From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 2:15 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Yisro, 5765




                                        
                                 Stop People, What's That Sound
          
                By Rabbi Joshua (reverberatingly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


 Before the revelation at Mt. Sinai, God tells Moshe to set bounds around the mountain and warn the people not to touch it, on penalty of death. He then tells Moshe, "When the blast of the ram's horn is drawn out, they will ascend the mountain" (Shemos 19:12-13). The Talmud (Beitzah, 5a) explains that the prohibition of touching Mt. Sinai was operative only as long as the divine presence rested there, during the revelation. When the shofar was sounded, marking the withdrawal of the divine presence from the scene, the prohibition ended, and anyone who wished to touch Mt. Sinai, or to ascent it, was permitted to do so. In light of this teaching of the Talmud, an incident that took place shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967 is thrown into sharper relief.

A short time after the war, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, then Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces, and later Chief Rabbi of Israel, announced that he would be making an expedition to climb up what he believed to be Mt. Sinai, since it was now in Israel's possession. Many people were puzzled by this projected trip, because of the Talmud's statement that Mt. Sinai had special significance only as long as the divine presence was there during the revelation. Some cynics, still upset over Rav Goren's foray onto parts of the Temple Mount generally considered unapproachable because of our impure status generated by contact with corpses, quipped that he wanted to climb up Mt. Sinai in order to give the Torah back ! (It should be noted, in Rav Goren's defense, that he marshaled halachic sources to show that what he did was permissible). Rav Goren himself explained that Mt. Sinai still has special significance, because, as we read in Pirkei Avos (6:2), Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said, ' Every day a heavenly voice issues forth from Mt. Choreiv (Sinai) saying, ' Woe to the 'briyos' (people) on account of their neglect of Torah.' Interestingly, Rabbi Yisroel Lifshitz, in his commentary Tiferes Yisroel, notes that he heard from geographers that a rumbling sound is regularly emitted from the mountain commonly identified as Sinai, and that is what the beraysa is referring to. Although this remark is certainly fascinating in its own right, it does not, in itself, tell us much about the meaning of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi's statement. What, then, is the significance of the voice emanating from Sinai?


Rabbi Moshe Einstadter of Cleveland, in his recently published book Yesodos of Sefer Shemos, presents a lengthy, beautiful essay on the words of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi. The upshot of his remarks is that the essence of the Jewish soul was defined by the revelation at Mt. Sinai, so that the Jewish psyche, since that time, is a reflection of the mitzvos of the Torah. The voice that emanates from Sinai, referred to as a 'bas kol,' or, or, literally, the daughter of a voice, is the reverberation of the original revelation within the psyche of the Jew. A Jew who does not engage in torah study, and who does not observe the mitzvos of the Torah, is not responding to the voice of his own soul. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi goes on to say that a person is considered free only if he engages in Torah study. Freedom means to be able to bring out one's own inner self, and, therefore, a Jew who does not observe the mitzvos of the Torah is not really free. The voice reverberating from Sinai, thus, bids us to be true to our inner self, as members of the Jewish people, engaging in Torah study and observing its mitzvos.

Although Rabbi Einstadter does not mention this, perhaps we can expand on his approach with a further insight from a verse in parshas Vaeschanan. Moshe, in describing the revelation at Mt. Sinai, tells the nation, "God spoke these words to your entire assembly on the mountain from the fire, the cloud and the fog, with a great voice,'ve-lo yasaf' (which did not end)" (Devorim 5:19). Rashi there, in his first interpretation of the words, 'velo yasaf, explains them as Targum Onkeles does, and as we have translated them, to mean 'which did not stop.' The Maharal of Prague, in his super-commentary to Rashi, Gur Aryeh, explains that God is constantly imparting wisdom to people, and in this sense His voice never stops. Rabbi Yehoshua Hartman, in his notes to the Gur Aryeh, directs our attention to the remarks of Maharal in his work Nesivos Olam, Nesiv HaTorah, chapter seven, where he notes that in the blessing for learning Torah that we make each day, we refer to God as the 'Nosein HaTorah' - the One Who gives the Torah, in the present tense, rather then the One Who gave the Torah, in the past tense, because He is constantly giving us Torah. This is the meaning, he says, of Moshe's description of the voice heard at Sinai as one that never stops.


Expanding on the teaching of the Maharal, we may add that Rav Soloveitchik often spoke of the unique role that each person has in revealing new explanations of Torah, and that one can never know who will teach us the meaning of a particular part of Torah. This is the meaning of the prayer we say at the end of each Shmoneh Esreh, asking God to grant us our portion in Torah. In light of Rabbi Einstadter's explanation of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi's teaching, then, perhaps we can add that the voice reverberating from Sinai is that of God teaching each person the unique part of Torah that defines his unique role among the Jewish people in revealing the true meaning of the Torah.


I would like to suggest another, completely different explanation of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi's statement about the voice reverberating from Sinai. As we noted, the voice says 'Woe to the briyos on account of their neglect of Torah.' Although Rabbi Einstadter understands the word 'briyos' to refer to the Jewish people, it may well refer to mankind in general. Rabbi Goren, in his work Toras HaMoadim (pages 42- 43), discusses the term 'ahavas habriyos,' often found in Talmudic literature, and demonstrates that, while 'ahavas Yisroel' refers to love of one's fellow Jew, 'ahavas habriyos' refers to love of mankind, in general. Perhaps, then, we can explain the term briyos in the statement' 'Woe unto the briyos due to the neglect of the Torah' in the same way. The Jewish nation was charged, at Mt. Sinai, to be a' kingdom of priests and a holy nation ' (Shemos 19:6). As we have noted in the past, Rav Kook explained this to mean that our task is to demonstrate holiness within the context of a nation, to show all nations that a life of holiness is not restricted to people living alone on a mountain, but is something that has relevance to a nation involved in all the various aspects of life necessary for a nation to exist. On the individual level, too, then, connecting oneself to God in daily life can, and should, be realized in all areas of life, by all people. When the Jewish people neglects the Torah and does not live up to the calling it was given at Sinai, all of mankind suffers, and the reverberating voice coming from Sinai declares,' Woe to mankind due to the neglect of the Torah.'


 On a further level, perhaps we can add that Rabbi Naphtoli Tzvi Yehudah Berlin - the Netziv - in the introduction to his Ha'amek Davar, notes that the book of Shemos is called, by the author of Halachos Gedolos, 'Chumash Sheni,' or the second book. That author, known as the Bahag, does not attach a number to any of the other five books of Moshe in assigning them names. The Netziv explains that, according to the Bahag, there is an intrinsic connection between the first two books of the Torah. Whereas the book of Bereishis describes the physical creation of the universe, the book of Shemos, or 'the second book,' in the terminology of the Bahag, describes, in its presentation of the redemption from Egypt and the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, the spiritual completion of the universe. The Netziv explains that this is because the creation of the world was not complete until the Torah was given to the Jewish nation. (For more on this, see Netvort to parshas Bo, 5760, available at Torahheights.com). Thus, when the Jewish people neglects the study and observance of Torah, all of creation suffers. Perhaps that is why, as Tiferes Yosreol notes, an actual rumbling is heard from Mt. Sinai each day. This rumbling indicates that creation itself is incomplete as long as the Jewish people does not properly observe the Torah and fulfill its function in the world as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, influencing all of mankind to live in accordance with the guidelines God has mandated.

    

Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.

To subscribe to Netvort, send a message with subject line subscribe, to Netvort@aol.com. To unsubscribe, send message with subject line unsubscribe, to the same address.