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First of all, big yasher koach for starting this beautiful initiative. We have to be careful how we use the word exposure today, but this is a good type of exposure. It wouldn't be a good shmuza to have an inappropriate joke to start, right? And also, a big welcome back. It's a little bit of a bechinah of an amputation when for the rebbeim living and breathing the yeshiva, the boys of the yeshiva, and then guys go home, Pesach, summer. Always every year, it's a little bit of like, where'd you go? So when you come back, it's a tkiyas hametz. Welcome back.
Is an unbelievable medrash. I never saw this medrash before in my life. I saw it a week ago. Moshe Rabbeinu is having a disagreement with our Kodesh Baruch Hu by the Sneh, who should be the one to redeem Klal Yisroel. Rashi, we know, says that Moshe Rabbeinu wanted Arna Koyim to go. Shlach no biat Tishlach means send my older brother. Targum Yonasan ben Uziel says he wanted it to be Eliyahu Hanavi. That's also understandable. Eliyahu Hanavi, heralding Mashiach. Medrash Hagadol in Parsha Shmos says that Moshe Rabbeinu was asking that Rivkahiva should be the one to redeem Klal Yisrael from Eretz Yisrael. I never saw this before. Pliya. Of course, Rivkahiva was amazing.
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That Rivkahivah should be the one to redeem us from Eretz Yisrael; that his soul should be sent down into the world rather than Moshe Rabbeinu. What's the Medrash trying to communicate to us? We all know that Klal Yisrael had to be taken out of Eretz Yisrael at that moment, and if they wouldn't have been taken out of Eretz Yisrael at that moment, they would have fallen to the fiftieth level of tumah. It's actually not so pashish that there's something called the fiftieth level of tuma. It seems to be a machleikus in Kabbalah. If there's such a thing called the fiftieth level of tuma or not, but on the side that there is something called the fiftieth level of tuma, had we fallen into the fiftieth level of tuma, Moshe Rabbeinu would not have been able to take us out. Shaila is. What does that mean? What does that mean that in Yiddishkeit there's such a thing called the point of no return? Is that possible? It goes against everything that we know.
Everything we know in Yiddishkeit is there's no yid that's too far gone. That if they would have spent one more moment in Mitzrayim, that would have been the end of them. Could we believe such a thing? Is it a Jewish concept? So I want to share with you some of the Kabbalistic history of who Rav Kiva was, the Baal Kabbalah, Magal Amukos, the Ari Zal, and others say that the origin point of Rav Kiva. Can be found in the heel of Esav. When Yaakov Avinu grabbed onto the heel of Esav, he was extracting the soul, the spark of Revaqiva that was in Esav. And Yaakov Avinu, many of you probably know, his gilgul is Revaqiva. Revaqiva was Aqiva ben Yosef. So Yaakov Avinu, in a certain sense, went to the lowest place that could possibly be in the entire world. In the heel of Reuven Kiva, and extracted the soul in the heel of Esav. We know that for the first forty years of Reuven Kiva's life, he was totally ignorant. And Reuven Kiva said about himself that he had such a sinner, he had such a hatred for talmidei chamim, for tzadikim, that if he saw a tzadik, if he saw a talmud cham, he wanted to bite their heel and break the bone.
What does that mean? Why would Rav Kiva say such a thing? What's the message Rav Kiva is trying to convey? Is a Yeshayit in Yiddishkeit? Is a trampoline theory of Judaism? The lower you go, the higher you go afterwards. You go down, you read all the tzarich halia. What was Rav Kiva saying in that moment? He was saying like this. In our lowest moments. When we get to rock bottom, there's an unbelievable flowering that occurs. The unpeeling of who we really are. And we see in the world. This is not like a deep kabbalistic concept. We see it in the world, that people whose lives fall apart completely, in the moment where there's no other choice, they explode into being. Some of the most spiritual people that I've ever met in my life.
People that live with a level of God consciousness that seems to be reserved for the biggest tzaddikim are people that were alcoholics, that were drug addicts, that did despicable things, that did immoral things. But from that place of brokenness, they discovered who they really are. Rav Kida was saying like this: I come from the heel of Asaf. If I saw a tzaddik, I wanted to bite their heel, and I wanted to break the bone. Bone is etzem, bone is axmus. I want to discover the essence that comes from the lowest possible place. This is Rava Kiva. Rava Kiva, the origin point of the soul. We know that according to some, he's a descendant of Amalek. He's a descendant of Haman. How could such a thing be? From the lowest possible place comes the highest possible revelation. The Gemara in Rosh Hashanah tells us that there are fifty levels of Bina.
Fifty levels of understanding that happen in the world that a person can come to, and Moshe Rabbeinu was only able to be zayichet to forty-nine of those levels. But the Ari Zal says Rivakiva was zayichet to the fiftieth level. What does that mean? Does it mean that Rivakiva was zayichet to the fiftieth level? We all know this Gemara Menachos. Probably many of you have heard this Gemara Menachos before. We'll just repeat it really quickly, but to go through some of the ideas. Moshe Rabenu is in Shamayim and he's waiting for Hakadosh Baruch Hu to give him the Torah, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu is tying crowns onto the letters of the Torah, the crowns that you see in the Sefer Torah. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is tying the crowns onto the Sefer Torah, which by itself needs to be understood. What does that mean? He was tying the crowns on. And Moshe Rabenu asks Hakadosh Baruch Hu for whom.
For whom are you tying these crowns? You're waiting to give the tithes. Who are you waiting for? Who's going to understand this? Kol Heshbaruch says there's going to be a person whose name is Rivakiva. He's going to darshan mounds and mounds of halachas from these crowns. Moshe Rabbeinu wants to see him. They travel through time, and Moshe Rabbeinu finds himself in the eighth row of Rivakiva's she'er. And Rav Akiva is giving sheir, and Moshe Rabenu doesn't understand any of it. And Moshe Rabenu is agitated and he's frustrated. He's not understanding the sheir of Rav Akiva until it came to one inyan. The Gemara doesn't tell us what it was. Rashi says it was something that was sarak tam, something that needed a reason. And Rav Akiva says, halach le Moshe m'sina. Moshe Rabenu says, baruch Hashem, this is something I'm eventually going to get.
He comes back. He asks Hakadosh Baruch Hu, "Why aren't you giving the tithes through a kiva?" And Hakadosh Baruch Hu responds, "Be quiet. This what I want. Kachala b'machshava. This my desire." And then we all know the famous question of Meir Shabenu. I'd like to see his reward. And Moshe Rabbeinu was shown the marketplace, the butcher shop, whatever you want to say it was, and they were weighing the flesh of Rav Akiva, who had been tortured and had his flesh combed off of him, and they were selling his flesh in the marketplace. Moshe Rabbeinu says, "Zutayra, v'zut schara. This the tire, and this its reward." And Hakadosh Baruch Hu responds, and He says, "Be quiet. Kach ala b'machsha."
What's the inner meaning of this gemara? What's the lesson that this gemara is teaching us? Rivakiva, because he came from the lowest possible place, reached the fiftieth level of Bina. It was not an accident that Rivakiva was able to get to an even higher place than Moshe Rabbeinu, because he came from even a lower place. In fact, I saw that one of the reasons that the Haskacha demanded that Moshe Rabbeinu be in the house of Paro is because in order to become the monarch of Chalal Yisrael, he needed to grow up in the lowest place in the world, in the house of Paro. The Yerida creates the Aliyah. So Rav Ekhiva understood not just the Torah, not just the words of Torah. He understood the crowns on top of the letters. He understood the essence, the axis of Torah, the fiftieth level. And what Hakadosh Baruch Hu was doing is he was tying the essence onto the word.
I want to explain what that concept means. It's a deep concept. Every time we communicate with people, there's the words that we say, the overt words that we say, and then there's the covert communication. Lots of times, we hear the overt words and we don't hear the covert communication. We get into a fight with somebody, and somebody says, 'How could you have done that?' The overt word is that they're upset at you. The covert word is I think more of you. I can't believe you would have done something like that. I value our relationship. How did it come to be that this relationship became a source of pain? The covert words are often very beautiful, even though the overt words can sometimes be very painful. It's possible, and I think many of us know this. I think many of us experience this. It's possible that the overt words of Tyra, for us, are very dry.
I shouldn't say this story. It's not a nice story, but it's for me a true story, and I'll share it with you. When I was in high school, so I wasn't—I wasn't the most observant kid. I wasn't the most connected kid. And I was—I was talking in Davening. Maybe I was in tenth or eleventh grade. You know the high school rabbis that patrol the halls, like they patrol the things snapping, like you know, like they do that thing. So this Rebbe was better Rebbe than that. He didn't just snap at me and say, "Berg, be quiet." He went to the shelf, he pulled off a sefer, a halacha sefer, it was a davening sefer, and he sat me down and he said, "I just want you to know, it's usser to talk at this time during davening." So I was very chutzpah the kid. I smiled at him and I said, "You know what the problem is? You think I care what it says in the book."
It was such a sweet thing that he did. He didn't just snap at me and tell me to be quiet. He mamish wanted to show me, ki'ilu. Maybe I didn't know was the halacha, but he was talking about the overt words. But I was feeling a deep lack of the covert essence of the rebbeinu shlolem's presence within the halacha. Doctor Chaim Salavitcher, in a very famous essay, wrote: 'Having lost the feel of God's embrace, we seek solace in His yoke.' For so many of us, do we feel the Rebbeinu Sholom's presence in our lives? So some of us are really good at following Alacha. I'm going to do exactly what Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells me to do. At least I can do that, even if I don't feel the beating heart of Judaism. And for others, we're not satisfied.
If I can't feel the tsarim, if I can't feel the crowns tied into the letters, if I can't see the Rebbeinu Sholom's presence in my davening, if I can't see the Rebbeinu Sholom's presence in my learning, if it's an intellectual pursuit, if it has nothing to do with YerushaMayim, I feel empty. And why would I want to spend my life doing this? 14 years ago, we had a boy in Mivaser, a sweet boy, a wonderful boy, a good boy. He hated Gemara. He didn't just hate Gemara like people hate Gemara. He had a deep level of resentment and anger for the words of Gemara. And I remember talking to him, and he said to me, "He goes, it's a bad book." That's what it was to him—a bad book. So I gently tried to say to him, "The problem might not be in the words of Abaye and Rava. The problem might be in the paradigm that it's a book." You're right. If it's a book.
If it's a Tom Clancy novel and I'm not interested in what the Tom Clancy novel has to say, I'll probably close the book. But it's not a book. It's alive. It's not just, a lot of times in the world you hear they talk about tradition. Why am I a Jew? Because my father was a Jew, my grandfather was a Jew, and I'm part of the tradition. For many of us, that's not a good enough reason. It has to be something that I live. It has to be something that I breathe. It has to be something that I feel. And I don't mean feel like emotionally. I don't mean feel in the sense of like. I'm not going to say it, but for those of you who know, you'll know what I'm really saying. I feel so close to Asha. Where's Clear? He knows I'm talking. Thanks, Rob. I feel so close to Asha. What seminary? Not. I'm not. Not you. But there's. I don't mean like emotional. Sharing, picking up. Hashkia. Not picking up.
I'm saying you know what I'm talking about. We've had this conversation. I'm talking about a soulful feeling, not an emotional feeling, not the roller coaster of today I feel it and tomorrow I don't. I'm talking about is this something that moves my life? Over ben azmanim, did I learn? Did I daven? How did I daven? How did I learn? Was it something that I was just yotzei, or is it khein chayin of erech amenu? And it only becomes that if I'm searching not for what the words say exclusively, but the person who wrote those words. I want to know what's behind it. I want to be connected to the essence. Joe, I was inspired by your brother. We all know this year Joe's brother went through Baruch Hashem a life-saving surgery, a miraculous story. When the surgery is over, Joe sends me a picture. My brother's doing well. He's recovering. What was your brother doing? He was sitting and learning.
How does a person do that? How does a person with a bandaged head in the hospital, having just come out of surgery, how do they ask for a gemara? Because it's kihem chayenu varechamenu. Because they're not just relating to the words; they're relating to the crown that's on top of the words. There's a very big tamid chacham who lives today in Lakewood. His name is Rishmul Belshlitah. Rishmul Belsh. Some of you may know the Belsh family from Edison. Rashmuel Belsh, like many of us, grew up J. C. Boy, modern Orthodox family. They say that he's one of the biggest Masmida in Lakewood today. I know that when he was a bacher, his regular starim a day were 21 to 22 hours a day. He barely slept. Unbelievable what he was able to accomplish. He had a daughter who was born; she had a heart defect.
She had to be rushed to a hospital in Philadelphia, so they're driving to Philadelphia, and he's going to be stuck. He's going to be stuck outside the operating theater. So he called the chaver of ours. I was zaychut to learn with him bechabrusa for a couple of years when he was much younger. He called the chaver of ours, and he said, "We're going to the hospital in Philadelphia right now. I have no svarim with me. I don't have the head to learn gemara be'iyan right now, but I want to be learning." Because there could be no greater schulz for my daughter than my sitting and learning right now. But I don't have the head for Ian right now. Do you think maybe you know somebody in Philadelphia who could bring me an art school Gemara at least? Again, this guy doesn't need an art school for translation. I just don't have the head for it. How do you become a person like that? How do you become a person who makes his life about Yiddishkeit? It's only because you feel the loving embrace of Avodah Shemarukh, the crowns on top of the letters. I was so inspired. I had the opportunity.
Unfortunately, I had the opportunity to go to your grandfather's levaya. The way they were talking about your grandfather, I walked out of there. Forgive me for saying this. I felt so like I am wasting my life. Your grandfather did amazing things. They spoke about his discipline. They spoke about his education. They spoke about his dedication to klal yisrael. It was unbelievable. They spoke about his learning. And his starim, and he was fierce and loyal to those starim, and he communicated it to the next generation. I'm betting that he communicated it not only with the raw action that he did, but with what he gave over, his essence. And I walked away from that inspired. The Isaac and Rashi told me once that he's very inspired by Yisrael, very inspired by funerals. I feel the same way. I walked away. I said, How am I going to make my Pesach better for my kids?
A little bit like your grandfather. We came to yeshiva this year because we were unsatisfied with the yiddishkeit that we got. That's the fact. We weren't bad kids in high school. We didn't do necessarily bad things. But we felt like it wasn't enough. We felt like there had to be another dimension. This is the dimension of revivim. Yeshua Abinu says, "I need to meet the revivim." Because Moshe Rabbeinu, even on the highest level, is not necessarily introduced to the Axtmus, to the essence of Hashem, to the fiftieth level. So he turns around, and where does he find himself? Not in any row, but in the eighth row. What's the eighth row? One beyond nature. Moshe Rabbeinu understood forty-nine, seven times seven. Moshe Rabbeinu understood everything within the entire corpus of Torah, but one level beyond. That's what he was there for—the eighth dimension—to go one level above. And he doesn't understand a word that Rav Kibba is saying, and he's bothered.
Because if we want to communicate the essence, it has to come in to the practical halacha. It has to come down to something tachlis. It's like a husband who says, "I love my wife. I love my wife. I love my wife." She says, "You love me." He says, "I love you more than anything." She goes, "I've asked you to do the dishes a thousand times and you haven't done it once. I've asked you to pick your socks up off of the floor and you haven't picked your socks up off of the floor. I know you love me in atzmos, but where is the action? They have to go together." Moshe Rabbeinu is bothered; he's agitated. Rav Kiva is teaching the essence, but I'm not getting it in the world of time. I'm not getting it in the world of reason. Is there a connection between essence and action? And then there's one halacha that comes up. Rashi says it's something that needs time, something that needs explanation. And Rav Kiva says that's halacha le Moshe M'usina. It's of course connected. What I'm saying and what Moshe Rabbeinu is saying—Moshe Rabbeinu said the reason. I'm saying the thing that's before reason.
But they're all one. And Moshe Rabbeinu is. Shmuel the Kibbutz says, 'I'm sorry, I think I need to clarify. Moshe Rabbeinu says, 'Hakadosh Baruch Hu. If you have such a mensh that's capable of giving over the essence of Torah, the keser of Torah, and he's capable of connecting it to the actual halacha lemaisa that we're supposed to do every single day, why would you give the Torah through me?'' And Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, 'You're asking a question in the world of logic.' But these things are beyond the realm of logic. There's such a thing. There are people that are very intellectual. They're very cold. Why? Because it's very safe to be intellectual. It's very safe to be very thoughtful. You see people like this in the world. They're like what do we call them, Rebbe? They're walking brains, right? Walking brains. You've met such people. They're walking brains. Look at a character like that in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, right?
And Flapperish didn't have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Reversal. Woodmere. We understand. What was his name? There's one of brains on legs. Brains on legs. I'm sorry. And what was the guy's name? Think about it. Do me a favor. Get back to me. Knows. Somebody here knows. Don't say it out loud. You don't have to be that guy. But I know for sure somebody here knows exactly what person I'm talking about. I just want to point out for a second that we went from speaking about the essence of Torah and how it's connected to the letters, the words, the actions, to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles seamlessly. Reversal. It was a thing of beauty. I so appreciate what you're able and the two of us together are able to do. Top tier forever. Then Moshe Rabbeinu says to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, "Show me the reward." And Hakadosh Baruch Hu shows him that terrible scene.
Moshe Rabbeinu, again, within the world of understanding, he says, 'I don't understand.' And Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, 'That's exactly the point. There are things that are beyond the realm of reason; they're essence. That's the dimension of Rivkaiva. Listen to the words of the Chiddush. They're relevant to every one of us. The Chiddush says, 'Why did Moshe Rabbeinu want Rivkaiva to be the one to take them out of Mitzrayim? Because Moshe Rabbeinu said, since I'm only within the realm of rational understanding.' Even though it's the highest possible level of forty-ninth level, I can only take them out of the forty-ninth level of tuma. But Rav Akiva, who's on the fiftieth level of Bina, he could even take a Jew out of the fiftieth level of tuma. The fiftieth level of tuma means rationally this person is gone. There's no hope that they'll ever come back.
It's a Jew who's eating chazer treif on Yom Kippur, doing the worst possible averes without any hear of tshuva whatsoever, and you think this person is completely gone. And in the world of rational understanding, they are gone. There's nothing to talk about. But there's such a thing called beyond rational that you don't ever think that a Jew is so far gone. It's just you have to be on an even higher level to be able to see that their essence is uncorrupted. One of my closest friends in the world, a young man who went to this yeshiva, who I loved dearly, he went through a series of very painful things in his life. He ended up making the decision to leave the Orthodox community. He's no longer an observant Jew, to say the least. He lives in Eastern Europe. He has a German girlfriend that he lives with. His lifestyle is the farthest thing in the world from Yiddishkeit.
And he says, "You don't understand. I could care less. I have no here who a tshuva. I'm finished. I'm out." And it's been this way for kmat almost 20 years now. One of my closest friends. He remains one of my closest friends today. A talmud of the erush shiva. Sometimes the words that come out of my mouth, I hear them afterwards. I'm like, I meant to say that when he was in yeshiva, he was a real thumbl of the rishis. I meant to say that the brisker lamdas is what sent him right off. Rovgal, you know this, Tommy.
When he was in yeshiva, was he great? He was great. It's a dynamic duo. Personal derishum for yeshiva is going to blow up. He was great. And if you listen to the words that he says, and if you spend enough time with him, then you know logically he's gone and he's not coming back. But that's the thing. He can't stop himself. He can't stop himself from doing things that, on a neshama dika level, bring him back. He told me he was walking in the Czech Republic, and he saw the Chabad shliach of the Czech Republic, and it was before Yom Tov, and so he wished him a good Yom Tov. And he told me, and now the Chabad shliach keeps calling me, and he won't let me go, and he's so annoying. So I said to him, Mike.
Why did you say kudjunctif? You know what Chabad shluchim do. He came to the Czech Republic to find you. All you had to do was just keep walking. You don't look particularly Jewish. Even though I'm convinced that it's in the genetics of these shluchim that could smell Jews, they could smell. So he goes, "No, I was just trying to." I said, "It's not true." He goes, "I know what you're doing. You think pitliyid." I'm like, "He's like, I'm telling you, I just was playing a game." I'm like, "Of course you were. Of course you were. You're just playing a game." And he still calls me before Yom Tov to wish me a good Yom Tov, and he calls me before Rosh Hashanah to wish me a good year. He can't stop himself. He says, "I pasha, don't believe in it," but he can't stop himself. And when his father passed away a couple of years ago, I went. He came to Eretz Yisrael. He wasn't sitting shiva, but his brother was, and I showed up to his brother's shiva house. He was there, and he said, "You want to get out of here?"
So I didn't know what to do. I was conflicted. He's supposed to be sitting shiva. I'm gonna go now out to eat with him. It didn't feel right. On the other hand, I'm gonna say no. I'm only gonna be here with you on these terms. He was gonna leave anyway. I didn't know what to do. So I said okay, stay there. We went out. We got burgers. We're sitting there in the burger shop in Har Chutzvim. And out of nowhere, he says, it wouldn't be that hard for me to come back. First time I've ever heard anything like this from. So I'm very quiet. There's no right words to say, so I'm just playing. He goes, "I haven't done any averes bein adam machaver. I don't think I've hurt people. Just bein adam amak." And I didn't have the courage in that moment to say to him, "So do it. Just let it be." And then the conversation continued and it went somewhere else. In words, up until that point, every single thing he's done—he went to Australia, he was a farmer in Australia, he couch surfed across America, he did the craziest things you could ever possibly imagine. In words and in actions, in the level of rational belief, you think he's totally gone. But in the level of essence, in the level of Rivakiva, there's no such thing as a Jew who's too far gone.
I don't have time to do all the things that I spoke that I wrote here, but I just want to say this to finish off. This is the zman of essence. This is the zman of Rava Bekiva. This is the zman of the Talmidim Rava Bekiva who were lo nagu kavod zepezet. So what does that mean? What does it mean if they're not going to be able to do anything? They can't even get a good job in their country. If they are not going to be able to do anything, they can't even get a good job in their country. What does it mean they were lo nagu kavod zepezet? It was like Tani and Arya. That's what it means lo nagu kavod zepezet. They he shepherded him and he said. That's what Lot Nagel covered. Is that was for sure not, because I know that Tani and Arya know Arya. I know that Tani and Arya love each other very much. I know that Arya is going to have to go through years of therapy because of what Tani does. And I know that Tani, blessed be Hashem, will be wealthy enough to pay for it. That's not what it means, though. I have a hard time believing that the twenty four thousand Talmidim of Rav Kiva would kick each other under the table and go.
Pay attention. It's not. I don't think that's what's happening. Shalom Nagu, kavod zav. Kavod means the weight of a person, the essence of a person. If we don't see the weight of each other, if we don't feel the gravity of each other, if we define each other by our worst moments, by the actions that we do, and not by the people that we are, Memela, there's a split between us. Exile begins when Klal Yisrael splits off from each other. Exile begins by Yosef HaTzaddik. When the brothers of Yosef HaTzaddik sell their brother down to Mitsrayim, when there's Pirid and Achdus, Achdus doesn't mean we treat each other nicely. It means much more than that. Achdus means that my essence and your essence are one shared essence. In that way, you can take the person at the 50th level, the biggest tzaddikim in the world, saw the biggest rishonim in the world, and said, "That's not who you really are," and I know that.
I have a taina in this yeshiva. In this yeshiva, you have stigmas. In this yeshiva, we spend a tremendous amount of time talking about davening. We spend a tremendous amount of time talking about learning. We spend a tremendous amount of time talking about authenticity and personal growth. Why is there no miftza? You'll say, 'What do you mean? You're making a taina. You should do it.' I feel the same way. It's a tie knot myself. Why is there no mivtza in this yeshiva? Why is there not a one-week hasmug blitz of ben adam lechaver? How is it possible that we went through a year of growth and that there are guys that still sit at the same table in the cheder ochal with their group and haven't been introduced? To guys on the other side of Yeshiva, you say, 'Hey, it's not my.' That's not just your brother; that's your shared essence. We say that 'Haplo Recha Kamocha' means that's you. You see your brother across the Chadar Ochel. That's you. Look at what's happening in Eretz Yisrael. Many of you guys were back in Chutzlarets for this. Look how brother has stood against brother over the last couple of weeks because of judicial reform. When will we learn?
Exile begins with pirud and it ends with achtos, but we continue to separate from each other. There were beautiful stories that there was a group of protesters who went to Bnei Brak, and the police begged them not to go to Bnei Brak because you know what's going to happen. You know those Bnei Brak people are not going to take your protests lightly, and you know it's going to be violent. And then they said, 'No, no, no, I'm not going to do that.' They said we're going to Bnei Brak, and hundreds of officers were dispatched to Bnei Brak. To stop would inevitably be terrible violence, and it didn't happen. It never materialized. They knew how to create shalom. They came with chulent. Chulent creates shalom. Chulent is shalom. It's the harmony of all of those different foods. It's not like a salad, right? That's where Bridwood's is split between a salad and chulent. In a salad, everything remains its own thing. In the chulent, everything comes together. They came with chulent, and they went to these protesters, and they said, 'Here, Jews.'
Get together with food. I understand. This is the right way to do it. I wish I was protesting that night. And they were playing Shabbos songs, and I'm sure many of you saw the clip that went viral, of a Jew who's not yet observant, who heard the words of Shabbos nigunim and he broke down crying because he hadn't heard those songs since his youth, and it meant so much to him. And not only was it not a fight, but it was a tremendous show of achdus, and it was a light in the darkness, and it was a healing thing. And we need so much more of that. And it's not just in Eretz Yisrael; it's in America. It's everywhere we go. It's Jew against Jew, and he is this denomination and that denomination. Rabbi Shlomo Herzog, there were no denominations. There's a diseased thing. I'm going to say something again. I probably shouldn't say, but I feel it's on my heart. I feel I have to say. There's a diseased thing that's happening in our community.
Baruch Hashem, it happens very rarely, but it does happen once. In elementary school, you go to elementary school with a community. In middle school, you go with a community. In high school, you're in a community. After high school, you'll be in a community yeshiva. Also after the time in Israel, if you're in YU, if you're in Land of Israel, wherever you are, there's going to be lots of different types of Jews. But there's a moment in time in our community in twelfth grade. There's a moment in time where you get to say, 'Did I go to an elite yeshiva? If I get into that yeshiva, it's all one type of guy. I want to be around those types of guys. It's gaiva and it's pirud and it's separation. And the rebbeinu sholem gets no nachas from this, no nachas whatsoever from Jews sitting around and going, 'I'm a top sheir guy.' No nachas. I had the opportunity, I had the privilege to speak for about half an hour with Rabbi Shlomo Weinberger Shliya.
And we were talking about the acceptance process to yeshivas, and I said to him, Rabbi, is the rabbanimshom getting nachas from any of this process? And he made me feel better. He said, Yes, if you're doing it for the right reasons, if you waitlist the boy because lemaisa you have to make a cut off somewhere because the yeshiva can't be enormous, if you waitlist the boy because you don't feel he's the best fit, then the rabbanimshom gets nachas from this. But if you waitlist the boy because you say we're a we're a top place, we don't take kids like that. That's gaiva, and the Rebbeinu Shlom gets no nachas from it. If you waitlist a child because of their sibling, the Rebbeinu Shlom gets no nachas from that. If you waitlist a child because you showed up to an interview and you're looking down at that kid, the Rebbeinu Shlom gets no nachas from it. If you can't see compassion for that person who's going through something in life, the Rebbeinu Shlom gets no nachas from this. Baruch Hashem, we're yeshiva, and as long as I've been here, led by the Rosh Yeshiva, we've never had that attitude. It's never been.
So he's a good learner, so he'll get into mivaseret, and he's not, so he won't. It's always been, will this boy do well in mivaseret? That's always been the question we've asked ourselves. I'm proud to be part of that yeshiva. I wouldn't want to be part of the yeshiva that says we get the best guys. Klal Yisrael wasn't at our Sinai, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, I'm giving the Torah to everybody, but you guys in Brisk come to the back so I can give you the real Torah. Achdus in Klal Yisrael means that we see the essence of each other, that we love each other—not just the actions, but the feeling inside that we're one shared essence. So we're going to go upstairs. We're going to go to the beis medrash. And what I'm about to say, I don't even myself know if I understand this fully, or even at all. But it's the Torah that we learn upstairs. If we're sitting in the beis medrash and we're fighting over a Tosfos and we're fighting over a Shverer Ramba.
Is the Torah bringing us closer to each other, or is it bringing us farther away from each other, or is it doing nothing? If it's bringing us farther away from each other, that's for sure no good. But I'll submit to you that if the Torah that we're about to learn upstairs doesn't give us a feeling of a Hava Israel, if it doesn't bring us closer to every single other Jew, then we have missed the point entirely. That's why Hakamocha zeklal Gadol b'Tal. The Torah that we learn has to bring us closer to each other, and if it's bringing us farther away from each other, then we missed the goal completely. As we start this month, in this period of Sefiras Haimer, this period of Aftos, I would ask everyone in this yeshiva, and I myself want to be a part of this. I would ask if we could take the Torah that we're learning in the basic medrash and behave differently in the dorms with each other—not just more kindly, but more expansively.
If we could sit in the cheder with people that we've never sat with before, if we could say shalom aleichem to the people that were walking by, my Rashi shiva Reb Branshpiel, the Chassidic bracha who passed away not that long ago, used to tell us in yeshiva, you should say good morning to each other. And if you'll tell me, but to say good morning to every single person is so difficult, I'll give you an etza. Mean it. That's what he would tell us. Mean it. When you say good morning to someone, really wish them a good day. There's a boy who's sitting in this room right now, and I think Baruch Hashem it's been different for him this year. But he told me, when I come to Mevaseret, I hope that I'll have a chevr of people that see me because when I was walking down the halls of my high school, there was a group of kids that would walk by me as if I didn't exist. And the pain that I felt in that moment for that boy to feel like a ghost—I couldn't imagine what he went through.
Couldn't imagine how painful that is, and I'm sure that not one of those boys woke up in the morning and said, 'I'm going to ghost this.' But it was just a disconnect that they had from the pain that another person was experiencing every time they walked by. And I'm sure that if they asked you, you would say you have anything to do with this guy? He's not my crew. He's not my gang. He's not my whatever. But lemaisa there was a person suffering and you weren't even paying attention. If the Torah that we learn upstairs doesn't translate into the way that we treat each other, then lemaisa I think we've missed the point. I want to wish everyone a beautiful Asalas Asman. In the Ezer Hashem, we should be zeicher to be mekabel the Torah and shloshim keishachad beleivachad.
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