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It's a big schuz to be here. I know not everybody was able to make it tonight, but it's a tremendous thing that 88 guys from yeshiva were makabel on themselves to do shnayim mikra, and the fact that the mashgiach has been leading this initiative for years now. At least ten years. The fact that 88 guys were makabel on themselves to finish shnayim mikra. It's a tremendous thing, and I also have a very special sluchus for me personally. Not just aside from Talmidei Yeshiva, but I just want to recognize that my son, who's turning eight years old this week, is with me, and he's not here just tam because I'm babysitting. I know some people call it parenting, but when you're a father, you'll see if you take care of your kids, it's called babysitting. I'm not just here babysitting, but my son is actually also was Mesnayim Shnayim Mikra on Sefer Bereshis. Along with you guys, so what greater gift could there be to be with the yeshiva tonight? So I'm very proud of you, very proud of all of you. But it's a special thing to have my son here with me. In the spirit of what the rasha shiva said by the hasmada dinner, where the rasha shiva, in his unique way, said it's not really worth it for us to do unless everybody's makapal on themselves.
I would ask the same question. Why are we so passionate about having guys do shnayim mikra? Shnayim mikra is a mitzvah. We're supposed to do shnayim mikra. Is this the right chinuch thing that when somebody does the right thing we should make us see him? If guys wake up in the morning and wash negel vasser, we should have an initiative. We could come up with some name for it like Mev's wet. Come up with some ridiculous name for washing nagel vasser in the morning, say modani and we're gonna make a siyum for you. So you'll say, don't treat us like children. Make a siyum on shnayim mikra. It's not even like we finished chamisha chum she Torah. Make a siyum only after sefer bereshis. What are we doing over here, buddy? I think it's a fair kasha.
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Obviously, we're going to have muav amalke anyway, and it's not that big a deal to have pizza. But I still think maybe you could argue that a seum like this is a little bit childish, and I would push back very hard. I'll explain why I'm pushing back regarding the mitzvah of shnayim mikra. The Gemara and Brachos says something that at first glance appears to be very simple. When you put it under a microscope, you start to see that the mitzvah, the way the Gemara describes the mitzvah, perhaps there's a little bit more to it than at first glance. The Gemara says, "Amr of Ruvhuna bar Yehuda, Amr of Avami." Ruvhuna bar Yehuda said, "In the name of Avami, La Olim Yashlim Adam Parsh Yosef and Matzibor Shnayim Mikra Ve'echa Targum." Person should always complete with the Tzibor Shnayim Mikra Ve'echa Targum.
Because whoever completes the parshas with the tzedubur extends his days and his years. Very beautiful. Tomorrow seems to be a simple thing. There's a mitzvah of shnayim mikra, but there's two things that we need to examine a little bit more carefully here. The first is that it says whoever is mashlim with the tzedubur. Shnayim mikra ve'echa targa. You have to do it with the tzedber. What does it mean with the tzedber? What do those words mean with the tzedber? It's like it's a din being part of the community. I have to be part of the community that finishes shnayim mikra ve'echa targa. And so that's one question. If it's just a din l'ema ratora, so then it shouldn't matter if we do it with the tzedber or not.
I think Rebbe would appreciate that kasha of glands. It's a fairly lamed shakasha. If Shnayim Mikra is just a din in Limerat Torah, so then what does it matter if I do it Tzibur or not? Obviously, there's something more going on over here. And not only that, the reward for this seems to be quite great. That a person who does Shnayim Mikra of Echad Targum, so he gets Arichas Yamin. So that's a tremendous thing to have your life elongated. That's huge. Who wouldn't want an extra couple of years in their life? Imagine a person is on their deathbed, and they say to themselves, "Man, if I only would have done Shnayim Mikra, could have five years, ten years, fifteen years longer of my life." It's such an extreme type of reward for something that appears to be so very simple. What's the pshat over here? I want to ask a third kasha, which is a klutz kasha. The first two kashes, I think, are good kashes. This kasha is a klutz kasha, and the emiss is the kashes asked.
And it's answered in much better ways, more profound ways than I'm going to answer it tonight. But I think it's worthwhile to ask the kasha anyway. What's the pshat with shnayim mikra? You don't have a mitzvah of shnayim mikra by Gemara. It was shnayim mikra. Why do you have to say it twice? Again, if it was just a din in Lema Torah, so you would read the pasuk, you would read the targum, you would understand what the pasuk is talking about. That's it. That's the mitzvah of Lema Torah. What's the pshat shnayim mikra here? Why do you have to read it twice? There's a beautiful story about the Beis Yaakov of Yishevitz. The Beis Yaakov of Yishevitz was a tremendous tzaddik, and he had a chabura that he would learn with every morning, from twelve o'clock at night till four o'clock in the morning. A chabura, and whatever they would learn. Obviously, you're talking about people who were learning with the Beis Yaakov.
From 12 o'clock to 4 o'clock, these were not Stam people. Whatever they would learn, there was one of the chevr that was there with them, and he said, 'You should know, greater than all the Torah, that the Beis Yaakov taught us every night for four hours, greater than any lesson in all the years that I was there. It's one thing that I cannot forget. I cannot forget that at 4 o'clock in the morning, when the Beis Yaakov was done teaching, he would close whatever sefer he was learning.' And he would kiss the sefer. He would kiss the sefer. He said, 'You could forget all the Torah. You hear a great sheir. Is that sheir with you six months later? Is that sheir with you six days later? Is that sheir with you six years later?' This guy said, 'For the rest of my life, the thing that I cannot forget is the way that the Beis Yaakov kissed his sefer when we were done learning. This is a lost art, Rabbeinu. It's a lost art. Used to be that you would see in Beis Medrash.'
That when a guy was done learning, he would close the sefer, he would kiss the sefer. The way the Beis Yaakov kissed the sefer was the greatest lesson. What's so great about kissing a sefer? You don't kiss a math book. You don't kiss a history book. Nobody ever shucksles while they're learning English literature. You're not reading Hamlet and darshening Hamlet. You don't kiss Hamlet when you're done learning it. At least I hope. The teretz is when a person is learning Torah, he's not learning intellectually. If a person learns intellectually, then you don't kiss the sefer when you're done. When a person learns Torah, it's an emotional relationship that he has with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. It's not he's not a professor of Rashi.
He's not a Talmudic critic. Even those words—they're goyish words. They don't capture the essence of what it means to be a yid who opens up a sefer. They tell a story about Rav Salavechik that somebody asked him something about the Rambam's yartzeit, and Rav Salavechik looked at him perplexed, and he said, "When did the Rambam pass away?" The Rambam was alive and well in the year of Rav Salavechik. If you listen to the great Lomdim, to the great Gedoleim, the way that they learned, the way that they taught, Torah was lebedik, Torah was alive in our She'er that Rav Glanz and I were zaycha to be in. Rav Glanz and he's very humble and he doesn't talk about the role that he played in my Rebbe She'er, but trust me when I tell you that my Rebbe She'er of Glanz was considered from the Gedolei Talmidei Hashir. I want you to know that in our She'er.
Taira came alive. The way that Rav Parnaschli taught Taira, the Taira was alive, and you fought over it. It was a battle, and every word had to be precise, and every concept had to be clearly defined. You didn't chazer because you wanted to know it intellectually. You chazer because you had a relationship with the sugya. It was your sugya. It wasn't just something that was on the paper. It wasn't something on the mar makomos. You didn't show up to shiur for what my Rebbe would call halachic entertainment. You went there to be entertained. You were there because you saw in my rebbe, kiheim chayenu va'orach yamenu, was alive to him. I remember when Roshach, the Rosh Yeshiva of Panovich, Zechariah Levrach, when Roshach passed away. So three weeks in a row on Thursday, three weeks in a row at the end of Thursday shir, my rebbe would give like maybe a ten fifteen minute mussar or avar on the parsha.
For three weeks in a row, when Rosh Hashanah passed away, my Rebbe gave a hesped, a eulogy for Rosh Hashanah three weeks in a row. Exceptionally unusual. And in fact, I remember that some of the guys by the fourth week were like, 'Is Rebbe going to go for the entire month? How many times are we going to hear hespedim on Rosh Hashanah?' And I remember that my Rebbe said in one of the shmuzim, he said, 'Rabbi, I Rosh Hashanah gave shir into his 90s.' And I saw the chuka that my Rebbe had to give shir into his 90s. It wasn't just academic for him. It was like it was his life, and to be able to do it into his 90s was the most incredible thing. That's the way my Rebbe saw it. I remember that one time my Rebbe was talking about what it took to become a tamchachum or what it took to become a lamdan. I'll never forget the language that he used. He said, 'Rebbei say you have to be a ferocious masmit,' and he used the word ferocious. And you should know my Rebbe was very specific about the words that he used.
And I remember hearing that from my maybe I was like 20 years old, 21 years old, and I remember thinking the word ferocious was such a powerful word to use around Hasmada. What would it take for a person to become ferocious about their Hasmada that they were like grabbing it every second? And I realized that it wasn't intellectual. You're not ferocious about math. You're not ferocious about history. You have to be in love with something to be ferocious about it. We are a people that have been desperately, passionately in love, ferociously in love with this sefer called Hamisha Chum Shetayro. We've been passionately in love with this sefer for thousands of years. It's indescribable the way that we have kept this sefer alive. No other nation in the history of the world has such a relationship with a book. We can't go three days without reading it. Read it Monday and Thursday and Shabbos.
We've written not tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, but millions upon millions of pages from the greatest thinkers throughout history, darsening every single word, every single letter, every single piece of chupp. It's unbelievable the relationship that we have with this book. You can't read it just once. If it's just a din in Talmud Torah. If it's just a din in limud Torah, if it's just like I need to know what the pasuk said, you only have to read it once, you only have to know the translation and finish, then you would know. That's not what it's about. It's shnayim mikra. You don't read Harry Potter twice. You don't chazar over and darshan. What did it mean that he was in Slytherin and not in this? What's another one? Hufflepuff, yeah. That he was in Slytherin and not on Hufflepuff. You don't make diukim. You know why? Because J. K. Rowling might have written a great book.
But it's not kihem chayenu. It's not alive. You don't have to read it twice. You have to read it twice. You don't read a pasuk in chumash and go, I know that pasuk. I'll go fast over it. They say the Vilna Gaon at the end of his life had learned so much Torah nigla and mister that he opened up a sefer Torah at the end of his life and he read the word berachus and then he chazored over all of kol Torah kula nigla and mister from Mishnayos, Gemara, Tosefta, Brisa, Medrash. Zayar he read through everything in the word Berechias and then he went to Bara. If the Gra knew so much Torah, how could the Gra have been chazaring? The Taretz is he wasn't chazaring in the sense of like, let me review everything that I learned. It was lebedik to him. It's alive. It's Torah chayim. Torah is not something that's academic. There's this conversation in yeshiva. How long should a guy stay in yeshiva? Shem Aleph, Shem Bet.
When should he go to college? What college should he go to? Chavra. All these questions—they change. They change when you fall in love. When you fall in love with the Rebbeinu Shlom. When you fall in love with the Rebbeinu Shlom's Torah. All of these things—they start to change. Because what type of life do I lead? I lead a life of Torah is at the center of my life. Because how can I not have Torah in my day? How can I not have Torah as part of my life? How can I not want to be great in this thing? That was the gift that our rebbeim gave us. I know my rebbe gave it to me for sure. I remember in my rebbe's shir when I saw how Torah came alive, and I saw how my rebbe was so passionate about it. And he gave us the critical thinking skills to be able to think about what does this pasuk mean, and what does this reshon mean, and what does this machlokas mean, and how to ask a kasha, and how to give a teretz. And he gave us the gift.
It was our Torah, so then you would learn a sugya, you would learn a Rav Chaim, and you would go over it again and again. Not just to understand it, but because it was your life, because you were passionately in love with it. You can't read it just once. When you go back to a sugya and you read it again, if you learned it well, Rabbi Say, then it's like you're visiting an old friend. If you read a Rashi after you've been away, let's say you learned Maseches Kesuvos, and then six years later you’re still learning Maseches Kesuvos again, you don't go, I learned it already. You go back. You're like, it's an opportunity to go back to my old friend Kesuvos and certain sugiyas. They bring up trauma for you. Like you learn Rivchiya Kamaisa, it brings up trauma, right? You learn you know you learn Migo. Oh man, what does that really mean? I remember I struggled with this the first time. And I you should know my Rebbe Reb Glanz could testify to this. He never looked back at his old shiurim. It was always fresh for him. He didn't want to.
He didn't want to have the old sheir that he said it was new. What do I think this time? In fact, they say about Rav Salavetchik that they said Rebbe, the sheir that you're giving it contradicts what you said a week ago. He said, don't bother me with what I said a week ago. It's a brand new day. It's a brand new sugya. Every day was lebatim. Every day was alive. There's a relationship, and the relationship with Torah has to be manifest. And if you don't do this, Rabbi said, then you have no relationship with Torah. What's the litmus test to see if you have a relationship with Torah? A yiraisa the kudshibrichu v'yisrael chadhu. You want to know if you have a relationship with Hashem or you have a relationship with an academic book? The litmus test is how do you treat other Jews? If you really believe that God and the Torah and Klal Yisrael are one, then the litmus test is what's your relationship like with another yid? If you see a guy and he's passionately in love with Torah, but he doesn't treat yidin appropriately, you should know he's learning Torah intellectually.
He's learning Torah and he's getting a geshmack from it, but it's a narcissistic geshmack because it's about him. It's not about his relationship with our Kaddish Baruch Hu. Because if you love someone, then you love their children. If you love someone, then you love their children. We don't just finish Shnayim Mikra. It's not just L'midat Torah. It's love of Torah. You want to know how you know if it's love of Torah? It's very simple. Look at the words of the Gemara. La olem yashlem adam parshiyos of ematzibur shnayim mikra veecha targum. Rabbi said when we got up, when Rav Glanz got up on Simchas Torah, and he said, "Who's in? Who's in? Who's going to finish shnayim mikra?" Whether Rav Glanz knew it or not, I'm sure the mashgiach knew it, 100%. I'm sure he was holding in this Gemara when he made this initiative 10 years ago. He said, "No, stam to make shnayim mikra. That's already a mitzvah."
But for us to do Shnai Mikra as a yeshiva, for 88 guys to do it, for us to make a siyum together—that's why we're making a siyum. Not just to encourage you to do it again. Of course you should do it again. It's a mitzvah. We're not making a siyum on Negevaser in the morning. We're not making a siyum on Modani. We're not making a siyum on Shnai Mikra in terms of Limerat Torah. We're making a siyum in terms of the Tzibur finishing Shnai Mikra. We did it together as a community. We didn't do this academically. We didn't do it to be a top guy in yeshiva. That would be arrogant. That would be narcissistic. We did it because we are passionate about our relationship with Hashem. So we did it together as a community. And Hashem is life. That's what Hashem is. Hashem is life. That's the best definition for Hashem. As it says in Zayar, He's Chai HaChai. He's the life of all life. Any life that we have just comes from Him.
A person who attaches themselves to Lema Datorah. A person who attaches himself to Shnayim Mikra, of course there's Arichas Yomim Veshanim. Of course has a lengthened life because he's more Mekushar to Hashem. And the more mukkusha you are to Hashem, the more you mukkusha to life itself. The more your life is connected to His life, of course your life is going to be longer. Of course your life is going to be greater. It illuminates every aspect of your life. A Jew who wants to see himself, you hear a lot about this word leadership. Leadership is a word that's thrown around. It sounds like a good word. People say leadership. It's a very popular word to say. He's good. We create leaders in our yeshiva. It's like one of these parva statements that goes on a brochure. Every brochure has to have three words.
Empower, inspire, and whatever three words you have. One of the words is leadership. It's a word that you put on a brochure. It doesn't mean anything. They have all these. What in the world? I went on a leadership training program this summer. What did you do on the leadership training program? It was a coed program. I hung out with a bunch of girls. You know what I do? What do I do on the leadership training? I don't know what the word leadership means. It was a chesed program. What's it got to do with leadership? You know what leadership is, Rabbi? The real definition of leadership is that you're mukusher to every single person in the community, and if Yenem has a problem, then I have a problem. If you have a problem, I have a problem. Call Yisrael Aravim Zalaza. If you have a problem, I'm your guarantor. I'm involved in your problem. How do I get connected to every single other Jew? How do I take on a leadership role where Taira will come to illuminate our community? It's a very simple chesed.
The more you're connected to Hashem, the more you're connected to His Torah. The more you're connected to Hashem and His Torah, the more you're connected to every single other yid. A Jew who's connected to every single other yid through Torah, no doubt, he sees in every aspect of his life an ethic of responsibility to every single other Jew. That's a leader. Leader doesn't mean that you get up publicly and that you're the guy taking charge of things. Leadership means you have an achrayas, you have a responsibility. You live for something larger than yourself. That is the gift of Shnayim Mikra. So you'll say, Rebbe, it's worth the while on a Siam on a Matzei Shabbos for us to get pizza and to come. And Rav Shimon always plays the most beautiful music. I get to hang out with him every Thursday, and it is worthwhile for us to come together on a Matzei Shabbos to make a Siam on Shnayim Mikra. The answer is, how else would we make a Siam? We can't wait. We can't wait until next Simchas Torah. That's why we dance on Simchas Torah.
We don't just dance over a math book, you don't dance over completing a math book. You dance because it's alive, it's lebedik. And we here in yeshiva, we can't even wait till some chaz Torah. We can't wait till some chaz Torah. It's lebedik, it's alive. We're in love with this book. We're gonna read it over and over again. There's no need for a glance to get up and give a shmuz and say, stand up if you're gonna do shmais. There's no need for that. There's no need for that. Maybe we'll make a siyum. Maybe we'll do shmais. Also, I'd be more than happy to do it. But we don't have to inspire you guys to do it, because if you did shnayim mikra, then you're already holding. You're already holding it. I'm in love with this sefer that has kept us alive for thousands of years. They took away our land. They took away our temple. They destroyed our communities. They murdered our children. They abused our women for thousands of years, and they could not destroy the Jewish community. We knew something that they didn't know.
We have this traveling base hamikdash with us. It's called the Sefer Torah. It comes with us wherever we go. If there's fires in Los Angeles, you know the first thing they say, 'Where the Sefer Torah? Got to get the Sefer Torah out.' These are not books to us. These are not parchment to us. It's not ink on parchment. These are lebedik. They're alive. We have to make sure. And if Chassvah Shalom, a Sefer Torah is destroyed, we mourn. We mourn as if a loved one is being buried. I remember in Hurricane Sandy. There was a sefer Torah that unfortunately was flooded and somebody took a picture. It was floating down the street. And to us, those who saw that picture, it was devastating. A sefer Torah. I wouldn't cry if a math book was floating down the street. I wouldn't even cry if the greatest math book ever written was floating down the street. And why bother crying? How many sefer Torahs do we have? You go online. You can ask ChatGPT. You can write your whole sefer Torah. The Torah says it's alive to us.
We dance, we sing, and yes, if Chassid Shalom the case is Chassid Shalom needed, we even bury a Sefer Torah. It's alive to us; it's not a joke. Beis Hashem, at the end of Shmos, we'll be here together for sure. But we're doing this, Rabbi Yisai, to share the message, and I hope that you'll share it with everybody else in the yeshiva. That a yid who comes to yeshiva, he's learning Mishnayos, he's learning Gemara. Awesome! That's great. You want to know if it's academic, or you want to know if it's coming from the neshama? Ask: Are you doing shnayim mikra? And when you learn it, you don't just read it once. You don't just know it for understanding it for intellectual sake. You read it twice. Why? Because we're obsessed with this beautiful sefer. Guttavach.
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