One of my favorite parts of each Yom Tov is the opportunity to hear specially prepared shiurim throughout the holiday. All year we daven mincha followed by ma'ariv. On Yom Tov, though, there are often special circumstances that require us to wait for actual night fall -- approximately one hour after sundown in Chicago -- before we daven ma'ariv. Moreover, the yeshivos are on break, meaning that are busy roshei yeshiva and magidei shiur do not have their usual teaching schedule. Klal Yisrael, the עם קודש that we are, uses that opportunity to invite them to present matters of Torah law and philosophy from their exalted viewpoint. R' Mannes, well known for the depth and breadth of his Torah knowledge, for his התמדה, and dedication to his students (of which I am one, Baruch HaShem) was the "clean-up" speaker for the נעילת החג "matzah fest" this last Pesach at the Agudah in Peterson Park. Of course I cannot do his shiur justice for many reasons, but one point he made was particularly breathtaking.
By way of introduction -- it is a common misconception that Eskimos -- the Intuit and Yapik nations, to be more precise -- have an extraordinary number of words for snow because snow is important to them. It is, and they don't. So the number of words that a nation has for something is no indication of how important it is to them. Note that we, the Jewish People, have only one word for the most important, overarching, central theme, and guiding principles: Torah.
We do, however, have two very weird terms: תורה שבכתב /Written Torah and תורה שבעל פה/Oral Torah. I say weird, because the whole concept that there is a meaningful way to discuss and understand one without the other is deeply flawed. Can you even imagine someone saying, "I accept my brain but not my heart"?! I have more on that topic in this vintage TftD.
R' Mannes brought from a R' Chaim from midrashim that, in fact, there was no such separation. The entire Torah -- both what we (now) call the Written and Oral Torah -- was inscribed on the first set of tablets. Moshe came down from the mountain and saw the horrifying events that we know as the Sin of the Golden Calf. Then, as the medrash says, the letters started flying off and the tablets became too heavy for Moshe; hence the tablets were smashed. R' Mannes explained that the letters that flew off were the letters of the תורה שבעל פה/Oral Torah. The deeper meaning of the "tablets became too heavy" is that the תורה שבכתב /Written Torah cannot exist without the תורה שבעל פה/Oral Torah. Once one left, the remaining physical manifestation of the Torah simply had to be smashed.
What was the response: The second set of tablets contained only the Written Torah. The Oral Torah, the life and vitality of our Holy Torah, has been hidden away. The world can take -- and has taken -- our Written Torah; they have corrupted and deified it. In the west they wrapped old pagan ideas with the pages torn from our Written Torah to claim a new attestation. In the mid-east they wrapped empty recitations in those same pages torn out of context from our Written Torah. (Subtle, eh?)
How did HaShem protect and preserve the Oral Torah -- and thereby the entire Torah itself? Klal Yisrael became the קלף/parchment on and in which the Torah is preserved. We -- HaShem's chosen nation -- remain true to HaShem. We are the actual vehicle by which Torah -- Oral/Written altogether -- is kept alive and transmitted from generation to generation.
As I was listening to this shiur, I immediately wondered... wait! If Klal Yisrael is the קלף/parchment on which the תורה שבעל פה/Oral Torah is stored and transmitted, then how does geirus work? How in the world could a non-Jew join in that national mission when he doesn't have the relevant spiritual makeup? Good question. There is a great answer, but I fear this TftD has already exceeded its allotted length.
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