 have a huge library with far too many books. My wife's concerned that the floor might give out in our house and so we recently brought an engineer in to see what's going on and he said don't bring any more books into your house. But I have a lot of Jewish books that I've read and you know most books on Judaism the great majority of them will present the nuts and bolts of the different elements of Judaism. When books basically attempt to present what Judaism is they go through all of the do's and don'ts and the nuts and bolts. We know that the word Torah literally means teaching or instruction and these books about Judaism will explicate what Judaism instructs us to do and often discuss the rationale of these practices and traditionally we know that there are 613 mitzvot or directives in the Torah and it's a very broad menu that includes everything from family life to civil law to dietary regulations, holidays, there are teachings about the treatment of animals, how we are to dress, what to do when someone dies, how to pray and agricultural laws in the holy land. There's a lot of stuff in the Torah but one of the shortcomings of many of these books and many discussions in general about Judaism is the failure to develop an overall perspective on what Judaism is. What is the big picture? What is it all about Alfie? And I think that is what I'm going to try to accomplish with you tonight. It's one thing to know all of the elements of Judaism to list all the things that Jews do when we don't do, to list all the beliefs of Judaism, to try and arrange all of the things that are part of Judaism but what is Judaism? What is the big picture? What is it all about? Where do all of these practices lead and how do they fit in? Meaning if we have a vision of what Judaism is what hopefully will happen is we'll understand how every different element fits into that big picture. What are the general goals that drive each of Judaism's parts? So there are many parts of Judaism but they're all heading somewhere and what I'm going to try to share with you tonight is an understanding of where everything is heading. Where does everything fit in? What is the forest beyond the trees? There are many trees in Judaism but it's sometimes very easy to miss the forest for the trees. Some people refer to Judaism as a religion, some people refer to Judaism as a way of life but really what is critical to understand is what is Judaism all about? Where is it heading? What are the essential goals that direct the entire enterprise and what is the ultimate agenda of Judaism? What is it all about? Torah is a path. We call Jewish law halacha, the path, the way to go. But where is this path heading? Where is it leading us? This Shabbat is the portion of the Torah of Noach. We'll be reading the story of Noah. Last week we began right after 52 weeks of the year. We conclude the entire five books of Moses and last Shabbat we began again within the beginning. This coming Shabbat will be Shabbat of Noach and there's a Midrash, a rabbinic teaching. It's found in the Midrash Tanchuma to the beginning of the portion of Noach which teaches that the Torah is written with black fire on white fire. We're told that the Torah that we have is composed of black fire written on white fire. The black fire you could say are the discrete forms of Judaism. They're institutions, the laws, the practices, the things that we read about. But the white fire is not the letter of the law, the white fire you could call the spirit of the law. There is a white fire to each element of Judaism. So for example there's a white fire of Shabbat because you can get very caught up with the details of Shabbat observance. What do we do on Shabbat? What don't we do? But those are the practices, that's the black fire. There is a white fire of Shabbat, the spirit of Shabbat. What's it all about? We achieve that, what's it all about, by the black fire. The black fire, the laws, the discrete practices, is how we achieve the goals, the spirit, the agenda. We need both, the black fire and the white fire. There is a white fire of Kashrut. So it's not just the Jews avoid certain foods and eat certain foods and eat certain foods in certain ways. But there's a white fire that's the spirit of what is Kashrut all about. There's a white fire of Stakhov giving charity. There's a white fire of circumcision. There's a white fire of every single thing we do in Judaism. But tonight we're going to try to uncover the white fire, the spirit of Judaism in general, of the overarching enterprise of Judaism. Ramosah Chaim Lutzato, the Ramchal, who's one of our greatest sages, wrote a systematic work to explore the nature of Jewish theology almost 300 years ago. It's called the Derech Hashem, translated into English as the way of God. And he writes in his introduction the importance of understanding details in light of the general concept. I'll share with you what he says. When one knows a number of things and understands how they are categorized and systematically interrelated, then he has a great advantage over one who has the same knowledge without such distinction. It is very much like the difference between looking at a well-arranged garden planted in rows and patterns and seeing a wild thicket or forest growing in confusion. When an individual is confronted by many details and does not know how they relate to one another or their true place in a general system, then his inquisitive intellect is given nothing more than a difficult, unsatisfying burden. He may struggle with it, but he will tire and grow weary long before he attains any gratification. Each detail will arouse his curiosity, but not having access to the concept as a whole to the big picture, he will remain frustrated. If one wishes to understand something, it is therefore very important that he will be aware of other things associated with it, as well as its place among them, how the system interrelates. Without this, one's longing for truth will be frustrated and he will be pained by his unsatisfied desire. The exact opposite is true when one knows something in relation to its context, in relation to the big picture. Since he sees it within its framework, he can go on to grasp other concepts associated with it, and his success will bring him pleasure and elation, sort of a fanciful and beautiful poetic way of saying that it's very, very helpful for us to see the big picture in anything we're trying to understand. I had a teacher, one of my first Jewish teachers, who's by Shlomo Rizkin, and he used to tell us about the two important critical personalities in the Bible. He would speak of the priest and the prophet, and he would compare the priest and the prophet to the black fire and the white fire. Because who was the priest? The priest was someone who became a priest only because they descended genealogically from Aaron, the first priest. And you became a priest simply by your pedigree, by your family line. It was inherited. That was the priest. And the priest had to wear certain vestments, certain garments when he served as a priest. And if you read the Bible, the Bible is very, very precise about how these garments are constructed. Very particular, very exacting, very precise. And if the priest was not wearing these garments, they were not able to serve as a priest. The prophet, on the other hand, did not descend genealogically. For example, the greatest prophet we had was Moses. And Moses had two sons, but we never hear from them. They never became anything significant because prophecy is not a function of pedigree. You become a prophet because you have arisen charismatic among the people. You were seen as a leader. And the people see you as someone that can impart inspiration. And the prophet did not have to wear any special outfit. You know, the Bible speaks about someone like Elijah, the prophet who dressed like a hippie. He wore burlap sack and he had, he just didn't have any cool outfits that he wore. And there was no requirement that a prophet dress in any particular way. And the reason behind these two characters, and the difference between them, is because the priest represents the black fire of Judaism. The priest is concerned with the details. The priest is concerned that we have a continuity, that throughout the generations, the details of Judaism will remain constant. It's an incredible thing that on a Friday night, when a family sits down at the Shabbat table, they pick up a cup of wine, and they say the exact same words that were probably said 2,000 years ago when people observe the Shabbat. And it's an incredible thing to know that I'm touching that kind of practice that will God willing be done in 2,000 years from now. When we open up this Ark, and we take out those scrolls, they're not written on a PDF document, they're not written on an LED device. They're written on the same kind of animal skins that were written 3,000 years ago. And that Torah is the same Torah, literally, that our ancestors had 3,000 years ago and that God willing, they'll be reading out of the same kind of a scroll in 3,000 years from now. When we put on phylacteries, we're putting on the same exact boxes with the same scriptures that were worn for thousands of years and that will God willing be worn for thousands of years. The practices of Judaism essentially remain constant throughout the generations. And that's the job of the priests. You know, I used to work when I was first in rabbinical school in a synagogue in Porchester, New York. And I came in there over the summer, I was going to be working for the High Holidays, and they had written a new prayer book for the High Holidays in this synagogue. Because they wanted it to be relevant. And they put together articles from the New York Times and they had songs that were popular songs. And they thought this is going to really relate to people. And when I came there, the edition that they had published was in boxes collecting cobwebs and dust for three years. Because a wise person once said that the most relevant thing in the world is today's global male, but the most irrelevant thing in the world is yesterday's global male. And so the impulse that we might have to update Judaism and to tamper with its forms in order to make it more relevant is a disaster. Because the power itself of these forms of the black fire is that they are our ability to touch eternity. We're touching something that goes beyond time. It was here thousands of years ago will be here in thousands of years. And that was a job of the priest who was very tied into exact detail and descended genealogically. But the great danger of having a religion based upon static forms is exactly that. That when you do something over and over and over again, the same thing, the same, you know, the fellow comes home at night, what, meatloaf again? You know, you get meatloaf for 4,000 meals in a row, it's going to get stale. And the great danger of having our black fire is that it gets stale. It could get stale. And that's where the prophet comes in. The prophet was there to arise every generation, not because they were the son of a prophet. But the prophet was someone that arose charismaticly, because they were tuned into that generation. They connected with the zeitgeist of that generation. They were sensitive to the to the tenor of the times. And the prophet in each generation was there to charge those forms, those ancient forms with new meanings. And so we have this tension between the black fire and the white fire. What we'll try to do tonight from our 21st century perspective is take a peek at what the white fire of Judaism is all about. And I think we'll see surprisingly, it really hasn't changed in all these centuries. There's a rabbi whom I've clashed with several times in the past. His name is Rabbi Shmueli Boteach. However, I think that in one of his books, he composes one of the best summaries of the essence of Judaism that I've seen. In 1999, Shmueli Boteach wrote a book called An Intelligent Person's Guide to Judaism. A little pretentious as a title, but he writes that Judaism is the following. It is a holistic set of inextricably linked values, which together comprise a state of the art system for human potential. And he goes on to observe that Judaism is not seen in light, in this light, meaning when Judaism is not seen in this light and often seen as an arcane and obsolete ritual, this accounts for its sad and unjust decline. And he proposes that we have to see Judaism for what it really is, which for him, and I believe he's right on this, its basic goal is Shleimut. The Hebrew word we'd say is Shleimut. In English, we could translate this as wholeness, completeness, perfection, or really self actualization. The Torah's basic goal is to help us become who we are capable of becoming, of self actualizing, and not just each one of us as individuals, but by extension, the world at large. Judaism's goals are both for the individual and for society. Tonight, what I'm hoping to do is to flesh out with you what exactly this entails. And in the coming weeks, God willing, how the various practices and institutions of Judaism fit into the paradigm we'll be looking at tonight. Let's begin. The Babylonian Talmud, tractate Brachot 63A, page 63, side A, asks, what is a small portion of Scripture that all the foundations are dependent on? I mean, can you isolate one small passage in the Bible, which really sums up everything? And the Talmud quotes a verse from the book of Proverbs chapter three, verse six, which says, Bechol drachecha do'ayhu. In all of your ways, know him. The Torah chronicles God's relationship to our world and specifically his relationship with the people of Israel. That's basically what the Bible has. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God redeems the Jewish people from the Egyptian slavery. God reveals his Torah to us at Mount Sinai. And God continues to communicate to us through his prophets and to guide us through history. That's what the Bible tells us about God. But Judaism is primarily concerned with our knowing God. According to the Talmudic passage I just quoted above, this should be the entire focus of everything that we do. Bechol drachecha do'ayhu. In all of your ways, come to know him, God. All of you have heard of a famous Jewish philosopher and legalist, Moses Maimonides. He lived between 1135 and 1204. He had a son that was not quite as famous, Rabbeinu Avraham Ben Harambam. He's called Abraham son of the Rambeinu. And he wrote a wonderful book which just recently was translated into English called Hamaspik Le Ovde Hashem. Not going to bother translating because it's difficult to translate. He wrote this book in 1230. It's basically a presentation of Jewish spirituality. And the major theme of this work is that the highest goal of our life is to develop a personal, experiential relationship with God. What he calls to encounter God, to have an encounter with God. His father, the Rambeinu Maimonides, wrote in his introduction to Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers. It's a small little book called Shmone Prokim, the eight chapters. Maimonides writes that one should constantly place before his eyes a single goal, which is to apprehend God to the extent of a human's ability. Maimonides goes on to say that this is the level that God requires of us to pursue. As he said in the Torah, the book of Deuteronomy chapter six, verse five, and you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart and all your soul. The intent of this is that every part of our soul should be directed toward one end, which is to love God. A more contemporary source for this very same idea is from a book called the Nisivos Shalom, the Pathways of Equanimity, written by the late Slalom of Rabbi Shalom Noach Brasovsky in 1988. And in the first chapter of his second volume, he wrote that the goal and purpose of the entirety of the Torah and its commandments is to achieve an attachment, he calls it dveikut, is to achieve an attachment to God and a feeling of his closeness. Now the word dveikut is used very frequently in the book of Deuteronomy to describe what the goal of our life should be. The goal of our life should be attachment to God. And we should seek this constantly and we should realize that this is a very daring term for the Bible to say that we should try to attach ourselves to God. We know that in the story of creation after Adam and Eve were created, God sort of steps back and says, therefore now every man will ultimately leave his mother and father and attach himself to his wife, the dveikut, the very same word. So the very same word that the Bible uses in Genesis for that incredible intimacy between a man and his wife, dveikut, in modern Hebrew, dveikut is glue. It's glue. That's the same word that the Bible uses describe how we are to come close to God to that degree of attachment. We're all familiar that when we perform a commandment of the Torah, we say a blessing, a brachah. And every brachah has the same formula. We say, asher kiddishanu be mitzvotav. Let's think for a few moments about what these words might also mean. We usually translate it as, asher kiddishanu, that God sanctified us. Not sure what that means necessarily. You could say that God made us holy. He made us kadoosh. So God made us holy or sanctified us be mitzvotav with his commandments. But let's reflect a little bit deeper. Our sages point out the word mitzvah does not simply mean commandment. The word mitzvah comes etymologically from the root of tsevet, or tsafta, which means a connector or a binder. So we're not simply performing commandments. The Torah is not merely dos and don'ts. The Torah is a system of connections to God. And then we say, asher kiddishanu, God sanctified us. When a couple stands under the chuppah to get married, the man says to his bride, haray at mekodeshetli, you are sanctified to me. So on one level, what we're saying when we do a mitzvah is we're saying, really, God, you wedded us. You married us. You came that close to us through these things that you commanded us that are connectors that help us connect to you. Right, Brzovsky, the slanam-e-rebi continues in the passage that we began just above. He says, and our holy books teach that all of the commandments of the Torah are guidance. Every commandment of the Torah is guidance on how to attach ourselves to God. Now, the $64,000 question is, well, how does it actually work? Right? That's what we'll have to do in the coming weeks. Meaning, how does each of these things we do in Judaism attach us to God? I want to explore one question before we move on. And that's a delicate question. Where does this leave? Where does our discussion up until now? Where does this leave those who don't believe in God? Or who are unsure of God? Or who might be questioning or cynical or not clear? So let me share with you a few thoughts. The Jerusalem Talmud in Tractate Chagiga teaches something astounding. They attribute the following statement to God. They have God saying the following, better that they, the Jewish people, abandon me, but follow my Torah. Better they abandon me, but at least follow my Torah. And then Talmud goes on to say, because by following the Torah and the Torah's laws, the spiritual light that's contained in the Torah will ultimately inspire people to embrace God. But the Talmud accepts the possibility that not everyone may necessarily believe in God. And so the Talmud says, okay, but follow the Torah anyway. Live your life as if there were a God. It's very interesting, by the way. The Torah never commands us to love our parents. There's no commandment to love our parents. There are commandments to honor them, to revere them, which you're ultimately saying, relate to your parents as if you love them. If you love them, how would you act towards them? But there's no direct commandment to love our parents. And so the Talmud is saying here that if you have difficulty with God, that's okay. It happens. But if you at least try to encounter the Torah, you're doing something worthwhile anyway. And it might ultimately lead you to God himself. Another thought, the Slalom Merebi, who we just discussed a few moments ago in his first volume of the Nishevosh Shalom, writes that the commandment to believe in God, that's a strange commandment, right? Because how does God command us to believe in him? It's a little bit weird. Because if a person already believes in God, they don't need to be commanded to believe in God. And if a person doesn't believe in God, you can't just tell them to turn it on like a faucet. So he struggles to understand what exactly is the commandment to believe in God. And he says that really when you understand it at its most basic level, the commandment to believe in God is at its core a directive to seek God, to work on trying to come to faith in him. So for the believer, the commandment says, you know what? Try to go to deeper levels of faith. Work on your faith. Don't just stick through life with the same level of faith you have when you were eight years old. Try to become more sophisticated and more deep in your faith. Work on the relationship. But for the person who doesn't believe in God, the commandment is saying, seek. Try. Try to approach belief. Work on it and maybe you'll get there. I once heard an amazing teaching from Rabbi Noah Weinberg of Blessed Memory. He was explaining a midrash which I have not yet been able to track down. And the midrash discusses the first real world war. We think it was in 1914 or whatever it was. Actually the first world war was many thousands of year before that. The book of Genesis tells us that there were four huge kings that had a war against five huge kings. And the four kings beat up on the five kings. That was the first world war. And in the war Abraham's nephew was captured. And Abraham goes to try and rescue his nephew. He has to go up and fight the victors of this war. Abraham, with a small group of people, has to go up and fight the winners of the first world war. And he's victorious. He rescues his nephew. Right after this, God says to Abraham, don't be afraid Abraham. Fear not, for your reward shall be very great. And anyone that studies the Bible is perplexed by this because you would think, when should God come in and reassure Abraham that he shouldn't be afraid? God should come to reassure him before he goes to battle. I mean you would be terrified if you had to fight against the winners of the first world war. But no, God doesn't come to reassure him before that. After he's victorious, God says to Abraham, don't be afraid. Your reward is going to be very great. So what is Abraham afraid of? So Rabbi Weinberg says there's a midrash which says that Abraham was afraid that God was going to punish him for all the years that Abraham didn't believe in God. Well, when did Abraham start to believe in God? So according to one opinion in the midrash, Abraham was three years old. According to another opinion in the midrash, Abraham was 48 years old. So how do you resolve this? So some of the commentaries point out he was three years old when he began to think about God and explore God, but he was 48 years old when he nailed it, went, oh, now I've got it. And Abraham was afraid that for all those intervening years, all those years where he wasn't able to sign on the dotted line, all those years when he wasn't certain, maybe God's going to hold it against me. And God says, no, on the contrary, don't be afraid, Abraham, because you'll be greatly rewarded, meaning for all those years you were struggling to come to know me and you were seeking me and you were working at it, you'll be greatly rewarded because in many ways the search is even more delicious than the find. I should point out one further thing, that many people have difficulties with God because they have very distorted views of what God is and who God is. You know, the market of Meserich, very famous Hasidic teacher, the disciple of the Baal Shem Tov, was once met by an atheist who said, rabbi, I don't believe in God. And the market said to him, I want you to know something. The very same God that you don't believe in, I don't believe in that God either. So it's quite possible that the God, that the atheist is rejecting, is not really God. It's a very distorted view of God. If you think that God is some cranky old man up in the heavens that always says no, that's not God. And that would be worth rejecting. We're fortunate we had a great Jew here in Toronto who moved to Israel. His name in Toronto was David Wolinsky, now his name is David Aaron. He's written many, many books that are directed specifically to dealing with this issue of helping people develop a more healthy and accurate and sophisticated understanding of who God really is. So I would say there is hope for the person who is not sure about God. But let's go a little bit deeper. Why is it so important to connect with God? Why is connecting with God significant? So there was a wonderful book we mentioned before by the Ramchal Moshechaim Lutzato called The Derich Hashem, The Way of God. And he asks a very, very basic question. Why did God create the world? I mean if we're trying to figure out what is life all about, this is the most basic question. Why did God create everything? Why did God put us here? Why am I here? Why are we all here? What are we doing here? So this book attempts to deal with this question. And the Ramchal suggests that God created the world as an act of love. It says in the book of Psalms, Olam chesed ibanei, the world is created out of loving kindness. You know in the beginning of the Bible after each day of creation there's a refrain. It says, Vayar Elohim kitov, and God saw that it was good. We have it six times and God saw that it was good and God saw that it was good. There's a commentary by Revakov Tsi Mecklenburg who is from Germany. I think I've been to the 1800s and he says that's not really the accurate translation. He says Vayar is really the causative and the better way of translating this verse is not that God saw that it was good because on some level it's a little bit weird. You mean God created something and then he has to say, oh that's pretty good, like what, he's going to get it wrong? So he says Vayar Elohim kitov really means that God caused it to be seen. God caused it to be seen. He told because he is good. Meaning why did God bring it into existence? Because God is good. God creates out of love. When someone loves they want to give, not to take. So creation is an act of giving and that's what the Ramchal says in his book, that the world was created as an act of love and he created the world as a vehicle upon which he could give to an other. That's why God created the world. God wanted a vehicle to which he could give to which he could bestow goodness. And the Ramchal says that if God is going to give it must be the greatest good possible. God's going to give you something. It's not going to be a second class gift. It's going to be the greatest good possible. Anything less would not be godly. So what is the greatest good? What is the greatest good imaginable in the world? What's the greatest good, the ultimate good that God can give and bestow upon his creation? So the Ramchal teaches that the ultimate good is God himself. And the ultimate good and the greatest good that God is able to give is himself. The Ramchal wrote another famous book called the Missilat-e-Sharim, The Pathway of the Upright. And he writes in the first chapter of this book, the following. He says mankind was only created to take delight in God. That's why we were put here. Believe it or not, we were not put here for dark chocolate, even though it's a wonderful thing. But that's not why we were put here, ultimately. We were put here for something much, much greater and pleasurable than dark chocolate. He says mankind was only created to take delight in God and benefit from the radiance of his presence. For this is the true delight and the greatest pleasure of all pleasures that can possibly exist. We live in a world where there are many pleasures. We all know this. Many things that we all enjoy and take pleasure in. But they're all created by God and God is the source of all pleasure. So if we find the world we're living in pleasurable, imagine connecting with the source of all these pleasures. All other pleasures in the world ultimately pale in comparison to God himself and all of these pleasures point beyond themselves to God. You know, look, I think God doesn't expect more of kids. Maybe kids, for example, need to be told if you don't brush your teeth, you're not going to have dessert tomorrow. Maybe kids need to relate to cookies and candy. But hopefully as we get older, we begin to get more sophisticated in our palette and we learn to delight in more sophisticated pleasures. And maybe when we're six years old, playing gold, go fish and old maid is pleasurable. But I don't know many people that are 40 that play old maid and go fish. They want to play poker or gin rummy or maybe chess. But people as they get older, try hopefully to reach higher and higher levels of what could be pleasurable. To get stuck at a more premature level is sad. It's sad for someone in their 60s to be experiencing in the world on a level where they really have been there already 40, 50 years before that. Hopefully people will understand that we're put in this world where all of these pleasures are pointing beyond themselves to their Creator. But let's go a little bit further. If we're looking for the big picture as a way of putting Judaism into perspective, we have to understand more about ourselves. According to the Torah, the 50, 70 or 90 years that we spend living in this world is only the very, very tip of the iceberg in terms of our lives. It's a mistake to think that our life is exhausted by the 60, 70, 80, 90 years we spend running around on planet Earth. The essence of who we are is not our body. It's an important thing to understand. I am not my body. The essence of who we are is our personality, our soul, our nishama. And our soul comes into a physical body for a very short sojourn on planet Earth. We're not here for a very long time. But our soul is not physical. It is spiritual and our soul continues to exist long after our body is buried in the ground. We'll discuss this idea of life after life in a few weeks. But we refer to this existence as olam haba, the world to come. And the Ramchal explains that while we are able to connect to God in this world, we are able to do that. And to achieve very sublime levels of pleasure in that connection, he says the real and permanent true experience of the pleasure of connecting with God will be in the spiritual realm of the world to come. The great caveat is this. Our entire ability to experience the bliss of the world to come is totally dependent on how we prepare for it in this life. This life experience now, these short few years that we spend here is critical because we're setting this stage for our eternal existence in the spiritual world. We shouldn't dismiss these 70 or 80 years because they pale in comparison to eternity. There's another major focus of Judaism which we'll see is inextricably bound up with the first. The first major concern of Judaism is establishing a connection to God. But the Babylonian Talmud in tract H. Shabbat, page 31a, has a famous story where a non-Jew comes to convert to Judaism. And he says that he wants to convert to Judaism and he says that he wants to convert to Judaism on the condition that the rabbis will teach him the entire Torah while he stands on one foot. And that's chutzpah for you. So he basically is saying, I got 30 seconds, tell me everything you know. So Shammai, the great sage, chases him away. He says, you have a lot of nerve. Get out of here. But Hillel says to him, I'll take you on. And Hillel says, you want to understand the entire Torah while I stand on one foot? Hillel says, what is hateful to you, what ticks you off, what annoys you, don't do to someone else. He says, that's the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study it. So Hillel seems to be explaining, if you want to understand, Hillel says, the big picture of Judaism, of the Torah, is how we relate to other people, how we get along with other people, and how we treat other people. And he says something amazing. The rest of the Torah is commentary. So if you want to understand why we don't eat pork, that's somehow connected to, don't do things that annoy other people. And if you want to understand the holiday of Passover, according to Hillel, that's connected to this principle of what is hateful to you, don't do to your neighbor. We're going to have to understand that. Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18, love your neighbor as yourself. Rabbi Akiva said in the Talmud, this is the major principle of the Torah. Rabbi Akiva, one of our greatest sages says, you want to know the greatest principle of the Torah? Love your neighbor as yourself. The Midrash teaches something significant. And it's a very bold statement, because it sort of doesn't hedge its bets. The Midrash says, lonitna Torah elah. Whenever you have this construction of, something was not given elah, except, it means this is the only reason it was given. Lonitna Torah elah. Letzarev pahem eshabrios. The Torah was only given to refine and purify people. That's why the Torah was given, to refine us, to purify us. I've taught this next idea many times, but it's worth hearing again. The Torah describes the creation of human beings, as different from the creation of everything else in the world. Everything else in the world, God said, let there be light, let there be dogs, let there be trees. That's how everything was created. When it comes to the human being, the Torah says, let us make man. That's a departure. Let us make man who is God speaking to. So there are many answers given to this question. Some people say, God was speaking to the angels, and God is consulting with the angels, when man is being created. Because the Talmud says, God wants to teach us, human beings, proper behavior. And we're learning here that you shouldn't just rule autocratically and make unilateral decisions. You should consult your underlings. That's one possibility. We're learning an ethical lesson, when God consults with the angels. He doesn't need their advice, but God takes them into the process. Let us make man. Another answer given is that God is speaking in the royal we. Like the Queen of England says, let us go for a walk. She's not now multiple personality disordered. She speaks like that because she's the Queen of England. Or the editor of a newspaper writes in what they call the editorial we. In our esteemed opinion, it's one person writing. But in the Bible, the King sometimes will speak in the first person plural. So God, as the King of the world says, let us create man. Third possibility was suggested by the Baal Shem Tov. And he says something amazing. He says that God here is addressing each human being who will ever live. God is speaking to each person in the history of the world who will ever live. And God is basically saying the following. God is saying, you know what, when it comes to the creation of everything in the world, I can do it unilaterally. I can make pigs by saying, let there be pigs. I can make stars by saying, let there be stars. But God is saying, I cannot create a human being unilaterally. I can give you people the raw ingredients. I can give you a body and a soul. But what you ultimately become is a function of what you, each human being does with those raw ingredients. So God cannot make you or myself. God can give us the tools. God can give us a body and a soul. But God is speaking to every single one of us and says, let us make a man. God is speaking to you and to me. And God is inviting us to become part of the process of the creation of who we are. And God is inviting each of us to create the masterpiece of a human being. Each one of us can be a masterpiece. That's the challenge. And so the Baal Shem Tov says that that really is why we're here in this world. We're here to create ourselves. We're here to create ourselves. God said, I can't do it for you. You've got to become a human being through your own work. The Goan of Vilna, one of the greatest minds that we had about 300 years ago, wrote a little tiny book called the Evan Shlema. It's not well known. But it's a book about the basics of Judaism. And the Vilna Goan and many other sages say the same thing. He writes in the book in the first chapter that the main purpose of our life is to constantly work at improving our character traits and to overcome our negative traits. He says that's the main reason we're put into this world. And he says anyone who does not work on perfecting their character traits is wasting their life. So again, from this perspective, the entire Torah, everything in the Torah is there to help us perfect our character traits. And I'm going to conclude by making one final observation tonight. As I said before, the Torah is not only concerned with the individual and his or her self perfection. I've described tonight a lot about the individual getting close to God, the individual working on their character traits. But the Torah has an agenda that goes beyond this. The Torah is also focused on the perfection of world. The Torah is concerned with the ultimate perfection of the entire world, not just the individual but society. A huge focus of Judaism seeks, a huge focus, seeks not only to connect the individual Jew with God, but that ultimately the entire world should come to God. For example, in our prayers, every prayer service in the Jewish prayer book ends with the 14th chapter in the book of Zechariah. Every Jewish prayer service ends with a prayer called Alaynu. And Alaynu ends with this prophecy that one day by Yom HaHub, and that day God will be one and his name will be one. Rashi explains something interesting. We say at least twice a day, Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ahad. It's a very, very well known passage in the Bible, very misunderstood. When you try to parse the words, it's a little bit goofy. Shema Yisrael, listen Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, the Lord is our God, Adonai Ahad, the Lord is one. It has the name of God three times in a row. I mean, if I was the editor, I would have just said Shema Yisrael Adonai Ahad. Listen Israel, God is one. What's this Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ahad? It's a little bit awkward. And Rashi explains that really there's a word there that's sort of to be understood. And that's the word ye will be. The way Rashi reads the Shema is Shema Yisrael, listen Jews. Right now, Adonai Eloheinu, the Lord is our God. Ultimately, God will be one. As the prophet Zachariah says, in that day God will be one and his name will be one. And this messianic vision of a perfected world extends not only to connecting every human being to God, but it extends to the ethical realm as well. That all of humanity will come to live together in peace with each other. That is the great messianic vision of Judaism. And to a great extent, that's one of the major themes, meta-themes, that drives all of Judaism. That we're here, each individual, to perfect themselves. And the Torah system of laws is here to help each of us connect to God, to connect to ourselves, to become who we could be. But the Torah was also given to the Jewish people. The Torah says we're to be a goi kadosh, a holy nation. Not simply holy individuals who are living their own private life unconcerned with the world. The Torah was given to a nation. And so we as a Jewish people have a role to perfect not just ourselves as individuals, but to ultimately perfect the entire world. God willing, it'll happen soon in our days.