True Love
The Medrash (Rabbah 49:1) in this week’s parsha says the following (Shir HaShirim 8:7): האהבה את לכבות יוכלו לא רבים מים, ‘Many waters cannot extinguish the love (that exists between the Jewish people and Hashem), nor rivers wash it away.’ On this, the Medrash says, ‘many waters’ refer to the tribulations that the Jewish people have gone through and will go through throughout the various exiles. The ‘rivers’ refer to the various kingdoms that the Jewish people suffered through.
The Zera Shimshon explains this Medrash by first asking: What is the Medrash coming to say; what lesson is the Medrash trying to teach us? The love that exists between Hashem and His nation is of a spiritual and non-tangible nature, so how would it even be possible for the nations of the world to extinguish this love? If the Medrash was coming to explain this passuk to mean that the nations will not be able to destroy the Jewish people, it would be understandable, since the Medrash comes to tell us that no matter what, the Jewish people will never be destroyed. However, being that the Medrash is discussing the love that exists between Hashem and the Jewish people, what is the Medrash coming to rule out?
The Zera Shimshon explains that the bond of love that exists between Hashem and His nation is dependent on the Torah. This is seen from the passuk that says (Tehillim 87:2), ‘Hashem loves the gates of Tzion.’ The Gemara (Brachos 8a) explains this passuk to mean that Hashem loves the gates that are noted with the study of halachah, the places of Torah study and service of Hashem.
As well, the Medrash (Yalkut Toldos 115) says that as long as the voice is the voice of Yaakov, meaning that the Jewish people are studying Torah, the hands of Eisav cannot dominate over them. This implies that the fire of love between Hashem and us is dependent on our study of Torah.
With this, the Zera Shimshon explains the aforementioned Medrash. Even if the nations of the world would come together, they would not be able to stop the Jewish people from learning Torah, which consequently strengthens the love between the Jewish people and Hashem.
This is because even if the nations of the world decreed that the Jewish people had to stop learning, they would continue to learn the Oral Torah. On top of that, they could learn in a way that the nations of the world would not even understand that they were discussing Torah. The Gemara illustrates this in Pesachim (112a). When R’ Akiva was jailed for teaching Torah, he still managed to teach R’ Shimon Bar Yochai five halachos that did not sound like Torah at all, when in reality, they were. The only reason why R’ Akiva was jailed was that he gathered masses to teach them Torah without hiding what he was doing. In fact, on his way to be killed, he arranged the calendar for the following three years (see Sanhedrin 12a).
In other words, the Medrash is saying that Hashem will always enable the Jewish people to learn Torah, regardless of the circumstances that they find themselves in, and therefore, the love that exists between Hashem and His nation will never be extinguished.
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