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This week’s Torah reading is called “BeHar” ‘On Mount (Sinai)’. It contains 24 commandments; one of them is not to deceive in business another is not to speak in harmful ways. In other words, control your speech.
Perhaps the main difference between animal and man is the power of speech. Therefore, one Hebrew term for man (as opposed to animal “Chai”) is “M’daber” a ‘talker’. And one aspect of man being created in the image of G-d is that both speak.
So harming others though speech is, in a way, the ultimate perversion of man.

Also we are now approaching the Holiday of “La’g (the 33rd day) of the Omer”; the date of the passing away of one of the greatest and most holy men in Judaism; Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai the author of the mystical book ‘The Zohar’. Every year on that date over a half million Jews visit his burial place in the northern village of Meron to celebrate, rejoice and pray.

Chassidic teachings tell us that everything, especially every detail of Judaism, is meaningful and is connected to every other detail.
So these three; Behar, positive speech, and Lag B’Omer must have a meaningful connection. What could it be?

Here are two stories from the Talmud to help explain.

About 1600 years ago lived a great, holy Torah scholar in Israel by the name of Rabbi Yehoshua ben (son of) Levi.
He was such an unusually gifted and pure person that he regularly had visits from Elijah the Prophet (who ascended alive to heaven (Kings 2:2:11) some 800 years earlier but often returns to this world.)
The Talmud (Sanhedrin 98b) relates that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi once asked Elijah if he could meet the Moshiach (a.k.a. Messiah) and ask him a question.
Elijah agreed and told him the Moshiach was a leprous beggar sitting at the gates of Rome changing his bandages one by one and waiting for G-d’s orders to lead the Jews out of exile. Rabbi Yehoshua found him, approached and asked his burning question;
“When are you coming?!” (Aimosai K’asi Mar)
Moshiach’s answer was, ‘Today…..  if you listen to G-d’s voice’.
In other words, all that really interested Rabbi Yehoshua was Moshiach.
[1,500 years later, just 350 years ago, the Baal Shem Tov (Besh’t) met with Moshiach and asked the same question, “When are you coming” to which he replied: “What I meant by listening to G-d’s voice is …. when your wellsprings (Chassidic teachings) are everywhere”. This answer became the seed of the Chabad Chassidic movement].

A second Talmudic story about Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi is found in Ketuvot, (77b)
When Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi was old G-d ordered the angel of death to give him anything he wanted before he died.
When the angel appeared, Rabbi Yehoshua requested that he show him his place in Heaven. (Which, as we will see, was a trick).
But he asked the angel to do him a favor and give him his sword of death till they returned because it made him uneasy. The angel complied and they set out on their way.
Now the story really gets strange.
The Talmud relates that they arrived at the wall that surrounds heaven (implying that heaven is a place in this world i.e. Gan Eden where Adam had been). But when the angel lifted the Rabbi up so he could get a look at his place and be satisfied, Rabbi Yehoshua, with the knife still in his possession, jumped over the wall …. into heaven!
The angel managed to grab hold of a corner of Rabbi Yehoshua’s garment but the old Rabbi, now two feet in the afterworld, took a special oath to G-d, , that he would never return …. Except from his own free will!
The angel of death, impotent without his knife, begged for divine intervention to get it back and a heavenly voice announced that if Rabbi Yehoshua had ever annulled a vow he made then this vow too would be annulled. But if not …. He could stay in heaven alive forever and even the angel of death couldn’t stop him!
This left the angel with a big problem… without his knife not only could he not kill Rabbi Yehoshua …. he couldn’t kill anyone!!
Until finally a heavenly voice requested from Rabbi Yehoshua that he do a favor, let the world get back to normal and return the knife. Rabbi Yehoshua agreed but pointed out that he had not actually visited and saw his place!
At this point Rabbi Yehoshua’s ‘friend’ Elijah the Prophet appeared and announced “Make place for Ben Levi. Make place for Ben Levi!” The Rabbi was shown that his ‘place in heaven’ was next to none other than the holy Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (Aka Rashb’i) who wrote the Zohar to bring Moshiach. The Rashb’i, sitting before 13 spiritual golden tables, asked Rabbi Yehoshua a question:
“Was there a rainbow in your days?”
Rabbi Yehoshua answered, ‘Yes there was a rainbow in my day.”
“If so!” declared Rebbe Shimon bar Yochai, “you aren’t Rabbi Yeshua ben Levi and you can’t come here!”
[G-d made the rainbow (Gen. 9:11-15) to ‘remind’ Himself of His vow to never again destroy the world. In Rabbi Shimon’s time there was no rainbow because his holiness protected his generation. Now he was testing Rabbi Yehoshua to see if he was holy enough to sit next to him. The Talmud tells us that Rabbi Yehoshua was so humble he refused to take credit but, in fact there was no rainbow in his day.)

From these stories we see two things: First, although Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi was so holy that Elijah appeared to him and he controlled the angel of death, Rashb’i was not impressed by this. His only criterion was …. If the rainbow was seen: namely if Rabbi Yehoshua protected his generation!
Second, we see that Rabbi Yehoshua’s only concern in life (and the reason Rashb’i wrote the Zohar) was the arrival of Moshiach to put an end to suffering.
In other words, both stories stress that the most important thing in Judaism is benefitting others.

This answers our questions about the link between Behar, negative speech and Lag B’Omer.
The message of Lag B’Omer is to be like Rebbe Shimon bar Yochi and be concerned ONLY with benefiting mankind.
The message of ‘BeHar” Mount Sinai is humility. Mount Sinai was the lowest of mountains to show that the real purpose of the Torah is to humble us, make us less selfish and do what G-d did: come ‘down’ and benefit the world as Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi who refused to take credit for ‘no rainbow’.
One who has such an attitude; namely that we must ‘come down’ to help others, will never foster the negative attitude that causes us to speak negatively or harmfully.
So negative, harmful speech is the result of ignoring the messages of Lag B’Omer and of BeHar.

In other words, just as Rashb’i, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi (and later the Besh’t) were only concerned with the arrival of Moshiach for the good of all mankind. So too we should do everything possible toward this goal.
Then we will see that this physical world is even HIGHER than the highest heavens.
Here in this physical world (not in heaven) will be built the Third Holy Temple and here will be the Raising of the Dead. Rabbi Shimon, Rabbi Yehoshua, Elijah the Prophet and eventually all the dead will leave heaven and ‘come down’ into physical bodies.

It depends on us to learn the secrets of the Zohar as they are explained in Chassidut Chabad (see your local Chabad House for details)
It is in our ability to bring Moshiach even one moment sooner, not much is lacking.
We are standing on the merits of thousands of years of Jewish prayers, self-sacrifice, faith and suffering.
Now it could be that just one more good deed, word or even thought can bring….
Moshiach NOW!!

Rabbi Tuvia Bolton
Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim
Kfar Chabad, Israel

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