This week's parshas, Parshas
Yisro, we have the
receiving of the Torah.
And in the receiving
of the Torah there's
a very interesting posuk
that says vayar ha’am
vayanu’u. And the nation
saw and they shook.
And the Baal HaTurim
comments on this verse.
He says that they
shook and therefore, when
people daven and when
people learn, they shuckel
like this. They shuckel
because the Torah was
given with such an
awe that people shook.
So too, we shake
when we learn, when
we learn Torah. Rabbi
Wachshof from the Mir
says over that he
heard one time another
explanation from an Adam
Gadol, from a great
man, that we know
that the heart, the
heart goes up and
down. So too, the
shuckelin, the back and
forth shuckelin represents infusing
life into the body,
into our spirituality. Just
like the heart infuses
life into the physical
body, our spirituality is
also alive. It's a
real thing. And the
way we infuse it
is when we shuckel
in our davening when
we pray and in
our learning. That shuckelin,
whether it means physical
shuckelin or figurative shuckelin,
it's infusing life. When
a person davens, when
a person prays or
they learn with shuckelin,
they're showing that it's
alive. It's something which
is alive. It's not
dead. It's not by
rote. Such life one
can infuse during the
more spiritual parts of
their day. During their
learning and during their
davening infuses the whole
person with life, with
spiritual life. And that
can take a person
even when they go
out to the physical
world. That idea that
a few times a
day we stop and
we shuckel, literally or
figuratively we shuckel infusing
life through the means
of prayer or through
the means of study
of learning Torah infuses
our entire essence with
life and that's what's
going to carry us
through the day. One
of the psukim that's
mentioned is that the
Jews all answered together
vaya'anu kol ha'am yachdav
and they said vayomer
kol asher diber Hashem
na'aseh, we will do.
Rabbi Itzik Kaplan points
out from Rav Wolbe
a beautiful idea. The
Ramban and the Midrash
point out that when
the Jews accepted the
Torah, it wasn't a
majority rules, they went
after the majority. Everyone
looked around at their
friend, well everyone else
is saying we will
do, so we'll say
the same thing. No.
Each individual, each individual
on their own accepted
the Torah. That's why
the Ramban points out
it says Anochi Hashem
Elokecha. Anochi, the whole
Anochi is in the
singular, Anochi Hashem Elokecha,
I'm your God. It's
all in the singular.
Every Jew accepted upon
themselves individually the Torah.
Explains Rav Wolbe that
it's so important even
though we have so
many Jews that are
doing so many things
and sometimes we find
ourselves in a mix
of Jews and they're
doing something, so we're
going to do it
too. They're learning, we're
learning. They're praying and
we're praying. But how
important and how incumbent
it is upon us
to realize that we
have to consistently accept
upon ourselves anew our
acceptance of mitzvos, our
acceptance of the Torah.
We have to do
it individually, not just
go along with what
those around us are
doing, but do it
individually. The idea of
shuckelin back and forth,
infusing life into us,
helps a person connect
in an individual way
to Hashem. When a
person decides in a
prayer to, in their
own personal way, to
ask Hashem for something
and to infuse life,
he's asking to help
him in the day
and he wants to
infuse his day with
spirituality, then when a
person goes throughout his
life, throughout his day,
throughout his month, he
will be able to
individually accept the Torah,
not just do it
by rote or not
just do it because
everyone else is doing
it. But the infusion
of life can very
much help and assist
a person to do
what we did so
many years ago that
each individual accepted upon
themselves the Torah. Have
a wonderful Shabbas.