Vayigash - A Yeshiva for the Imperfect

1:55 And really, it should mean the world to every one of you. I think we can all agree that it's a tremendous honor to be here today. To the fact that you guys are sitting here today, you should know you're standing on the shoulders of giants, because these were the guys who were here when nobody came to Mivas Har. When we had 33 guys in the yeshiva, it was these guys, right? Ari, am I exaggerating? You didn't mean it like that. I meant it exactly like that. I meant to say that I'm going to say it again. It was these guys that were miyased the yeshiva, and we owe a tremendous amount of akhar shtov. Of course, to every one of the alumni that built the yeshiva, but I just want to highlight those guys in specific because, in so many ways, you guys owe more to them than you could possibly know. On the topic of being miyased the yeshiva, on the topic of founding a yeshiva, I want to share with you an amazing Rashi in this week's parsha to try to get a little bit of depth that perhaps we didn't have before.

2:49 Until now, a little bit of something, just to see something maybe in a deeper way than we've seen it before. The pasuk says, "Ve'es Yehuda shalach l'fanav el Yosef l'haris l'fanav goshna v'yavo arza goshen." Yaakov Avinu has just found out that Yosef Etzadik is still alive, and he's going to bring. The Shvatim, he's going to bring sixty nine people plus one. Exactly who that one was is a subject of debate in the Medrash. But he's going to bring everybody down to Mitzrayim. And Yaakov Avinu does an interesting thing; he sends Yehuda first. He sends him first to Yosef. And the wording of the Torah here, it's not obvious what it means. La hayros lefanav gaishna. He sends Yehuda.

3:42 To instruct ahead of him, lahiris lefanav. To instruct ahead of him, goshna in goshan. It's not obvious exactly what the Torah means here, which is why we have Rashi. Rashi offers two pshatim. The simple pshat that Rashi offers first, Rashi quotes from Uncles, and he says lahiris lefanav. What does it mean to instruct ahead of him? Ketargumo, like Tagum Uncles says, lefanas lamakom to clear a place for him. To instruct, he's sending Yehuda to be a city planner. We're going to build a Jewish city in Mitzrayim. We're going to build Goshen. So you have to clear out a place and you have to instruct exactly how the city is going to be built. So this is what Yosef, this is what Yehuda was sent ahead to Yosef to do. Before we go there, set it up.

4:34 Before we go there, make sure it's all set up. We have a place to live. Everything is set up. That's the simple explanation of the pasuk. That's the first shot in Rashi. Rashi offers a second shot based on the Medrash. It says, "Who Medrash Agada Lahiris Lefanav." What does it mean that he instructed, "Letakeinlo Base Talmud," to create a yeshiva? Go before doesn't mean like the simple pshat in the pasuk doesn't mean clear a place so that we can build our houses, build our infrastructure. It means to build the yeshiva. Shemisham teitzeh hora, and this yeshiva, it's going to be a yeshiva of hora. It's going to be a yeshiva of pesak halacha. In other words, Yaakov Avinu was saying to Yehuda, "Klal Yisrael is going down to Mitzrayim. There's going to need to be a place."

5:25 That there's going to be peskim, we have to create peskim. Otherwise, how will people know what to do? So we're going to create a yeshiva in Goshen. That now wherever a kollel yisrael is in Mitzrayim and they have a shayla, we're going to be the yeshiva that answers that shayla. La'hiris le'fanav means la'hiris not just to instruct, but to create a yeshiva of instruction, to create a yeshiva of halacha. Whenever Rashi gives two pshatim. These are not disconnected. For those of you who are learning already serious lamdas, you know that whenever there's a machlokas, that machlokas is intrinsically tied together. Here we have two pshatim in Rashi that seem to be diametrically different from one another. The first pshat in Rashi is very technical. Yehuda is being sent in order to go create an infrastructure for a city. The second pshat is Yehuda is being sent to create a yeshiva. What in the world do these things have to do with each other?

6:23 That's our first question on Rashi. The second question is based on a Gemara in Yuma, Chafavah Menalef. The Gemara in Yuma, Chafavah Menalef says, "Who are the Poiskim of Klal Yisrael?" The Gemara brings proofs from different Psukim. I'm not going to quote the Psukim right now, but the Gemara says that the Poiskim of Klal Yisrael are Yisachar and Levi. Those are the Poiskim of Klal Yisrael, and the Gemara asks, Yisachar and Levi, and not Yehuda, and the Gemara says. A sukei shmeitzer aliba dehilchasa. It's true that Yehuda knows halacha, but those who really know halacha, those who are able to plumb the depths of a sugya and to be able to say this is what the halacha is, that's reserved for Yisachar and for Levi. So now we have an obvious kasha on the medrash. If it's really a yeshiva of halacha, then who should be the rashi yeshiva? It shouldn't be Yehuda. It should be Yisachar. It should be Levi.

7:20 So why is Yaakov Avinu sending Yehuda to start the yeshiva? He should send Yisachar or Levi to start the yeshiva. This kasha is compounded by the fact that if you take a look in the Rambam and Hilchas Abayi de Zara, the Rambam says that not only was Avram a tremendous tzaddik, but Avram Avinu had a yeshiva, and Yitzchak continued the yeshiva, and Yaakov continued the yeshiva after him. And the Rambam says that Yaakov Avinu gave over the Torah to the Shvatim. And specifically, who would become the Rashi Yeshiva of this new Yeshiva of Avram Yitzchok and Yaakov? It's Levi. Levi is the Rashi Yeshiva of Klal Yisrael, which means that the Rambam probably understood that the Yeshiva that was started in Goshen was perhaps started by Yehuda. He was the miyase of the Yeshiva, but who was the Rashi Yeshiva? The Rashi Yeshiva was not Yehuda. The Rashi Yeshiva was Levi. What in the world is going on in Rashi?

8:16 Just the chaz or the three questions. The first question is Rashi offers two pshatim. They appear to be very different than each other. We have to figure out what unites them. What's the hezbra machlokas? The second kasha was, what's the pshat that Yehuda is appointed to be rasha shiva when he doesn't even seem to be the major halachic decisor in the family? That's reserved for Yisachar and Levi. The third kasha is based on the Rambam that Levi is the rasha shiva of Klal Yisrael. It certainly wasn't Yehuda. Yehuda was just the miyaseid. Levi was the Rashi Shiva. What's going on over here with this Rashi? So I want to suggest to you the following pshat, and I think it's very relevant for every one of us. I think it's relevant for the alumni. I think it's relevant for the talmidim, and especially those talmidim in the middle of Asmode week that are really challenging themselves. I want you to put yourself for a moment in the position of a Jew in Mitzrayim. Can you imagine what it was like, the torture.

9:15 That they endured, the suffering that they endured. For those of you that are in Rishon LeZion, I'm sure you heard this line from him: "Suffering is pain minus reason. If you don't understand why you're going through something, it's torturous. It's suffering. Klal Yisrael in Mitzrayim was suffering on unimaginable levels. They couldn't understand what was going on. The torture wasn't only physical. And by the way, if you read the midrashim, if any of you have that book, what's that? They published it in English." As long as I live, whether they have like today, they have like a million of them. As long as I wander, whatever, let my people go, let my people whatever. You know those books, all the midrashim. If you read those books, if you read the midrashim, the barbarism, the torture of the Mitzrayim was beyond anything. It makes the Holocaust look like a walk in the park, and that's only the physical torture. The psychological torture was cruel beyond measure. Can imagine a Jew in Mitzrayim, and he's sitting there.

10:14 An Egyptian is beating him. His children have been murdered. His work is for nothing. He sees it falling into the quicksand, and he says to himself, 'What's the halacha? What does the Kadosh Baruch Hu want me to do?' I'm going to come home later tonight. My wife's going to have a shayla. The milchiks fell into the fleishiks. What exactly do I do? Imagine that guy. He's a tzaddik. He's a hero. He's an unbelievable person. With everything that's going on in his life, what is he doing? He's asking a shayla, and he comes to Goshen, and he comes to the yeshiva, he comes to the place that Yehuda was miyased, and he asks his shayla. And the rav, surely you had a long white beard. The rav sits there stroking his beard and says, 'This is the halacha. Chavra. It's a very dangerous scenario that we just painted.'

11:11 A yid who's going through so much, who's under such torment in his life, but he still cares enough to ask a shiloh, and now he's told the answer. But you know, chaver, maybe he struggles. Maybe the rav tells him that this is the halacha, this is the ratzon Hashem. But now, because of the situation that he's in, he's an imperfect person. He's in a tough situation. And maybe when he comes home that night, maybe he doesn't have kayach to tell his wife the p'sak, or maybe he doesn't have kayach to wake up in the morning and do what the rav said, whatever that is. So the guy could chas v'shalom walk away feeling like an avaryon. He could walk away saying, "I went to the rav. He told me the p'sak, and I didn't follow it." And he can't live with the imperfection. So now, not only is he undergoing the torture.

12:03 Of living in Mitzrayim, but now he feels like, and even the Abister couldn't possibly care about me because I'm not a Shomer Torah Mitzvahs because I ask a Shaila, and even when I ask a Shaila, I don't necessarily listen to what the Rav tells me to do. I don't listen to the P'sak Halacha. I'm imperfect, and because of his imperfection, perhaps he feels deeply ashamed of himself. He feels unworthy of love and connection. Perhaps he says, maybe this is why we're engulfed to begin with. He says, maybe if I'd be a better Jew, then Mashiach would come and we'd be redeemed.

12:34 A person is in a very dangerous position when he's not sure. A person is in a very dangerous position in such a case because he could chas v'shalom come to define himself by his lowest moments. Even though anybody who's talking to that guy would say to him, "What are you talking about? The fact that you even asked the shaila is unbelievable. The fact that you still cared after hundreds of years of Egyptian servitude. The fact that you still cared to ask the shaila that's unbelievable." Which means chevrah. That's why I'm saying we need to organize a yeshiva of halacha. It needs to be built. The foundation of the yeshiva needs to be a foundation of kindness and compassion. It needs to be a foundation where people who come to ask a shayla are told, "This is the halacha, but we see your humanity, and it's okay to be in process." And our goal is not chas v'shalom perfection, but completion.

13:33 We're not trying to be robots. We're human beings. We're going through it. We make mistakes. We have moments that we're more proud of, and moments that we're less proud of. But life is judged in the aggregate, not based on the specific moments, and certainly not based on our lowest moments. And if we put our lives in context, then every one of us is unbelievable. If a person would know, if a person would really, truly know who they are, if a person would really be able to look at every moment of their life and see it as it truly is, they would only have a tremendous amount of compassion on themselves. It's a very dangerous thing when a person hears a halacha and then they're like, 'Okay, so that's the halacha.' And if I'm not perfect at it, and if I'm not perfect at it right now, so then I'm not good enough. And that's a very dangerous way of serving the Rebbeinu Shalom. A healthy way to serve the Rebbeinu Shalom is that we're oriented.

14:29 We're oriented. We're heading in the right direction. Some days were better. Some days were worse. Some months were better. Some months were worse. Some years were better. Some years were worse. But b'derech klau, we're heading. We want to do the will of the Rebbeinu Sholom. When you come to a rav to pascha a shayla, that has to be not just the answer, but it has to be the cadence of the way that the rav answers. There is a tone. There is a tenor to the way that we answer a shayla. We have to see a person. I was talking to a major paisik in America. I don't want to say his name because I don't know if he wants to be quoted. Somebody asked me a shayla that's way bigger than my shoulders. So I called this rav up. He's a major paisik, and I'm blessed to have a relationship with him. I don't know the halacha. Teach me the halacha. So he said, in this case, this is the halacha, but you have to make the following evaluation. I was so impressed. That's a real gadol b'taira.

15:20 Somebody who doesn't just tell you the halacha, but he says, make the evaluation. Where is this person holding? Where are they holding in their lives? Are they capable of being there yet? Are they not capable of being there yet? A different instance when I was talking to this rav, he said maybe the best advice you could give this person is maybe you're not ready to ask the shaila yet. Because if a person is not ready to ask the shaila, sometimes that's okay. Also, you're baderach. You're somewhere along the way. You're moving. You're oriented in the right direction. But it's okay to be imperfect. Who could be miyasech such a yeshiva? Levi could be rush yeshiva. Levi knows the halacha better than anybody. But Levi is the designated tamuachem of Klal Yisrael. Levi sits and learns all day. Levi's not necessarily somebody that we could relate to. Levi is the guy in the beis medrash who never leaves. Levi is the guy in the beis medrash who's perfect.

16:13 Levi's the guy in the beis medrash who everybody looks at and they say that guy Pashat hasn't done an avera in months, and you know what? It's great to have a Levi to look up to in your life, but it's not great for Levi to be miyassid to yeshiva because it's too exacting, and it doesn't work for people, and that's why ultimately Ramban Gamliel, when he was Rosh Yeshiva, had to be deposed because he only let in the very best and the very brightest into his beis medrash. Unless you were perfect, you couldn't come in. You had to be tocho kebaro. But that's not where Torah comes from. Torah comes from Rav Elazar ben Azaria, who threw open the doors of the beis medrash, and they had to add in four hundred or seven hundred benches into the beis medrash. And Klal Yisrael came to the beis medrash that day, and even all the imperfect people came. And Chaver the Torah that they learned on that day, it became a sechdos and forever and ever throughout Shas. Whenever we say Eisaiyom, it means that day that Rav Elazar ben Azaria threw open the doors of the beis medrash.

17:11 A yeshiva is a place for imperfect people who are trying to be oriented in a direction that they'll be not perfect but complete. That's a healthy yeshiva. Who could build a yeshiva like that? Yehuda could build a yeshiva like that because Yehuda understood imperfection, because Yehuda had a ma'isa with him and Tamar, because Yehuda, in front of the other shvatim and in front of his own father, had to get up and say tzadka mimeni. That child that Tamar is holding—it's my child—and it was embarrassing, but he had the courage, he had the fortitude to be able to say, "I'm honest. That was my mistake." And you can only do that if you have enough in the tank to be able to take the hit. You can only do that if you have a healthy sense of self. A person who has a healthy sense of self can get up b'nei am ve'eda and say tzadka mimeni. I was.

18:09 Blown away. I always knew that Rav Moshe Weinberger was an exceptional person. I always knew that. Everybody knew it, but I was blown away because very recently the Rebbe taught us a lesson that I had never learned from. In all the years I've been listening to Shulam, this I never saw. There was a critique of Rav Weinberger. He had written a letter in support of somebody, and it wasn't a good letter, and the letter hurt people. I don't want to get into any of the details. It doesn't matter. But Rav Weinberger went publicly. And he went. It's online; you could see it. He went on Amudim. It's posted by Amudim on YouTube. The video went viral. Last I checked, I think it had over 15,000 views. And he got up on the letter and he said. He got up on the video and he said, "It was a mistake to write that letter, and I'm sorry, and I know that I hurt people." And it was so honest, and it was so vulnerable. It didn't come with any of the usual like, "Had I known, but you know, if all the different excuses." No, he said, "I made a mistake."

19:09 It hurt people. I'm sorry. I'll do better. It was unbelievably inspiring to see a person like Rav Weinberger just get up and say Tzedakah mi mani. It's the mesorah of Yehuda to be able to say that was my mistake. I did that. Somebody who has enough in the tank to be able to get up publicly and say it was a mistake. It's okay. It was a mistake. I admit it was a mistake. It's going to be okay. There's such a thing called tshuva. Mashiach comes from that union. Mashiach comes from the union of Yehuda and Tamar, because Mashiach comes when a yid has the ability to know tshuva was created before the creation of the world. Nobody asks us to be perfect, but we're asked to be in process. We're asked to be a little bit better today than we were yesterday, and we'll have days where we're better and days where we're worse. But we're always and forever okay. That's the foundation of any healthy yeshiva.

20:06 A yeshiva's responsibility is to challenge its talmidim to be more, become a masmud, find the time to learn, challenge yourself, push yourself more. For sure, that's a yeshiva's responsibility. But if the guys in the yeshiva don't know, I'm talking to everybody here right now who's doing hasmada. If the guys in the yeshiva don't know that it's okay to make a mistake, then hasmada could be the worst thing in the world. If a guy comes to hasmada week and he says, I really want to challenge myself. I want to discover an element of myself that perhaps I didn't know existed. Givaldik, that's awesome. But if a guy messes up in Asmad and he says I don't know how to recover, that's a failure on our part. That's a failure on the yeshiva's part. Our responsibility is to say that's an orientation. But making mistakes is normal. It's a part of a healthy growth-oriented bentora. The alumni that are here that are older, that are staying in yeshiva still, or that are married, newly married some, or the older marriages.

21:02 They'll tell you, this is not a tremendous greiser lesson from a rebbe. Life is challenging. Life comes with ups and downs that you will never expect, and you'll make mistakes. It's okay to make mistakes. It's not okay to bow out. It's not okay to say because I made a mistake now the show's over. You made a mistake. You're a human being. You have to have enough in the tank to recover. Baruch Hashem, it's a privilege. It's a privilege for us, the rebbeim, to be a part of this yeshiva. You inspire us. You get to be in your forties, in your fifties. I'm only in my forties, but the rishav tells me this, and he's in his fifties.

22:05 And you get old, and you get stale. You get old, you get stale, you get cynical, you get jaded. You ask yourself, "What's my chelik and tyra?" I don't know. You see guys every year come in, eighteen, nineteen, fresh off the boat, wide-eyed, walking down the same crooked stairs that I walked down in 1998. Baruch Hashem, the campus has been built, Ma'or Dik, but somehow those stairs will forever remain like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. But it's very inspirational. It's very inspirational to see the Rosh Yeshiva sent a picture this morning of guys in the beis medrash at five thirty in the morning, and I know there were guys in the beis medrash pounding away, and it's very inspirational. I don't want to take anything away from that.

23:03 It's amazing and it's awesome. It's it's it's unbelievable that guys who are finishing, daf and balep, and guys who are a guy told me said, Rebbe, I've never learned this much in a row the entire year. I'm I'm really challenging myself this week. Kol hakavod to you, and I'm sure Shabbos will be beautiful. But I just want to say, I just want to say to those of you that are struggling, I just want you to know, you're my people. You're my people. To the guys that are shavat Levi, kol hakavod, you're awesome, you're amazing. But to the guys that are struggling, just want you to know you're not alone. Everyone is going through something. Everyone hits bumps in the roads. Everyone sets a goal for themselves and doesn't always reach it in the way that they thought they were going to reach it. It's not always linear. It's not always like A plus B equals C. That's not the way life goes. But you should know.

23:59 For those of you that love a mess, for those of you that love an imperfect journey, if you stay in it, if you hang in there, if you have some grace and some compassion and some kindness from yourself, then twenty, thirty years from now, you're going to achieve unbelievable things. A guy who walked into the Beis Medrash of Yehuda, when he asked the Shaila, the Rebbe sat with him. I guarantee you. But I guarantee you, when that Rebbe with that long white beard, when that guy came in from the fields, bruised and beaten and battered, psychologically, physically, emotionally, and he sat down with that Rav and he said, 'Rebbe, what's the halacha?' I promise you one thing. The Rav said to him, 'This is the halacha. This is the direction that we're headed. And be kind to yourself as you get there.' Sometimes people are going through Gehenna. So I'll finish with this story. It's a very well-known possek in the Five Towns. I won't say his name because I don't have rishus. And a chaver of mine was going through a very, very painful and a very messy divorce. And divorce is never easy and it's never pretty, but this was one for the books. And he came to his rebbe, this big paisik, and he said, Rebbe, I want to tell you.

25:27 I'm having trouble putting on tefillin. I'm having trouble just putting on tefillin and saying the words Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echad, Baruch Shem Kavod Malchus Elohim Vodeh, and the first paragraph of Kriyas Shema. Forget Shema Yisrael; it's not even in the cards. Forget brachos; it's not in the cards. Just to throw on my tefillin. How long does it take to put on tefillin and say the first paragraph of Shema? Thirty seconds. I'm telling Rabbi, I push it. I don't know how to do it. I can't do it. I'm putting my tefillin on. It's killing me. I'm not saying the Rebbe's name because you should know there's guys in this room right now who know who the Rebbe is. So I'm not saying his name. But if you figure it out, if you're one of the guys who's figuring it out, it's okay. You'll chop it because you'll hear the Rebbe's voice and the words I'm about to say. And the Rebbe looked at my friend and he held his hand and he said, "You're in Auschwitz." He said, "What do you mean?" He said, "What you're going through is so painful and it's so hard."

26:24 And of course we should put on tefillin, and of course we should say Shema. But the main thing you have to understand is you're going through Gehennom. Just be kind to yourself. Just be nice to yourself. Talking about a major Pesach, a major rav, and just kept saying over and over again, just be kind to yourself. Just be nice to yourself. And my friend came back that night, and he came over to my house, and he said, I hated that answer. I wanted him to give me mussar. I wanted him to tell me, just put on your tefillin, just daven. But I put it away in my head. I put it away in my head that story. Unbelievable answer from that rebbe. I put it away. Years went by. This guy and I are still close. A couple of years ago, he came and he said, "You remember that story where I went to that rebbe and he just said, 'You're an Auschwitz. Be kind to yourself. Be compassionate to yourself.' Remember that story?" I said, "Yeah, I remember that story." He goes, "Do you remember how upset I was?" I said, "Yeah, I remember how upset you were."

27:25 He goes. It was the best thing of all the things that my rebbe and I have ever spoken about. That was by far the most powerful, the most impactful, because in a moment where I could find no grace for myself, no compassion for myself, no kindness for myself, eventually I was able to borrow his voice, and that's the voice that I want to share with every one of you tonight. You guys are awesome. You guys are amazing. Klal Yisrael is amazing. Think about what we've done since October seventh. Even over just the last year and a half, we are going through something so crazy, and yet we rise to the occasion. Are we perfect? We're beautiful. We're amazing. Every one of us should be celebrating how incredible we are. We hold ourselves to a high standard and we're exacting with ourselves. There's no problem, if that's your orientation, but it can't be a lifestyle. Kindness and compassion. That's the way to serve Hashem.