On the Yom Tov of Shavuos, we celebrate the season of receiving the Torah at Maamad Har Sinai 3329 years ago, when we received the Mitzvos of the Torah, after our ancestors said: “Naaseh V’Nishmah” – “we will do and we will listen”.

We need to understand, how is it possible to say “we will do” before “we will listen”? Don’t you need to hear what to do before you can do it?

With Hashem’s Help, we can explain this in light of a recent occurance:

I sent some emissaries to a large University in Europe, where hundreds of Jewish students attend Medical School, with the intent that my emissaries would aid the Jewish students in their spiritual needs. They found a restaurant that was advertising itself as kosher, where hundreds of Jewish students would eat, based on the claim of the owner that the meat was bought from a kosher source. However, a brief investigation by my emissaries found that, unfortunately, Rachmana letzlan, non-kosher food was being fed to these students.

Upon hearing of this, I wrote a letter to them explaining that, as medical students, they should understand more than most people the importance of a strictly kosher diet, even if the damage done by non-kosher food is not readily apparent.

The explanation was as follows:

When a medical student falls ill, he or she will always do what a physician tells them to do, and they never insist to stop to question how a particular medication works before taking the treatment, since they are aware that medical science is a vast sea of knowledge, and it takes a lot to learn and to understand each illness and each cure. Therefore, they will not hesitate to rely on the expertise of great doctors who discovered these medications after decades of trials and testing. The ill person will take the medicine immediately in order to save his or her life, and later on he or she can learn exactly how it works scientifically.

Even if the medicine is a bitter pill to swallow, the sick person will not refuse the treatment, because he knows that this will eventually bring joy and pleasure, with health and long life. The opposite is similarly true. If a doctor warns that taking drugs is dangerous and poisonous, even if it is sweet tasting and brings tremendous pleasure at the time it is ingested, the wise person will avoid this like one would avoid being a target of a dangerous weapon, and will avoid even the possibility of ingesting something that even has a small amount of this poisonous drug mixed into it.

Now, a scientist is aware of the scientific method, which tells us that anything can be doubted and argued against, and we see that every few years the findings of the previous generation are disputed and disproven, and that previous generations lacked a full grasp of scientific knowledge. Furthermore, there are often side effects from medicine, which might help one aspect of one’s health, and damage another. Yet, the medical student will not doubt the doctor who prescribes this medication, but take it with almost blind faith.

If this is the case with the guidance of a fallible human doctor, we have to say that it is all the more so with the Torah Guidance of Hashem, Who is called the “Healer of all flesh”, and as Hashem said Himself in the Holy Torah, “I am Hashem, your Healer”. Hashem designed everything in the universe, and He gives life and guidance constantly to human beings, and to all of Creation. Thus, only Hashem alone knows the full knowledge of humanity and of the world. Only Hashem knows that is really good for eternity for the body and soul of a person, both in This World and in the Next World. This is why He gave us His Holy Torah, which is a Guidebook to how a person can enjoy a good life, as it is written “for it is your life and the length of your days”. If a Jew will contemplate this, he will distance himself from putting anything into his mouth that might have some doubt of violating the Torah, even if it is difficult to find kosher food, and even if this other food tastes good, as a pious Jew understands that non-kosher food damages the soul, even if he is not aware exactly what the damage is.

The Rambam z”l was the greatest doctor, and we find that he writes among the reasons for the mitzvos concerning keeping kosher, that if someone eats non-kosher animals, who are nasty and cruel by nature, a person can become nasty and cruel, like to old saying “you are what you eat”. Similarly, other non-kosher foods damage both body and soul. In the Holy Zohar, it is written that someone who eats non-kosher food becomes attached to the sitra achara and a spirit of tuma’ah rests upon him. We see from here that non-kosher food causes spiritual damage to a person’s soul, which is the main essence of a person. The Baal Shem Tov zya said that some people asked the Rambam for proofs of Techiyas HaMesim, and they said there are just as many proofs against the concept as there are proofs in support of it. The Rambam zya didn’t want to answer them himself, but rather wanted to send his students to answer them. He found out that these people asking the questions ate non-kosher food, and this affected their blood and their mind, which causes them to doubt matters of faith, which are ingrained into the Jewish hearts from Avraham Avinu.

This lesson is not only for medical students, it is for every Jew. This lesson is not only about keeping kosher, but it is a tremendous foundation for every Jew in their life of Torah and Mitzvos.

Some Jews disregard various mitzvos, such as Shabbos, Torah Study, prayer with a minyan, believing that such things are a waste of time which will cause them to lose money or waste take, missing out on enjoyment in life. They fail to see any purpose in religious devotions, and they lack the patience to do them, especially if it is difficult. When you ask such a person why he isn’t observing these mitzvos, he will answer: “I just can’t”.

The winning answer in this debate is as we said above with the example of the doctor. Nobody tells a doctor, “I just can’t do it”. If, chas v’shalom, someone is ill, and the doctor prescribes a difficult treatment to save his life, the patient will be very careful to do whatever the doctor says, even a painful surgery, even if it means he will have to spend months in an ICU, even if it means to change one’s entire lifestyle, because he believes that his very life depends on it. We see that this argument of “I just can’t do it” has no merit, because it is possible to do all of the mitzvos, even if this goes against one’s lifestyle, just as long as he thinks about this and realizes that his life depends on it!

Some people erroneously say that before they accept to follow a Torah lifestyle, they need to understand how a mitzvah helps his life, or how a sin damages him, and only then will he accept to keep Torah and mitzvos. Other people go further in their folly, including very young people who never even started to learn at all, and say that they have “questions” against the Torah, and because of this they will not keep the mitzvos, as if they are so incredibly wise to have found questions that the sages throughout the generations who did keep the mitzvos never thought of. Especially in this technological age, we find that unfortunately even Jews who keep Torah and mitzvos will stumble into sin, whether deliberately or accidentally, whether publicly or privately, and consider the words of these wicked missionaries for the secular cause who try to stand in the way of mitzvah observance. By lack of knowledge and lack of study, they might think that these arguments hold some weight, and stop taking Torah observance so seriously, and think of casting off the yoke of the mitzvos.

However, we can still use this mashal of the doctor to negate this argument of the yetzer hara. Just as a person will not think twice before following the guidance of a doctor to save his life, and he will never tell the doctor that he needs to know how a cure works before he will agree to take it, so too should we keep the mitzvos through faith in Hashem, who is the “Healer of all flesh”, even if we do not understand the reason yet. Afterwards, we can be diligent in our study of the Holy Torah and start to understand the reason behind each mitzvah, and see that we can find an answer to every question.

We understand that the Holy Torah is far more fast than all the seas, and far greater than medical science in its scope, and each question have many answers and reasons, and not everyone knows everything. Just as a simple doctor knows that he has to ask his professor, and if the professor lacks the answer he has to go to an even greater scholar, perhaps a specialist in the area in question, or look through many volumes of medical books, but he knows that there is an answer to each question somewhere. Even if it is difficult for the common person to understand quickly, the more one studies the Talmud, the more he comes to understand that foundations of our faith and the greatness of the mitzvos, and the concepts behind performing them. Especially when someone studies the Holy Zohar he can understand deeply the reasons for Creation and the greatness of Hashem, and how a person’s deeds can change and elevate the entire world. Just as a scholar of medical knowledge grasps the hidden powers of the physical world, such as bacteria, viruses, and the likes, so too is it possible to learn the hidden powers of the spiritual world, tuma’ah and taharah. Just a person has to remove himself from physical lusts which destroy the mind.

We have to understand that this is how thousands of our ancestors, our Bubbes and Zeides, conducted themselves for over 3,000 years throughout the chain of the generations from Avraham Avinu until our generation, which engaged in mesirus nefesh to keep the mitzvos. These were not imbeciles or fools. Just like nobody is born a doctor, so too nobody knows the reasons for the mitzvos in their youth. Since they saw the older people kept mitzvos and they knew the reasons, they were inspired to study on their own and grasp this same knowledge on their own. All of the millions of Jews throughout the generations who kept mitzvos even if they did not study the entire Torah, were still happy to keep the mitzvos by virtue of the guidance they received from wise rabbis and sages, many of whom lead regal lives with wealth and wisdom, like the Rambam, the Abarbanel, and other luminaries throughout the generations who said they knew the reasons for the mitzvos. Thus, anyone who hasn’t learned much, particularly the youth, need to simply do the mitzvos by faith at first, since they see thousands of older and wiser people who keep the mitzvos, and study and know the reasons for them. After some time, these young people will grow in their wisdom and knowledge as well, and also be privy to this information.

Now we can say that it is possible that this why our ancestors said “naaseh” before “nishma”, because we have to do the mitzvos first before we learn the reasons, just as we follow a doctor’s orders immediately without question. Only after we save our own lives through these sacred deeds can we take time to listen and understand the meaning behind the mitzvos.

May Hashem help us to be worthy to receive the Torah with a full and joyous heart, and may Hashem grant us all of the blessings and hashpaos tovos, and may He redeem us with the eternal geulah soon and in our days, amen!

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