If we understand this matter deeply, we see that there are two deep perspectives towards life.
The perspective which people are more familiar with is reminiscent of the concept of the “sanctity of the Levites”. We are currently not found on the level we were at by the giving of the Torah, for ever since the Luchos were broken, we fell from that exalted level, and, correspondingly, we fell from the perspective of “sanctity of the firstborn” to the perspective of “sanctity of the Levites”.
Our usual perspective reflects the sanctity of the Levites, which represents the level of closeness with Hashem in the sense that there is Hashem, Torah, and Yisrael, and that we need to connect with Him and His Torah [as if this reality exists “outside” of us]. It is the understanding that now that there is a Creator, Torah, and Yisrael, we recognize that bond and we seek a bond with Hashem and His Torah.
But there is a more inner perspective towards life, which corresponds to “sanctity of the firstborn”, which is a deeper level of closeness with Hashem than “sanctity of the Levites”.
The giving of the Torah changed all of life and all of man. It revealed the power that one can find the source of each thing he comes across. In each thing you encounter, you can think of what came before it.
When we live in this world, we tend to think that it is we who do everything. We certainly have emunah that Hashem does everything, but while we are actually going about our daily living, we usually think that we are doing it all. But if we want to draw closer to the level of standing at Har Sinai, we should think about what is actually empowering us to act, as we move and perform throughout the day.
For example, when you see a fruit, you can wonder where it came from. It came from some man who planted it, who descends all the way back to Adam HaRishon, and Adam was created by Hashem. Every time you see a fruit, you can try thinking of the first fruit, which Hashem made through His word, by looking into the Torah to create the world. When you make the blessing of Borei Pri Ha’Eitz on the fruit, remember that the Borei is the Source of this fruit, just as the first fruit was created by His own word.
There are many more examples as well, of this concept. When it comes Yom Tov, we have a mitzvah of simchas Yom Tov, to eat meat. As you are eating meat on Yom Tov, you can also think of the first animal which all meat came from, which was created by Hashem on the fifth day.
This kind of thinking connects you all the time with the Creator, all the way back to the six days of creation. Living in this way is an overhaul. It connects a person to the Torah on a deeper level, in which one is always connected with his beginning point.
In the three days preceding Shavuos, there is preparation for the Torah. The three days of preparation symbolize the three-fold connection between Hashem, Torah and Yisrael, corresponding to the sanctity of the Levites. At the day of the giving of the Torah itself, though, there is a deeper level of closeness. It is no longer a three-fold connection, but a level of Torah which is the Creator’s revelation to us, where we are “one” with the Creator - as the Sages state, “Hashem, Torah, and Yisrael are one” – a connection with Hashem through recognizing the raishis, the “beginning point”, of each thing.
How can reach such a level of connection to the Torah, especially since the Torah preceded man? As explained, it is when we are looking for the root (or beginning) of each thing.
This perspective connects us to a bond with the Torah on the level of raishis, beginning. It is not simply a connection to the Torah “now” that it is here. Rather, it is a connection to our inherent bond with the Torah, for both Yisrael and the Torah are called the raishis/beginning. From there we can reach the Creator.
Without this perspective, a person does not reach his own beginning point, so he will not either reach the beginning of the Torah, and he will not completely reach the Creator. Of the Creator it said, “He was, is, and will always be” – the Creator always existed before Creation, so to speak. One who recognizes the Creator on the level of the “sanctity of the Levites” is only connecting to the Creator “after” Creation. In contrast, when one connects to the Creator through the perspective explained here, he touches upon the beginning of his soul as it in his body, as well as the beginning of his soul root above, and the beginning of the Torah.
Hashem says, “I am First and Last, and besides for Me there is none other”. The ability to connect to Hashem is uniquely the Jewish people’s, and it cannot be reached by any other nation. Only of the Jewish people it is said, “Yisrael, since the time they stood at Sinai, their impurity left them.” This was said about the nation of Yisrael, not of the gentiles. By the giving of the Torah, Hashem opened the heavens and revealed “Ain Od Milvado”, that there is nothing else besides Him, and this meant that the bond between Yisrael and Hashem was not simply “now” that there was Creation, but a bond that existed even before Creation.
