Lowliness and Love: The Preparation for the Torah

1The Midrash quoted in section 1 (Shemos Rabbah 28:1) expounds the verse “You ascended on high … you took gifts for man” [Tehillim 68:19]. After the passage we cited, it continues: “The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moshe: I gave you the Torah only in the merit of Avraham. ‘For man’ here means none other than Avraham, who is called ‘man,’ as it says, ‘the great man among the giants’ [Yehoshua 14:15]. So too, ‘Moshe went up … and Hashem called to him from the mountain’ [Shemos 19:3]. ‘The mountain’ here means none other than the Avos, as it says, ‘Hear, O mountains, Hashem's quarrel’ [Michah 6:2]. Moshe went up in the cloud and came down in the cloud, and the merit of the Avos went up and came down with him.”

2aThis follows what we explained from the words of my father and teacher, zt"l, above, and from Chazal's teaching (Shabbos 88b). The more a person humbles and lowers himself, the better suited he is to receive the light of the Torah, and the more he has a share in it. When he knows that he is flesh and blood, born of a putrid drop, he arrives at the point of truth: he sees his own lowliness. As it says, “Behold, I was formed in iniquity … You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden place You make me know wisdom” (Tehillim 51:7–8). Because I know that I was born in iniquity, and through this humility, I know that You desire truth, and that truth should be rooted deep inside us. When I reflect on myself and on where I came from, I see my own lowliness and Hashem's greatness. I know against Whom I have sinned, and so I confess my sin truthfully and with a whole heart. Then some of the Torah's secrets, its hidden words, are revealed to me. “In the hidden place,” in the hidden words, “wisdom,” for “the Torah comes from Chochmah,” Divine wisdom (Zohar, Yisro) — “You make me know.”

2bAvraham Avinu knew where he came from, and so he was lowly in his own eyes, as Chazal say: “‘I have raised up the lowly tree’ [Yechezkel 17:24]: this is Avraham Avinu” (Bamidbar Rabbah 23)¹. Because of his lowliness, he drew close those who were far and brought converts under the wings of the Shechinah, like someone who loves the King and wants to bring Him more servants. This is the meaning of the Gemara that the two thousand years of Torah began with “the souls they made in Charan” [Bereishis 12:5] (Avodah Zarah 9a). That was the beginning of the preparation for the Torah, the Torah-like trait of greeting every person warmly because he is Hashem's creature. The preparation was completed with “Israel encamped (vayichan) there”² [Shemos 19:2], when they all became like one man and loved one another. That is how they merited to receive the Torah.