The Talmud in tractate Nedarim (38a) teaches us something quite novel about the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people we read about in this week’s parsha.
אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹסֵי בְּרַבִּי חֲנִינָא לֹא נִיתְּנָה תּוֹרָה אֶלָּא לְמֹשֶׁה וּלְזַרְעוֹ…. מֹשֶׁה נָהַג בָּהּ טוֹבַת עַיִן וּנְתָנָהּ לְיִשְׂרָאֵל וְעָלָיו הַכָּתוּב אוֹמֵר טוֹב עַיִן הוּא יְבֹרָךְ וְגוֹ׳ מֵתִיב רַב חִסְדָּא ….אֶלָּא פִּילְפּוּלָא בְּעָלְמָא.
Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Chanina, said: The Torah was given initially only to Moshe and his descendants…. Moshe treated the Torah with generosity and gave it to the Jewish people. And about him, the verse says: “He that has a bountiful eye shall be blessed, as he gives of his bread to the poor” (Proverbs 22:9).
The Talmud asks from a number of verses in the Torah that indicate that Moses was commanded to teach Torah to the Jewish people from the outset. The Talmud concludes that the Torah was given from the outset to all of the Jewish people, and when Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Chanina, said that the Torah was given exclusively to Moshe, he was referring only to what’s called Pilpul, the profound analysis of the Torah. Moshe chose to teach that to the Jewish people on his own initiative.
Pilpul, profound analysis of the Torah, is something that all generations of the Jewish people need. As a matter of fact, the Talmud in tractate Temurah (16a) relates that parts of the Torah were forgotten after Moshe’s death and it was years later that the leader of the Jewish people at that time, Osniel ben Kenaz brought them back through the power of Pilpul. Why then would G-d, instead of commanding Moshe to pass it onto the people, give it exclusively to Moshe only for him to decide to share it?
Rabbi Yisroel Reisman in the name of Rabbi Avrohom Pam, of blessed memory, answered that Hashem wanted Moshe to show what it takes to be a teacher of Torah. It’s not enough to feel obligated to teach Torah to others. A teacher of Torah has to want to share their Torah knowledge with others.
Rabbi Pam illustrated this with a comment from Rabbi Moshe Sofer, who was known as the Chasam Sofer. The Torah teaches us the mitzvah of Parah Aduma, the Red Cow. A person who becomes tamei, impure from contact with a dead body can only become tahor, pure again if sprinkled with a mixture of ashes of a red cow with spring water. This mitzvah carries a paradox that we have no explanation for. The Torah tells us that the person who gets sprinkled with this mixture becomes pure while the one who does the sprinkling becomes impure! This remained a mystery even to King Solomon, the wisest of all men. But there was one person and one person alone to whom the explanation to this paradox was revealed but Hashem forbade him to share it with others. That was Moshe. Our Sages said that Moshe declared that it would have been better if he wouldn’t have been told it in the first place! Chasam Sofer explains that was because it pained Moshe so much not to be able to share even one aspect of the Torah with the Jewish people.
When a teacher of Torah truly wants to share Torah the students sense how special and precious the knowledge of the holy Torah is. This becomes part and parcel of who they are and eventually they pass on these beloved sacred words to their children and students in the same way. In this way the transmission of Torah throughout generations is maintained.
Therefore Hashem gave this fundamental aspect of Torah called Pilpul to Moshe alone with the intent that Moshe would choose to generously share it with the Jewish people and set the example for all future teachers of Torah.
Let me share with you a story about a teacher who truly wanted to guide his student on the path of Torah. There was once a young man who was rebelling and abandoning Torah observance. Due to this he had to leave the Yeshiva he was attending. A few years later his formal principal bumped into him and saw a different young man who was back on track. The principal approached him and greeted him warmly. As they spoke the principal asked him what made him turn things around. The young man answered, “The last rebbi (Torah teacher) I had never missed calling me every week for years!” The principal was impressed with that member of his staff and related to this rebbi how this young man credited his phone calls for getting him to return to a life of Torah. The rebbi responded, “It’s true I called him every week. But he never picked up the phone….”.
That is a true follower of the greatest teacher of the Jewish people.
Shabbat Shalom!
Yitzchak