Becoming One with the Torah

O

f all the inspiring aggadeta shiurim I have heard from Rav Ariev Ozer, rosh yeshivas ITRI, my favorites are those given ne’ilas haChag of Shavuos. As someone who managed to get through a full year of law school without remaining awake for the entirety of a single class, I’m obviously a poor bet for the five- to six-hour shiurim on Chol Hamoed Pesach and Succos.

So the first attraction of the approximately three-hour shiur on Shavuos is the chance that I might actually hear the entire shiur. But even more important, the Shavuos shiur invariably touches on the miracle of the Oral Torah — i.e., that the words of flesh and blood have the status of Torah. That was also a recurring theme of  Rav Moshe Shapira ztz”l. And just as was true of Rav Moshe, when Rav Ozer speaks, the listener senses he is witnessing the embodiment of complete identification with the Torah.

The Gemara (Makkos 22b) teaches: “How foolish are those who stand before a sefer Torah and do not stand before a great talmid chacham, for in the Torah it is written forty [lashes], and the chachamim took away one.” The Maharal explains that the great talmid chacham is so united to Torah that his body itself becomes a part of Torah. Or as Rav Yehudah says (Berachos 8b), “Be careful with a great scholar who forgot his Torah, for both the Luchos and the pieces of the Luchos [shattered by Moshe] were placed in the Aron Hakodesh.” In other words, the body of a great talmid chacham who has forgotten his Torah has the status of pieces of the shattered Luchos. The Torah he once knew has left its permanent imprint. The Torah shebe’al peh is engraved, writes the Vilna Gaon, on the hearts of the chachmei Yisrael.

The very possibility of that complete identification is what we celebrate on Shavuos. The Magen Avraham asks how Shavuos, the 50th day from the beginning of the Omer count, can be referred to as Zeman Matan Toraseinu. Klal Yisrael did not hear HaKadosh Baruch Hu speak until the next day.