Devarim 5775 – The Yichud of Sefer Devarim

A Paraphrased Shiur of Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky

The whole inyan of Sefer Devarim is Divrei Moshe Rabbeinu.

The Midrash Tanchuma says that Klal Yisrael came to Moshe Rabbeinu with a tayna: אתמול אמרת לא איש דברים אנכי, ועכשיו אתה מדבר כל כך?!

This is bizarre tayna. Moshe was talking for thirty-nine years. What changed, all the sudden, that Klal Yisroel has this tayna. Why didn’t they raise this tayna earlier?

And the Medrash answers: אמר רבי יצחק, שנה את התורה ונתרפא. Moshe finished learning kol haTorah, and he was nisrapeh — now he was able to speak. Chazal are clearly implying that Torah seems to end before Devarim – Moshe finished the Torah and was healed, and now he can speak sefer Devarim. This is clearly highlighting that sefer Devarim is different than the rest of Torah, and we need to understand in what way.

There’s a Gemara in Megillah — a halachic Gemara, that says one may not be mafsik when leining the klalos, because מוסר ה' בני אל תמאס — you don't act keilu you're tired of the mussar. And Abaye says: לא שנו אלא בקללות שבתורת כהנים, אבל בקללות שבמשנה תורה פוסק. Mai ta'ama? הללו בלשון רבים אמורות ומשה מפי הגבורה אמרן, והללו בלשון יחיד אמורות ומשה מפי עצמו אמרן.

So Chazal give us a halachic nafka mina between Devarim and the rest: everything else is mipi haGevurah, but Devarim is משה מפי עצמו אמרן. Tosafos adds: מפי עצמו אמרן — וברוח הקודש. Which is hard to understand, because Torah is a lot more than ruach hakodesh; all of Kesuvim is written b'ruach hakodesh, and Torah is not Kesuvim.¹

But there’s another Gemara which is a stira to this Gemara in MEgilla. The Gemara in Sanhedrin say כי דבר ה' בזה — זה האומר אין תורה מן השמים. ואפילו אמר כל התורה כולה מן השמים חוץ מפסוק זה, שלא אמרו הקדוש ברוך הוא אלא משה מפי עצמו — זהו כי דבר ה' בזה. Saying that any single pasuk is Moshe mipi atzmo is kefirah — and yet the Gemara in Megillah says that the klalos in Mishneh Torah are Moshe mipi atzmo! How do you meyashev the stira?²

(The Zohar seems to address this contradiction in a few places, and is medayek one word: מעצמו לא תנן, אלא מפי עצמו. It doesn't say Moshe said it me'atzmo — from himself — but mipi atzmo, from his own mouth. Not clear how that answers the question.)³

The classic teretz given, which is the mahalach that most Rishonim give is like this: All of Torah besides Mishneh Torah was Hakadosh Baruch Hu told Moshe, to tell Klal Yisrael this and this, with no input from Moshe whatsoever.

Mishneh Torah is different. Moshe Rabbeinu originally said these words to Klal Yisroel, without being told by HKBH, and at the end of Moshe’s life HKBH instructed him to write those words as a chelek of Torah.

So when Chazal say Moshe said it mipi atzmo, it's correct — the diburim atzmam were Moshe's. But Moshe didn't write one word into the Sefer Torah on his own; the shem Torah that's chal on it is Hakadosh Baruch Hu telling him to write it.⁴

But this explanation can’t be the full picture, because how then are Moshe’s words any different than, say, Korach’s words? Korach spoke his tayna, and HKBH told Moshe to record those words in Torah. Bilam said the words that he said, and HKBH told Moshe to write them into Torah. Even Paroah’s words, or the Nachash’s words were recorded in the Torah. So what is the yichud of divrei Moshe? It’s no different than any other person in the Torah which HKBH told Moshe to record their words. Is Moshe Rabbeinu's speech any more a chelek of Torah than Korach's speech?

The Maharal in Tiferes Yisrael says a mehalech that I want to unpack. He differentiates between when someone conveys something to a peer, of equal stature, vs when someone conveys something to a student who is not of the same stature.⁵

If one conveys something to his equal, there's no need to dumb it down. They speak the same language, so there’s no need to introduce explanations.

L’mashal, When two specialists talk to each other, they speak the same language; but when one speaks to a lay audience, he’s conveying the same content but he needs to work within the vocabulary of the audience. The second language may seem less precise — but it’ll be more accurate in what the person will actually understand.⁶

The Ramchal's Klach Pischei Chochma wrote 138 klallim in Kabbalah — super- condensed and sharp. But then he wrote his own peirush on what he wrote, of tremendous arichus. It’s seems mudneh to write a peirush on your own chibbur. Did he have a split personality? The teretz is he wrote the precise version which accurately conveys the pnim of his thoughts; but if he left it at that, it would be inaccessible to most. So he wrote the expanded version to make it accessible to the mekabel. Every dvar emes has two panim — the panim of the medaber and the panim of the shomea.

Let's give another mashal. A person learns a Reb Chaim — רב חיים על הרמב"ם. Reb Chaim worked his whole life on it; the vast majority of what he prepared he tossed out, rewrote and rewrote, honed his lashon down to be as precise as possible. Reb Chaim had it honed to an os.

Yet, there's a story that somebody riding on a train with Reb Chaim. This person was relating to Reb Chaim what the b’nei yeshiva were saying were Rav Chaim’s teyrutzim on a few classic sugyos. “They said this in the name of the Rav. They said that in the name of the Rav.” The teyrutzim were Reb Chaim’s teyrutzim down to the Os. However, Reb Chaim answered, "It's a wonderful teretz; it's not what I said." Everything the fellow quoted: "a very nice teretz — not what I said." Not because the man was completely off; The reason is because, it's elementary, that if a talmid tells you over Reb Chaim in exactly the words it's said, it's 100% clear he didn't understand it. Nobody who understands a Reb Chaim says it over dos shteit; you say it in your own words — because there's the way the medaber understood it and the way the shomea understands it.

The mekabel should have a different presentation than the original. And this is the yichud of Sefer Devarim. Moshe Rabbeinu was the first Torah of a mekabel saying his diburim — and Hakadosh Baruch Hu said: yes, this is the way divrei Torah are when they are captured perfectly mitzad hamekabel. It’s the peirush hamekubal on the rest of Torah, with HKBH’s haskama!

We asked about Bilam's words or Korach’s words, or the Nachash’s words. The nachash spoke things that are ra. When Hakadosh Baruch Hu quotes them in the Torah, He is pointing out: this is what ra says b'etzem. My quoting someone who contested what I said is not a haskamah — if anything, it's to sharpen why I disagree. But Moshe Rabbeinu said a chazarah shiur on kol haTorah kulah — let me explain what Hakadosh Baruch Hu meant — and Hakadosh Baruch Hu said: this is the way in which Torah is to be said over. That's a haskamah

In the first chelek of Torah, Moshe is simply a vehicle שכינה מדברת מתוך גרונו . Ma she'ein kein Devarim: it's already Moshe reflecting, saying over what Hakadosh Baruch Hu said geared to the mekablim. In a certain sense, it's the beginning of Torah shebaal peh. what Abaye holds and what Rava holds in what the pasuk means, that is divrei Torah. The whole musag of Torah shebaal peh is when the divrei Torah enter my da'as — and assuming my da'as is oisgearbet —the divrei Torah that come back out from it has the status of Torah itself.⁷

For years Rebbi tested bochurim for the yeshiva. Part of the farher is the bochur says a shtikel Torah, and one of the clearest ways to distinguish somebody taught by rote versus somebody who knows what he's saying is to say: "How about just briefly tell me over what the point is?" You get a sharp contrast between the one who thinks a minute and says, "This is the point, and it's based on this" — and the one who says, "No, I have to say the whole thing." one is actually a mekabel. The other is a medaber mitoch grono of his rebbi;

אלה הדברים אשר דבר משה.

Sefer Devarim is where we’re shown and reminded that HKBH wants to hear the Torah mitzad hamekabel. We have to work on it, do chazarah, refine it, and all that is the avodah of integrating it into ourselves. Once we internalize it, we can speak out the D’var Hashem mipi Atzmo, and HKBH will bentch us with His haskama.

Good Shabbos!