kedushah that stays with you, but the mitzvah doesn't enter inside you to say that Hashem is within you because you did the mitzvah. And therefore you have to respect, obviously, a person who does all the mitzvot, but there is no halachah that you have to stand up for him because he did the mitzvot before, and he did a lot of mitzvot, but now the mitzvot are not there as part of him, while the Torah, the Torah is part of him, and that's why you have to stand up. So the connection that you have to Hashem is more in Torah than in mitzvot, even though, generally speaking, both of them are Hashem. And therefore, the ahavah, the love a yid has to Hashem that we say in Keriat Shema, how do you have love? What is love? ושננתם לבניך, learn Torah and teach Torah; וקשרתם לאות על ידך, put on tefillin; והיה אם שמוע תשמעו אל מצותי, listen to my mitzvot. But between the two, Torah is more than mitzvot. That's one That's one reason why Torah makes you closer to Hashem, has more the ex- not only the expression the אהבת השם, the mitzvot. But then there's another thing: by mitzvot, it says in Kabbalah that רמ״ח פקודין אינון רמ״ח איברין דמלכא. The 248 mitzvot are considered the 248 limbs of Hashem. It says also by the human being the 248 mitzvot correspond to the 248 limbs of the person, but what it says is that the 248 mitzvot are the 248 limbs of Hashem. Now a limb is only a specific part of the human being. Every limb is a different part. When we say the mitzvot are 248 limbs of Hashem, that means each mitzvah makes you connects you, makes you close to a certain part of Hashem. But Torah, Torah is connected to Hashem as a whole, not to a specific limb. And therefore, when we learn Torah, there we are connected to Hashem and not to a specific aspect of Hashem's way he he works and becomes connected to us. So therefore, even though, generally speaking, they're both equal, but Torah is something special. On the other hand, there is a ma'alah in mitzvot over Torah. We can't stop here and say, okay, so Torah is more important and therefore those who study Torah are more important than those who do mitzvot. It says in Kabbalah and Chasidut that there is something special in mitzvot over Torah. And what is that? Torah, we said, is the wisdom of Hashem. Mitzvot are the will of Hashem. What is more part of the person? Let's use the person as an example because we're always using the human being as an example. What is more of a human being? The person's wisdom or the person's ratzon, the person's will? We see that, and I mentioned this many times in the shiur, there is another word that we use in pesukim for the will of a person, and that is the word nefesh. The pasuk says, אם יש את נפשכם, if you have your nefesh, and really it means do you want? אין נפשי אל העם הזה, there is a pasuk, which means I don't want this nation, and it says אין נפשי. The word nefesh means want. Now why would you use the word nefesh for ratzon, for will? Nefesh means life, not will. And the answer Chassidus gives is that when a person wants something, that is the person himself. When a person understands something or thinks something, that is a specific aspect of the person. Where do we where in which part of the person does the chochmah, the wisdom, dwell? So that we all know: it's in the brain. Chochmah, binah, daat, it's in the brain. In which part of the person is ratzon? Where is the will of the person? So I must say, not like the scientists or the the the doctors or whatever say, the psychologists say, that ratzon of a person is also found in the brain. Chassidus says it's not true. Chassidus says that will, the will is in every part of the human being. It says if a person wants to move his hand and moves his hand, it's not because there's will in his brain and he wants to move his hand and that's why he moves his hand. The ratzon is in every single part of the body. There is ratzon in the hand, there is ratzon in the foot, it even gives an example, if a person wants to make his stomach go in and out, I don't know why Chassidus uses that example, it's because there is ratzon in the stomach. And he wants to move it, the stomach wants to be moved. The truth is, it registers in your brain, but it's not found in your brain. Now I know whenever you speak to other people they claim it's not so, science doesn't agree with this, so, what should I say, I don't care. So ratzon is not a specific thing of the person. Will is the whole person. And actually, I don't want to get into long discussions because in Chassidus we learn about this, that every other part of the, these, these attributes are something specific. If someone wants to describe, what does it mean that a person is smart, has chochmah, so we'll say, a person has chochmah, chochmah means wisdom, understanding, he has it. How would you describe a person wants? What does that mean? A person wants means, it says in Chassidus, that this person has a נטיה, has a, how would you describe, translate נטיה? A pull, a what? An inclination or a pull, inclination in this case is not, it's more than an inclination, has a pull to something. If I want something, that means I have a pull to this. Who's the I? I is my whole being. So the will of some person, of somebody, of a person, is that the whole person wants, it's not something specific of the person. While chochmah is specific thing of the person, chesed is a specific part of the person, person has kindness, gevurah, all other midos are specific parts. And therefore when we apply this to Hashem, and we say the Torah is the chochmah of Hashem, so from this, looking at it from this angle, the chochmah of Hashem means, even though Hashem and His chochmah are one, but nevertheless we're talking about His chochmah. Chochmah is a specific aspect, and this aspect is one with Hashem. But when we talk about mitzvot, mitzvot is not חכמה of Hashem. Mitzvah is the will of Hashem. We do what Hashem wants. And when Hashem wants something, how much of Hashem is involved? Everything, the whole Hashem. When Hashem understands something, how much of Hashem is involved kevayachol? It's the חכמה of Hashem. So when we learn the חכמה of Hashem, we connect ourselves to Hashem, but only with the aspect of חכמה the way Hashem is one with His חכמה. But when we do a mitzvah, which is the will of Hashem, then we connect ourselves with everything of Hashem. So we look at it from both ways, there's a maalah in Torah over mitzvot, because Torah as far as we're concerned, it becomes one with our brain much more than mitzvah, we don't become one with the mitzvah, but we do become one with the Torah. Also it says that ratzon have to do, each mitzvah with a limb of Hashem, that's one way of looking at it, and the other way is just the opposite. That Torah is חכמה, while ratzon, mitzvot are the will of Hashem, and that is the whole Hashem is involved in the mitzvot. And it is through Torah, mitzvot that we're able to connect ourselves to Hashem. And therefore the true love a Yid could have to Hashem is not just feeling love, which is probably impossible, but doing mitzvot and learning Torah. And that's why שמע ישראל says, שמע, you think about Hashem, brings you to ואהבת, and then it continues right away, what's ואהבת? בכל לבבך, love Hashem with your heart and in, in all the best ways, the way to actually have the real love, because the pasuk continues teach Torah, do mitzvot, and goes on והיה אם שמוע תשמעו to doing mitzvot and learning Torah, as it describes it in the second parashah. And this is the true love of Hashem, and actually in Tanya, the Alter Rebbe says these words, that אוהב את השם, the one that loves השם, הוא המקיימם באמת, that's a person that does the mitzvot, that is the real love of Hashem. So therefore when we start thinking about ואהבת, we always say, oh, how can we, we say the words, but it's impossible, we can't love Hashem, the answer is, it is not as so hard, learn Torah and do mitzvot, and then we are fulfilled of the mitzvah of Ahavat Hashem. Yes. By Adam and Chava, when they were first created, their clothing that they had was part of them. How does this relate to... It does bring in Tanya, there is such a thing sometimes that the לבושיה מיניה וביה, כדן קמצא it says, like a turtle. Turtle's garments is part of the turtle himself. So it says sometimes, but it says that... By a levush of a person, it's not like that. So by the levush of Hashem, when the mitzvot of Hashem, when we use the mashal and it calls it levushim, it is not like by a הדין קמצא. It's not like by the case of the Torah. It's possible, but this is a case of levushim which are outside of the of Hashem Himself, which means this is His will. No, I'm not talking about Hashem, by us, we're doing Hashem's will, but we're doing it with outside of us, and that's בגשמיות, that's exactly what we do. The mitzvot don't enter into us. There's only one mitzvah that becomes part of us, is milah, because it's actually a mitzvah that's done in the body. The body is not only the one that performs the mitzvah, the body is the object of the mitzvah. See, other mitzvot the body performs, the object is a pair of tefillin, the object is the candle, the object is the coin that you give for tzedakah, the object is the shofar, the matzah, the matzah, whatever it is. Milah, the object is, no, but otherwise the mitzvot are outside of us. That's why it's considered לבושים and not like the לבושים of a turtle. Well, that was before the Yeah, but these לבושים were not the mitzvot then. Those were לבושים, those were גשמיותדיקע לבושים. Those were not the mitzvot, garments. But the לבושים, the mitzvot, which are לבושים, are separate from us. The mitzvot are the garments by us, but the garments that they had were not the mitzvot. They were just garments that Hashem made for them. They're not separate. But see, but since we use the term garment, obviously we're trying to tell us take what a garment is, analyze it in גשמיות, and apply that idea into the רוחניותדיק form. So it's trying to tell us that the mitzvot, compared to Torah, is not one with Hashem like the Torah. That's looking at it from that, that's one angle. On the other hand, we said the opposite, that since it's the will of Hashem, the will of Hashem is the whole person, so the same thing by Hashem, it's all in. And each one of the two has a מעלה and a חסרון. Each one has something over the other, and the other one has over this. So the bottom line is they're both important, the both is the greatest, and both have Hashem, and we have to do them both. That's the important part of it.