Is Torah Mitzvos?
That’s why it says that Hashem gave us the gift of two things: Torah and mitzvos (Makkos 23b). Now, mitzvos we know are commands – it means commands, what you must do and what you shouldn’t do. That’s mitzvos. But what is Torah? Isn’t that included?
The answer is it is, but it’s a separate branch of doing. It’s the doing of the mind, the activating the thoughts to think along a certain pattern. The word ‘torah’ means teaching; in English we’d call it ‘ideology’. It’s ideologia, the chochma of concepts, of ideas. But not any ideas. ‘Torah’ with a capital T means the Thoughts of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. To pattern your thoughts after His; that’s what’s intended here. And therefore it’s an entirely different area of achievement independent of anything that you would do. It’s a matter of succeeding in learning how to think.
Now, if a person is loyal to what the Torah told him to be loyal to, he’s fulfilling the Torah. If a person does what he’s supposed to do, he’s a fine man. He’s a tzaddik, no question about it. We love him. Anybody who keeps the Torah, he’s a tzaddik and you are required to love him, no question about that.
Plowing New Fields
Nevertheless it’s only a part of the story. These frum Jews who never gained an intellectual attitude, they’re missing an important part of what it means to be a Torah Jew. It’s wonderful to be frum l’maisa. I’m not belittling it chas v’shalom but it’s only when a person learns to think with the Torah attitudes – not only his body keeps the Torah but his neshama, his machshava, his intelligence thinks like the Torah – only then is he a Torah Jew.
Now that’s an entirely new field. It’s as old as Matan Torah but the idea is new to most people. But new or not it’s a field of endeavor we must learn to undertake because that is what Hakadosh Baruch Hu meant when he gave us the Torah. One of the most important aspects of Kabolas HaTorah is this: we should think along with Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
The Hidden Commandment
Why do I say it’s most important? Because it’s the first commandment we heard at Har Sinai. When we look at the Aseres Hadibros we see that the first of these commandments is Anochi Hashem Elokecha. Now that does not sound like a commandment to us. It's a statement, that’s all. What’s the mitzvah there? If it’s a command, we don’t see any command here.
Now there are a number of peirushim but one of the most important ways of understanding is what the Rambam explains: You’re obligated leida uleha’amin, to know and believe (Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah 1:1, Sefer Hamitzvos 1). That's the pshat: to know and to believe Anochi Hashem Elokecha.
Now the question is, it seems to be an entirely superfluous command. After all, it was said to people who ate mann every day, people who saw ananei hakavod overhead all the time and at night the ananei eish. This command was said to people who were standing at Har Sinai and heard Hashem's Voice speaking to them. It wasn't necessary to tell them this mitzvah. For the yotzei Mitzrayim it was superfluous.
This mitzvah after all is not only for the future generations. It was also for the yotzei Mitzrayim who were standing there right now. And they're looking, they're hearing. Hashem is right here! So Anochi Hashem Elokecha means merely you should believe in Me? How could they not believe? A dead man maybe, but a live man it’s impossible not to believe. They heard His Voice speaking to them.
Secrets Revealed
And so we understand that the mitzvah includes more than that. Anochi means ‘you should get to know Me.’ Of course, on the lowest level it means emunah; it means saying, believing, I know that there’s One Hashem. But that’s only the bottom rung of the mitzvah.
To know Hashem means to know all about Him, to know what He thinks about everything. “I am Hashem your G-d” means, ‘You should know what My thoughts are and you should think according to the way I think.’ Anochi means ‘I am your model in how to think, in what to think.’ That's how Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants us to fulfill this mitzvah. It’s a commandment to think.
Now the truth is it’s impossible to know what Hashem is thinking. Hashem’s ‘Intellect’ – if we could say such a word – is way way above the ability of our minds to grasp. Your thoughts are not like My thoughts, Hashem says (Yeshaya 55:8). It would be ridiculous for a basar v’dom to aspire to know the thoughts of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Who are we to imagine that we could think His thoughts?
And yet we can! We can because what He wants us to know of His thinking, that’s what He wrote down in the Torah. The Torah, as far as we, basar v’dom, are concerned is Hashem’s thoughts. And you can despair about learning more about what He’s thinking than what you can get out of the Torah; you’ll never discover more about the Mind, kiv’yachol, of Hakadosh Baruch Hu than what He revealed in His Torah.
Talmud Torah Kineged Kulam
But it’s not only something interesting, something mysterious or mystical, that we can open up the Torah and see the thoughts of Hashem. Anochi Hashem Elokecha means that it’s an obligation: “I’m obligating you to study Me; to know Me by means of knowing My thoughts.’
Now, this principle that the Torah is the thoughts of Hashem, a look into His intellect, lends a new importance not only to internalizing all the great Torah ideals – we’ll speak soon about them; there are thousands and thousands of them – but to learning Torah in general. Because we’re seeing now that it’s not merely a mitzvah of learning Torah – it’s an opportunity to study a Sefer that is a treasury of the highest Thoughts available to man.
That’s why our Sages (Peah 1:1) say that ‘Learning Torah is equal to all the mitzvos’ – it’s a statement that everybody knows but many don’t understand. Why should it be so? Studying should be so important? Isn’t it the doing that counts?
Change My Mind
The answer is that learning Torah is the biggest doing there is. It’s considered one of the most important mitzvos because it changes you. Now, the truth is that any mitzvah changes you. You do mitzvos and you become holy (Bamidbar 15:40). Every mitzvah makes you kodosh but the mitzvah of talmud Torah makes you a new mind. And when your mind is changed into a Torah mind that’s the greatest kedusha, the greatest perfection of all.
When you put into your mind the machshavos of the Borei Olam, that’s the most tremendous change you can make in yourself. And that’s what talmud Torah is; it’s kineged kulam because you’re changing your mind into a mind that thinks like Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
When you’re learning Yevamos or Gittin, you’re thinking the thoughts of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. When you’re learning Bava Kamma, arba avos nezikin, you’re thinking the thoughts of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is thinking how important it is that every Jew should avoid damaging somebody else’s property. And so when you walk into the synagogue you’re thinking about how you have to be careful. You want to open the window? Don’t push against the windowpane; you might break the pane. You’ll be a mazik and you have to pay for it. Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn’t want you to be a mazik.
So you’re thinking that Torah thought as you open the window; that idea not to be a mazik to your fellow man’s property! How big an ideal that is! You’re thinking like Hakadosh Baruch Hu thinks.
The Greatness is in the Details
But not just in a general way like that. You know, if you never learn Torah, you can't appreciate what great emphasis is put on clarifying the smallest details but once you learn Torah, you'll see that it's so. When you learn Gemara and mefarshim you're amazed at how tiny details are magnified; on how much time is spent on the svaros and understanding of the most minute technicalities.
Of course the leitzim, the amei haaretz, they say “Oh, it's legalism.” They belittle the details that talmidei chachamim are busy with; they look down on it. “What difference does it make?” they say. “It's a small thing. It’s just splitting hairs.”
But what to a layman, to a boor, an ignoramus seems like just a hair is to great scientists a big factory. “What do you mean, ‘just’ splitting hairs?! Splitting a hair means to us discovering great secrets of wisdom.” It’s the medulla and the cortex and the cuticle. And the layers: Huxley’s layer and Henle’s layer and the Hyaline layer. And that’s the superficial understanding of it. A cell is less than a hair and they're trying to split cells today. They're splitting not only the cell; they're splitting fractions of cells.
But the business of splitting cells is nothing compared to the splitting of hairs in Torah study. The more you learn, the more details you study, the more you’re thinking in details of Hashem’s thoughts. Even the most abstract details, the finest minutiae, are details of His thoughts. And because Hakadosh Baruch Hu is so great, everything that He thinks is of infinite importance; the smallest detail is never small because it’s Hashem’s Mind. Don't look at the smallness of the detail – look at the greatness of the One Whose thought it is!
And that’s the mitzvah of Anochi Hashem Elokecha: “Think along with Me,” Hashem says. “That’s how you’ll know Me best, by filling your mind with the thoughts of My Mind.”
