A Torah to Hold On To1 min read

Many of the tzaddikim saw the primordial trees in Gan Eden, the Eitz HaDa’as Tov V’Ra and the Eitz HaChaim, as reflecting two elements of our holy Torah.

R’ Shlomo Carlebach expressed this idea in his inimitable style: “There is a Torah to learn, and there is a Torah to hold on to.” The Eitz HaDa’as is an intellectual Torah; the minutia of halachic practice and parameter, the ebb and flow of the Talmudic discussion as it echoes throughout the ages. But “Eitz Chayim hi lamachazikin bah”, there is also a Torah to hold on to; an aspect in which Torah grants spiritual clarity, emotional strength, and an anchor of objective morality in a world gone insane. How fortunate are we that instead of floating through life unmoored and untethered, drawn after our eyes and heart into an unending cycle of slavery to self, we have a Torah to hold on to; a Torah that binds us with the Creator of existence, the Soul of souls!

The Gemara recounts that R’ Yosef would say about Shavuos, “Were it not for that day, how many “Yosef’s” there are in the marketplace!” On a simple level, R’ Yosef was referring to the fact that studying the Torah, which was given on Shavuos, spared him from being “just another joe”. But the Meor Einayim reveals a deeper meaning. Yosef HaTzaddik was the chariot for the middah of Yesod which corresponds to the bris, the concept of connection.

Thus, R’ Yosef was saying that were it not for the Torah, which guides us to the most meaningful life in this world and the next, “kamah ‘Yosef’ ikka b’shuki”, how many opportunities for “Yosef”, improper connection, one finds in the marketplace! In this week’s parsha, Amalek attacks our nation with “Keri” (“asher karcha”), a corruption of holy connection, in the deserts of the world. The giving of the holy Torah comes to rectify this confusion by guiding us toward what is truly worth holding on to.