משה קיבל תורה מסיני. The Tanna doesn't speak of משה קיבל תורה מפי השם אלקי ישראל, mi-pi ha-gevurah, but משה קיבל תורה מסיני. Obviously the location would seem to be at best secondary to the fact to to who the nosein ha-Torah is. The Gemara in Sotah yadua commenting on the phrase in the Navi ואת דכא ושפל רוח. רב הונא ורב חסדא, חד אמר איתי דכא וחד אמר אני את דכא.
HaKadosh Baruch Hu is with the person who's oppressed, the person who has shiflus haruach. How does that rendezvous come about? So רב הונא ורב חסדא, one says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu iti daka, HaKadosh Baruch Hu elevates the person who's a shfal ruach, who's a maduka. He elevates him and in that manner facilitates that אני את דכא ושפל רוח. וחד אמר אני את דכא.
No, that the way HaKadosh Baruch Hu is with the daka u'shfal ruach is that HaKadosh Baruch Hu kavyachol lowers himself. Says the Gemara ומסתברא כמאן דאמר אני את דכא. And that second interpretation is more mistabra. שהרי הקדוש ברוך הוא הניח כל הרים וגבעות והשרה שכינתו על הר סיני.
HaKadosh Baruch Hu bypassed all the impressive towering mountains, רש"י כגון תבור וכרמל, and instead lowered the Shechina to the unassuming Har Sinai. אמר רב יוסף לעולם ילמד אדם מדעת קונו. A person should learn from that example. שהרי הקדוש ברוך הוא הניח כל הרים וגבעות. Again, HaKadosh Baruch Hu bypassed all other mountains, all other mountain chains, והשרה שכינתו על הר סיני. What what what's the pshat? So a little bit as follows. Imagine all mashal by definition are inadequate, but a little bit l'saber es ha'ozen. Imagine a preschool director goes to the world's leading physicist, physicists, and says, I'd like you to, we want to sponsor a project to prepare a reader for the three year olds, for the four year olds, that they should be able to, we should be able to read to them about the most the main chiddushim and yesodos of physics. So mista'ama the response will be forthcoming is that it's utterly ridiculous request, totally impossible, and a chutzpah what what to to make child's play out of what engages the greatest minds on the highest levels. The Ribono Shel Olam is infinite. His chochmah is infinite. The Ribono Shel Olam created and gave us a Torah that kach efes kotzehu of His chochmah should be accessible and attainable. That's the middas ha-anavah which was present at Har Sinai, which was reflected in the physical topography of Har Sinai being such an unassuming mountain. It's that which the Tanna is underscoring. It's that which the Tanna wants us to understand. משה קיבל תורה מסיני. We should recognize the consummate and ultimate act of ענוותנותו של הקדוש ברוך הוא in giving the Torah. In learning the Mishnah, everyone has to try to come to terms with why the Tanna changes, shifts in the leshonos from משה קיבל תורה מסיני u-mesarah le-Yehoshua. Why not have the whole shalsheles described as kabbalah or the whole shalsheles described ba-lashon mesirah? Why initially משה קיבל תורה מסיני, so then Yehoshua mi-Moshe, וזקנים קיבלו מיהושע? No, then the Tanna switches that to mesirah. Let's leave that question for a minute. Le-chasimas nevuah, nevuas Malachi, for the final nevuah, זכרו תורת משה עבדי אשר צויתי אותו בחורב. The phrase Toras Moshe which then reverberates in Masechet Kesubos refers to dinim de-oraysa as das Moshe. It's a very, very cryptic phrase. Agam that Torah was given through Moshe Rabbeinu, it's Toras Hashem. זכרו תורתו אשר מסרתי למשה רבנו אשר צויתי. What does it mean that it's Toras Moshe? It's the Ribono Shel Olam's Torah. What does the Navi mean, זכרו תורת משה עבדי? In the Yud-Gimmel Ikkarim, היסוד השמיני היא תורה מן השמים. והוא שנאמין שכל התורה הזאת המצויה בידינו היום היא התורה שניתנה למשה ושהיא כולה מפי הגבורה כלומר שהגיעה אליו כולה מאת השם בהגעה שנקראת על דרך ההשאלה דיבור. ואין יודע איכות ההגעה אלא הוא עליו השלום אשר אליו הגיעה. וכי הוא נחשב כסופר שמקריאים לפניו והוא מעתיק וכותב את כולה.
Moshe Rabbeinu was a sofer. He was like a sofer, a scribe taking dictation. But the dictation, the way the Rambam describes the dictation that Moshe Rabbeinu was receiving is that it's ke'ilu that it was being read to him, and Moshe Rabbeinu is copying what's being read to him and writing it down. Towards the end of the Yesod HaShemini, the Rambam says the Yesod HaShemini encompasses Torah Min HaShamayim, it encompasses not only Torah Shebiksav, it encompasses Torah Sheba'al Peh as well. וכן פירושה המקובל הוא גם כן מפי הגבורה וזה שאנו עושים היום את אופן הסוכה והלולב והשופר והציצית והתפילין וזולתם הוא אותו אופן עצמו שאמר השם למשה.
So there's a remarkable diyuk lashon here in the Rambam. The Rambam lechora could have captured the difference between Torah Shebiksav and Torah Sheba'al Peh by simply telling us that when Hakadosh Baruch Hu told Moshe Rabbeinu בראשית ברא אלקים את השמים ואת הארץ, He told it to Moshe Rabbeinu and said, "Now write it down," and when Hakadosh Baruch Hu told him how high minimally the schach has to be from the floor of the sukkah, that there Hakadosh Baruch Hu told it to Moshe Rabbeinu but said, "Don't write it down. That you're going to transmit orally." בראשית ברא אלקים את השמים ואת הארץ, "That you'll hand them a written Torah, and this you'll transmit orally." The Rambam says more than that. The Rambam says that as it were, when it was given to Moshe Rabbeinu, it was already a cheftza of Torah Shebiksav. וכי הוא נחשב כסופר שמקריאים לפניו. As it were Hakadosh Baruch Hu is holding a Chumash, is holding a Sefer Torah, and is reading to Moshe Rabbeinu בראשית ברא אלקים את השמים ואת הארץ, and Moshe Rabbeinu is now making his own copy and Moshe Rabbeinu is writing it down. And when it comes to Torah Sheba'al Peh, so there Hakadosh Baruch Hu is הוא אותו האופן עצמו שאמר השם למשה, not shehikra Hashem leMoshe, but she'amar Hashem leMoshe. So in the Rambam itself in this passage, there's no hechrech to say anything more than just that it's not simply that the Ribono Shel Olam tells Moshe Rabbeinu to commit this Torah to ksav and to preserve this as ba'al peh, but the cheftza when it was given to Moshe Rabbeinu is already Torah Shebiksav. He's being given Torah Shebiksav, and mimaila it's a Torah Shebiksav, so when it's given to Moshe Rabbeinu, he writes it down. It's a Torah Sheba'al Peh when it was given to Moshe Rabbeinu, it remains ba'al peh. It's preserved ba'al peh. And that's all that's indicated from the words of the Rambam here. But the emes is there would seem to be an omek here. We said משה קיבל תורה מסיני. The Torah is a davar hanivra. Hakadosh Baruch Hu had to create a form of Torah that's accessible, that's attainable to human beings, to a finite mind. It's not the pshat by Torah Sheba'al Peh, hear this, rabosai, it's not the pshat that Torah Sheba'al Peh is crystallized and then is nimseres to Moshe Rabbeinu, it's rather the pshat that Torah Sheba'al Peh. enters this world and becomes crystallized through kabbalas Moshe Rabbeinu. The communication to Moshe Rabbeinu gufa is what's mehavei the Torah Shebal Peh. It's mis-haveis, it's misgabeshes through kabbalas Moshe Rabbeinu. Imagine just a little bit, imagine you take a have a can of paint. You have and you throw it against on a parchment. So when the parchment is mekabbel the paint, that's gufa when the words, the ideas crystallize. Not that the words and ideas were crystallized and then you have a stamp and you stamp it on the piece of paper. No, it's through the kabbalah that it's mis-haveis. It's through the kabbalah that it crystallizes, that it's misgabeshes. If the Mishna would have said הקדוש ברוך הוא מסר תורה למשה רבינו, it would have meant that the Torah was crystallized independently and then is given to Moshe Rabbeinu. It's like you have a stamp, ex-glyphus, so the words are there already and now you're just imprinting that stamp here on the inside of the book. It's being imprinted on Moshe Rabbeinu. No, what happens is again, the mashal here is not the stamp where the letters are already there, the words are already there and it's just a question of what surface you're going to now transfer them to, you're going to imprint them upon. No, it's like throwing the ink against the canvas that the words now appear initially for the first time on the canvas. Moshe kibel Torah. Through Moshe Rabbeinu's kabbalah, the Torah is misgabeshes, the Torah crystallizes. But that only happens at that one moment. Maybe for a little bit, to maybe understand it a little bit more, Nefesh Hachaim says, Rav Chaim Volozhin has the following idea. The famous Agadata that the Malachim didn't want to let Moshe Rabbeinu bring the Torah down to this world. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu says to Moshe Rabbeinu, so you argue. You present the winning argument. And Moshe Rabbeinu says, the Torah is not relevant to you. So many dinim in the Torah. You have parents, you have the Torah is not relevant to you. So what was the hava amina of the Malachim? What was their hava amina? So Rav Chaim Volozhin explains that Toras Hashem as it is mishtalshelas, as it descends through the olamos, means something, translates and becomes crystallized within the reality of each of those olamos. So Torah there Torah meant something different in the olam hamalachim, something that taki was coherent and appropriate within. until what it means in the context of a physical world. So it's the same idea, it's the same idea that the Torah again, as we know it in terms of the arba avos nezikin, the shor and the bor, the mav'eh and the hevel crystallizes as it enters the world. Again, the mashal of where you throw the ink on the canvas. It's not a stamp that the words are already there, it's an ink being thrown on the canvas, and it enters this world through kabbolas Moshe Rabbeinu. In the Nefesh HaRav, so Rav Schachter quotes from the Rav who quoted from Rav Chaim, some of the pilpulim from on Chumash take certain machlokesim and they make it into a machlokes between Moshe Rabbeinu and Betzalel or something along those lines. ובקשר לזה הזכיר רבנו זצ"ל בשם זקנו הגר"א זצ"ל שסיפור זה אסור לאומרו כי אפיקורסות הוא דהתורה הרי נקראת סופו ובחשו מלאכי תורת משה.
But lichora here in the footnotes, Rav Schachter quotes, and you'll see when you look it up, the footnote goes further than just the, and this is what we're talking about, than the specifics of the comment in the body of the text. It's not only that you can't challenge Moshe Rabbeinu's kabbalas, but you can't challenge Moshe Rabbeinu's havana in Torah either. That's also part of זכרו תורת משה עבדי. עיין בתחילת הספר עמודי שמואל שנדפסה שם הסכמת הגר"ח מבריסק להספר ההוא ובאותו העמוד ולמטה בשולי הדף הוסיף המחבר וכתב הנני בזה להודיע אשר הרב הגאון רשכבה"ג רבינו חיים שליט"א הגאון אב בית דין דקהילת בריסק כאשר העביר עיניו הבדולח בעין ביקורת בספרי עמודי שמואל ביקש ממני להשמיט הפלוגתא שמשה רבינו עליו השלום ובצלאל שמביא אנכי בספרי. כי לפי דעתו אין לשום איש כוח לחלוק עם משה רבינו עליו השלום. זכרו תורת משה עבדי כתיב. והשבתי לו על אשר שמצאתי גם כן,
I found it somewhere, I wasn't mechadesh this story. ואף על פי כן ביקש ממני להשמיט. So lichora the pshat in what Rav Chaim said, that's what it means that it's Toras Moshe, that everything about Torah is מתהווה על ידי קבלת משה רבינו. And that's what's being nermaz in the mishna of משה קיבל תורה מסיני. The tanna can't say הקדוש ברוך הוא מסר תורה. The image that would be evoked by הקדוש ברוך הוא מסר תורה is here's the Torah, here's the stamp, and now you're going to be imprinted on the mind of Moshe Rabbeinu. It's being given to Moshe Rabbeinu. משה קיבל תורה מסיני, no, that, the image that that is intended to evoke is the canvas where the words are forming and become crystallized on the canvas. And that's what it means, משה קיבל תורה מסיני. Subsequently, taki, now Torah is already in this world, so now Torah is nimseres midor ledor ומסרה ליהושע ויהושע לזקנים.