תבלין תורה לו בראתי הרע יצר בראתי, I have created a yetzer hara, but I have created the Torah, a spice against it. The Mezricher Maggid asks regarding the analogy to a spice: Isn’t the purpose of a spice to make food taste better? How is the Torah a “spice” against the yetzer hara?
Explained the Maggid: A piece of meat, for example, is bland and tasteless on its own—and the effect of spices is to elicit and draw out the taste that lies hidden within the food. Spices bring out the maximum that the food has to offer.
Similarly, a person is instilled with middos, qualities, and attributes. If one hasn’t refined these qualities, they may be expressed and utilized in the wrong ways. The attribute of aish may be expressed as anger, for example, and the same applies to desire and lust, and all our other innate attributes. But when we apply the spice that is the Torah, all these middos become elevated and refined! Thus, the Torah is truly a תבלין that negates the yetzer hara’s power over our middos and frustrates its wish for us to use our middos in all the wrong ways.
Torah Puts Us in Our Place
Redemption isn’t a new creation—geulah doesn’t mean that we create something entirely new. Galus means that we’re just not in the right place. When a Yid can’t access the Beis HaMikdash, when we can’t “see and be seen” during לרגל עליה, it means that we’re not in our proper place. When a Yid can come to the Beis HaMikdash, it means that everything has fallen into its proper place.
The same applies to our personal galus. When our inner qualities and attributes aren’t being properly channeled, we’re not in our proper place, and this is the definition of exile. For this reason, we were given a מן תורה השמים, which gives us access to the world as it should be. We can access the simple blast of the shofar—the highest and loftiest madreigos—and we return to our proper place.
A Sigh from the Depths
But if we wish to tap into this משמים תורה, we must approach Torah with that “simple blast”—the sigh of yearning for Hashem that a Yid expresses when he comes to learn Torah. Such a sigh shakes up the Upper Worlds. It arouses redemption.
The Tosafos teach us that the Satan becomes confused by the blast of the shofar because he believes that it is the shofar blast of Mashiach. There’s a deeper idea here, because the Satan isn’t confused very easily. The Satan hears the sigh of the Jewish heart as it expresses its pain due to its distance from the Ribbono shel Olam and its yearning to return to Him. This is indeed the shofar blast of Mashiach! It is one and the same! It is a taste of redemption itself!
When a Yid learns Torah and adds that “plain blast” of yearning for Hashem, his Torah will illuminate and enliven his life... it will accompany him in every area of his life. Our lives are so much more elevated and illuminated when we’re connected to the Ribbono shel Olam through Torah.
Indeed, many aspects of Jewish life are connected to the shofar, such as when the Yidden journeyed and were gathered through the shofar, etc. Because the shofar calls us back to our roots—and by learning Torah with the belief that it is min HaShamayim, we are redeemed from our personal galus.
