Shavuot Special: How Much Torah Do We Have In This World Vs. Olam HaBa (7 minutes)
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Transcript
2:12Now, why do we go over the Torah, or at least try? Because Hashem is trying to give us a little bit of a taste of the beauty of the Torah, but in reality, we can't finish it. We can't finish the Torah, and that's why in Pirkei Avot you'll see that it's not your obligation to finish the Torah. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus said to Rabbi Akiva once, "You haven't come to visit me in a long time. I have so much Torah to teach you." He says, "How much Torah do you have?" He answers, "If all of the water were ink, and all of the trees were pens, and all of the land were paper, it wouldn't be enough to write down the Torah that I know. And that is not even close to the amount of the real Torah. What's the real Torah? Well, I'll give you an understanding of what we have. We received the Torah at Mount Sinai." But as Rebbe Dovid said, we received a diminished version after our sin, yet we still received the Torah. The Torah was later transmitted from generation to generation, including the 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva, who sadly all perished. Subsequently, the tradition was restarted with five of Rabbi Akiva's students and Rabbi Akiva himself, continuing all the way to today.
3:37But now, if you connect the holidays, if you go back to Pesach, it's a very important holiday. It's the Exodus; we left Egypt. We turned around history in a way that's never been done before and never will be done again. The slave turned into the master, and we go from Simcha to Simcha. Shavuot. But in the middle, we have a problem. In the middle, We have 34 days of disaster. The 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva died during this time. So what's the connection? During one of my shiurim, I do a short chidush on what happened. It's held in different places that people enjoy. It's usually 15 minutes. I try to connect the three things: Why did Hashem take us from simcha to simcha, but in the middle, there's a disaster? First off, he wanted to tell us that the purpose of us leaving Mitzrayim was to receive the Torah. Whoever didn't want to accept the Torah died. As we know, at least 80% of the Bnei Yisrael died in Egypt. The Torah comes later on. But in the middle, he wanted to explain to us what we actually have. Because if we don't know what we have, we usually don't appreciate it. So the Torah that we got, according to Masechet Megillah, it says that we had...
5:01Fifty-five prophets, forty-eight males and seven females, in our Tanakh. However, in history, we had over 1.2 million prophets, so we're missing a few. Their Torah was holy too. What happened to them? Hashem told us that their Torah was only relevant to their generation; their nevuah (prophecy) was specific to their time and circumstances. Their prophecy, actually, better said, was only relevant to their generation. Which means that the 55 remaining prophets, whatever came out of their mouth, every single letter that's written in the Torah, is relevant to every single generation until the end of time. So no one can ever say, like the Reform and the Conservative movements or any other wicked person in between, that this is not relevant today, or that today's circumstances allow for actions like driving on Shabbat, simply because Moses didn't have a car. You're allowed to drive on Shabbat? He didn't have a car; that's why he didn't drive? You can't say that. Why? Because if Hashem said their Torah and their Nevuah, their prophecy, is relevant for all time, that's it. But now, we only have their prophecy; we only have their part of the Torah, out of the 1.2 million. So, already we know we're missing a bunch. And out of those 55,
6:25We got down to 24,000 students, but out of the 24,000 students, we don't have all of their Torah. We only have the Torah of six: Rabbi Akiva and his five students. So what would happen if Hashem said, you know what, it was about 700 of the greatest sages in history dying per day? We don't just mourn because we have nothing else to do. We mourn because we're missing their Torah. If you go on, for example, HebrewBooks.org, they have over 75,000 Hebrew books, holy books, available for free. You can download, read, and engage with them. There are hundreds of thousands of different sifrei kodesh from which you can learn. The Torah is endless. But all of what we have today is just from six people. Which means that if Hashem would have skipped one day and said, "You know what, today, I'm not going to kill the 700, so we'll have a Torah of 706," imagine how much holiness this world would have. The beauty of it is that Hashem obviously knew that even with what we have from the six, He has to practically beg us to read. But at least now you know that when you get to Shavuot, Hashem is trying to give you a message.
7:53I only took you out of Egypt for this Torah. It's the only reason. If you didn't want the Torah, I would have left you there, and you would have died in the plague of darkness, the Makat Choshech. You're going to get the Torah. But if I would have given it to you without you knowing how much it's worth, you'd get there and say, Nah, I like Harry Potter better. And you move along. But now that we know how much beauty we derive from the little we possess, we yearn for so much that we're missing.
