hashem keeps the torah?

i've been thinking a lot about this whole "hashem keeps the torah" idea recently, particularly because mekoros to that effect just keep popping up.  a few weeks ago, i was reading emes liyaakov (r yaakov kaminetsky's hearos on chumash), and it lead me to another medrash about hashem keeping thetorah.  that medrash reminded me of a dvar torah i wrote when my family was celebrating my grandparents 50th anniversary (we all had to write something and i had no idea what i was supposed to say). so here goes nothing.

forgive me if i repeat ideas or quote sources already mentioned.  i just want to lay everything out clearly.

the daas zekeinim asks a strange question in the beginning of parshas beshalach.  right before krias yam suf, hashem instructs moshe to have beni yisrael camp next to "baal tzfon", a mitzri avodah zarah.  asks the daas zekeinim, thats assur!  in parshas mishpatim, the torah says, visheim elohim acherim lo tazkiru - the gemara explains that one is not allowed to reference a location by an avodah zara.

the daas zekeinim suggests 2 possible answers: 1. hashem doesnt have to keep the torah.  2. hashem doesnt have to keep the torah before mattantorah.

what is going on?  even according to the first teretz, what was the hava amina that hashem keeps the torah - this hava amaina surely had to come from somewhere?  and the second teretz holds that hashem actually keeps the torah - again, where does this come from?

lets jump for a second to the first mishna in the fifth perek of pirkei avos.  says the mishna: בעשרה מאמרות נברא העולם - the world was created with ten maamaros. nine vayomers, and the gemara says breshis was a maamar. 9 + 1 = 10 (im not a math major for nothing).

 ומה תלמוד לומר והלא במאמר אחד יכול להבראות - notice the mishna doesnt ask why god created the world with ten maamaros as opposed to one. rather, we ask mah talmud lomar - what can we learn from god's acting in this way.  we can never fully or satisfactorily answer the why god does x question, but we can understand and learn important truths about how we should perceive the world.  i think this is an important point for the rest of what im going to say to make sense, and in hashkafa in general.

answers the mishna, אלא להפרע מן הרשעים שמאבדין את העולם שנברא בעשרה מאמרות וליתן שכר טוב לצדיקים שמקיימין את העולם שנברא בעשרה מאמרות.  how inthe world does this answer the question?  what is the connection between the world being created with 10 maamaros and schar vi-onesh?  hashemcouldnt punish reshaim and reward tzaddikim if the world had been created bimaamar echad?

i dont think what im about to say is a chiddush.  its really straight out of the rambam's explanation of this mishna.  says the rambam:

והיה יכול לבטא הבריאה כולה במאמר אחד, ולומר: ויאמר אלהים יהיו שמים וארץ ויקוו המים ותוצא הארץ וכו', ואמנם ייחד מאמר לכל סיפור, להודיעך גדולת זאת המציאות ושכלולה, ושמפסידה מפסיד דבר גדול, ומתקנה מתקן דבר גדול

if hashem had created the world with one maamar, the rasha would have a taana against hakadosh baruch hu's punishment.  who the heck cares that i sinned and acted like a jerk my entire life?  so i messed up your (god's) creation plans -- so what- whats this world worth to you  anyways?!  you created it with a snap of your (metaphorical) fingers, not even thinking about it, you could destroy it with a snap of your fingers, absent-mindedly, and you could create 50 worlds just like this one or better with no effort whatsoever.  i didnt mess up anything meaningful.

the tzaddik faces the same taana from the other side.  what reward do you (the tzaddik) deserve - do you think you accomplished anything meaningful?

answers hashem:  you think i dont care about this world - you think i didnt invest effort in its creation?  i didnt just snap and create the world instantaneously - biasarah maamaros nivra haolam.

we can understand hashem keeping the torah in a similar vein.  says the medrash in parshas mishpatim:

ד"א ואלה המשפטים, הה"ד (שם /תהלים/ קמז) מגיד דבריו ליעקב אלו הדברות, חוקיו ומשפטיו לישראל אלו המשפטים לפי שאין מדותיו של הקב"ה כמדת ב"ו =בשר ודם=, מדם /מדת/ ב"ו מורה לאחרים לעשו' והוא אינו עושה כלום והקב"ה אינו כן אלא מה שהוא עושה הוא אומר לישראל לעשות ולשמור, מעשה ברבן גמליאל ור' יהושע ור"א בן עזריה ור' עקיבא שהלכו לרומי ודרשו שם אין דרכיו של הקב"ה כבשר ודם שהוא גוזר גזירה והוא אומר לאחרים לעשות והוא אינו עושה כלום והקב"ה אינו כן

i think its the same idea - you think hashem doesnt take the torah seriously?  you think it doesnt matter?  hakadosh baruch hu does take it seriously - he even keeps the torah.

we can go a step further.  i saw a great vort that i think connects to this idea.  the medrash says that when yosef wanted to sell binyamin into slavery, yehuda (not knowing that yosef was yosef) told yosef that he couldnt do that because the halacha is (based on a pasuk in parshas mishpatim) that only one who cannot afford to pay for their theft is sold into slavery.  if the thief has the means to pay (as binyamin did), however, it is forbidden to sell him into slavery.  what type of claim is that?  what does the viceroy in egypt care about what the torah (which wasnt even given yet) says?

whats the pshat? its true that to the viceroy this was a bad taana.  but yehuda didnt think of it that way - he couldnt fathom a law or psak shelo kahalacha.  the best way i have to express this is that yehuda had no tfisa of metzius outside of torah - he couldnt grasp a reality other than that of thetorah.

why not?  because hashem didnt just command us to keep the torah and then go home and chill out.  hashem keeps the torah - the whole world is an expression of torah.

my rebbe once pointed out:  in birchos krias shema of maariv, we say (referring to torah and mitzvos) ki heim chayeinu vi-orech yameinu - we dont saytorah umitzvos is what we do with our lives, something to the effect of ki heim mah she-osim bichayeinu - torah umitzvos is our lives - theres no tfisah of metzius outside of it.  i think thats a reflection of the same idea of hashem keeping the torah.

my take-away from this however many years ago it was is the same then as it is now. just like it is a mechayev to us that hashem "put effort" into this world and "takes it seriously",  on a more human level, the same holds true for how we relate to the mesorah and previous generations.  by sacrificing so much to remain religious and to pass on the mesorah to the next generation, our parents/grandparents etc. have been mechayev us.  if we dont live up to their standards, we havent just messed ourselves up - we've wrecked everything they sought to accomplish. even more scarily, we are to the future generations what our parents are to us.  if we dont take it seriously, then ki-ilu theres nothing there for our children that is worth keeping - what gives the mesorah meaning is the effort and sacrifice invested by those before.