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Torah Portion -
Yisro
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Written by Jonny Caller
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‘Naaseh’ ‘We will do whatever Hashem commands us’. I heard from Rabbi Guttentag that the Meshech Chochma points out that ‘we will do’ is in the plural, since the Torah can only be fulfilled as a nation. No one person can do all 613 mitzvot .e.g some for only kohanim/leviim/yisraelim etc. We are one unit. Torah was given to every member of Am Yisrael, as one unit.
Rav Zvi Yehudah Kook, once explained in a sicha as Rosh Yeshiva of Merkaz HaRav, the meaning of the Gemara (Nedarim 81a) that states that the 1st Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because the Jews didn’t make Birkat HaTorah. Rav Zvi Yehuda explained
that the BY didn’t internalize the bracha ‘asher bachar banu mikol haamim venatan lanu et torato’ ‘Hashem chose US from all the nations and gave US the Torah’. The Bnei Yisrael didn’t understand that Hashem gave the Torah to all of Am Yisrael, not just to a select few. They saw themselves as individuals, not as a nation, and thus became selfish and self-centered.
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