Last week we spoke a little bit about how the Ramban teaches that the Torah instructs us, the Torah guides us to anchor our emuna in Yetzias Mitzrayim with the various yesodos ha'emuna what were demonstrated and we spoke how implicitly what the Ramban implicitly in Parshas Yisro and explicitly earlier the Ramban is telling us that the Torah anchors our emuna in masorah because after all our knowledge of Yetzias Mitzrayim is a knowledge that we have, that we attain by tapping into and connecting with our masorah. So it's an extraordinary thing. Our very emuna optimally, I don't think the Ramban necessarily is denying that a person can come to emuna other ways, but optimally our emuna comes from our connection to masorah. Now as defining and prominent a role as that already assigns to masorah within our lives, clearly masorah is also the source of all of Torah and that's in a double sense, in two senses. First of all, רק השמר לך ושמר נפשך מאד פן תשכח את הדברים אשר ראו עיניך ופן יסורו מלבבך כל ימי חייך והודעתם לבניך ולבני בניך יום אשר עמדת לפני ה' אלקיך בחורב.
Our knowledge of Ma'amad Har Sinai comes through masorah, comes through the והודעתם לבניך ולבני בניך. Secondly the entire content of Torah whether it's what the actual words of Torah Shebichsav are, whether it's what the correct interpretations of Torah Shebe'al Peh are, all comes to us via masorah. Masorah also the Rav explains forges our personal identity. This is a little bit of a subtle concept, maybe begin by giving a mashal and then coming to the Rav's very beautiful and fundamental exposition. Imagine a Holocaust survivor who's confronted by one of those rasha'im who deny the Holocaust. Denial of the Holocaust doesn't come out of historical ignorance or confusion, it comes out of rishus, it's the only place it can come from. And this rasha, the Holocaust denier, challenges the survivor, challenges his belief, his conviction that the Holocaust happened, that the Holocaust is real. So what is the survivor's answer? He has to find documentation to legitimize to rationalize to validate his belief? He has to find archaeological evidence of the gas chambers? So his answer is, I lived it. I went through those shiv'ah madurei gehinom. Obviously I know it's real. What happens if this same Holocaust denier then confronts not, not a Holocaust survivor, but the second generation, a child of Holocaust survivors? Both his parents were in the camps. Makes the same brazen evil challenge to prove the historical veracity of the Holocaust. So what's the answer? The answer is fundamentally the same. The children give fundamentally the same answer that their parents give. What do you mean? I, I grew up in a home where my parents had nightmares every night about what happened. I grew up in a home seeing numbers etched into arms. I know it happened. So what happens there? What's the dynamic there? The dynamic is that even though it was the parents who went through the camps, that experience on a certain level and in a certain sense is real and as real for the children. And the children's conviction, confidence, knowledge, awareness of the historical reality is, is one that they, they have personally. They have an immediate awareness, an immediate understanding because their parents' memories and experiences enter their own personal consciousness. The Rav explains that that's what mesora ultimately involves, and it's what underlies all mitzvos zichira in the Torah. How can the Torah in the mitzva ledoros say זכור את אשר עשה לך עמלק? The Torah should have had a formulation that seemingly was more appropriate to the future doros who can't remember it. So the, the mitzva should have been zachor that which you were told happened. Don't forget that which you were told. Don't forget your, your history lesson. Don't forget History 101. Torah doesn't formulate it that way. זכור את היום הזה אשר יצאתם ממצרים. It's a personal memory that we hold on to. So mesora is the source of emuna. mesora is the source of all of Torah. mesora forges and shapes who we are as people, our personal identity. mesora is everything. A Jew lives steeped in mesora. It's kedai to maybe, maybe sometime on the way out of the beis medrash, at the end of seder, to stop for a minute, look at the, look at the bookcases, look at the bookshelves. Don't look at the multiple copies. Just look at single copies of, of everything. Look at a single copy of a Shas, a single copy of a Rambam, a single copy of a Shulchan Aruch, a single copy of all the shailos uteshuvos, midrashim, meforshei Tanach. nigla, nistar, and be reminded of the vastness, the breadth and depth of masorah. The עת לעשות לה' הפרו תורתך that the Gemara in Gittin records notwithstanding the fact that one can look at a bookshelf and see volumes of תורה שבעל פה notwithstanding, masorah in absolutely vital and critical ways remains oral, remains a תורה שבעל פה. How we learn those gemaras on the bookshelf, how one approaches תורה שבעל פה, what's a svara that's nitenes l'he'amer, what's a svara that's not nitenes l'he'amer, similarly for how one learns Torah she-bichtav, what's a mahalach that's acceptable, that's possible, what's a mahalach that's out of bounds, minhagei Yisrael, attitudes, all of those vital critical indispensable elements remain תורה שבעל פה. There's no one handbook, no one guidebook where one finds these vital elements of masorah recorded. There's a need to connect, there's a need to mekabel. Periodically, maybe more often than periodically, we should remind ourselves who the chachmei masorah past and present are. We should remind ourselves of their personal devoutness, personal tzidkus. We should remind ourselves of their extraordinary kishronos and combined with incredible yegia v'amal, the extraordinary knowledge and insight they had. We should remind ourselves that when we talk about masorah, we're talking about Moshe Rabbeinu, we're talking about Yehoshua, we're talking about the nevi'im, skipping, fast forwarding, we're talking about Rabi Akiva, we're talking about Rabbeinu HaKadosh, we're talking about Rav Saadia Gaon, the Rambam, the Ramban, the Vilna Gaon, Rav Akiva Eiger, Rav Chaim. Another perspective, another dimension of masorah is that there's a special hashgacha that HaKadosh Baruch Hu exercises to sustain masorah. ואני זאת בריתי אותם אמר ה' רוחי אשר עליך ודברי אשר שמתי בפיך לא ימושו מפיך ומפי זרעך ומפי זרע זרעך אמר ה' מעתה ועד עולם.
When HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives a havtacha, there's a hashgacha to fulfill that havtacha. Sod Hashem l'yereiav. The combination of all of the above: masorah as our very lifeline and life, a masorah which is so vast, its breadth and depth so great of masorah. A Masora which remains an oral one in critical and very vital ways. A Masora bequeathed and interpreted and applied throughout the generations by people of incredible spiritual stature, guided by a special hashgacha. Naturally, naturally, has to awaken within a person an overwhelming sense of anava and koved rosh vis-à-vis Masora. It's impossible to have an even rudimentary understanding and appreciation of, again, this minimalist, incomplete, inadequate sketch of Masora that we gave and just not have an overwhelming sense of humility and an overwhelming sense of koved rosh vis-à-vis the Masora. A sense of immense privilege to live our lives and connect with such a Masora. And just an overwhelming sense of how small we are. And those, the chachmei u'gedolei hador who are entrusted with interpreting and applying the Masora for our generation, feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility. To do or say anything which, on the surface level, phenomenologically, is different, is new, chil v'ra'ada yochzun. The Rambam talks in places about the dangers of our not knowing enough. The danger of not understanding, not appreciating, not recognizing the vastness and sacredness of Masora. The danger of not knowing enough to realize the encyclopedic knowledge that throughout the generations chachmei Masora drew upon to answer individual shailos. It's a great danger. In this context, a lack of humility, it's hard to know in terms of the cycle of cause and effect, what comes first, what comes second, what's the chicken, what's the egg. But in this context, chutzpah is not only a personal moral flaw, but as something that distorts and skews Masora. And finally, we have to guard against a new type of kara'us. The old form of Karus, the old form of Karus was a denial of Masora, of tradition vis-a-vis Torah Shebichtav. But we have to make sure, Rachmana litzlan, that we don't allow for a Karus in our day vis-a-vis Torah Shebaal Peh. The notion that I can sit with my Gemara and my Rambam and my Shulchan Aruch, and without ever having had a rebbe, without ever having been mekabel, without being connected to the living Masora which connects us back to that Shulchan Aruch, to that Rambam, to that blatt Gemara, and think that I can opine about what the Masora says about new questions and new realities. That's also a form of Karus. The Karaim didn't have a tradition of Torah Shebichtav. It's possible to be a Karai vis-a-vis Torah Shebaal Peh, not to have a tradition vis-a-vis Torah Shebaal Peh. Torah Shebaal Peh also has to have a tradition, how one learns, how gedolim and morei hora'ah throughout the generations pasken shailos. The parshiyos Yisro, Mishpatim, dealing with Matan Torah, the beginning of our Masora. Masora goes back even further, goes back to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. It's a time to be mechazek and mischazek on these inyanei Masora.