Can you be given the same thing twice?
By: Rabbi Dovid Samuels
As we approach Shavuos, celebrating the time of the giving of the Torah, we are all confronted with a simple question: haven’t we been through this before? We might ask the same question at Pesach but, if we’re honest with ourselves, we understand why we again need to renew our faith that Hashem will save us from trying times. On Sukkos, too, it is understandable why we need to revisit and reboot our trust in Hashem; that He is the One that houses and protects us. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are also, regrettably, necessary each year, as we have unwanted baggage that we need to cast off and atone for. But at Shavuos…haven’t we already received the Torah? Can you be given the same thing twice? And there is already an obligation to learn Torah every day, as much as one can, so we are anyway constantly reinforcing the importance of Torah in our lives. What is it that we hope to get this year that we didn’t get last year?
“Hashem doesn’t want another 5784 from us. Now He wants a 5785.”
But this question only bothers us if we view our history, our lives, and our relationship with Hashem as being static. If every year we are the same people, just a year older, then there would be little need to revisit past occurrences. If the Jewish people were like any other nation, then celebrating historic events would be sensible, but not vital. If our relationship with Hashem was expected to be merely stable and consistent, then we wouldn’t need to constantly upgrade it. But this isn’t the case. The Jewish people in each generation, and each individual every year, is given a new task, a new set of skills, and a new standard of achievement. On Rosh Hashanah, we signed up for a new year. The year 5784 was completed. Hashem doesn’t want another 5784 from us. Now He wants a 5785, so we arrive at the job interview for a new year, again with a new task, a new skillset, and a new standard of achievement. Sukkos comes and provides us with a bootcamp in emunah. Not the emunah of 5784; we don’t need emunah for the year gone by, we need emunah for the coming year with all its tests and challenges. Pesach sets us free so that we can be the nation Hashem wants us to be. But it’s not freedom for 5784; we have already used up that freedom. We need an injection of freedom for 5785, to escape from this year’s ‘Mitzrayim’.
The same is true when we receive the Torah every year. The Torah is our lifeblood; it is the heart and soul of the Jewish people. Whenever there was a laxness in the learning of Torah, the Jewish people were reminded very quickly that their survival depended on their tireless connection and dedication to the Torah. In Refidim, when the Jewish people became more lax in their learning, Amalek immediately attacked. Yehoshua was confronted with an angel bearing his sword because there was a laxness in Torah study. And throughout the generations, from the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash to our times, our nation’s heartbeat is inextricably connected to our commitment to the Torah.
But to appreciate why we need to receive the Torah anew each year, we need to understand something very special about the Torah itself. At Mount Sinai, when Moshe Rabbeinu went up to receive the Torah, there was a war in the heavens. An entire army of angels argued that giving the holy Torah to human beings was incorrect. “Give Your honour to the heavens!” they said. Giving the Torah to flesh and blood is unbefitting of the loftiness of G-d’s word. They will no doubt disgrace it and defile it! Hashem heard their complaints, and he charged Moshe with the job of answering their claims. Moshe asked the angels, “Do you work, that you need a day of Shabbos? Do you have parents, that you need to honour them? Do you have jealousy? Do you have an evil inclination?” Their answer was obvious, and the result was Hashem overlooking the angels and giving us His Torah. But when we analyse this interaction, something seems strange. What were the angels thinking? Couldn’t they see that the Torah is full of mitzvos that only humans can do? What Torah did they want to keep hold of?
“When we reach that emotional dead-end… we need the Torah to break down that barrier.”
The answer is that the Torah is far greater than we can comprehend. There are aspects of Torah which are high and lofty and spiritual and that are not limited to the restrictions of this physical world. Indeed, there is a part of Torah that is accessible to angels. Afterall, it is through the Torah that Hashem sustains the entire universe, even the heavens! But what Moshe Rabbeinu was teaching the angels, and teaching us as well, is that to leave the Torah in the heavens, allowing only those of higher spiritual form to access it, would be to greatly limit the influence of the Torah. Certainly, the spiritual Torah can permeate the spiritual worlds, but can spirituality permeate the physical world? Can a heavenly Torah reside amongst earthly beings? The angels said no, but Hashem said yes.
Moshe Rabbeinu’s claim was that it is precisely because of our human frailty that we should receive the Torah, not in spite of it. We are lowly creatures, born of man, we work hard during the week for our sustenance, we have issues like jealousy and desire. We have a part of ourselves which, if left unchecked, encourages us to do things we know we shouldn’t do. We fluctuate in our emotions, our stability, our relationships. The angels saw all of these things as reasons why not to give us the Torah, but Hashem gave it to us because of these things. Every day we are confronted with our heavy physicality. We are reminded constantly that we are not angels, not in form, nor in spirit. Our failures instigate an entire army to war against us saying: “You are not worthy! You cannot succeed!” But the voice of our teacher, Moshe, quietens their warcry. “The Torah will not be expressed fully if it is left in the heavens amongst the angels. The Torah achieves its greatest influence when it becomes one with the physical world. Your human frailty is exactly why Hashem is choosing you to receive His Torah.”
When Hashem created this physical world, it was so that there would be a group of people, a small nation, that would build a place in the physical realm where spirituality can exist. The Jewish people will be that nation that would allow a fusion between physicality and spirituality: learning Torah, following the Torah, living a life of Torah. It is not in spite of the fact that we have a yetzer hara that we were given the Torah. On the contrary, it is precisely through the yetzer hara that we maximise the effect of the Torah, where the lowest physicality and the highest spirituality can coexist. When we use the Torah to guide us correctly through that point where we reach our physical limitation, our physical failure, then the Torah becomes glorified, more than even through the angels.
The human response to Torah often mimics that of the angels at Mount Sinai. We understand that there is a thing called spirituality and a thing called physicality. We do believe that because we have a soul we can attach to spirituality, at times. But, fundamentally, we imagine a wall separating the two. When we are spiritual, we cannot be physical, and when something is physical it certainly can’t be spiritual. We understand how Yom Kippur is a holy day because we leave behind so much of our physicality. But we struggle to understand how a day like Purim can be wholly spiritual, given that there is so much physicality involved. Eating can’t be spiritual, can it? Our relationships can be physical, or they can be spiritual. But can they be both…at the same time?
The answer: Yes. And if we don’t believe it, then we certainly need to receive the Torah again. Last year’s Shavuos gave us the ability to connect last year’s physicality to the spiritual. But this year we are different. We have a different task, a different box of tools. Our physical limitations do not stay the same. Our levels of jealousy, of anger, of occupation in this world do not stay constant. We are dynamic beings with a dynamic physical makeup, and dynamic lives. Every year this dynamic changes to meet the task that Hashem has for us, so every year we need a way of ensuring that we are still equipped to infuse our human limitations with G-dly spirituality. Every year we need to bring the Torah into our new selves so that there should not exist a point where we are left saying to ourselves that G-dliness cannot exist here. When we reach that emotional dead-end, when our intellect cannot leap into the world of faith, when our stresses and challenges prevent us from seeing Hashem in our lives, and when our desires pull us in a direction that leaves our soul outside in the cold, we need the Torah to break down that barrier and keep us connected to Hashem and His will. With the Torah, our physicality is upgraded, and it merges with the spiritual. We become something greater than angels; we become holy people.
If we look at the world at large, we can see clearly that the war between the physical and the spiritual is much bigger than we imagined. On the one side of the world, we have the nation of Edom – the “West”. In general, the success of the West is its physical achievements: in finance, in development, technology, and physical beauty. Skyscrapers and holiday destinations, the West is where the physical is designed to win over the spiritual. The West’s religion – Christianity – naturally is founded on the physicalising of the spiritual. On the other side of the world, we have Yishmael. The Arab world is not, by the West’s standards, a place of physical beauty. Their people are covered, their oil wealth is hidden underground, and their belief is directed towards their idea of spirituality. In fact, to our horror, they can completely destroy their physicality for the sake of their religious quest. Yishmael fights hard against the physicality so that their spirituality wins. The West represents extreme physicality, while the Arab world represents extreme “spirituality” – again, their idea of it. While they war with each other, there is a tiny nation that exists between the two. The nation of the Jewish people, rejected by both sides, is neither extreme physicality, nor extreme spirituality; it is intended to be the perfect blend of both. The geo-political landscape between the West and the Middle East constantly changes, and this year’s receiving of the Torah allows us to continue to not only exist, but thrive in this precarious position between two raging forces, and maintain a perfect balance, elevating the physical, and realising the spiritual.
The ultimate expression of this fusion between physicality and spirituality will be evident for everyone to behold with the building of the Beis Hamikdash – a place in this world where physical restrictions miraculously provide a space for spirituality. All the miracles that were seen there in the past showed the perfect fusion of the two realms. Space was not an issue, the fire on the altar was never extinguished, the smoke from the korbanos never dispersed. It was a place that bridged two worlds. But until we merit to see this with our own eyes, our job is to build a Mikdash for Hashem in our hearts. Our task this year, on Shavuos, is to receive the Torah that will allow us to bridge the gap between the spiritual and the physical, and show the world how G-d exists, not only in the heavens, but here, with us, on earth, in everything we do.
