When we prepare for the time of the giving of the Torah, during the 49 days of Sefiras HaOmer, we must know clearly where we are heading towards. The point is not to reach deep spiritual revelations and high levels of purity and holiness. The point of purifying ourselves during this time is so that we can merit a greater goal: to prepare ourselves for the King.
Every year, when Shavuos returns, the light of the giving of the Torah returns with it, so it is not just the ‘time’ when the Torah was given. The entire event of Sinai returns! That means that “Our desire to see our King” returns each year on Shavuos. But we have to be aware of this and prepare for it.
If a person isn’t aware of this, then he thinks that preparing for the giving of the Torah means to prepare for the “Torah” alone. But the true way to prepare is to realize that there is not only a giving of the Torah that is coming – there is a Giver behind it. Shavuos is called Zman Matan Torah (the time of the giving of the Torah) as opposed to Zman Kaballas Torah (the time of receiving the Torah), so that we can remember the One who gave it to us.
When a person only prepares for Torah - but not for Hashem – then he has a hard time understanding why he should want the Name of Hashem to be revealed, as we ask in Shemoneh Esrei. He will wish for more Torah in the world, more purity and holiness in the world – all of these are good things – but he is missing the main yearning.
If a person doesn’t deeply desire “to see the King”, he merely awaits a more purified kind of world, he awaits the resurrection of the dead and the coming of Mashiach, and he thinks that the goal of Creation ends there.... Although the times of Moshiach will be times where we are free to learn the wisdom of Torah all day, this is not all there is to it. There is also the desire to “see our King.” When a person is missing this yearning, he is not yet yearning for the purpose of Creation which he is supposed to long for.
Thus, yearning for more Torah, without a yearning for Hashem, is missing the point. Such a person is missing the main yearning to have on this world. He might spend his life learning Torah and doing all the mitzvos, but he is not searching for Hashem in all of it. He yearns for more and more revelation of Torah, but he is blank from yearnings for Hashem!
So we must know that these are two very different yearnings. The truth is that at the root of everything, everything is rooted in Hashem, so Torah and Hashem are ultimately intertwined. “Hashem and the Torah are one.” But this is not always revealed in a person’s life, so he does not always see Torah as being “one” with Hashem.
When we separate from materialism and we yearn for spirituality and for more Torah, this is but half of our avodah. Of course, we must certainly yearn for more spiritual levels and for more Torah, as we explained before; but it is not yet everything. The greater part of our avodah on this world is to yearn for the revelation of Hashem on the world. We can keep moving back and forth between these two yearnings (revelation of Torah, and revelation of Hashem), which, on a deeper level, is really an integration of our yearning for Torah with our yearning for Hashem.
This deep place in the soul is described by the Rambam as “the desire for Hashem’s Name”. We can awaken in ourselves a yearning for Hashem. Not only does the thought of His existence awaken this yearning, but even the mention of His mere name can awaken it. "לשמך ולזכרך תאות נפש" - “For Your Name and mention, is the desire of [my] soul” – even the mention of Hashem’s Name can awaken our soul’s yearning for Him.
The more a person lives his life in this way, the more he yearns for the revelation of Hashem’s Name on this world, and then he can feel great pain at the tremendous chilul Hashem (desecration of His Name) in our times: the void of feeling Hashem’s Presence on this world.
It is also called the “pain of the Shechinah.” The Shechinah has pain over the fact that people are not keeping Torah and mitzvos and don’t know of Hashem. But there is also pain of the Shechinah over people who know of spirituality, yet they don’t have a desire to see the King.
The Shechinah is described by our Sages as the revelation of Hashem on this world. There is His reality, and there is His revelation. When He is revealed on this world, this is called Shechinah. The pain of the Shechinah is the fact that His presence is hidden and not revealed in the world.
But when we have a “desire to see our King”, then the words we daven in Shemoneh Esrei of ועל כולם יתברך, where we daven that Hashem’s Name be revealed, it is a prayer emanating from our soul. We are not only asking that Hashem be revealed to Klal Yisrael, but that He be revealed in the entire world.
Especially during these days, when we prepare for the Torah, we need to reveal this yearning, the desire to see our King. Along with it, it must cause us to feel pain over the fact that Hashem’s Presence is not yet revealed on the world. Then we can really mean it when we say the words, ועל כולם יתברך יתרומם ויתנשא שמך תמיד לעולם ועד.
The concept here is far from the comprehension of most people in the world now, who are entrenched in materialism, and even those who seek spirituality are not in always in touch with the desire to see Hashem. There are only a few people who truly yearn to find Hashem Himself.
May we merit to desire this as we go along in our avodah throughout life, especially as we prepare for the time of receiving the Torah. And when the time of the giving of the Torah comes – as well as before it – we can merit, all of Klal Yisrael, as well as the entire world, the recognition of Hashem, alone.
[Tefillah 0159 – Real Spirituality – Yearning For Hashem]
