Those of you who have been around a long time, probably back 20 years, it hasn’t been like this for a while. One of the things the Rav would always talk about in Queens is the importance of the Sefer Torah, and how lucky we are to have the knowledge of the kabbalistic meditations included in the Torah.

The Centre having its own sofer was very new. And the Rav was happy about having our mezuzah, tefillin, and Sefer Torah written by the scribes who know the meditations. The Zohar talks about the importance of knowing how to write using the meditations.

Shimon Shafarti, who is in Florida now, who was in Paris, every week that was all he would talk about. Over and over he talked about the importance of the Sefer Torah.

It’s been a while so I would like to talk about it one more time. We know when we connect to the Zohar, it’s within the original Aramaic where the Light is found.

(Verse 268- 270) One day Rabbi Chizkiyah and Rabbi Yesa were traveling and came to a town called Gush Chalav. As they were walking and wanted to rest, they sat down by the outskirts of the cemetery. Rabbi Chizkiyah had with him a ripped section of the Sefer Torah. As they sat down and began studying, one of the graves began shaking. The person, the dead person in the grave, started screaming, “Woe, Woe.” Obviously, there is pain in the world, there is trouble, because the only time one would take the Sefer Torah to a cemetery is when one needs to awaken the dead righteous souls to assist our world.

Rabbi Yesa and Rabbi Chizkiyah were all shaken up. Obviously, they had not come for the purpose of awakening the souls, and a dead person was talking to them. Rabbi Chizkiyah said to the grave, “Who are you?” It was an old grave, where the name might not have been on the grave. He said, “Who are you?” The soul answered, “I’m dead, but I have been awakened because you brought with you this part of the Sefer Torah.” He told them how one time there was tremendous pain and suffering in the world, and the righteous, living people came to the dead to awaken them through the power of the Sefer Torah.

What happened? And this is the way it works, the righteous would do this. Whenever we go to the grave of a righteous person, it’s essentially the same process. We awaken the soul, which goes to Hebron and awakens the Patriarchs and Matriarchs. When they awaken them, then they go and awaken the blessings that need to be awakened.

And the dead soul continued the story of when they had been awakened before, “But the problem was that when we went to the souls of the righteous to try to awaken them, we were told the Torah was invalid. There was an additional ‘vav’ that was not supposed to be there. The righteous souls said because they were awakened with a Torah that was invalid, because it had an additional letter, they kicked us out. The assistance that was being asked for could not happen.”

There is a lot to learn from the story, both in the power of the Sefer Torah and in the point of it being valid.

At this point they had awakened the souls, and they went to the righteous, but were told the force from which you are coming, the invalid Torah, meant we cannot help you.

They brought the Sefer Torah of Rabbi Hamnuna Saba (the elder), and it awakened the son of Rabbi Shimon, Rabbi Elazar, and they went up to the garden of Eden, to where all the souls of the righteous are, and the world was healed.

The story goes that at that point Rabbi Elazar returned to Meron, and not Gush Chalav, and as we find him today he is buried next to his father in Meron.

Rabbi Chizkiyah and Rabbi Yesa said, “This was a mistake. We did not come here to awaken you. We were traveling with a part of the Sefer Torah, and we are sorry to have awakened you.”

What they said is that when there are not enough righteous people in this world, the world is sustained through the assistance of the righteous souls that have passed.

What the story is telling us here is that the only way they would have awakened these souls was through the Sefer Torah. In order for the assistance to occur, the Sefer Torah had to be perfect. One of the things we try to make sure at the Centre is that the Sefer Torah we connect to on Shabbat is perfect.

We will read a little more, as this is a very important Shabbat relating to the resurrection of the dead. The Rabbi Elimelech of Lejensk said, “I’m more excited about resurrection the living.” Everyone of us, our soul is either dormant or, chas v’shalom, dead to a certain degree.

One of the things to realize is that the Torah has the ability to awaken even the souls of the dead. And certainly it has the power to awaken the souls of the living.

Hopefully, every single one of us will understand there is a tremendous gift we have every Shabbat we come here, to connect to a Sefer Torah not only done with the knowledge of the meditations, but also with the power to awaken and energize our souls.

To the degree that we can understand and desire this, as the Zohar says, to that degree we will receive that Light. It’s true for every Shabbat, but even more so on this Shabbat. To awaken within us the appreciation for the Sefer Torah we are going to use and the reading we are going to have. It has the power to awaken power and souls that have been dormant within us.