One of the greatest days—everybody knows what it is. I don’t have to say; you guys know what it is. What is that? Matan Torah (giving of the Torah). Now, I’m going to prove something fantastic to you. I’m going to show you something in the Torah right now. You ready? When Bnei Yisrael (The Jews) actually get close to receiving the Torah, the pasuk (verse) says, “They came to Midbar Sinai (the whole desert of Sinai).” Right after that, the next pasuk says, “They left Rephidim and they got to Midbar Sinai.”
There’s a famous Or HaChaim HaKadosh on this. He says, “I don’t understand something. You just told me, you just told me, the Torah says, ‘They came to Midbar Sinai.’ So why, right after that, are you saying, ‘Oh, they came from Rephidim and they came to Midbar Sinai’? You just told me they came to Midbar Sinai.” He answers like this: it’s because the whole world was waiting for the day of Matan Torah. The entire world was waiting for the day of Matan Torah. And therefore, even Midbar Sinai—it’s a domain. It doesn’t have feelings, but it had a feeling, right? Like we know the whole story of how each mountain was fighting for the next mountain: “No, put the Torah on me, put the Torah on me.” The whole Midbar, the whole desert of Sinai, was just so happy: “The Jews are coming. We’re finally going to give the Torah.” The whole world was waiting. “We’re waiting for this, finally.” After we spoke about how happy Midbar Sinai is, that’s the first pasuk: Midbar Sinai was happy. Then we’ll talk about the people. They left Rephidim, right? And they came to Midbar Sinai. Because the first pasuk is discussing the world.
And you have to understand that when you learn Torah, you’re affecting the world. The whole world is being affected. You know, they would say, if you look—Baduk U'Menuseh (tested and proven)—I’ll show you how great the protection is. There’s a very famous story that everybody knows about Moshe Feinstein. He was learning Torah. In the middle, they came in to him and said, “Rabbi, say Tehillim quick.” I said, “What? Tehillim? Why? Why? Why?” He says, “The kid was riding his bike and got hit by a car.” He says, “No, it can’t be. He must not be Jewish. No way.” “No, no, no, Rabbi, he was Jewish. His yarmulke flew off the bike.” “No, it can’t be.” Back and forth. They tell him, you know, Rabbi, the next day they come to Rav Moshe. He said, “You’re right. The guy was a goy (not Jewish).” He stole a Jewish guy’s bike, stole his yarmulke, and was riding it. But how did you know he was a goy? How did you know he wasn’t Jewish? How did you know it couldn’t be? He said, “Because I was learning Torah. And when you’re learning Torah, there’s protection all around.”
Take the words Gemara. Gemara. Each one is a malach (angels). Gemara stands for Gabriel. Mem, Mikael. Resh, Refael. Aleph, Uriel. When you’re learning Torah, when you’re learning Gemara, you’re protected from angels. They’re around you. And this is a great lesson that we have to understand: when you learn, you’re affecting the whole world.