Shavuot Special: How Much Torah Do We Have In This World Vs. Olam HaBa

1:45Well, in essence, they became Jewish because of the Torah. They weren't Jewish before it. Obviously, as you've learned from Rabbi Mizrachi many, many times, before the Torah we were Yisraelim. Before that, we were Hebrews. But if someone else came to Mount Sinai, chas v'shalom, and accepted the Torah and we didn't, they would be the Jews. So, in essence, the most important day in history is Shavuot. Now, 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 Hurkanos 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 says, if all the water were ink, and all the trees were pens, and all 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. Now, we got the Torah at Mount Sinai.

3:10But as the Maharal said, we got a little bit of a lower version after our sin, but we still got the Torah. The Torah later was given from generation to generation to 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva, who unfortunately all died during the Omer period. Then we started all over again with five of Rabbi Akiva's students and Rabbi Akiva himself, all the way to today. but 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 one 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, reaching 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 present a short chidush about what happened. I do this in different places people frequent. It's usually 15 minutes long. I try to connect three things: Why did Hashem take us from simcha to simcha, but in the middle, there's a disaster?

4:32First off, he wanted to tell us that the purpose of us leaving Mitzrayim is to get the Torah. Whoever didn't want to get the Torah died. As we know, at least 80% of the Bnei Yisrael died in Egypt. The Torah is 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... 55 prophets, 48 males and 7 females, are mentioned in our Tanakh. However, in history, we had over 1.2 million prophets, so we're missing quite 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. 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 Reforms and the Conservatives and any other wicked person in between can never say, "Hey, no, this is not relevant to today. Today you're allowed to drive because Moses didn't have a car."

5:33Which 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 Conservatives and any other wicked person in between, can never say, hey no, this is not relevant to today. Today, you're allowed to drive because Moshe 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, 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, We 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 mourn because we're missing their Torah. If you explore resources like HebrewBooks.com, which offers over 75,000 Hebrew books, holy books, for free, you realize the vastness of Torah knowledge. Yet, all that we have today is derived from just those six individuals who reshaped the continuation of Torah learning.

6:50We 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, for free. And you want to download, read, and so on. And there are hundreds of thousands of different sefarim kodesh that you can learn from. 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, saying, "You know what, today, I'm not going to kill the 700," we would have a Torah with 706 instead. 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 to die in the plague of darkness, the Makat Choshech. You're going to get the Torah. But if I had 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 have from the little we possess, we yearn for what we are missing.