Many of us have heard about the mitzva of ‘shnaim mikra ve’echad targum.’ In order to have a better appreciation of this mitzva, which is based in Maseches Brachos and quoted in the Shulchan Aruch in Hilchos Shabbos, I would like to share with you a few thoughts.
In the Yom Tov period, our primary request is that Hashem give us the gift of life. Well, the Gemara says in Brachos that one who fulfills the mitzva of shnaim mikra is guaranteed that his/her life will be prolonged!
There is a famous story of R Elchanan Wasserman who came to his yeshiva one Thursday night and asked if the students were learning shnaim mikra. The boys replied “Rebbe, we so busy with learning Gemara, how do we have time to learn this too?” R Elchanan responded by pointing out the Gemara mentioned above. He said to the boys, “What kind of excuse is this to say you don’t have time? After all, the Gemara is guaranteeing us a longer life if we do shnaim mikra, so you are assured to have the time.”
I was recently teaching a friend about the difference between the written law and the oral law i.e. Torah verses Gemara and Mishnayos. In order to appreciate the greatness of the Torah, I told him that everything in the oral Torah can be found in the written law – sometimes hidden, sometimes revealed.
It has been stated that the Vilna Gaon, at the end of his life, would simply sit with a Sefer Torah, because he was able to ‘see’ everything in it through the scroll itself. There were other tzaddikim as well that were able to see the past and the future in the words of the Torah.
From the Ramban we learn that words in the Torah are really different permutations of Hashem’s name. There is a midrash that states that the reason why some parts of the Torah are not totally in order is because of the concern that one may misuse the power of the words to revive the dead, a gift bestowed on some people but which can be dangerous if fallen into the wrong hands.
All these thoughts and many others show us how precious each word in the Torah really is. Spiritually, we know that each Jewish soul has a letter in the Torah that corresponds to his neshama.
So let’s resolve this year be’ezras Hashem to join Klal Yisrael each week and focus on each word of the coming parsha together with the targum.
by Rabbi Daniel Coren
