Chapters
Transcript
Automatic transcript; may contain mistakes, especially in Hebrew.
We know that by Matan Torah. The Torah tells us that Klal Yisrael was roem asakolos. We saw the sounds. What does it mean that we saw the sounds? Zara Hakadosh tells us that it's a pretty wild Zara Hakadosh. Zara Hakadosh tells us that the sounds were etched into the darkness, meaning it was totally dark. And when the sounds came from Shamayim of giving over the Torah in the darkness The kolos became visible. In other words, it's like it sort of wrote itself into the darkness. This is what the Zarah Kodesh says. Question is, what's the significance of this miracle? What's the significance of the fact that we were rohem as kolos? Before I. Starting on the answer to that question Let's ask another question as well. Many years ago, there was a young man who was very hurt. He was a hurt person. And he had a rebbe that he really didn't like when he was younger And he felt that the rebbe didn't treat him nicely. He was very upset at this rebbe. He held on to that resentment for many years.
And. I came home from Eretz Yisrael and I was excited about my Yiddishkeit. And this young man, a couple years younger than me He said, "He's like, it's a ridiculous religion. We never even wanted the Torah. We know that the Gemara tells us that Hakadosh Baruch Hu was Kaf Aleim Harkegias, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu held the mountain over our head." And he said, "Accept the Torah, the Imlav Sham Tehei Kfuraschem." Either accept the Torah or I drop the mountain. That's what Chazal tell us. So this young man, again, he was hurt. He was holding on to a lot of resentment. He wasn't really asking a hashkafa question, but he was expressing his pain over the fact that he felt stuck. That I didn't even want the Torah. Hakadosh Baruch Hu held the mountain over our head, and he said, 'Accept the Torah, and if not, I'll kill you.' And who wants to be part of such a religion?
Read the full transcript
So I thought that was a good kasha. I thought I was eighteen years old. I had come back from Eretz Yisrael. I thought that was a fair point. What does it mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu was Kafalayim Harkigigas? And one of the explanations of this is ties very much into what the Zara Hakadosh just said Which is the truth of reality became very apparent by Matan Torah. Let me explain what I mean. Why are we able to do things that make no sense? We would. There are certain things that we could not do. We couldn't bring ourselves to do them. Like, for example If I gave you a knife right now And I said I give you full permission, you won't get in any trouble. You are welcome to come stab me in the chest. There's nobody in this room that could do that. I hope.
There's nobody, and I say I hope because one time I gave this marshal And a young boy in the audience raised his hand and said, "I could stab you." So I said to this boy, "You can't." I said, "A healthy person is not capable of inflicting harm upon another person for no reason." And he goes, 'No, I could. I really have.' My point was that we don't have as much bechira as we think we do. And he was like, 'No, I could do that.' So I said, 'Okay, come prove it.' Here's a pencil. It's one of those lead pencils. Come stab me. I knew that he wouldn't be able to do it. Everybody in the room. There were seventy guys in the room. I knew that he wouldn't be able to do it. He walked to the front of the room and he said, "I won't get in trouble." "You won't get in trouble." I know what he's going to do. He's going to like the most he'll be able to do is make the motion. Not actually going to stab me.
He didn't stab me like that. He was really going to hurt me. But it hurt. It was like a pinch. So I was like if you come in halfway and you hear this story it sounds much worse than it is. I come in and he's like he stabbed me. It's very dramatic if you come in halfway. So he thought he was gonna get a big laugh from the audience. He thought like all the guys in the chair were gonna laugh at me because I was obviously wrong. But instead there were seventy guys in the room that were just sitting there What did you just do? You really just stabbed a bird. So he went. He sat down. He was beet red, and I said to him, "It's okay. I invited you to do. It wasn't your fault." About maybe three minutes later, he walked out of the room, and he never came back to Shira that summer. He never came back because he was so embarrassed. I went and found him, and I said, "That wasn't your fault." But he's like, "No, Rebbe, that was messed up." And I'm like, "Okay, that's true, but like I don't like tell him no. It was okay. It wasn't okay." But most people do not have the capacity to just stab another person. Why? Because the truth of the reality is that person did nothing to deserve being stabbed.
We literally couldn't bring ourselves to do it. Much the same way that we couldn't take an axe and chop off our own hand. The amount of strength it would take, and only under very specific conditions. Let's say a person was hiking and a boulder falls on their arm and now they're trapped. They won't be able to get out in their life. They're going to die if they don't get out. Under those circumstances, maybe a person would have to work very hard to be able to overcome the pain of chopping off their own arm in order to save their life. But we don't have b'chirah to just chop off our own arm. Why? Because the truth of reality tells us: don't take off your arm. You need that. That's an important appendage, right? And yet Everybody in this room does things all the time that we know are not necessarily the best thing for us.
People can use all sorts of substances that they know are not good for them. Even though today so many kids are doing these things, they're convincing themselves, "it's not a big deal." But even though they know that it's a big deal, we're capable of doing things that will harm us. This is what the Gemara means. The Gemara says, 'Ain Adam Chote El M K Nichnas Ba Ruach Shdos.' A person cannot do an avera unless a wind of insanity overtakes them. Why? Because if you knew that there was a God, and when I say knew, I mean let's say it was mamish right in front of you, visible. Would you be able to do an average? You wouldn't be able to do an avera because the truth of the impact of the avera is so profoundly negative. Why would I ever want to bring that into the world?
It would be like the equivalent of injecting yourself with a serious illness. Why would I ever want to create any level of separation between me and God? So at Har Sinai Things were so clear; we were roim es akolos. Everything was so obvious to us that it would have been impossible for us not to accept the Torah. This is the inner meaning of Kaf Aleim Har Kegigis. Akolos Shmuel held the mountain over our heads, and he said, 'Accept the Torah. If not, I'll drop the mountain.' Meaning, we understood that the world was waiting for us to accept the Torah. This was critical to the existence of the world. In fact, Chazal tell us that at the time of Matan Torah, the stars, the alignment of the stars The constellation Shamayim It was exactly the same constellation as it was right before the flood came, right before the Mahb. It was exactly the same. And the astrologers, those who studied the science of the stars, looked up into Shamayim and said, 'Oh my gosh, we're in big trouble! Another flood is coming.' So they ran to the great Gentile prophet, who was Bilaam, and they said to Bilaam, 'We're all going to die.'
And Bilaam said, "Relax. This time, Klal Yisrael is here to accept the Torah." Meaning, the same way that before Hakadosh Baruch Hu brought the flood, there was an energy in the world, and either it was going to come down as Torah or it was going to come down as destruction. And in those times, Klal Yisrael didn't exist. There was nobody to accept the Torah, so the world was destroyed. Now Bilam is saying, "Don't worry, Klal Yisrael is here to accept the Torah." Of course, we accepted the Torah. It was obvious to accept the Torah. But now we have another question in front of us. Now we know what it means, Roam Esakolus. But still, isn't that a very dramatic thing? Hold the Torah over our head and accept it. If not, this will be your death. But there's a deep message here. It's a message that I want to share with you tonight.
There are two perspectives in Kabbalah Satora The perspective of Moshe Rabenu and the perspective of Am Yisrael. The perspective of Moshe Rabenu is above the mountain. The perspective of Am Yisrael is below the mountain. Meaning, if you're Moshe Rabenu and you're up in Shamayim, you're face to face, so to speak, with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. You're panim el panim. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu is right there in front of you. It's clear as day. Klal Yisrael is under the mountain with the threat of death. It's clear as day to them too, but it seems to be a very different type of Kabbalah Satora. It's not a Kabbalah Satora. It doesn't seem like it's a Kabbalah Satora of Moshe Rabbeinu above the mountain. Everything is good. It's a Kabbalah Satora of below the mountain. If you mess up You're gonna die. That's a very different type of Kabbalah.
Why is it that this was the Kabbalah Satora that we had? This is a very subtle idea. In other words, there's two types of kabbalah satora. We all have this in our life. We have Moshe Rabbeinu moments and we have Klal Yisrael moments. Moshe Rabbeinu moments are where we have total clarity and we say, 'Yes, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, I want to live for you. I want to give my life to you. I want to do things for you in this world.' That's a Moshe Rabbeinu type of moment. There's another moment, another type of Judaism that we sometimes encounter, which is, "I have to do this because I don't know otherwise what's going to happen. I'm going to die. I have to do this. I have to be involved in Torah." It doesn't have the same At first glance, it doesn't have the same type of sweetness as what Moshe Abenu's Torah is. It's much more of a threat type of Torah. It's clear as day to me that if I don't follow the Torah, things will not go well.
It's like I know a good martial sobriety. Sobriety is a good martial. Some people become sober because they say I want a good life. I want to be sober. I want a good life. I don't want to be messed up in the head. I want to be able to be in deep relationships. Some people become sober because they say, "If I take another drink, I know I'm going to end up dead on a street corner." That's a kaf alayim harkegigis type of thing. I have to maintain my sobriety, otherwise I'll die. And by the way, that's no exaggeration. There are people like that in the world whose levels of alcoholism, God forbid, could become so serious that they could go on a bender and lose total self control and could hurt themselves or hurt others. So they stay away from the alcohol not because of the beauty of a sober life, but because of the danger of an alcoholic life.
Those are the two perspectives: Moshe Rabbeinu and Klal Yisrael. Moshe Rabbeinu was only one; he was only one person. That means the rest of Klal Yisrael had the negative type of kabbalas Torah. It was so clear to them that they had to accept the Torah because I don't know what life would be if I didn't accept the Torah. The entire world could be destroyed. This doesn't seem to be the positive Judaism that we've been looking for our entire lives. What's the message over here? This is a very serious question. But I think perhaps the answer can be understood as follows: It's not chas v'shalom negative. It's reality. The reality is. That there are times where Yiddishkeit can be challenging It's like today, nobody wants to say that out loud because then we're afraid if we say out loud that Yiddishkeit can be challenging, that people will run away. People won't run away. We're smart people. We know that Yiddishkeit can be challenging.
We know that there are things that we might want and a yaitzer that we have to be miskabber on, and it's not so simple. How do we do that? How do we encounter the challenging moments of our life and stay loyal? Because that's really what it's about. Loyalty is a big word. It's not a word that we use enough. We talk a lot about being in a loving relationship with Hashem, but perhaps there's value in talking about a loyal relationship to Hashem. Staying loyal to Hashem when I don't necessarily want to do what He wants me to do, when I'm not perhaps aligned in the most intense type of way. When things are aligned, things are well. But sometimes I don't know. You ever go back somewhere? And it's like you fall back into old patterns just because you're there. I'm talking about ad hayom azeh. When I walk into my parents' house, the first thing I do is check the cupboard to see what snacks my mother has.
Because that's what I did when I came home. When you come home from school, the first thing you do. I'm not even looking for something. I just want to know it's there. That's why sometimes you go into the freezer and you open it up and you don't find anything you like. But then five minutes later, what do you do? You go back to the freezer as if something happened in between the time that you looked the last time and now. What you're looking for is love. In the form of food. I'm just maybe what I'm looking for. Love means Ben and Jerry's, right? So there's a I know I'm not wrong. I'm just you're not supposed to say the joke and then actually mean it. The idea here is, and it's a very sophisticated idea. The idea here is I can be loyal to our Kadosh Baruch Hu.
If I can visualize matan Torah What I mean to say is as follows: in every seminary In every yeshiva, there's something called a halacha class or a halacha seder. It's a very challenging class to teach. Because On some level, you want to be there. And on some level, you really don't. Because you know that you have to know these things, so you have to go to the class. So that you can learn the things, so that you can even know when I have a question. That's not a simple thing to know. Something happens in the kitchen. Do I have a shayla? I remember once when I was in Rav Shachter's class that I heard this concept in halacha. So now maybe I tell my husband, call the shul rabbi. It comes up. Halacha, though, can be forgiving me for speaking this way because it's obviously not, but halacha could be boring.
Halacha is not. It's not Tanach. It's not Moser. It's not Hashkafa. It's not a class about dating and marriage. And all of the classes are about dating and marriage. It's like these are the rules of engagement. It's a hard class to teach. What's hard when we're younger about going to a halacha class. You are trying to teach me helcho Shabbos before I care about Shabbos. It's not that I am not smart. It's like and this I don't know what Boerir did. Boreir did nothing wrong. Of all the malachos, boreir is just like every other malacha. But for some reason, boreir is the malacha that everybody picks on. Rabbi, how I eat the watermelon matters. I've got to be careful about the seeds and the watermelon. The answer is yes, you have to be careful about that. But what they're really asking is not about boreir. They're not asking about watermelon seeds. What are they really asking about? They're really asking about like.
Why are you teaching me about the laws of Shabbos if you haven't introduced me to the majesty of Shabbos? I can't study the menu without knowing if the food is delicious. A person comes to a restaurant. The reason why, when they read the menu, if you go to a fancy restaurant, they have all these fancy terminologies for things. If a person reads these things, their mouth begins to water because they look and they see steak and they go, I think I know what you're saying. I've had steak before. I know what steak tastes like. I'd be excited to have a steak. I see smoked ribs on the menu, and I'm in Texas. I saw that YouTube video about smoked ribs in Texas. I'm excited for ribs in Texas. And if somebody came to us and they said, again, if you're a vegetarian, you can't eat meat. If you're a connoisseur of meat, and I assume that none of you are, but I would like to be, it's one of my aspirations in life. And I have a brother who is right.
There are people that like study smoking meat. Like, you ever meet like guys? Not you, but do you ever meet guys? Talking about maybe you had a brother or a father or a guy that you met. Like, not that you met a guy, but you know, you met a guy like this who's like obsessed with smoking meat. You've met this guy? Your cousin. Your cousin, your dad. It's a she. Like smoking meat. So I gave it the office. The idea that they get excited, you see them come alive. They're like, yeah. So I took it up to a temp of one twenty and lowered the flame. There we went low and slow for the next twelve hours, and I was regularly spritzing it with apple cider vinegar and a mixture of water and cinnamon, which really brings and like cinnamon like. And they talk about this like an excited like, and they're like, I rested it for twelve hours and I was massaging it before I cut it. It's like, they talk about it. Why are they so excited to watch all those YouTube videos about smoking meat?
Because they tasted meat and they say that's awesome. I want some of that. We come to kids today and we say, let me sit you down and teach you the halachas of Shabbos And a lot of kids are going, but I don't. I'm not roham asakolos here. This is not alive for me. This is not a visible experience. It's not just that you have to teach people. You can't just teach people what not to do on Shabbos. It's not about people will learn the halachos. It's not about low sasez and asez. It's about if this is valuable to me. And the way that we talk about Shabbos matters, because if you talk about Shabbos and you're like this is an encounter with God. It's a rohem asakolos type of experience. So then, people will come alive. A lot of people talk about Shabbos and it's good to get off of technology for twenty-five hours. Gayim also know how to turn off their phones.
It's good to spend time with family. There are gayim who know how to turn off their phones. He said it's good to spend time with family. Shabbos is not family time. Family time is a beautiful thing, and it happens to be we spend time with our family on Shabbos. A guy also knows how to spend time with their family on Sundays. What are we talking about here? There has to be something godly. It has to be more than just turning off your phones. People go, "Yeah, I turn off my phones." Say there, and you know what some kids are saying? I don't turn off my phone because the experience is not valuable enough for me to turn off my phone. There's a gadol b'taira. I won't tell you which one, but there's a gadol b'taira who had a child who went off the derech, and the gadol b'taira said that he had charata that at his Shabbos table he was discussing Rambams.
He was discussing Rambams. I'm sure that the Talmidim of his yeshiva would have fought to be at his Shabbos table. I'm sure that after the second Shabbos, they would have set over every chiddush that he said in those Rambams. They would have written them up, and we'd have svarim based on the things that he said at his Shabbos table. And no doubt, those svarim would be in the pantheon of Chalyserol. These would be amazing svarim, and every yeshiva guy would learn them. But this Rosh Yeshiva said that he had charotim that he said over Rambams. He said, "I should have sung Shabbos Mirus." He said, "If my child would have grown up in a home where there was Shabbos Mirus, maybe he would have stayed on. I would never have said that, but this Gadol D' Torah said it about himself." A Rambam can be an intellectual pursuit, and his child wasn't necessarily interested in this intellectual pursuit. Sometimes a kid can confront Hakadosh Baruch Hu more in Shabbos Mirus than they can in the Rambam.
Sometimes, maybe I'm a little bit of a keifer for saying this, but sometimes it's good. To have a good time at the Shabbos table. That a child should come to a Shabbos table knowing that there's going to be jokes, that there's going to be laughter, that there's going to be just a good time. That's also a godly way of meeting Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And sometimes a father's attempt to give over a Dvar Torah at the Shabbos table, that the father spent time coming up with this chiddush that he wanted to share with his children, and sometimes it's eight minutes of the kids spacing out. You've seen this. You've lived this You don't want to say that loud. You've lived it. I have a daughter who says to me, "Abba, short and sweet is better." And my wife says, 'There are people that pay Abba a lot of money to come and speak.'
And she goes, "Yeah, but I'm not one of them." And she's right. She doesn't want to hear a sophisticated dvar Torah at the Shabbos table. She wants a nice idea, and then she wants schmoozing and a good time and fun. By the way, it's my frumest daughter. It's not the daughter you're expecting. It's not her. Adarabu, she's the one that pays attention the most. When I give a long dvar Torah, she's actually the one that pays attention the most. It's a different one And she's my frumest one. She doesn't want the intense dvar Torah. She wants a short, sweet, nice dvar Torah, and that's good, and that's what we do. I always say, this one's for you. It's a short and sweet one, sixty seconds. And that's also good. It's also a way of making a healthy Shabbos table. Our children need to be רומא מסא קולוס. If we want to raise the next generation of Jews, then our Judaism needs to be visible to them. It needs to be a visceral experience. It can't just be intellectual. I want to share with you. I want to read to you from רסאלו יצחק.
Rassalevetsik was the Rosh Hashov of YU And everybody knows that Rassalevetsik was a brilliant intellect. He was a real brisker, and in learning he was tremendous. But somehow they've made Rassalevetsik into an Einstein. They made him the cerebral person. I want to read to you. It's a transcript, so it doesn't read exactly perfectly. You'll get the gist of it. How Rassalevetsik learned Torah. Listen to what Rassalevetsik says. He says, "I've been a rashi shiva of teacher of Talmud all my life, at least the major part of my adult life." I have taught many people. I don't know how many, but it's a lot. And when I do teach, time comes to a stop for me. I don't look at the timepiece, the clock, or at my wristwatch. I just teach. It is a very—I don't know—for me, teaching has a tremendous, a very strange impact upon me.
I simply feel when I teach Torah, I feel the breath of eternity on my face. When I teach, I feel rejuvenated and as if I were twenty-five or thirty years old. If not for the study and teaching of Torah, I would have lost my sanity in the year of triple Avellus in '67. In 1967, the Rav lost his mother, his wife, and his brother all in one year, and he's saying, "If it wasn't for Torah, I would have lost my sanity." I felt somehow, because of teaching Torah, that I was not alone, that I had somebody, that somebody was invisible, but I felt his presence. To confide, there was somebody on whose shoulder I could cry. And there was somebody from whom I could almost demand words of solace and comfort. The study of Torah has had such a great cathartic impact upon me as you understand it. It is rooted in the wondrous experience I always have when I open up a Gemara. Somehow, when I do open up the Gemara, either alone or when I am in company, and I do teach others, I have the impression as if I heard soft footsteps. Of somebody invisible who comes and sits down with me, and sometimes looking over my shoulder, it is simply the idea. It is not a mystical idea. It's the Gemara, the Mishnah.
And Avos. The Gemara and Brachos says, "Afilu echad yoshek veoshek b'taira, yoshek veoshek b'torah shchina shruyashon." Even if one person is sitting and learning Torah, the shchina is present in that moment, and we all believe that the Nosein HaTorah, the one who gave us the Torah Has never deserted the Torah. And he simply walks. He accompanies the Torah wherever the Torah has a rendezvous, an appointment, a date with somebody. He is there. Therefore, the study of Torah has never been for me a dry, formal, intellectual performance act. No matter how important a role the intellect plays in Lema'nat Torah, I place a great deal of emphasis upon the intellectual understanding and analysis of the Halacha. There is no doubt that the intellect plays a tremendous role in Lema'nat Torah. Talmud Torah is more than the intellectual performance. It is a total, all-encompassing, and all-embracing involvement, mind and heart, will and feeling, the very center of the human personality. Talmud Torah is basically, for me, an ecstatic experience in which one meets God.
These words are stunningly powerful. The notion of hearing Akhodesh Baruch Hu's soft footsteps, of looking over his shoulder. As he's learning a block gemara That the Nosein HaTorah is giving him the Torah at every single moment. Rav Salivichik was not a walking brain. He was a genius. He was a tremendous intellect. But Rav Salivichik was expressing the feeling of connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu that must be present in our Yiddishkeit. If we are going to be successful, being the next generation of Jewish mothers and grandmothers, I'm sitting in a room of mummies and bobbies. If we are going to be the next generation that gives it over to our kids, it won't be because I am a big believer in learning texts. And I've said that to you before. It won't be because you know how to read Eirenban. But it will be because when you read Eirenban, it's an encounter with Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
It won't because you lit Shabbos candles, but it will because you closed your eyes and sang Vizakeni Lagadol when you were lighting those Shabbos candles. It won't because you made brachos over your food. It'll because you made brachos just a little bit more slowly, so that your children will see that for you, eating is an encounter with the divine. The way that we pass on Yiddishkeit is not intellectual, although intellect plays a tremendous role in Yiddishkeit. It's never been an intellectual pursuit. Somehow, it became that in the Oyel Matayar today, it became a thing to become a professor of Rashi. It's a tragedy. There's a I said this before this week. I don't know why it keeps coming up for me. There was a there's a there's a man in my community. His name is Seth Grossman. Anyone here knows Seth Grossman. Seth Grossman is a very funny man. He's a brilliant man. He's a successful entrepreneur and he's a serious Ben Taira and he learns a tremendous amount of Taira.
And Seth Grossman was giving a shiur many years ago. He tells the story that he was giving a shiur in Boca Raton, Florida, and he was giving, I think it was a daf yomi shiur, to elderly people who lived in Florida. It used to be only the elderly people lived in Florida before. It was cool to live in Florida. Anyone here from Florida? I want you to know there was a time where you weren't there. There was a time where people had to be like sixty-five to cross the border. It was like a serious business. Now everybody is living in Florida. It's the new York. It's the Jerusalem of the lower half of America. So So he started saying over a Rashi, and this elderly man got upset. He said, "What are you doing?" You are just going to say Rashi?" I was like, "What do you mean?" And he goes, "Before you start saying Rashi, you have to say Zok dehale Gerashi.
You have to say this is what the Holy Rashi says. When I was a little kid growing up in school, that's what we learned: Zok dehale Gerashi, because Rashi wasn't just a commentary; they call it like. The commentator Rashi, he can have that like, Ibn Ezra says, "It's like no, no, it's zok deheleger Rashi." There's kedusha here. The way that we transmit the mesora is through an encounter with the divine. That's what's successful. Yosef HaTzaddik didn't go, wasn't nichshal in the avero with Ashes Potifar because he saw his father, not because he heard his words, or not because intellectually he said, 'Imagine, imagine Yosef HaTzaddik is about to sin with Ashes Potifar.' And he's about to sin, and in that moment, Baruch Hashem Right next door, there was an Eishat Torah seminar. It was a discovery seminar proving the existence of God. And Yosef HaTzaddik thinks of an idea and says, "Well, since we can prove that there is a God, because if there is a door and the door has a design, it must be that there was a designer. Therefore, in this moment, I won't do the avera." Has that ever worked in the history of humanity?
It doesn't work. It doesn't work. What stops Yosef HaTzaddik from doing an avera? Because he saw his father. It's not that his father was in the window, but he saw his father. "It's real for me. I can't bring myself to do that." He saw it. It was alive for it. It was a visible experience. David Amelech sings in Telem Tamu uReu Kitov Hashem. You want to know that God is good? It's something that you taste. It's something that you see. It's visceral and it's visible. It's not intellectual. Of course, the act of learning Torah is intellectual, but there is a soul within the learning. Taste and see that Hashem is good. Taste, uru, and see, kitov Hashem that Hashem is good. It's not something you know intellectually. It's something you see, you experience it. Imagine your husband is sitting and having a conversation with you, and you decide to share something with your husband.
And you see your husband furrows his brow. Because he's sharing something very important, and your husband goes, "Wait" Just wait. He runs into the other room and gets out a pen and a paper. And you're speaking, and he's writing. And every question, everything you say, he likes Clara. I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying. He writes it all down, and then your husband starts thinking about it, and he goes, "Okay, so if I'm hearing you correctly, you're feeling like you're in conflict right now. On the one hand, you're feeling close to me, but on the other hand, you're feeling distant from me." I just want to analyze this for a second. On the one hand, you're feeling close to me. That seems to be that there's a feeling like you want to be close to me, but you're feeling distant from me because obviously I'm doing something wrong. And he starts to like klarechakiras in his head because he's very smart. He goes, "If I'm understanding you correctly, it really started five years ago in your mind, and it's based off of this event." I think though you can't say that because the truth of the matter is that three years ago I did this, right? And you start to have a machleikis. You start to have a gemara like lamdasha debate about the feeling that you're having.
And after an hour of this ridiculous exercise, your husband goes. I did a good job paying attention to you, right? I can mamish give over a chazara share on everything that you said. I know it mamish very well now. Would you feel hurt? Would you feel loved? Would you feel cared for? Of course not. You shouldn't. And yet, this is what we're doing. Zakhodesh Baruch Hu wants intellectual exercises from us. Is that what he wants? You're going to have sons. You're going to send your sons to yeshiva. Your sons are going to come home, and they're going to say, 'I got a hundred on my test.' And you might, as a mother, because you'll be sensitive and smart, go He's doing well on his tests, but I don't know how into it he is. You know that little bit of a hairgish that you have—that something's off. I was just in America. I was talking to a chaver of mine. He was shining Talking about one of his sons. He said, "This son is a masmud."
He's a masmud, Mordechai. He comes home at five o'clock. He basically runs. They have a basement. It's a couple blocks from his house. He runs to the beis medrash. He usually calls around eleven o'clock at night and asks for a late curfew because he's still in the middle of his sugya with his chavruta. He's so proud of his son, not because his son is the smartest, not because his son is getting the best marks on the test, though he's doing very well. What's he proud of? He's proud of his hasmada, because where does hasmada come from? Hasmada comes from love, not from intellect. There are boys who aren't necessarily so good at it, but they love it. They just keep going. How do they do that? Because they're connected to the eibushter entirely. Even if they don't understand what Rashi or Taisus is saying We have to be so careful because, unfortunately, in some communities, we've made our Torah academic And it's a complicated conversation that needs to happen around the notion of student assessment when it comes to learning.
Because we want our kids to take learning seriously. So we said we're going to test our kids and we're going to give them grades. And then we made this ridiculous system where we say, let's categorize these children. She got a hundred on the test, so she's a good girl. She got a thirty on the test, so she's not a good girl. She got a thirty on the test, but she tries really hard. This is what she's intellectually capable of. She's not a good girl. She's not a bad girl. Unfortunately, she's a girl that can't make it in our system. And this girl is a bad girl, but she gets a hundred, so we can't do anything. We made it academic. And then we turned around and wondered why our kids are treating Judaism so academically. Maybe because we did that The great teachers are the ones that don't communicate academics; they communicate a love of Torah.
I'll finish with this story. Every summer for many years, I worked in a place called Simcha Day Camp. Some of you know Simcha Day Camp in the Five Towns. I worked in Simcha Day Camp. There was a Rebbe in Simcha Day Camp whose name was Rabbi Potash. And every single morning, I made sure to stop by Rabbi Potash's classroom for davening. Every morning, I wanted to stop by. It was an inspiring moment for my entire day. And I cannot never missed it. Why? Because Rabbi Potash teaches the littlest boys in camp. The six or seven year old boys that are in camp. The pre one a first grade, just that age. And they have davening. What does davening sound like in a bunk in camp? Matovu ala Chayakov. Everyone's like that same niggun or whatever The Bohemian rhapsody of taking all these nigunim, Shema Israel, like everyone has their own nigunim. Rabbi Potash threw out the playbook.
Matovu ala Chayakov, he blasts the speakers in his room. And he had that at the time. It wasn't an old song then, but it wasn't a new song then. You know the Matovu ma. So he would blast that song, and these six-year-olds and seven-year-olds would get up on their desks and dance and jump and make trains and go around the classroom saying 'ma.' And Rabbi Potash sometimes would be in the front, sometimes in the back. There was always a Down syndrome kid in that bunk somehow connected to Rabbi Potash. And sometimes the dance and drum kid is leading. Every morning I went, and I would think to myself one thing: If I had Rabbi Potash when I was seven years old as a rebbe. Maybe davening wouldn't be so hard for me. Because if you grow up with Rabbi Potash as your rebbe, and davening is a song, not just a thing that you have to get through, but it's like an exercise in jumping around the classroom. What's amazing is that in Rabbi Potash's classroom, nobody is sitting down during davening. Nobody's falling asleep. Nobody's talking. You couldn't; it's too much fun.
It's too alive. If we're going to be makabel the Torah, then we have to be makabel the Torah the way Rabbi Potash does. Our Yiddishkeit can't just be stale. Of course, we've gone sometimes a little bit too far. We turned Yiddishkeit into an NCSY kums. It also has to be both. We have to know how to learn and learn well, and at the same time we have to know that sometimes Yiddishkeit requires an ebbing And putting these two things together, that's the crossroads. Kafalem harkegis. We're under the mountain. There are times where we don't want to. What's the solution in those times? Roem esakolos. Even in times where we're not necessarily in the mood, we have to be able to say to ourselves, I'm going to be loyal, because Yiddishkeit is something that's alive for me. We should be zayecha to a Lebedikamatentire this year.
Is this shiur filed in the wrong place? Let us know.