ב"ה,
21 Iyar, 5711
Brooklyn, N.Y.

There1 is a well-known teaching of the Sages2 on the words,3 “Make known to your children… [what your eyes saw] on the day that you stood before the L‑rd your G‑d at Chorev, [i.e., Sinai].”

The Sages say: “Just as at that time [you stood] with dread and awe and trembling and quaking, so too here, {i.e., in all places and at all times,4 } [you should study Torah] with dread and awe and trembling and quaking.”

The AriZal spelled this out as follows:5 “Dread (eimah) is experienced in a person’s mind; awe (yirah) is experienced in his heart; trembling (reses) is experienced in his internal organs; and quaking (ziya) — in his external organs.”

This means that when a person reads the Written Torah or reviews the Oral Torah or studies [any branch of the] Torah, his entire being — his mind and heart, his internality and his externality — ought to be in the same state in which he was 6 when the Torah was given at Chorev.

One might ask: At that time “they saw the sounds and the flames…,”7 and “G‑d spoke with you face to face.”8 How, then, can every individual draw such an awe upon himself at any moment?

This is possible when one internalizes the realization that the Torah he is presently studying derives from supernal wisdom,9 in which there abides and is revealed [G‑d’s] infinite light which by far transcends the bounds of Hishtalshelus (the Spiritual Cosmos), before which “darkness is the same as light.”10 On that infinite level, there is no distinction between above and below; and spirituality and materiality are equal. When a person attains this realization, he can fulfill the above injunction of the Sages: “Just as at that time [you stood] with dread and awe and trembling and quaking, so too here, [i.e., in all places and at all times,you should study Torah] with dread and awe and trembling and quaking” — [because from the Divine perspective,] all levels are equal.11

We spoke above of reaching a point at which, while down here in this world below, one hears from the mouth of the Emanator Himself12 in an utterly revealed manner, “I am the L‑rd your G‑d,”13 exactly as one heard it at that time. The possibility and the ability to do so were granted at the time of the Giving of the Torah, when the initial Divine decree that the higher realms remain Above and the lower realms remain below was annulled,14 and accordingly, “G‑d descended upon Mount Sinai,”15 and “He said to Moshe, ‘Ascend to G‑d.’”16

This empowerment is aroused and renewed every year during the festival of Shavuos, “the time of the Giving of the Torah,”17 by the Nosein HaTorah.18 That phrase means “the Giver of the Torah,” and also describes G‑d as “the One Who gives the Torah,” in the present tense.

In preparation for that empowerment, every one of us, every man and woman, is obligated to undertake to fulfill the promise, “We shall do and we shall understand,” specifically in that order.19 This theme is discussed in depth in the teachings of Chassidus.20

Menachem Schneerson