Filling the Void: Writing a Sefer Torah Now

1“And now, write for yourselves this song …”¹ Why did the Torah place the mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah among these verses in particular, verses that speak of the times when Hashem's face will be hidden from Israel? First the Torah says, “Many evils and troubles will befall them … And I will surely hide My face on that day, because of all the evil that they have done …”² Right after this it says, “And now, write for yourselves this song …,” the verse from which we learn the mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah. How are the two connected? We must also ask about the word ve'atah, “and now.” It implies that it is precisely now, after the Torah has described the great troubles that will come upon the Jewish people, Heaven save us, that we are commanded to write this song. Why should that be? And notice the words “write for yourselves,” where “for yourselves” seems unnecessary.

2aChazal said: “Even if a person's fathers left him a Sefer Torah, it is a mitzvah to write one of his own, as it says, ‘And now, write for yourselves this song.’”³ What is the point of this? It would seem that the purpose of writing a Sefer Torah is so that people can learn the Torah from it. A person whose fathers left him a Sefer Torah already has one to learn from. Why must he write another?

2bThe Rambam writes: “It is a positive mitzvah for every man of Israel to write a Sefer Torah for himself, as it says, ‘And now, write for yourselves this song’ … Even if his fathers left him a Sefer Torah, it is a mitzvah to write one of his own. And if he wrote it with his own hand, it is as if he received it from Mount Sinai.”⁴ So far his words. Their source is the Gemara: “One who buys a Sefer Torah in the marketplace is like one who snatches a mitzvah from the marketplace. If he wrote it, the verse regards him as if he received it from Mount Sinai.”⁵ All of this is puzzling, above all in light of what the Rosh, R' Asher ben Yechiel, writes. Nowadays, he says, a person also fulfills the mitzvah by writing volumes of Gemara and Mishnayos, and likewise all the other sefarim from which words of Torah are studied in our generations.⁶ If so, why should each person in our generations be commanded to write a Sefer Torah?

3We can explain this by first citing the holy Ohr HaChaim on the verse “When you lift the head of Bnei Yisrael according to their numbers … this they shall give …”⁷ He writes: “If you see that the head of Bnei Yisrael passes away, a man who embodies everything, he is the ransom for the souls of Israel. This is why the verse says lifkudeihem, ‘according to their numbers,’ a word that speaks of something missing, as in the verse ‘not one man of us is missing.’”⁸ He goes on at length there, reading the whole verse as speaking of the loss of the tzaddik who has passed away, a loss for which a “ransom for the soul” must be given. Then he writes: “The words ‘this they shall give’: here the verse explains what the ransom for the soul is that He commanded them to give. It says ‘this they shall give,’ meaning the Sefer Torah, as it is written, ‘This book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth.’⁹ Chazal also said that a Sefer Torah lies before the Holy One, blessed be He, all day long, in keeping with the law He commanded for the king of Israel, ‘It shall be with him …’¹⁰ This is what He showed Moshe with His finger: ‘this they shall give.’¹¹ The word is left unspecified because its meaning is plain: Hashem commanded about the thing that lies before Him always. And through their learning of the Torah, the Torah protects them, atones for sin and increases merits.” Those are his holy words.

4In light of his words, we may say that the mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah has two sides. The first is the plain one: every single person is obligated to have a Sefer Torah. He is commanded to meditate in the Torah day and night, so he must have a Sefer Torah to learn from. But the mitzvah has another side as well. When a person passes away from the world, Heaven forbid, a void is created in the world, as it were, for the world is now missing this person. By writing a Sefer Torah we fill this void, as it were. This follows the words of the holy Ohr HaChaim that “this they shall give” alludes to the Sefer Torah. The Sefer Torah is the way to make up for the loss of the one who passed away, the loss the verse spoke of just before in the word lifkudeihem.

5This explains why the Torah mentions the mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah right after it speaks of Israel's troubles. When, Heaven forbid, tzaddikim and other Jews are killed for the sanctification of Hashem's Name, that is the time to make up the loss by writing a Sefer Torah. The word ve'atah, “and now,” is explained too: precisely now, in this period of “I will surely hide My face,” after all those precious souls are gone, the verse says, “now, write for yourselves this song.” It is also clear now why a person who already has a Sefer Torah from his fathers must still write a new one himself. Its purpose is to make up and fill the void in the world. He must add another Sefer Torah to fill what is missing now that holy souls of Israel have departed; the Sefer Torah that was already in the world before these souls were lost is not enough.

6In this light we can explain, by way of allusion, why the Torah begins with the mitzvah of having children and ends with the mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah, the last of its 613 mitzvos. Through writing a Sefer Torah we fill the void left in the mitzvah of “Be fruitful and multiply in the land,”¹² that is, when a person is missing from the world.

7Still, the main reason for writing a Sefer Torah is to engage in it, to learn and to teach, as the verse itself says, “and teach it to Bnei Yisrael; place it in their mouths.”¹³ For this reason the Rosh writes that in our times there is no mitzvah to write a Sefer Torah, since we have many sefarim. And even according to those who disagree with him, the Minchas Chinuch writes that in their view the mitzvah to write is simply a decree of the Torah, with no reason given.¹⁴ But according to what we have explained, there is clearly a special reason to write a Sefer Torah, to fill the void, and it applies even in our times.

8We asked about the word lachem, “for yourselves,” in “And now, write for yourselves.” We may say that it hints at this: in the merit of writing a Sefer Torah we are also granted what is “for yourselves,” our material needs. An abundance of blessing flows to us in material things too, for life, blessing and good.

9We are living today in the period after the terrible war.¹⁵ All across the lands of Europe there were thousands of shuls, and in them tens of thousands of Sifrei Torah. Nearly all of them were burned, together with myriads upon myriads of Jews, may Hashem avenge their blood. The void left in this period is beyond description. So a holy duty rests on each and every one of us to fill this void, and above all on those who were privileged to be saved from there. But writing a new Sefer Torah is hard to do. Not everyone can, and only a few individuals are privileged to do it. One of those few is our dear friend, the host of this celebration. He has been privileged to write a Sefer Torah and bring it into a holy place: the holy city of Yerushalayim, of which it says, “For from Zion shall go forth Torah, and the word of Hashem from Yerushalayim.”¹⁶

10May the Holy One, blessed be He, help the host of this celebration to be privileged to receive what the Torah promised: “It is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it.”¹⁷ May he be granted an abundance of blessing. And may Hashem help all of us to be among those who hold fast to the tree of life, to receive an abundance of blessing, and to fulfill what is written in the Torah. Through this may we be privileged to greet our righteous Moshiach. Amen.