מצות עשה של תורה לספר בניסים ונפלאות שנעשו לאבותינו במצרים בליל חמישה עשר בניסן שנאמר זכור את היום הזה שיצאתם ממצרים.
Torah tells us to to remember the day when when we left Mitzrayim. Hanicha for that generation, so for the rest of their lives they can they can remember that day. But Lekhora strictly speaking one can't say that future generations are remembering. Future generations are aware of, future generations know of. They're not remembering. That's what would seem and yet the Torah says Zachor, Torah says remember. So the the Rav has an extraordinary explanation and it's just so so basic, so fundamental. Maybe to give a Mashal before we before we come to his Torah. Bezman hazeh there are Reshaim who are Holocaust Holocaust deniers. They deny that that the Holocaust happened. So so imagine if if one of these one of these Reshaim or some third party would confront a survivor, someone who was in Auschwitz, someone who was in Buchenwald and say you know can you can you disprove, can you validate your your contention that the Holocaust happened? Can you can you disprove this person's position? Can you document your your position? So the survivor if if the challenge wasn't so wicked and and tragic it it would be laughable. The survivor would answer and say what what do you mean prove? I don't have to prove what what I lived through. I don't have to prove my my experiences. Okay. So now imagine that that the this challenge to to prove the historicity of of the Holocaust instead of being posed to a survivor is posed to a child of survivors. He grew up his parents both survivors. He grew up seeing the the numbers on their arms. He grew up hearing their stories, maybe he grew up witnessing their their nightmares at night. And then the same he's confronted with the same Rishus and challenged to again justify his belief in the historicity of the Holocaust. So he's gonna have the same response that his parents would have. What what do you mean justify? What what do you mean document? I know it. I know it. I know it experientially. So what what do you mean try to bring indirect proofs and inferences and deductions and and historical records for for what is experientially attested to. So what happens here? What happens here is that the child absorbs his parents' parents' memories that the parents' memories become his and the experiences, memories that parents share, it's not simply what happens in that transmission is not just conveying information, but the experience is conveyed. If you grew up hearing from your parents or grandparents lots of stories about their parents or their grandparents whom according to the timeline of their life and your life you never knew, but you do know them. You do know them. And you have a sense of knowing them firsthand. You have a sense of knowing them as individuals. The Rav explains that's what it means when the Torah has mitzvos of zechirah, mitzvos of zechirah where in ה'תשע"ה, we're remembering an event, we're remembering an event that happened thousands of years ago, we're takka remembering. It's not that the Torah has a different definition of the word zechirah than we do. It's not that the Torah is using it loosely. No, the Torah is talking about memory, but there's a certain collective memory we have as in the examples that we gave. And he would go on to explain that this is what masorah is about and this is the power and the beauty of masorah. Again, masorah doesn't only convey information, but it shares the experience. It brings the next generation, it transplants the experience so that the next generation takka remembers. And just as the child of the Holocaust survivors, he knows the Holocaust happened. And it's the most again, it's the most absurd and intolerable challenge to ask him to prove it through documentary records. So that's what happens through masorah is again, it's not just information is conveyed. Experiences are transplanted. That's how the Torah has mitzvos of zechirah throughout the doros. And that's what masorah again, in addition to conveying information, that's what masorah represents. B'emes, you see it in how Ravina and Rav Ashi were mesader Gemara. There are certain sugyas where the Rishonim will say that the maksha misunderstood what someone had said. Okay, fine, so edit it out. I mean, it'd be so terrible if the Daf Yomi cycle was seven years instead of seven and a half years? We'll all get lazy and complacent. It's okay. So edit out the misunderstandings. So what are Ravina and Rav Ashi? They're perpetuating the misunderstandings. You have a sugya like that in Bava Kamma, you have different sugyas like that where the Rishonim will say there was a misunderstanding. That the kasha that he was asking wasn't really a kasha because he just misunderstood what the other Amora had said. So it's clear that unlike Mishnah, which was intended basically as a Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, Gemara was intended to bring us into the Beis Medrash of the Amoraim. Gemara is intended to bring us in like the famous Gemara in Menachos that Moshe Rabbeinu is sitting in Rabbi Akiva's Beis Medrash, so it's to bring us in, it's to bring us into Rav Nachman's Beis Medrash, Rav Huna's Beis Medrash, Abaye and Rava's Beis Medrash. Why do we have to be in the Beis Medrash for? Just give me the bottom line. Give me the distilled whatever information, whatever. People sometimes ask, what do you have to learn Gemara? So read Encyclopedia Talmudis. You're just reading. You get all the yedios. So why do we have to invest such amala and yegia in all the shakla v'tarya? Obviously there are many answers. This is certainly not the only answer, but one of the answers is that what Ravina and Rav Ashi intended in Gemara is not just sharing information, not just conveying information, but this dimension of masorah as well. The experience, that the experience is transplanted. What, when we talk about that transplanting of experience, so the two most central and dominant experiences that we all remember, that we all remember not just as points of information have had conveyed to us, but we all remember Yetzias Mitzrayim and Ma'amad Har Sinai. And when one looks in the leshonos HaRambam, something very interesting. The Rambam in perek zayin that we just read a few minutes ago here, zayin aleph: מצות עשה של תורה לספר בניסים ונפלאות שנעשו לאבותינו במצרים בליל חמשה עשר בניסן.
Halacha beis: מצוה להודיע לבנים ואפילו לא שאלו שנאמר והגדת לבנך לפי דעתו של בן אביו מלמדו.
Keitzad? אם היה קטן או טיפש אומר לו בני כולנו היינו עבדים כשפחה זו או כעבד זה במצרים ובלילה הזה פדה אותנו הקדוש ברוך הוא ויוציאנו לחירות. ואם היה הבן גדול וחכם מודיעו מה שאירע לנו במצרים וניסים שנעשו לנו על ידי משה רבינו הכל לפי דעתו של בן.
So the Rambam changed it, right? In Halacha aleph it was nasu laavoseinu, and in Halacha beis it's nasu lanu. And again in Halacha daled it's that way as well: וכן מתחיל ומודיע שעבדים היינו לפרעה במצרים וכל הרעה שגמלנו ומסיים בניסים ונפלאות שנעשו לנו ובחירותנו.
So the transition from nasu laavoseinu to nasu lanu. משה רבינו לא האמינו בו ישראל מפני האותות שעשה שהמאמין על פי האותות יש בלבו דופי שאפשר שיעשה האות בלט וכישוף. אלא כל האותות שעשה משה במדבר לפי הצורך עשאן,
skipping a few lines, uvameh he'eminu vo? במעמד הר סיני שעינינו ראו ולא זר ואזנינו שמעו ולא אחר.
The same shift, right? משה רבינו לא האמינו, right? Hem lo he'eminu, right? לא האמינו בו ישראל. Not... So could be because it's very hard to figure out when you have a nun in the shoresh how to do the anachnu, the nun-vav ending, but yitachen the Rambam probably would have figured that out, or how many nuns you have at the end if the subject was going to be anachnu, he would've figured it out. It's לא האמינו בו ישראל and then it's ובמה הם האמינו בו? The answer to ובמה הם האמינו בו is עינינו ראו ולא זר ואזנינו שמעו ולא אחר. So it becomes again the experience, that the rov yesod, the experience is again not the information, it's not only information which is conveyed, the experience is conveyed, the experience is conveyed. And v'emess the Ramban says it very, very emphatically as well. HaMitzvah hashniyah of שכחת הלאוין לדעת הרמב"ן: שנמנענו שלא נשכח מעמד הר סיני ולא נסיר אותו מדעתנו. אבל יהיו עינינו ולבנו שם כל הימים,
ve'hu omer yisaleh. השמר לך ושמור נפשך מאד פן תשכח את הדברים אשר ראו עיניך ופן יסורו מלבבך כל ימי חייך והודעתם לבניך ולבני בניך יום אשר עמדת לפני ה׳ אלהיך בחורב. והכוונה בזה גדולה מאוד. שאם היו דברי התורה באים אצלנו מפי הנביא עליו השלום בלבד,
ha-Navi be-hey ha-yediah, Moshe Rabbeinu, אף על פי שנתאמת אצלנו ענין נבואתו באותות ומופתים, אם יקום בקרבנו נביא או חולם חלום בזמן מן הזמנים,
at any point, at any subsequent point throughout the millennia, bizman min hazmanim, maybe in the first century le-minyanam, maybe in the fifth or sixth century le-minyanam, whatever, o cholem chalom ויצונו בשום הפך מן התורה and kaveyachol נתן עלינו אות ומופת so then תהיה התורה נסוחה על ידי השני או יכנס בלבנו ספק על זה. אבל כשהגיענו ביאור התורה מפי הגבורה לאזנינו ועינינו רואות אין שם אמצעי,
we'll reject whatever, nak-chish kol cholek, bizman min hazmanim, at any point, the answer's going to be that הגיענו ביאור התורה מפי הגבורה לאזנינו ועינינו רואות, נכחיש כל חולק לכל מספק ונשקר אותו, ולא יועילהו אות ולא יצילהו מידינו מופת שאנחנו היודעים ועדים בשקרו ובפחזותו.
Someone gets up today and contests nevuas Moshe Rabbeinu, so we're eidem, we're eidei re-iyah to his sheker. זהו שנאמר במעמד ההוא וגם בך יאמינו לעולם והוא הענין הבא בפרשת כי יקום בקרבך נביא או חולם חלום וכבר ביאר הרב זה בספר המדע והוא יסוד גדול בתורה.
It's important that the Western world has no concept and therefore no appreciation for masorah on any level. But the strength of masorah, and because it's anchored, again, not only in such reliable transmission of information, but because it's anchored, again, in this sharing and transferring and transplanting of experience, the power of masorah is so, so strong. And that, again, is certainly the core of the mitzvas sipur of זכר היום הזה שיצאת ממצרים.