פרשת אמור
At the end of this week’s Parsha, the Torah delineates all the different Jewish holidays, and their various details. However, there is one holiday whose laws and name are not spelled out clearly, and is rather “hinted to” by the Torah, and that is the holiday of Shavuos, which we find ourselves preparing for right now. The verse says, “And you will count fifty days from the second day of Pesach, and at the end of that term, you will bring up a ‘new’ offering” and this is the only reference to Shavuos. The reason it is called a new offering is because it is composed of produce grown from the current year, and cannot have any old produce mixed in. The Kli Yakar dwells on this interesting anomaly, and tries to understand why the Torah couldn’t have just spelled out the nature of Shavuos explicitly, like it did for the other holidays, and instead chose to only allude to it? The Kli Yakar explains that by wording it this way, the Torah was intimating to us the very nature of Shavuos, which is the holiday which celebrates receiving the Torah. This intimation is trying to teach us that Torah study must be “new” in our eyes every single day. Even if we have seen a particular piece of Torah many times, each time we review it, we can find some new angle, difficulty, or novel point by scrutinizing the text and the nuances in language. Such is the nature of Torah, and by referring to it as a “new offering”, the verse was teaching us how to properly relate to the Torah and what our thoughts and attitude should be when studying it.
This concept that the Torah must be new in our eyes is expressed in many different venues in Chazal. Chazal compare Torah study to a nursing baby. Just as a baby finds his mother’s milk delicious each and every time he nurses, and never gets bored of the taste, similarly the Torah must be unique and refreshing in our mouths each time we learn. In Krias Shma which we recite at least three times daily, the verse says, “That which I commanded you today,” and Rashi comments based on the Sifri, that each and every Jew has to look at the Torah as if it was literally given today! Even in Halacha this concept takes root. If a Jew gets an Aliyah, he must ascend to the Bimah in the closest possible way. This is to demonstrate how the Torah must always be appealing and beloved in his eyes. We thusly find that Chazal are replete with this concept of making the Torah fresh and delightful in our hearts.
In truth, the verse that we quoted in Krias Shma is not limited to Torah study, but rather is applicable to every single area of our service of Hashem. The Rashi on that verse goes on to say that one should not look at the Torah and its commandments like an old letter that was received three thousand years ago, but rather must view it as if it was received literally today. If we could picture for a moment while we are reciting the Krias Shma that we are literally standing as Sinai today, and we just received the commandments directly from Hashem, our enthusiasm for His edicts will certainly be boosted by some measure. This is exactly the instruction Chazal are giving us. We must view the Torah and its laws as if they were given to us very recently, and treat them accordingly. The other end of this spectrum is what the prophet Isaiah warns us in Chapter 29. He says, “Do not become like those who perform the commandments by rote, habitually going through the motions of Torah observance when your hearts are absent.” This kind of indifference is what falls onto people who view the Torah as some ancient letter, which is not fully relevant to us today, and they become like the walking dead, whereas those that choose the other way are fully alive and alert at every moment, and living life to its fullest.
How does one get to this awareness in which he is able to develop a fresh understanding of the Torah and his service even though he has been involved with the same routine for many years and sometimes even decades? R’ Leib Shteinman once offered some very practical advice while addressing his students one Shavuos evening. He gave an example from oxygen. He said, “Every single day, we inhale and exhale thousands of times. Have you ever met a person who said, ‘I’m just so sick of breathing, so I’m quitting’? Of course not. This is because we currently need the air, and something which is necessary for life, one cannot grow tired of doing it”. Similarly, one must view the Torah in this light – that it is necessary for our very survival, and that each piece of Torah we study creates a new connection with the Master of the world, and that connection literally sustains us. If we continue this thought we will realize another important truth, and that is that yesterday’s Torah should be insufficient to us today when studying Torah or observing the commandments. The Torah that we study today, or the Mitzvos that we keep today are completely unique in that they are necessary for our survival today and we must therefore treat them that way. This thought yields a greater understanding in a Gemorah in Berachos. The Gemorah in Berachos, (63b) asks, “Is a person allowed to say, ‘I already accepted upon myself the yoke of Heaven this morning, I am therefore exempt from doing it again in the evening’? Certainly not”! We see that a person cannot rely on his past accomplishments, or his earlier studies, and is rather required to study anew each and every day, and accept the yoke of Torah anew twice daily, and view his study as if this is the first time he is seeing it. This powerful tool will ensure that everything a person does is kept alive and fresh, and he is not “living off” of stale Torah. Indeed, the senior Rosh Yeshiva has often commented that he can always tell in any field when a person has ceased being productive, and that is when he starts talking about the past. When one hears a person boasting about his previous accomplishments in life, it is a telltale sign that this person has ceased doing anything creative or productive in his life. Whereas when one listens to a person, and they are talking about what they are involved with right now, this too is quite indicative that the person in question is still capable of generating new ideas.
I believe that we can all tap into this feeling especially now, at the beginning of the new Zman, when we are all excited to get back into learning and feel the thrill that comes with staring something new. I suggest that we all take that feeling, and preserve it throughout the entire Zman, and perhaps attempt to maintain it our entire lives, because this is the only way to study Torah, as we have demonstrated, and the only way to go about our Mitzvah observance. By constantly viewing our Torah study, and our service of Hashem, as fresh, new and exciting, we will certainly have our minds in the right place and be able to achieve great things, whereas if we get dragged down into the trap of routine, we will not be in the correct headspace that Hashem wants us to be in to successfully serve Him.
May we all merit to properly prepare ourselves to receive the Torah as a “new offering”!