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I just want to say something for one minute. Rebberg was the one who's really Really speaking. I just wanted to tell you two things. Number one, I'm incredibly proud of all of you here. It shows from the ruach. Rebberg and I were just saying, what a yeshiva. It shows from the ruach the impact that the Torah has had on you and continues to have on you. And I know it is not easy. To do Shnaiim Mikra, especially for many of you the first time, and I don't know who's keeping up with it and who's not keeping up with it, but I will tell you the fact that you did what you did to push through all of Seder Berachus in a timely manner And follow the incentive. I hope you feel like you gained a lot out of it, and I know for sure that we are incredibly proud of all of you. That's first of all. Second of all, I just want to say that on a personal level
Usually we're very good year after year of doing this malava malka, quote unquote, in a timely manner. This year it did not work out that way, but you know what? It was kol tovah, kamzul tovah to see you guys at this point of the year really still be so excited and levi to go over something you accomplished so long ago. But on a personal level, I just want to apologize that it took this long, but Baruch Hashem, we are here. Without further ado It's a big schuz to have the opportunity to speak to such an ilum. We only have a couple of minutes because I don't want to be late for Rav Shwayer's musar. And Chas v'shalom, I don't want in any way to be paygeah in his kavod and the kavod atayra that he gives to our yeshiva. And I know how many of you want to be there.
Really, there's a tremendous amount to say, and we have a very short amount of time to say it in. But I want to First of all, thank Ruv Glanz for this initiative of really starting you guys off in Shnayim Mikra Echatargum. And also with all the respect that I have for Ruv Glanz And I have more respect than you guys could possibly imagine. I think Rabbi Glanz apologized for the fact that it didn't work out the way we wanted it to, which is appropriate. And also, I would add on to what he said by saying that Hakadosh Baruch Hu brought us exactly to this moment in exactly this time. Because that's exactly where we need to be. And we had a plan, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu had a better plan. Which is how we end up here in the parsha of Ayakel. VaYakel this year is separate from Pekudeh. VaYakel Pekudeh is usually what ends Shmoyis.
And say for Shmoyis, the word Shmoyis is Rashi Tev of Shnayim Mikra VeEchah Targum. The whole story of Shmoyis is the story not only of going down to Mitzrayim, but also the story of Yitzias Mitzrayim. But it's the story of Har Sinai. And as the Ramban points out, it's the story of building the Mishkan and building for Hashem a dwelling place in the world down below, a dira b'tachtona. So we have not four separate parts But really one long story of Klal Yisrael going down to Mitzrayim, which culminates in this week's parsha in the building of the Mishkan. And the question is, is there a relationship between shnayim mikra ve'eched targum? Which is, as we said, the name of the sefer and the story of Yitzias Mitzrayim Har Sinai, and ultimately the building of the Mishkan. Most of us say Shnayim Mikra ve'Echad Targum without thinking about what those words mean.
We think about it on a very simplistic level. Shnayim Mikra, you read the psukim twice, ve'Echad Targum, and you read Uncles or Rashi once. That's what we think Shnayim Mikra ve'Echad Targum means. But we should stop and ask ourselves what it really means. Why do I have to read the words of the Torah twice? Why is it specifically important for me to read the targum once? Maybe it should be echad mikra V'shnaim targum. Read the Torah once, and then we should read a bunch of perushim. Uncles, Rashi, Ramban, Ibn Ezra, Radak. There's so much to learn. What are we learning? Just Uncles or just Rashi? What are we doing? That's Shnayim Mikra, the Echad Targum. Since when do we have Echad Targum? Perhaps we could suggest Alpi Penimius HaTorah that Shnayim Mikra does not only mean that we read the psukim twice But there's two readings.
There's one reading, and I learn the Torah one way. And then I learn the Torah another way. And we live in a world where these two readings are divided. There's a division in the way we read the Torah. There's an Abayah and there's a Rava. There's a Rashi and a Tosfos. A Rambam and a Rashba. And we live in a world of division. That's the world we live in. And sometimes Rav Ben was going on this rant to me the other day, and it's one of those stunning Rav Ben rants where he just says the perfect thing in the perfect way, and I'm just sitting there in the car, driving in the morning, and just amazed by the brilliance coming out from behind me. And Rav Ben said, "I'm allergic to the word skills." It's like you hear, it's like a classic Rav Ben rant. I'm allergic to the word skills. Why?
Because he says guys think skills means reading. Reading is not learning. Learning is you guys have a head. And you have thoughts in your head, and you have to employ those thoughts. Reading is the beginning of learning, but learning is much bigger than reading. I'm going to embarrass one person in this yeshiva. I shouldn't do it, but I'm a bad mechanech, so I'm going to embarrass Shenker. Shenker is in the yeshiva shear, and the yeshiva made a joke, and he's like, "From now on, I'm just doing Gemara Rashi Taisus." And then the yeshiva walks out of shear, and he comes into my office with a big grin, and he's like. Shenker was freaking out, like I'm only going to do pshat. Shenker's a person that he's walking in the hallway and I hear him screaming about a pshat in a Rambam. That's learning. Learning is not sitting there and knowing just the back and forth of something. Learning is to be able to see things from multiple perspectives. Learning is a humbling thing.
You learn a Rambam and it's like that's the obvious pshat. Of course what the Rambam said. And then you learn a Rashba, and you're like, "Oh, that's the obvious pshat." And both of them are so true to you "How did I think that pshat a minute ago?" But a child when they're in high school, sometimes they say, "It's a phrase. It's not a nice phrase." But sometimes kids say it because they don't know any better. They go, "I like the Rambam better. I like the Rashba pshat better. Imagine if we had said something like that in Rebbe Shir. I remember one time a guy in our Rebbe Yisheir, Glanz and I were privileged to learn by the same Rebbe for many years. I remember that a guy once in Rebbe Yisheir said Maybe Rashi was wrong. And I remember my Rebbe like stopped the sheir, and my Rebbe was brisker, so he'd tear you to shreds.
And he looked at this guy, and I'll never forget it. That's like telling me my entire life was a lie. Because the whole yosode of lamedus, the whole yosode of brisk. Was for every single aspect of Torah to make perfect sense and to live with the duality of both of those things. Why? Because there's two mikkros. There's the Rambam's mikkra and the Rashba's mikkra. Rashi and Tosafos, Abay and Rava. But there has to be echad targum. There has to be echad targum. Echad targum doesn't mean that there's one explanation. Targum is translation. What's the difference between a translation and an explanation? There could be two mikkros. There could be two readings, two explanations of something. But there has to be one translation, one way that when you speak it out, when you use language, you're tying everything together. Gullus is a place of divisiveness. That's what Gullus is. That's what Mitzrayim is. Mitzrayim is a place that's very narrow and very restricted, and you can only see your lane.
That's like Yidden who lo alenu chas v'shalom. We should never be such people. That's like Yidden who see their community and go, 'See, my community got it right. Every other community got it wrong.' That's echad mikra. That's echad mikra. That means you have no appreciation for shnayim mikra. You have no appreciation of how to learn Torah. To learn Torah means to know I have an opinion and a Jew has a different opinion, and that's also a beautiful opinion. As long as it's within the 70-lane highway of Judaism, that 70-lane highway, it's beautiful. If you're on the 71st lane, we're not talking. But within the 70 lanes, shnayim mikra. Every one of us has something to contribute. But there has to be echad targum. There has to be a unity to it. A Jew in Mitzrayim, he can't see that. He can't see that unity. So there's a story of Yitzchias Mitzrayim Where a Jew comes out of a narrow place and he has an expansive view of the world. When you leave a Mitzrayim, you get a tyra.
A tyra is a place. It's a space in your life. It's a mentality of shnayim mikra. That every single Jew has a voice that's precious, and that every single one of us has something to contribute to the Torah. Our own voice, and my voice, and your voice are beautiful. If you see two guys in yeshiva and they have a chavrusa shavt, they could be fighting. They could be screaming at each other, like Rav Safer and Rav Nachi and Rav Glanz in the Beis Medrash. You could see them screaming at each other. But if you're watching carefully, it's echad targum. There's a deep respect for each other. There's a deep respect because they know that each person has a voice, and they're trying to unify those voices. That's what happens when you leave Mitzrayim. And then a person who has an appreciation of how to live with the duality and how to bring that duality together—that's how you build a home for Hashem in this world.
That's what it means to live as a husband and a wife. A husband and a wife, guys, you're very, very different from your wives. But if you're a Shnayim Mikra, the Echad Targum Jew, then you know what it looks like to build a home. You have a voice and I have a voice. There's two mikros. There's two ways of reading the situation. But echad targum. But our translation is the same. We're on the same page. We're unified in the same way. Your explanation is valid and mine is valid. Together we see the truth. That's how you build a mishkan in this world. How do you destroy a mishkan? You destroy a mishkan with skinas. What's in a skinas? You destroy a mishkan with divisiveness. I wish we had more time. I have to end. There's a million more things to say on this subject, but I'll leave you with this. It's not an accident that Shmais a Shnayim Mikra ve-Echad Targum Because a person who learns Shnayim Mikra, a person who is Shakuah in the Word of Hashem, and he's learning Targum, he's learning how to put it all together, and he's not just reading the Torah once, he's reading the Torah twice. He hears multiple voices. He's training himself to be a person who sees the world through the lens of Torah.
That's our responsibility in yeshiva. You're developing glasses. You're seeing the world in a new way. You used to see the world through human eyes. Now you're seeing the world through Hakadosh Baruch Hu's eyes. But Hakadosh Baruch Hu's world is complex. Hakadosh Baruch Hu's world is not simple. Hakadosh Baruch Hu's world is a shnayim mikro world. You have to be able to appreciate each and every one of you guys. You have to look at a guy and you have to say, does that guy have what to contribute to yeshiva? Absolutely. And you know there are guys in this yeshiva that you might think like he's not loud. He doesn't have a voice. Where's the like? Why isn't he a mikra in our yeshiva? You know what the shot is, guys? Because we haven't invited him. We haven't invited him to share his voice. He's scared to share his voice. He has something to say.
He also has something to say. Not only in the beis medrash, in the dorms, on a tayul. He also has a voice. But unfortunately, he doesn't feel like there's a space for his voice. He doesn't feel like his voice is going to be held in the world of echad targum, or if his voice is going to be shunned and thrown to the side. That's a world of division. That's a world of Mitzrayim. You come to yeshiva. You're training yourself to be a husband. You're training yourself to be a mensh. A mensh is somebody who sees the complexity of the world, but he also knows how to unite people within that complexity. And that's why we're sitting here now. We had big plans of Glanz and I. We're going to make a Malavamalka. Baruch Hu said that you're going to do it the Wednesday night of Aviachel. This is a kehilah. A kehilah has a lot of different voices, like the Gemara says. The Keterus had a chalbanah. The chalbanah smelled bad.
Every single Jew was represented in the Keterus, from the highest level tzaddik all the way down to the chalbanah. Tzibur is Rashi Tevah's tzaddik beinenu rasha. A kehila has every single voice inside of it, and it's our job to unify these voices. So we're here at Vayakel, and Rabbi, It was better than we planned. It was better than we planned. And now we're holding by the end of Shmace, and some guys along the way. They started off strong and maybe they fell off. Back to Shnayim Mikra. Nachamu, you missed a couple of weeks, no problem. Pick it up again. Pick it up again. You dropped it, you pick it up again. Because we have to train ourselves to be Shnayim. You think to yourself, Shnayim. I hear guys in yeshiva call it Shnayim Mik, and everything in this yeshiva gets abbreviated because Rabbi Safer brought abbreviations to this world.
So Shnayi, we don't do Shnayim Mikra v'chatargam. This yeshiva does Shnayim Mik. Smooth, smooth shnayim mik. Whatever we do in this yeshiva, we like to shorten it, abbreviate it, make it words that make no sense. It's the ultimate burgers. Rabbi, I'm telling you something real. You dropped it, pick it back up. You might say, 'I'm a simple Jew. I'm a shnayim mikur Jew.' What do you mean? I'm in a top shear. I'm stagen like crazy. I'm in a reversal shear. I'm thinking of all the greatest farers in the world. If you're not learning shnayim mikur, Rabbi, your gemara is in danger. Your Gemara is in danger if you're not learning Shnayim Mikra. Because if you don't have the Echad Targum What are you doing when you're learning Gemara? You think you're the guy that's going to say I like the Rambam's Pshat better?
Chas v'shalom to say such a thing. The job of a Jew is to unify all of the different polarities and expressions of Torah voices in this world. I want to say that we're blessed to be a part of a yeshiva where Baruch Hashem so many people have such important things to say, so many different voices. And we're also blessed to be in the yeshiva where every one of those voices is celebrated and cherished. And we're waiting for you guys to say your piece and to say it loud and to say it in an environment where every single person feels it's echad targum. Bracha for all of you guys is that we should be zayich to be here next Shem Chastayra. And Rav Glanz is going to get up and he's going to say, 'Who did Shnayim Miker last year?' And beez Hashem, all of you guys are going to stand up and say, 'I'm an echad targum Jew. I'm a Jew who sees the achdos of Hashem in this world, expressed in all of the different facets of this world.'
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