Second Yahrzeit of Rav Aharon Walkin: His Torah, Ahavas Yisrael, and Personal Care

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. Good lechenim, rabot. Ne'emad vetovot. Here we are, we are ... our rabbeinu, Hagaon Hagadol, Rav Aharon Walkin, zecher tzaddik vekadosh livracha. We have many rabbanim that are going to be, be'ezras Hashem, coming and joining us to inspire us, to commemorate the life of this tzaddik, who literally gave his life for our community, for us to continue to learn. It's hard for me to speak, but at this time we have with us our Rav ... of Lunov, Rav of Congregation Or HaTorah, very close talmid, student of the Rav zatzal for many, many years. Rabbi Rav ... Okay, I would tell you it's difficult to believe that two years already passed since Rabbi Walkin is not here. Personally, for me, Shabbat is a little bit of a difficult day because that's the day when I work, and not really so much time. It doesn't make a difference when the time changes earlier or later. So ever since Lior sent me a message saying there's going to be a yahrzeit, in the back of my mind I was saying, What am I going to say? What am I going to say? And as I sat down here and I started to listen to what he was saying, a few ideas came to me that I want to share with you. First of all, this is something I heard many years ago, and I think it's very true about Rabbi Walkin as well. I heard in a shiur once, several years ago, that somebody once came to Rav Shach, who was a avreich that was learning in Ponovitch, and at the time the kiruv movement was picking up its speed, and either somebody convinced him or he decided he wants to spend part of his time doing kiruv in Eretz Yisrael. It's a war. You know, every family that's brought in under the fold, it's literally you're saving families from complete destruction. So he wanted to know what he should do. It's not an easy decision to make: who should stay in beit midrash, who shouldn't stay. So Rav Shach, this is the way the story was told, Rav Shach told him, Let me ask you a question. What's the turnaround time? How long will it take for you to, let's say, to speak to a certain family, to deal with a certain family, until you think you can, I don't know, convert them or to pick them up a level where you're going to be able to hand them off to someone else? So he says, I don't know. I don't know. He says, Give an estimate. So he said, Let's say four months. I'll be able to go to them weekly for four months, speak to them, etc. After four months, I think I'll be able to improve them. Let's say five months, and then they'll be able to go up a notch, and then I'll go to the next family. Okay. So he told him, So let's go throughout a year now. Three, four months. That means you'll be able to do like this for three families. It's an accomplishment, right? Three families per year to save for Klal Yisrael is a big deal. Says Rav Shach to him, I want to tell you the following. That's your koach right now. If you're going to stay longer to learn, if you're going to be involved more in esek haTorah, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, a person accumulates zechuyot because of his closeness to Hashem, because of his closeness to Torah. You're going to cut that time down. Instead of four months, it'll be three months. Some more time will pass in the Beit Midrash, a few stay, you'll be able to cut that time down to two months, and so on and so forth. Rav Sheach told him, it comes to a point where some people, because they reach a certain level, a conversation with them, sometimes even a word, a statement. People have stories of the Chafetz Chaim. They sat with him for a few minutes, and he said to them a few words that I'm sure they heard many times from other people, and it didn't penetrate. But when they heard it from him, that's it. As they say, nafla la-simon, the coin dropped. The person all of a sudden, something clicked, and he decided he's going to make that change. Why does that happen? He said because the person who was speaking to him, it came from a very, very holy person. He had a lot of zechuyot. He had a lot of connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. His words, even though they're the same words on paper, they penetrate much deeper. And you have sometimes a person who's very, very big, by a single word he's able to change. Rabbi Wolkin had this ability. You know, you try to describe to somebody, what did he do? So what did he do? I didn't get it. So he came to the shiur, he gave a very entertaining shiur. So why do people walk out of that shiur inspired or happy? Why do they want to come back? I would write down on a piece of paper for you, you know, like a script of a movie.

I don't know if words could describe it. You wouldn't be able to see it, and it was at the type of jokes that he said, the type of derush that he said. You could have heard it somewhere else. It was the person that was speaking them. It wasn't so much what he said, but who was saying it. A person that walked into the shiur felt a certain connection. Another thing that I realized, and I think Lior will agree with me, you didn't feel like you were being—what's the word?—he wasn't there to be merachem on you. He made you feel like you're an equal member of the shiur. I didn't feel like it was an ebech case. Rachmanus, you know, a bochurim boy came in, he's just starting to learn, let's, you know, praise him, try to build him up. A person had a good question, he gave praise for it. If he said something out of line, and I remember a few times that I said something that was out of line, right away, stop me. Sometimes it was soft, sometimes it was harsh, but he wouldn't let the opportunity pass. Why? Because he didn't treat you like a—you know, he wasn't there to be like a doctor and you're a patient. Oy vey, look, poor baby that you are. He treated you like a man, and that gave people confidence because, you know, if this rabbi is saying I'm capable, I have a head, I'm able to learn, I'm able to daven, so that means if he sees that in me, that means I must have it. Before I walked in, I was trying to find something appropriate to say, and happened to have looked through Shmuel Birnbaum's sefer on Chumash. In Parashat Shemini, it says that Aharon, when his two sons passed away, there was a korban that they offered, and part of the korban that should have been eaten was burnt. Moshe came and he asked, Where was this korban? Was it eaten? And Elazar and Itamar told him, No, it was burnt. And it says that Moshe got angry. Veiktzov. And Aharon came to him and said, Look, you know, somebody just passed away today. Would have been right, it would have eaten Moshe Rabbeinu. Vutav b'einav, it was good. He agreed to him that it was a correct thing that he did, and he didn't eat it. Shmuel asks the question. He says, That's the way that a person behaves? Somebody does something wrong, you just blow up at them? You attack? It's halacha, right? You see a person of the yarei shamayim who does something that seems weird to you, seems questionable, come over to him, ask him, you know, why'd you do that? Maybe he has an explanation, especially to an Aharon HaKohen, not some guy in the street. It was his own brother, who he knew was a tremendous talmid chacham, certainly had a reason. Even if he didn't have a reason and made a mistake, but that's not a way to talk to a person. So Rav Shmuel Birnbaum says the following. That's what they bring down in the sefer. He writes that part of a rebbe teaching a student is teaching him the things that he should not be saying. Famous story they say with the Rav Ber, that they asked him, his rebbe was Rav Chaim Soloveitchik, they said, Why are you so attached to your rebbe? There are many Gedolei Yisrael, there are many sefarim. You can open up a Rebbi Akiva Eiger, other sefarim, go to other rabbanim. What's this attachment to your rebbe that you have? He said, You don't have to ask my rebbe. He went to Rav Chaim and he asked him, What's the pshat? Why taka is a person so attached to his rebbe? There's many sefarim today. Rav Chaim told him, he says, From sefarim you learn what to say. A person is learning a sugya, he has maybe a chiddush, he says, Oh, I see this in a sefer, so I know I'm on the right path. Other people are saying it as well. He says, Your rebbe will teach you what not to say. There is mahalchim, there is all kinds of unique, you know, things that a person comes up with, things that he thinks nobody else thought of. This is my new way in serving HaKadosh Baruch Hu. You need a person who's a gadol b'Torah to look it over and say, Yeah, this is good, this is not good, this is kosher, this is pasul. That you're not going to get from a sefer. That you need a person who's going to be next to you telling you, Yes, no. Yes, no. Rav Shmuel Birman says that was pshat in Moshe Rabbeinu. Sometimes a teacher, it's not enough just to tell you, you know what, I asked the question, the student responded, and he said, No, it's incorrect. Sometimes you have to show how incorrect it is. And the only way you can show how incorrect it is is either by making a face, by saying something that sounds very, very hurtful, painful. There's examples in the Gemara that one of the Tanaim was teaching a student, and he asked him a question, and the student responded. It was a class, he responded, he gave an answer. Bar Kapara, I believe, was the one that answered. And the Rebbe who was teaching, he says, Kemdumani, it seems to me she'ein lo moach b'kodkado. This guy has no brain. Can you imagine to yourself sitting in a shiur, the Rebbe asks a question, and you offer an answer, and the Rebbe says, I think today you left your brain at home. Would anybody walk to come back to a shiur like that? Probably in America, you know, the way the generation is, I don't think anybody would come back. It would be so ashamed, so hurt, you wouldn't walk in. So he says, How could it be the Rebbe talked this way? The answer was, he knew the student understand, You know I'm your Rebbe. You know what I mean for you, right? Why am I talking to you this way? Because I want to show you that you're not—

You're just wrong. You're dead wrong. You're way off. This is not a story that should ever be entertaining. Rabbi Wolkin had this quality as well. He knew how to measure up a person that walked into a room. Those people that walked in the first time, we had a conversation with them, he saw the person was sensitive. It's a different story. It's a different Rabbi Wolkin. Very accommodating, things that they said, even if they were completely off course, Ah, here, maybe that's what you mean. If it was one of the talmidim that was in the kollel, the people that he knew from years back, that said something that was out of line, either made a joke that was out of line or said a pshat that was out of line, cut them down like a knife. Why? Because I'm coming to educate you. This is not just to entertain you. This is not just to give you a good feeling. I'm trying to teach you a mahalach for your life. That is something that even with all the shiurim, the recorded shiurim, the sefarim that are coming out, this we're going to miss very, very much. What he said, Baruch Hashem, a lot of it, not everything, but a lot of it is either on tapes, it's in writing, and people remember. But the things that, you know, if we would have been around right now in the situation where I am right now, tell me, Rafael, this is kedai to do, this is not kedai to do, that, I'm unfortunately not going to be able to have that type of relationship with them anymore. And that's going to be very, very missed. The other thing that I want to mention, for those that don't know Rabbi Wolkin, the Wolkin name, I should say in general, it's a name that's not new to this community. Rav Moshe Wolkin and his rabbitzin, they did untold things for Klal Yisrael even before the Bucharians came to these shores. Certainly when they came to these shores, I can imagine myself in their age, in my late fifties and sixties, a new generation of immigrants comes in, what does this have to do with me? I already did my thing. I invested into my part of Klal Yisrael. I had a shul. I wrote sefarim. People know me. I did my job. This is a family, and I'm looking at Rav Ram sitting in the crowd and other people from the Walkin family. For them, every time a challenge comes up, it's as if HaKadosh Baruch Hu is only talking to them. They're not looking and saying someone else will come and pick up the ball and they'll deal with it. Rav Moshe and Rav Aaron after him and all the other brothers as well, they see our community as their community, our family as their family, and they participate in the simchot, they participate in, chas v'shalom, in the tzarot. They are there. And that's why people feel very, very close to them. People feel very trusted by them. Rabbi Walkin was very, very much like that. He didn't see Bucharians as a separate tribe, as a separate group. Again, like a Rachmanus case, we have to help them out. This is Klal Yisrael. He spoke to us and about us as if he would speak about any Ashkenaz bachur. It didn't make a difference to him who he was. L'maaseh, the boy is learning, he's coming, he's davening, you see he's shtiging. Why shouldn't he have the same chance as everybody else? I remember there was an incident at one point where he tried sending a Bucharian bachur to a certain yeshiva in the tri-state area, and apparently the boy—I'm not sure what the reason was—but he didn't get the reception that he should have gotten when he came to yeshiva. The maggid shiur basically felt it was below his dignity, below his level that such a boy should come to his shiur. And Rabbi Walkin was very upset, very, very upset. I remember he came to shiur that day, he says, I cannot believe somebody who's quote-unquote right in the Torah world, klei kodesh, that's how you treat a ben Torah? Even we understood, we said, Rabbi, you know, he's Bucharian boy, just started learning, you know, what does that matter? What does it make a difference? I'm telling you, I learned with the boy. I'm signing off on him. I'm telling you this boy has potential. That's how you treat a boy? It hurt him very much. Why? Because he didn't look at people with different colors, with different categories, oh, he's Bucharian, he's Sefardi, he's this. You're coming to learn. You're in. You're part of my family. And those that knew Rabbi Chaim of Skolel, which Rabbi Chaim did a tremendous amount for us as well—Persians, Moroccans, Georgians, Temanim—we had all types over there. People came from European background. Anybody who wanted, Rabbi Wolkin was available. If you're coming to learn, you're showing interest, that's it. He's available. He's for you. He's like your father. He's going to deal with you. He's going to sit with you. He's going to talk to you. Anything that can help you to grow, to get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Very, very, very hard thing to find nowadays because the world is so quick and everybody's very busy. Everyone feels that they have their niche. He didn't feel like he had a niche. His niche was helping people, period. It wasn't just speaking, and it wasn't just this—helping people. One of the Avreichim had a shalom bayis problem, he was there. Somebody needed to talk because he didn't have children, he was there. Somebody's father passed away, he was there. He needed kids to get into yeshiva, he was there. It was like a person that was basically like a parent. A parent doesn't have a specific hat that he wears. Whatever his child needs, that's what he's going to do. When Rabbi Ilan Meirov joined the kollel and he had these grand ideas about starting an organization, it could have been shut down like this. Rabbi Wolkin didn't shut it down. Aderaba, go for it, go for it, go for it. And everybody knows anybody who has—

It was headed a big project. Without encouragement, it's like saying you have a tire with no air inside. Without encouragement, this wouldn't have gotten anywhere. It was because of his encouragement, because of other people's encouragement, but many, to a large extent because of Rabbi Wolkin's encouragement, he went ahead and look what it became. Chazak became a word. This word, chazak, everybody knows. I go to California and they know the word over there as well. Oh, it's chazak lectures. Why? Because there was a person who pushed it along, who didn't look at it like a chesed project. He didn't say, Oh, like I said, nebach, you know, we have to help them out. You're capable. Why should your community be any less than our community? It's a very, very difficult loss. I know for the Lakewood community he was a tremendous figure as well. And like any adam gadol, like any great person, because he's so great, people that have shaychus to them only see a small part. They don't realize that he had the shaychus in other areas as well. And I'm sure that he had very, very close followers in Lakewood. I saw some of the videos that came out after his petirah of functions that he participated in, shiurim that he gave, organizations that he was shayach to. It's a very, very big loss. Lior keeps saying it, and it's very, very true. As much as he was a talmid chacham, and he was a tremendous talmid chacham, he was more than anything else a father. He was a person who was ready to give you his time, his energy, his tefilot. You were his. And that's a very, very difficult thing to find. And Mashiach will come and we'll see him back. But the loss is a very difficult loss. His community could have used them, could have used many more like him, because examples like him give people inspiration. They give people hope to see that this is what Torah makes a person into. And all we can say is that all those talmidim that went through his hand, and there were many, Rabbi Meir, myself, Rabbi Meir, many people whose lives he touched, many of them went on to begin organizations, become heads of shuls, and etc. All of this is his chuyot, his merit, and I'm sure he's very, very proud. There's one thing that I remember he said to me every single time he saw me for the last ten years: Refael, when I see you, it's all worth it. And I know I wasn't the only one that he said this to. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one that he said it to. He saw his talmidim's success as his own success. And you saw that he wasn't saying it just as a, you know, a thing that you say to a person when you see them. He genuinely took pleasure in seeing his talmidim succeed. It made him like, My son, you know, my son. And I know this is true with Rabbi Wolkin's parents as well. They participated in our smachot. They say, It's my einiklach, this is my grandchildren. I'm not coming to a stranger. It's not because he was once part of my yeshiva. This is my grandson. It's a very, very difficult loss, but I know HaKadosh Baruch Hu is managing to making sure that Klal Yisrael is not going to be without proper leaders. Af al pi ken, we miss him very, very much. We want to say thank you to his family for basically donating him to our community. I want to say thank you to the rebbetzin. I want to say thank you to the kids. They participated in his projects. Many times they sat by him. I remember we used to getting breakfasts for them and running around getting coffee for them, them running around the yeshiva making trouble. They were part of this project. This was part of the Wolkin project that made sure that Queens thrived, that the Bucharian community and the Sephardi community at large thrived. And they carried, they deserve a big part of the credit as well. That's how I want to end off by saying I have tremendous hakarat hatov for the Wolkin family at large, specifically for Rabbi Wolkin's rebbetzin. She should have a tremendous nechama to see how much good he brought to the world and to his children as well and his talmidim. He is very, very proud of you, all of you, and I'm sure he's looking down and he's smiling, and this is the type of impact that he left in Queens and in the world at large. Yehi zichro baruch. Baruch. As our Rav, Rav Shlita, as was mentioned, the Walker mishpacha, we want to welcome his son from Lakewood, Shlome, who is continuing the legacy with Lev Aaron Foundation, with sefarim, with articles, with videos. It's unbelievable. With us is a younger brother who's involved with the revolution of Chazak, is a very big mekarev for over 30 years, Baruch Hashem, and we're going to ask Rav Avram Walkin to say a few words. Okay, so, you know, it doesn't get easier by the year. People think, you know, a year passes, another year passes, it doesn't get easier. And I'll tell you why it doesn't get easier, and I'll tell you why it gets harder.

I'll tell you why it gets harder. You know, Yaakov Avinu, Yaakov Avinu, the pillar of the Betachon, the pillar of Klal Yisrael, he took Avraham and Yitzchak's teachings, and he encompassed the chesed, the yirah, and he made it into Torah. That's what he did. So he had the middah of chesed, yirah, but he made it into a Torah. Therefore, Yaakov Avinu was zocheh to have the twelve shevatim, because he encompassed everything. Baal bitachon, I'm sure, trusted in Hashem, loved Hashem, yet for twenty-something years, he couldn't get over the petirah of Yosef. So it's an unbelievable thing. It's an unbelievable thing that Yaakov Avinu couldn't just say, after Yosef disappeared, after Yosef was taken, he wasn't sure, and a day later Yaakov Avinu could have said, Hashem runs the world. Hashem knows what He's doing, and this is what Hashem wants. This is what Hashem does. So for twenty years, he couldn't—over twenty years, he couldn't get over the loss of Yosef to the point that it affected his ruchniyus. It affected his ruchniyus, taka. He lost ruach hakodesh. A certain amount of ruach hakodesh he lost. Why? Because a person has to be b'simcha, and he couldn't be b'simcha. So the Medrash tells us that he lost a certain amount of his ruach hakodesh. So Yaakov doesn't know he lost his ruach hakodesh. Yaakov doesn't know that this is affecting him spiritually, yet he couldn't get over the loss of Yosef. The question is why. So there's a Medrash that says that—Chas v'shalom, I didn't in that way—the Midrashim that say that he wasn't really niftar, so therefore he didn't have what we call closure. And therefore, his emotions were in between. In other words, the metzius was that he didn't know. So therefore, the metzius in his machshava, in his thought, without him realizing, was that there was no closure. This is a middah that Hashem wants a person to have, to understand that there's a beginning, there's an end, and when you're in between, you just can't find peace. You can't find peace. So there's a medrash like that. I saw many years ago an unbelievable vort, and the vort goes like this. Yaakov has two types of loss a person could have. He can have a personal loss, but then he can have a communal loss, a loss that's not about him. It's about the people around him. Yaakov Avinu was okay with the loss that he lost Yosef. That he lost Yosef was okay. He knows Hashem runs the world. But the communal loss, that Klal Yisrael lost Yosef, that you don't overcome. The fact that Yosef Hatzaddik was lost to the world, in his mind, for that there's no nechama. There's no nechama when the world loses something that they can't replace, Torah-wise. So the personal loss Yaakov Avinu can handle. Hashem runs the world. But Hashem didn't want him to have nechama for Klal Yisrael's loss. For that, you don't get over something. So it's unbelievable for me. I feel my brother every single day. I cry when I mention his name, because it's not that two years ago he was niftar. To me, it's as if last night he was niftar. So for me, it's not a personal loss that I cry for. I cry for the community loss. I'm not crying for my own personal loss. Klal Yisrael, the Bucharian community, the neighborhood, Lakewood, lost someone they'll never replace. And I want to tell you, we lost Reb Chaim Kanievsky a few weeks ago. And I will tell you, I used to go to Reb Chaim. I tried almost every year, every few years, just to get the bracha v'hatzlacha, bracha. I would go for that. That's when I went, when I took my children to Eretz Yisrael, I made sure I went not one time, but I went for a week. I went two, three times to Reb Chaim Kanievsky. Every two days I wanted to go again. And yet, with all that, you can't understand the loss until it's gone. It's a ... thing. As much as I respected Reb Chaim Kanievsky zatzal, as much as I thought he was my rebbe in a way, as much as I thought that I'll never, you know, I'll get over it, but I'll never get over it, you can't imagine the loss after he was niftar. It's unbelievable. It's like, why don't you understand this before? The answer is Hashem obviously doesn't want you to understand that, for whatever reason. Tzadikim kruyim chayim b'misasam. Therefore, the loss of Reb Chaim Kanievsky is felt by his closest after you don't even see him anymore. You would think that people that would see him. The answer is that's the way of the world. That's the way of the galus. We don't appreciate what we have until it's gone, just the way Hashem runs the galus. I think it's a galus thing, obviously. And what do you have to do? You have to obviously go retroactively and try to always remember.

The people that are with you, not to be mezalzel with them and not to lose that thought. So my brother's loss was a tremendous loss, not just for me and my family, obviously, but for Klal Yisrael. I always say to myself, I wonder what my brother's shiurim—I always say, this is what bothers me also. Think of all the shiurim he put out. Think of all the Torah anytime. Think of all the classes. Imagine if he had another 30 years. What could have become from Baron Walkin if he had another 30 years? I'm serious. It's something we can't even understand. And I will tell you, I have on my wall, I have a picture of the Chazon Ish. I have a picture of the Steipler, a few. I have a picture of Chaim Kanievsky. I have a few on the corners, Reb Elyashiv—not that they're any different or anything—and I have my brother's picture on my wall. And I honestly put it there because to me he's as equal as them. And it wasn't because he's my brother. It's because I knew him personally, and I knew what he stood for, and I knew his yedios haTorah at the age of 54 years old. You know what yediah this man knew? Not just Ashkenaz halacha, all Sefardi halacha. You can come to him about any—from Yalkut Yosef, whatever it was, Rabbi Ovadia's shitos, everything he knew. It's peledige thing. Does anyone know kol haTorah kula? No one knows kol haTorah kula. And I always say, I have to say this stuff. You know, I hear the name, he knew kol haTorah kula. The Torah is infinite, okay? You need to know this. The Torah is infinite. So the actuality, even Rav Moshe Feinstein and Rav... they knew 0.9999999 percent of the Torah, because if the Torah is infinite, that's all you could possibly know. But as a human, as a human, very few people had the yedios haTorah that my brother had. Very few people. He was my posek, so I don't ask shailos anymore. No. But he was the guy I went to. I remember actually calling up my uncle, Rabbi Kellman, who was also niftar last year, a very special tzaddik, very special person, big gadol, big posek. I remember calling him up after the shiva, and I said, Who am I going to ask shailos to? I'm serious. Who am I going to ask shailos to? I don't want to bother my father that much. And he told me, You can ask me, but he says, I don't know if I can answer like your brother knew how to answer. That's what he told me. And this man was a gadol, he was a giant. So it's not about what we lost, but how do we continue with what we lost into the present time, to not lose track and face of who the person you're mourning is. That's the greatest thing you can do for yourself, for yourself. Even if they're not living, even if they're not living, how? Through the shiurim, through their ideals, through the thought processes that you understood. So a loss like that, we can stand up here, and I'll be honest with you, in 45 minutes we all go home like nothing happened. We go to the pizza store to pick something up, and like nothing happened. The key is to not let the inspirational moments disappear, to live with those inspirations and use them as guides, as guides to bring you to your future. Anyone that was zocheh, and I will tell you, Rabbi ... Mordechai, I want to tell you something. You told me a story. I'm not going to repeat it, but you told me a very personal story two years ago when I was in your office, remember, with that Rebbe. I'm not going to say it. That is one of the—if he wants to tell it to you, he can tell it to you—one of the most amazing stories of what my brother was. It's something that he never looked at a situation black and white. He looked at the complete picture of what the story was, and then he gave his psak. You should know, Moshe Rabbeinu, when he was about to kill the Mitzri, what does it say? That he looked right and left. What does he look right and left? The Medrash says he looked to see if he had any einiklach or any family before that would affect the world if he did something to this Mitzri, and he looked into the future to see what might become of this person, that maybe he doesn't have a right to kill this person. Political thing. This guy deserves death. He needs misa. He needs to be able to—he needs to be taken out of the situation of this world. Yet Moshe Rabbeinu looked in the past to see if there was any good that came out from the past, and he looked into the future to see if any good will come out, and therefore maybe I don't have a right to kill this person. Political thing. But he needs what he needs to get. The answer is no. It's a big picture, not just the situation. It's the whole picture of a situation. My brother, the ... Levracha, was able to look into a matziv. He can give a psak halacha to one person, and then five minutes later give a different psak halacha on the same shaila to someone else. That's what a posek does. That's what a gadol does. He understands the matziv. He feels the person. He understands the person, and then he does his psak halacha. That's what a gadol does. Very easy—not, I don't know anything—but very easy for people to just rattle off halacha. Easy. You know it, you say it. No. To understand the matziv is what makes the difference between an adam gadol.

And a talmid chacham, you know, special, but that's the difference. My brother was maiden davar mitoch davar. He would talk to me even. I want to tell you, we became very close in the last two years. He would call me three times, four times a day. I was going through my own personal things, and every three hours he would say to me, he would say to me, How are you feeling, man? I'm going to give a shiur for the next three hours. Can I call you in three hours? Can I? Can you? You want me to call you in the middle of the shiur? I'll call you in the middle of the shiur, but can you wait three hours till I call you? I said, 100%, go, I'll call you in three hours. And it wasn't just me. It was hundreds of people. Everybody, you asked them, Oh, it was me and him, we were like very close, father and son relationship, rebbe and talmid relationship. It was me. I was the guy. Everybody felt they were the guy. Unbelievable thing. Oh, me, we have this personal relationship. The next guy, Oh, me and him have this. Everyone had a personal relationship as if they were a ben yachid to my brother. Unbelievable, something that you don't find. You don't find that today. And you know where it comes from? It comes from two things. A, obviously Torah and yiras Shamayim and understanding the ways of Hashem and what Hashem wants from a person. But you really get it from when you look at somebody, you look at yourself. He viewed someone else even greater than he cared for himself. He cared for someone greater than he. Once you have an attitude like that, your horizons open up, your world opens up to understand. And the people that are in chinuch, people that are in chinuch, to look at a talmid and to view him as your own son, it's a different ballgame. Before you pass judgment on a Talmud, before someone kicks out a Talmud, before someone says something bad about someone, view this person as this person was my own child and I loved him, obviously, my own child. How would I deal with this person? How would I look at him? How would I talk to him? Would it be different? Of course it would. That's how you have to view not just a student, but even your friend. That's how you got to sit next to you in shul. That's how you got to view it. My brother was able to do that. He looked at a person, and he didn't just see a physical person in front of him. He saw the emotional person standing in front of him. And you don't find that. Obviously, the bigger doylem, obviously, that they gave their life. That was my brother, always giving of his time, always giving of himself. So I just want to mention that, you know, I could spend hours talking about the greatness of my brother. It's not for now. But you know what the bottom line is? When we leave here tonight, we shouldn't just say we were at an event, but we continue to be in that event, because he was your rebbe, he was your father, he was your mentor, he was your friend. And for that, you got to constantly be working not to forget, but not just to forget who he was, but what he stood for. And we know what he stood for: Torah, chesed, love, kindness. Just give of yourself, give of yourself. And you know what? That's the most freeing thing. If I could tell somebody how a person should go into Pesach seder, the way to go in free is when you let go of all the chains. You let go of the chains of taiva, you let go of the chains of desire, addiction, anger, frustration. Let it go. Break those chains so you can come to the Pesach seder free. That's what freedom is. Ein ben chorin ela mi she'osek baTorah, right? Osek doesn't mean just learning Torah. It means being osek in all inyanei of Torah: mitzvahs, behavior, kindness. Listen, we all have to work. I have to work on things a lot too. But take tonight and let's use it as a vehicle. To catapult ourselves into Pesach with cheirus, that we should feel truly free. And when you are truly free, Hashem says, you know, you come to the Pesach Seder free, but free from your yetzer. Now I'm going to heap on you mitzvahs for the whole night, because you're ready to do these mitzvahs. You're clean. You're free. Now you deserve. Ein ben chorin... Ein ben chorin ela mi she'osek baTorah. A person is only as free as he gives into the Torah. People think it's debilitating. People think it's hindering me. It causes too many halachos, too many laws. No. The greatest freedom is when a person knows that he has direction from the moment he wakes up till the moment he goes to sleep. And that was my brother. From the moment he woke up till the moment he went to sleep at two, three, four in the morning, whenever he went to sleep. Sometimes he didn't even sleep at night. I know there were once or twice a week, I know for sure he stayed up the whole night learning, and he would sit next to a shtender, actually, that had names of people that needed yeshuos. They needed yeshuos, people that had no children, people that had cancer.

People that were sick, a lot of different tzaros came to him. So many tzaros, even mental tzaros people suffered. So you think, oh, guy, look, he's walking around, he must be doing okay. Who knows what's going on in a person's head? He knew people came to him, and he took it personal. He would sit with a list, and he would learn through the night. He would learn through the night, and he would constantly look at the paper and then learn for an hour, look at the paper, learn for an hour, look at the paper and learn for an hour through the night, because somebody else's tzar was his tzar. And if it's his tzar, how does he sleep at night? How can you sleep with somebody suffering? If your leg hurts, you're able to sleep. If you have a terrible pain in your head, no. If you have a headache, you're able to sleep. If it's pounding, no. Somebody's pounding was his pounding, and therefore he couldn't sleep. So again, like I said, we can go on and on and on. Take what we see today and let it catapult us to true cheirus on Pesach, and then obviously the geulah, im yirtzeh Hashem, we do the things we should be doing, and we'll be zoche. Thank you. Oh, sorry. We have many rabbanim that are going to be giving us chizuk. We added this time Rabbi Ephraim ben Mordechai, the menahel yeshiva Shaarei Tzion, and the rebbe, the rav of the congregation, the youth minyan of the ... Very close talmid to Rabbi Walkin, zatzal. I want to take the opportunity to thank Shlomo Zalen, the son of ... I've been walking. Not sure I see him now. He's here. I want to say thank you for coming over and spending time, spending Shabbat over with us downstairs with our minyan. You gave me a little bit of inspiration, reminder of all our conversations we had without Rebbe. I started remembering 20 years. I started remembering all the years we were together as a bachur in yeshiva, all the times that we spent with the Rebbe in this house. So I want to thank you for coming. You should come more often. Next time bring your family over. My son asked me a question on Shabbat while we were walking home. They saw Shlomo Zalman, and they saw how much connected he was to me. We were schmoozing away. So my son asks, Abba, why didn't you do kriya when Rebbe Walkin passed away? And I remember that when this happened, I got a phone call saying everyone davening for Rebbe Walkin's refuah. He needs a refuah shlema. And a couple of minutes later, we got a phone call saying he passed away. So I was thinking to myself, at that moment I was so mixed up, like he passed away, like it didn't struck me. I still today, I still don't understand that such a concept exists for myself. Kriya means the definition that somebody passed away. He's not here anymore, and therefore you have to let go. That's it. Life goes on. I couldn't do that to myself. At that moment I was just so mixed up. I'm going to do Kriya. Kriya means my rebbe is not here. I didn't do Kriya. Till today I'm thinking maybe I should have, maybe I shouldn't have. I didn't. I was mixed up at that moment. I was mixed up. I wasn't myself. So this is why I told my son. I told my son, I'm not sure. I wasn't sure at that moment. I know halachically you're supposed to do Kriya, but for me personally, doing Kriya means that my rebbe is not here. And I will tell you personally that from the moment he passed away until today, I live with my rebbe's words in my mind constantly, and constantly thinking, what would my rebbe say in this situation? And there's a lot of questions coming up in yeshiva with talmidim, with members, with faculty. A lot of questions coming up, and a lot of times I feel like I have nobody to speak to. Ever since he passed away.

That's the way. There's nobody to speak to. Obviously, there are gedolim, there are talmidei chachamim. But someone that understands me, somebody that knows my mahut, somebody that knows who I am, who taught me, who understands how my intellect works, and still is able to take the situation and connect the situation to my intellect and to the situation at the same time. There's no one that I could really open up to. So every time I have to live with this myself, thinking, okay, I have to be the posek for myself. How? Taking my rebbe's words and saying, what would Rabbi Walkin say in this situation? Sometimes I would get in trouble because of it. Because to me, I would say, okay, this would be the direction that I have to take in the yeshiva. Why do you have to take this direction? I can't tell them my rebbe said so. But this is perhaps this is what he would say. So I want Shlomo Zalman to know, and his family, that, Baruch Hashem, the legacy that you're continuing on your front, we're continuing on our front in the yeshiva by being zoche to be melamed tinokot shel beit Rabban. Every single day, it's an inspiration for me to go into Yeshivat Shaarei Tzion with talmidim. I'm so inspired to be able to have this zechut. And what do we give over? We give over everything we got, all the love and affection and emotion that we got from the Rebbe, we give over the same thing, we try at least. Because again, living with that picture of what would my Rebbe do? How would he behave in this situation? I remember once he walked in, Yeshivat Shaarei Tzion, I invited him, came over. Two instances. We had a situation where the Rebbe Walkin came to speak to Kita Aleph, and I was thinking to myself, an adam gadol like him, how will he connect to Kita Aleph? I could connect to Kita Aleph. I'm a little kid, you know what I mean? I could connect. I could be playful with them. But Walkin, how will he be able to connect with Kita Aleph boys? He walks into class, and you should have just seen that episode, how he connected with the boys. And he started asking questions on their level, and they were answering, and he made a whole activity in the classroom. The Rebbe's jaw fell down when he saw what Rabbi Walkin was able to do with little kids. We're talking about six-year-olds. This was one instance. And immediately after that, he started crying. Every boy that came over to him to kiss his hand, he was crying. When he saw every single talmid. And when you were younger a little bit, you never understood, why is the Rebbe constantly crying? As I'm getting older now, I understand. Sometimes I see talmidim going through a difficult time, some Jewish people coming to yeshiva, bringing their children to yeshiva, you get emotional. He would get emotional. Second instance, we had a situation where I invited him to speak to seventh and eighth grade boys. We had a beit midrash, you say, I guess this size, a little bit narrower. And talmidim were sitting, seventh and eighth grade boys, and you know, Baruch Hashem, the hardest class I think you could teach is seventh and eighth grade boys, sixth, seventh, eighth grade, difficult class. They're going through their puberty age. And in my mind I was thinking, I hope, I hope they'll be able to sit through and the Rebbe will be able to connect to them. He was speaking for an hour and a half, and he connected with them, and they loved it. And he had a story, and another story, after another story. They didn't want to let him go. And then afterwards, he gave a bracha to every single boy, and they connected with him in such a way where they asked him, Rebbe, can you please stay? I have pictures. If you look at my profile, my profile is from that time when he came to Yeshivat Shaarei Tzion, and I'm probably never going to take that profile off. It's a unique profile. He gave me a personal bracha, but this is what he did to every single talmid that asked a bracha. From there, I also understood this concept of kemayim panim... panim ken lev adam. This idea of he was so close to every single person, so mimeila a person wanted to connect to him. They felt from him that he's real. He's real. He's indeed a real individual. It doesn't matter who he was, whether he was Ashkenazi, Sefardi, talmid chacham or adam pashut. He was real, and he gave over that realkeit. That is why everybody over here connected to him. The Rebbe would live in Lakewood, and he would come to us from Lakewood. He was really not happy so much to move there. He wanted to be with us. And every time he would come here, he always told us, I wish I could be here. I love coming here.

The kavod he got here was something that I could say we're very proud to give him the kavod, only because I think he connected very much with the people here, because he showed that he's a real person. He's there for you. If I can say, what are some of the things that we could take away? Number one, I think having this strength to never give up. There was never a day that he said, I'm not coming today. I'm not feeling well. I remember once during shiur, the Rebbe almost fainted, mamash fainted. He almost passed out while giving a shiur, he almost passed out. So we had to give him a drink. No, immediately when he came back to himself, he continued to teach, continued to teach. And there were times that we went with him, his car would die in the middle, and yet he'd still start the car, continue driving, continue coming, always dedicated to come and do what he needs to do. And that in itself gave me personally, myself, an inspiration to never give up. Just keep on going. Just go. Just move. This is what he would tell me: just move, Ephraim, just move, just go. Would always tell me that. So I live with it every single day of my life. Just go, no matter what, no matter how you feel, you have to go, you have to do, you have to do for Am Yisrael, you have to do, you have to produce, you have to do. So if one thing we would take out from our Rebbe is this idea to never waste time. Don't waste time. Just keep on going. Keep on going. Do it. Do what you need to do. Just do what you need to do. And the second thing that, again, there's so many things you could say. We could just stay here, talk about him. And that is, we should never underestimate how much koach each and every one of us has and how much we can inspire one another. Everybody speaks, more or less everyone says the same thing about the Rebbe, but he inspired each one in different ways. Sometimes he would say a sentence. Sometimes even from hitting somebody during shiur, he would hit somebody so hard. You should know this person would become so inspired and he would want to... Today somebody told me he was sitting next to him. He said, You know what? Don't sit here. Go sit over there. Moshe, come closer. Why? You have more meat than you. So you know what? That Moshe is, Baruch Hashem, he cannot stop speaking about Rabbi Wolkin. And there's so many stories we could speak about, so many people that he inspired in different ways and different episodes they tell me. And I said, This is what you got inspired from? Yes. He's a from Jew today from this little sentence that Rabbi Wolkin told him. So I say personally to myself that we could never underestimate, first of all, what we tell someone or overestimate, and we could never underestimate yourself. We could think, Who am I already? What can I say? What can I do to inspire the other person? The answer is, you never know. Sometimes the Rebbe speaks and he gives mussar to one person. Once I remember the Rebbe speaking to one person about a kippah, the importance of a kippah. That boy perhaps didn't even get the message, but it hit me. Now when I sleep, my kippah, if it falls off, I have to make sure I wake up in the middle of the night. This was a little, little thing that he was speaking to somebody else inspired me. So these are the two messages I could give, perhaps: never, never, never to give up. Just continue doing what you're supposed to be doing, and no matter what, don't stop. And don't underestimate yourself. Don't underestimate the koach that we all have, each and every one of us. You don't have to be a rav. You don't have to be a talmid chacham to inspire somebody. A regular, simple Yid, you can inspire somebody just by giving a kind word, being a socher tov. Because, Baruch Hashem, we only see, live with the legacy of our Rebbe. Think about our Rebbe and only take the messages that he gave us and live with it, and teach, and continue to do good things. May, be'ezras Hashem, these words should be a melitz yosher, an ilui neshama to our... Shkoyach, Rabbi Ephraim ben Mordechai. At this time we have with us Rabbi Yosef Akilov, who was very, very close to the Rebbe for many, many, many years in the walk-in mishpacha.

Hello, Nishmat, our Rebbe, Rav Aaron, walking Ben Esther, Rebetzin Esther, ruach shem tenichenu b'gan Eden. It's really hard to speak about the person who was like a father to every student, as Avram said. I remember a few incidents. Don't forget, it's not easy to teach kids who want to go to make money, who are immigrated in the new place, and you have to repeat same shiur 20 times because kids don't understand English. And walking family, Rav Aaron, Rav Avram, Rav Moshe, Yoel, my Rebbe, they never showed us sour face to repeat the same shiur 20 times for boys to understand. And they did it and did it. But what I saw in Rav Aaron, he never gave up in nothing. Once, 2003, 2004, he didn't feel well and was in Maimonides Hospital. So I said to my wife, We need to go to see my Rebbe. So we came. He listened to the nurse, to doctor, what they said, 100%. As soon as they left, he said, Yosef Jan, open that shelf over there. There's my special medication. If I will take that, I guarantee in two days I could be back in yeshiva. If I'm not going to take my medication, I'm not going to be there the next few weeks. So I had to listen. So I opened the shelf and I gave him the medication. Two days later he was in yeshiva. He said, What are you doing from here? I said, I don't know. He said, Even though you have a thousand people to come to visit sick person, you have to go and visit him yourself. Why? Because you gave me the medication, two days later I'm here. One funny incident in 1999, 23 years ago, it happened with learning in Binat Chaim with Rav Aaron. Fifteen guys around the table. Suddenly there was one shamash. He was a little bit not so 100%. We were learning in sugi, it was going amazing. Suddenly this guy comes in, you know, Binat Chaim, such a nice room. There's a strong echo, and this guy screamed. He said, Oh my God! like yelled. We all got scared. Rav walking didn't lose himself, said, This is what your wife said when she married you. Like, boom, under spot, he answered him back. He said, This is what your wife said when she married you. Oh my God. Under spot, he made a joke. He was very funny. He knew how to, especially everyone knew Rav Wolkin, that he knew how to give psak to every individual. This is the gadlut of Rav Wolkin. He didn't use the same psak to everybody. Once I asked him, I said, Rebbe, why it should be so if the halacha is clear? He said, When you learn halacha is one thing. When you're a student of Rav Yechezkel Roth, that's a different thing already. When you're a student of Rav Moshe Feinstein, that's a different thing already. You saw that he had strong pillars to depend on. We also did. Until two years ago, we also did. And when suddenly such a news, you see that you lost your wing. You lost your wing because a lot of situations me and my brother deal with, this person's brain is working, heart is stopped. What happens? Do you have to unplug the machine? Yes, no? And many times throughout the year, I used to call Rav Aaron, and he would tell me, Listen Yosef, in this situation, this is this. You know what? I feel like you shouldn't do it. You shouldn't do it. A week later, that person got up. A week later, that person was under the machine. A few poskim said, shut it off. He said, no. Regarding halachot nidah, mar'ot nidah, when you came to him, once he was in Israel, I had to go to some other people, and there was the same situation. I remember that many poskim, they said totally different halacha. And in walking, what he said, he proved it. He proved it, said this is the halacha, and this is mutar, and this and this. It was shockingly, he was gadol. He was gadol. And even though we couldn't be there in the levaya, but everyone felt he's standing there. The pain. I was sitting in my kitchen. I had COVID myself that time, shaking. I'm crying. My family is crying. My wife started remembering the things that he helped her with certain piskei halachot, and then neighbors and friends and students. It was crazy. When I was giving notes.

To the sum that I had, me, few guys, four, five guys, we never stopped writing. And I'm happy that I have all the shiurim on the parasha from 2000 until 2003. All the shiurim on the parasha, and this is what I use in my shiur, and I code lawalking every single day. So yesterday night, I was here. I was zoche to be in this beautiful shul, Beis Mordechai. It's beautiful. בלי עין הרע. I was happy I'm not in this area. My mother-in-law asked me to come for Shabbat, so I came for Friday night. At night we had to walk back. When we were walking back, I saw a certain beautiful yellow pit covered in the middle of the Jewel Avenue. So I stopped my son-in-law and I said to him, If this would be the volcano that we need, and if you open, if you dig a hole over here, and you'll get, like, say, 100% volcano that you need to use now, and if you go a few steps away, you dig over there, you get 70% volcano. Over there you'll go more, you'll get 30%. I said, What do you think? When we say every night, 'Ani Hashem Elokeichem asher hotzeiti אתכם מארץ מצרים,' Hashem says, 'I'm your God who took you out of Mitzrayim.' Is this the 100% volcano that we say every single night? Where is the source of this volcano? My son-in-law said, I'll be honest with you, I don't know. I said to him, You know the source is? Pesach night. When you sit on Pesach, this is the light, the 100%, how they say in lighting stores, they say full spectrum, the 100% light. The main source of kedusha of Yetzias Mitzrayim you get, Leil HaSeder. Every other night is hachanah to the Leil HaSeder. This is how our Rebbe is to teach us what is Leil HaSeder. What is Leil HaSeder? The only time you could become somebody, if you pay attention on Leil HaSeder, what means hakarat hatov. Our Rebbe is to tell me, yourself, when you go to shiur, certain person invited you today, your side, sheva brachos, whatever, and you give a shiur. When you leave, who do you all thank you to? I said, Who? The guy who invited me? He said, No. To the last person sitting in the corner. Why? If he wouldn't be there, you wouldn't be Rabbi Yosef Akilov today, who you are. Because if he wouldn't come to the shiur, the other guy wouldn't come to the shiur, the third guy wouldn't come to the shiur. If they wouldn't listen to your shiur, you wouldn't be who you are. This taught me for life. Anyone ever said hello to you, you owe him hakarat hatov. If he wouldn't be part of your life, you wouldn't be who you are today. Who said that? Why it has to be that way? Because Hashem did not take me out of Mitzrayim. He took my great-great-great-great-grandfather, and if He wouldn't, I would still be a slave. So therefore I owe Him thank you. Any time someone did to you, you want to learn how to say thank you, look at Ani Hashem Elokeichem asher hotzeiti אתכם מארץ מצרים, יציאת מצרים many, many years ago, and you still say thank you. You should never forget what means hakarat hatov. We owe, our own walking, not only our own walking, the whole walking family, a lot of hakarat hatov. Chazak ubaruch, Rabbi Akiva Shlita. Baruch haba, Rabbi Olbaum Shlita. We have with us the Rosh Yeshiva, continuing the legacy of the Rosh Yeshiva of the Ralkins, zatzal, from Mechon. Besides, I think for Rabbi Walkin's brother, I go back with him longer than everybody over here, since 1983. Rabbi Walkin was still a yeshiva bochur, a young bochur, and I would like to focus a little bit on how he became who he became. I'll share with you, last week we were zocheh to be in Eretz Yisroel with some of the baalei batim, and we met Rabbi Chaim Sonenlo. And Rabbi Chaim Sonenlo told us a story that—

Happened with Reb Chaim in his house. Reb Chaim used to go bein hazmanim, in middle of vacation, he used to go. By him, his vacation was to switch houses. By us, when we have vacation, you have to go. There's a place, a new place called Dubai today, that's what I hear. We have to go to Orlando. We have to go all over the place. By him, if Rabbi Olbaum knows what I mean, he went from Rechov Rashbam to Rechov Dvrei HaNavi'ah. It's going up Rashbam. The first street on the right is Divrei HaNavi'ah 22. So he used to have his key to go bein hazmanim, to go to his daughter's house to learn. Remember the story, Rafi? He used to come with his own key, and whenever he wanted to learn during the afternoon, that was his change of scenery. One Friday, he said Reb Chaim came home from the mikvah, and he changed his clothing, and he didn't have the key on him, or he took it out because of Shabbat, or he forgot to take the key with him. He wasn't sure what the reason was, but he ended up not having the key on him. He came over to the house, and he started knocking on the door. He saw that he didn't have the key. At least he's going to knock on the door. He knocks on the door, and nobody answers. Rav David said that he went to Yerushalayim for Shabbat. So he was knocking on the door. He locks the door. He knocked a few times, of course. People heard him knocking on the door. The neighbors started coming out. Reb Chaim Kanievsky sitting by the doors. They told him that he's not home for Shabbos. Reb Chaim goes back home, and he says he thought about it the whole Shabbos: why did he knock on the door and nobody responded? What was Hashem's message to him? Reb Chaim lived with this concept that if something happens to him, it can't be that it happened in passing. It has to be that Hashem is sending him a message. So he came—Reb Dovid came back Sunday to his house, and he says, if you remember Reb Chaim's house, he had the outside door, and then where he used to go is through the hallway, and then there was a study, right? The Rebbe was there. So he says, I closed the second door, and if somebody has to come and knock on my door, I won't hear him because the second door is closed. So from that time on, Reb Chaim never locked—never closed the second door in case a Yid is coming to him and needs him. He wanted to have his second door open, so he never, for 30 years after that, or 25 years, never locked the door. He only had the first door closed; the second door was always open. Why? That when a Yid needs a davar chizuk, a good word, he was always there to help him out. And guys, this wasn't what he did when he's a Rosh Yeshiva. When you're on top, to say that I'm going to encourage people, I have an ayin tovah on people, it's a little bit easier. But to do it when you're a young yeshiva bachur, and any single boy. People used to think that we were related when we were younger. We had a geshmake time together. He was very good in learning. He was in Rav Basha's shiur. He wasn't even by Rav Shlomo Feivel, he wasn't even the highest shiur then. I was—I'm one year, lhavdil bein chaim, one year younger than him. And I came into the yeshiva, he gave such warmth to every young bachur. His ayin tovah, his ayin tovah on encouraging people was just beyond comprehension when he was young. It doesn't happen that all of a sudden, when you come into the position of leadership, that you have an ayin tovah on people, that you could be mechazek people, you could give people encouragement. You have to live it your whole life. My last acquaintance was with him when, a few months before he passed away, there was a yid that was trying to open up a yeshiva in Great Neck, and I happened to be by the meeting. He saw me, and I'm telling you, without words, he just kept on going on shvach and praising and ayin tovah. It just beyond. He had an ayin tovah on Yidden. He had an ayin tovah. He saw everybody in a positive light.

And that's the way he was able to be mechazek, because every single Yid has a nitzotz of kedushah. In this week's parashah, we learned about a guy that was really a bad guy. A metzora was a motzi ra. He was talking negatively about people for years. Hashem doesn't give somebody a punishment that he has to be badad yeishev michutz lamachaneh moshavo. He doesn't give him such a punishment if he's not a bad guy. And he was a person that was talking bad about people, till Hashem said to him, You know, it's time that you got to be out of society. And when he was out of society, he did a lot of teshuvah. And the Torah says, you know what the Kohen does? Veyatza haKohen, and he has to go to him. And if you read the words of the Nefesh HaChaim, he says that when the tzaddik realizes that this person did teshuvah, and there's a nitzotz and there's a spark of kedushah, he has to go out to him, veyatza haKohen. Peirush, shetzarich lehatot et atzmo vilered mimadregato. The Kohen has to humble himself. And by him humbling himself, he goes over to the guy and he says, You know what? You messed up. You did something that was wrong. But still, I'm here for you, and I'm going to bring you closer. And he has to show that he cares about bringing the person closer. If he doesn't show that caring, that he really cares about the person, it's impossible to have that quality of leadership. Says, Ela, el michutz lamachaneh. What does that mean? El ha'adam ha-shafal hazeh, this low person, sheyatza chutz lamachanei haShechinah, even though he stumbled and he was out of society because of his bad doings. But still, the tzaddik, the Kohen, comes down and he says, You know what? I'm going to bring you closer. A person that was so mashpia on so many Yidden, all types of Yidden. Don't think that it was only when he came over here in Queens. His whole life, every single yeshiva bochur, every kid in his class, he was always the warmest guy in the yeshiva. I'm telling you, he had such a warmkeit, a natural warmkeit, that he was mekarev every single person from when he was—make a cheshbon—he must, he would be 56 or 57 now. So we're talking about 1983. Make the calculation. How old was he, 18 years old then? It started from when he was young. A person that has an ahavas Yisroel, an ayin tovah, could be mechazek people to different levels that it's impossible to fathom it today. We could do it in our own homes. We could do it to our own friends. Just give a guy a good word. It's not so hard. It doesn't cost any money. You don't have to be a millionaire. You don't have to be rich. Just like the Gemara says, Rabbi Yochanan, miyamai lo kadmani adam shalom. Nobody ever greeted me before I greeted him. I think it's Rabbi Walk. There was never a time that we met him, and we have met over the years, not in Queens, but in Lakewood, whether it was in Torah Temimah, whether it was in Lakewood, whether it was by meetings. Mi yamai lei kidmani yodim shalom. I couldn't even try to give the shalom that he gave to a person, and to every single person. To be mechazek another Yid. We're coming to the Leil HaSeder, which we know that by Leil HaSeder we appreciate every type of Jew. The whole Leil HaSeder is focused on the arba banim because it encompasses, that's the shoresh of all types of children that are on the thing, and we have to address every single person. So you know, when you're a Rosh Yeshiva, that's part of your job. But he did it not as a Rosh Yeshiva. That's why he became Rosh Yeshiva. He was always warm to every single type of person, whether he was the best learner, whether he was the troublemaker, whether he was just the guy loafing around. Those big smacks that he would give, he would give it when he was 18 years old also, no, with a big zetz, and he made you feel good. And you know how many bochurim, even forget about when he was older, so many bochurim, oh, he gave me a good word, encouraged me to learn. We all have that capability. Talk is cheap, yeah, talk is cheap. If you give a guy a good word.

A good morning. How are you? Thank you for coming. Thank you for being with me. I appreciate your company. Ayin tovah. Realize the kedushas Yisrael. One of the arba banim, everybody goes into that category. Give him a chizuk, give him a warm kai, and with that his neshama will live on always with us. He didn't pass away. If we live with his legacy of that ayin tovah and saying the good word about somebody, yehi zichro baruch, and he will live on for always. We have with us Rabbi Travis Schlita, who was a roommate of Rav Walkin zatzal many, many years ago. Rabbi Travis. Chazal tell us something very interesting. Gadol misas tzaddikim yoser mi'sreifas Beis Elokeinu. When a tzaddik is niftar, when a tzaddik leaves this world, it's greater to some extent than the burning of the Beis HaMikdash. And that's hard to understand because we've been mourning the Beis HaMikdash for almost 2,000 years. We sit on the floor on Tisha B'Av and we cry and we say kinos, and Baruch Hashem, we get together to commemorate the passing of Rav Aaron. But how many people are here? Thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred people watch it. But how can we say that the misa of a tzaddik is greater than the sreifas Beis Elokeinu when all of Klal Yisrael is mourning the Beis HaMikdash, but all of Klal Yisrael today is not mourning the tzaddik who was niftar? So I want to share with you a thought, and I think this will shed a little bit light on who Aharon really was. You know, I was zoche to be Aharon's roommate when we were 18. You know, that's many, many years ago. And when someone's very young, you can get a little bit of a feeling of their roots, of like what they're really all about, where they're going. You know, two great people could see, like at youth, where someone's really going. I think there's a diyuk here in what Chazal are saying, that gadol misa tzaddikim yoser misreifas Beis Elokeinu. When the Beis HaMikdash was burned, there was nothing left. It was empty. There was no kedushah in it. Chazal say it was like grinding up ground flour. It was gone. There was nothing there. It was just a building, right? So that's sreifas Beis Elokeinu. The neshama of a tzaddik, when the neshama of a tzaddik in this world, the Shechinah is in this world, right? And when the Shechinah is in this world, that's a very special experience, being connected to a tzaddik and a talmid chacham and somebody who has yiras Shamayim. You know, Aharon had many, many big, incredible middos, but we're zoche to hear from his brothers. His main middah was his connection to people, his concern. After we parted ways, we were parted ways for about 20, 30 years. We got back together. Every time I spoke to him, I felt like you were speaking to a real person. You were speaking to someone you were connected to, to a neshama. Somebody really cared about people, and that was really, really important. Really important how the other person feels and what's going on with that person. That's the real. Rav Shimon Shkop writes in Shaarei Yosher. Shaarei Yosher is an incredible sefer on lomdus. Whoever's a real lamdan has learned Shaarei Yosher, has at least heard about it, yeah? But at the hakdamah, he writes, What's a gadol? Who's a gadol? You know, the word gadol is thrown around a lot today. Gadol, gadol, everyone's a gadol. Who's a gadol? Yeah? So Rav Shimon Shkop says a gadol depends on how much connection he has with people. If he's just with himself, he's a katan. The more his sphere of influence increases, that's what makes him a gadol, yeah? And Aharon's sphere of influence was everybody. He cared about every single Jew, especially people who were not being so concerned about, yeah, community which didn't get the greatest attention from everyone. So that was Aharon's real—the fact you could connect to somebody on such a level. You know, I was thinking it's an incredible thing that the—I was at Rav Chaim's levayah, and—see, that's what happens—I was at Rav Chaim's levayah, and all of Klal Yisrael mourned Rav Chaim. But with all the mourning of Rav Chaim—I'm sorry—all the mourning of Rav Chaim, so as soon as he's...

This massive pigua in Bnei Brak, and Rav Chaim made a promise during the war. It's incredible. No missile will fall on Bnei Brak, and it held. No missile ever fell on Bnei Brak. How can you make such a promise? The only way you can make such a promise is an adam gadol meod. His Torah is megen. I remember when I was a bochur learning by— not a bochur, a young avreich— learning by Rav Sikushaleski. Yeah, it was the first pigua that happened in Yerushalayim. It was six o'clock in the morning at the central bus station. It woke up the entire yeshiva. Yeah, and Rav Sikushaleski got up that day and he said, It's our fault. Yeah, because Torah protects. Yeah, he brought a Medrash Chazal that Torah protects. Even there was someone killed once, a me'il within a certain Talmud chacham, and Eliyahu Navi came to him and said, There's a ta'ina on you. So Rav Chaim Kanievsky can protect the entire Bnei Brak so that not one person dies in Bnei Brak. And then as soon as he's niftar, people are niftar. People are passing away, right? But what can we take from such a thing? What can we take from someone who learned kol haTorah kula every year, right? I have to argue on Rav Aaron's brother. Rav Aaron's brother's name is what? What? Avram. Avram. I don't think that Aaron walked in 99.9% of the Torah. I don't think so. I don't believe that he did. I don't believe anybody—I don't believe Rav Chaim knew that. The Ramban writes the amount of Torah we know is like one drop in the sea, in the ocean, yeah? That's small. But if anybody knew kol haTorah kula in this generation, it was Rav Chaim. Yeah, it was Rav Chaim. But what are you supposed to do? We're going to be Rav Chaim? We're going to protect the whole city of Bnei Brak? The entire United States of America? No bomb will ever fall because there's one talmid chacham sitting in Queens. We can't make such statements, yeah? But there is something we could take from Rav Aaron's concern, from his love, from the way he treated people. We could take that, yeah? And I think this can answer up, and I'll finish with this point, yeah? We find when a tzaddik is niftar, like every day—I've been here for a week and a half—every day I think there was a pegiah in Eretz Yisrael, yeah? Rav Chaim left, the shemirah went away, yeah? But there's another side, is that sometimes when Hashem is going to bring a gezeirah on Klal Yisrael, He takes away a tzaddik, and that's a shemirah, right? Right when the COVID was starting, Rav Aaron was niftar. I was like, I couldn't believe it, you know? Rav Aaron walking is niftar? Like, ayeka, how could it be? Yeah? Hashem takes away a tzaddik, and that's a shemirah for Klal Yisrael. But how does that work exactly? How does it work if taking the tzaddik away— Is, is, is, is a— is pogea in the shmirah. So how could it be the opposite? That's a shmirah. And I'll finish with this. I spoke to Rav Olbaum about this today; he agreed with me, yeah. The shmirah is when we learn from what the tzaddik represented, from what he was all about, we take his middos. That's a shmirah for Klal Yisrael, because then his death didn't cause— it didn't lose anything. Ad rabba, gained from it. Rav Gershon Edelstein, I remember in Meiron, yeah, when 45 anashim chashuvim, or tzaddikim, were niftar there, yeah, and my son was there. Two o'clock in the morning I wake up and I hear that in Meiron there was this accident, yeah. But when Rav Gershon Edelstein was maspid these chashuv anashim, he said they didn't lose anything in their life, nothing. Why? Because since Klal Yisrael learned from what they stood for, yeah, that's Kiddush Hashem in the whole world, yeah. Rav Aaron Walkin was a Kiddush Hashem; his life was a Kiddush Hashem in the whole world, yeah. And the more we take from tonight, like his brother Avram said, the more we take tonight and we grow, that's marbeh the Kiddush Hashem of Rav Aaron Walkin, yeah. I remember as a 17-year-old bochur, he came up to me and he said, Rebbi Travis, I want you to know my great-grandfather, Rav Aaron Walkin, he was an incredible person. He wrote a sefer in jail on Bava Kama. Can you understand that? He didn't have one sefer, nothing, just his head. And he sat down, wrote an entire sefer iyun on Bava Kama. He says, And that's the derech that I want to go in life, yeah. I want to follow in that way. So I want you to write. We sat down, we wrote about a whole article that was published about his grandfather. But even at the age of 17, he had such chippas and such taivah and such chukah, yeah. If we could take from that, so then Aaron Walkin is not niftar; he's living on, and that's a shmirah for the entire Klal Yisrael, yeah. And believe me, we're in difficult times now, right? Look at what's going on in the world, because that'll tell us, if you see war going on, it's the footsteps of Mashiach. My rebbi, Rav Moshe Sternbach, told me, he said when the Russians go into Crimea, he has a kabbalah from the Gra, when they go in Crimea, yeah.

That's the Belz Mashiach, and when they go into his stambul, put on your Yom Tov clothing. Yeah, they've gone into the stambul already. Okay, for peace talks, yeah, but it's happening, it's in front of our eyes. Yeah, chevlei Mashiach is mamash in front of our eyes, and we have to wake up, because it's not just going to happen, right? Aharon is that one tzaddik who can wake us up, and we can learn from him. One of my rebbeis, Rav David Cohen, the Rosh Yeshiva in Chevron, he asked me a question. He asked me a question. He just bounced the question off me. Chazal say, what do you do to protect from Mashiach? What do you do? Anyone know? What do you do? Torah and gemilus chasadim. Oh, very good, but not just Torah and gemilus chasadim. Hisaskus. Hisaskus b'Torah. What's hisaskus? Rav David Cohen asked me, what's hisaskus? What's hisaskus? He said, hisaskus in Torah is learning straight 12 hours with your cell phone like this, you know, take it and, you know, throw it away. Yeah? You can't learn Torah with that piece of garbage, you know. Turn it off. Flush it down the toilet, right? That's hisaskus b'Torah, yeah? But what's hisaskus b'gemilus chasadim? How do you do hisaskus b'gemilus chasadim? What do you do, right? Hisaskus means all the time, without stopping. How can you do it all the time? Anyone have any answer to this question? It's a difficult question, no? Hisaskus. You know, a person's human. You have to stop. So said Rav David Cohen like this, and this mamash embodies who Aharon was. Yeah? He said, hisaskus b'gemilus chasadim means you're always concerned about people, all the time, like this list, this incredible story. He would learn and have—thank you—he would learn, and with a list of people in front of him. That's called hisaskus b'gemilus chasadim, because he's thinking about other people 24/7 without stopping. Yeah? All the time. That's called hisaskus b'gemilus chasadim, to be concerned about other people, right? And if we take that midah and we put it into our lives, that will protect us from chevlei Mashiach. We should all be zocheh to see Mashiach soon, b'karov mamash. B'nisan asidin liga'el, b'ezras Hashem, it should be this Nissan, amen, ken yehi ratzon. Yishar koach, Chaviv Shlita. Yishar koach for everyone, just to end off, Marav... We all know the Talmud Torah keneged kulam. The Rebbe would always encourage me, us, all of us, to continue to learn Torah. Torah, Torah, Torah. Remember, always learn Torah. So I have over here notes from a shiur of the Rebbe's atzal, and he said as follows: Ein Torah nikneit ela b'adam shememit atzmo, right? We all know. So the Rebbe brought down two pshats. The first one is from the Chofetz Chaim. What does it mean, Ein adam... Ein haTorah nikneit ela b'adam shememit atzmo? What does that mean? The Chofetz Chaim says, You're dead. No one can bother you. Like Rabbi Chaim used to say, Throw the phone away. Focus. When you're learning, you have to focus. Make believe you're dead. People call you, people reach out to you. How are you supposed to learn and grow? One of the last requests from the Rosh Yeshiva atzal was, I want you to finish all of Shas. I want you to learn Shas. Daf Yomi, a group of us at the time, right before his petirah, it was the new Daf Yomi cycle. We had over a hundred people that joined, whether it was the morning shiur, the night shiur, my shiur that we had, Baruch Hashem, that we took it on. And Baruch Hashem, you have to continue strong. Many people dropped. Many people felt it was too difficult. There was COVID, there was Pesach, there was a lot of other reasons they couldn't continue. But you have to continue. But the Rebbe's pshat was, You got to chap a rain. Catch and learn as much as possible, as much as you can. Chap, catch, catch, grab, grab more Torah. And that's what the Beit Midrash is all about. There was two tekufas. There was 20 or 30 years ago, whatever the number was, in all simcha that the Rosh Yeshiva was there with the older avreichim. Some of them you heard, Rabbi Rafael and Rabbi Ephraim and my older brother. And there was the new tekufah about seven years ago, more or less. I'm not perfect with the timing, that we started in conjunction with Chazak, the new Beit Midrash in Kollel, which was a newer generation of rabbanim. Most of the avreichim are rabbanim in communities today. But the ikar was, Morai v'rabotai, was to learn, to learn, to learn. And we need chizuk. We need everyone to come, be'ezrat Hashem, and to continue to learn over here in the Beit Midrash. And I want to thank his family once again for continuing the legacy, the sefarim that they're publishing. Lev Aharon, Lev Aharon sefarim. Currently they're in Hebrew, be'ezrat Hashem they're going to be in English as well. There's weekly publications. We're going to continue spreading the Torah, because Talmud Torah keneged kulam. That's the most important thing. And we need everyone to be ambassadors. This is not a one-man show. We need to build an army to spread more Torah. And that is the message for tonight, Morai v'rabotai. You heard a lot of messages, but my message to end off is to increase limud Torah. Torah, Torah, Torah. Talmud Torah. As much as possible, everybody should take it upon themselves, be'ezrat Hashem.

Bli neder, whatever you're learning currently, to take it up a notch. A little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. It's going to be hard right now with Pesach, with cleaning, with everything, and then the chagim, you're going away, you're staying. But purposely, because it's difficult, right? Because it's going to be hard, that's why we have to encourage ourselves to push ourselves to do more. Just like we're going to push ourselves above and beyond, HaKadosh Baruch Hu should push above and beyond, and give us the geulah shleimah, the final redemption, במהרה בימינו, אמן ואמן. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.