Rabbi Yisroel Elya Weintraub zt”l of Bnei Brak (one of the great Torah scholars of our generation) explains that it is impossible for us to have any knowledge of Hashem Himself. We can only understand the words and desires that He revealed to us in His Torah. But Chazal tell us that Hashem gave us the ability to establish the halacha and the tzurasa d’shmaitsah. Meaning, the scholars of the Talmud form the structure and makeup of each subject in Torah. In other words, Hashem, in a sense, gave us the ability to establish what His desire truly is. Thus, it is as if we are taking Hashem along with His Torah. What greater attachment to Hashem can there be?
Now that we know that a person is only alive when he is attached to Torah, what happens when we are eating, sleeping, working or resting? Once we are aware of the above, we will make learning Torah the purpose of everything we do, and we will learn Torah whenever we can. As a result, we will not let go of the tree of Torah even when we are involved in those matters. And, of course, women also are connected to Torah by facilitating and assisting their husbands, sons, brothers or those outside their family learn Torah.
Now we understand how we see Hashem’s love from the fact that He gave us His Torah. Through the Torah we become one with Him, more so than with any other mitzvah. This close and intimate relationship is only possible because of His never-ending love for our nation. Only we were given true life!
Tefilla with Love
This love, which manifests itself each year on Shavuos, “the Day of Love,” will not only change the way we view the great present of Torah, it will also change our entire approach to tefillah. We saw in the last two articles that the miracles which occurred during Yetzias Mitzrayim demonstrates how great and powerful Hashem is. As a result, we turn specifically to Him in prayer and place all our trust in Him. But the Chovos Halevavos (Sha’ar Habitachon, beginning of chapters 2 and 3) writes that the first prerequisite for having full trust in Hashem is realizing that Hashem loves us, and has mercy and pity on us – more than any other person in the world is capable of.
Knowing this will make it so much easier to pour out our hearts to Him. Not only is Hashem the all-capable master of the Universe, but He loves me, cares for me, and wants to hear what I am requesting from Him. He is the address I need to turn to – nowhere else.
Let us use the Yom Tov of Shavuos, the day we receive His great sign of love, the Torah, to strengthen our awareness that Hashem loves us dearly.
First, when we learn Torah on Shavuos, let us remember that we are studying Hashem’s special present that He shared only with us because He loves us so.
Second, I heard from my Rebbe, Harav Moshe Twersky H”yd, that on Shavuos the special blessing of Ahava Rabba should be said with the same fervor and intensity that we say Ne’ilah at the end of Yom Kippur! If we pray from the bottom of our hearts on Shavuos, we can gain the ability to understand much more Torah, enjoy it immensely, and feel that special connection to Hashem too!
