True Happiness: The Neshama’s Love of Torah

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. I was asked to address a topic that's very relevant in today's times, and that is happiness, the search of happiness. Everyone is searching to be happy, yet we find that people are very unhappy. And even people who are learning Torah and davening, and they're in the yeshivas, have difficulty in achieving happiness. People are searching for happiness, and because of that, they turn to vices to try to achieve that happiness. They try to look for things that will fulfill them and bring them that happiness. And then there are people who are busy reading up all these self-help books that are supposed to help them to bring and to achieve happiness, and it doesn't really do the job, and it doesn't work. What is it that's stopping the happiness? What is it that we're missing that because of this we're unhappy today? There's so much deep-seated unhappiness, and even people walk around. And they seem to be jolly. They go to sleep at night with pain in their hearts. And they're always looking, what is it that I could do that will bring me this happiness? And it is this problem that causes, unfortunately, for people to look for vices. Unfortunately, today, drugs. It's a big problem in today's society, in all communities and in all types of people. They're looking for the drug that will bring them the happiness, and it leaves the problem for a short period of time, but it doesn't really achieve ultimate happiness. I'm not a big psychologist, but certain truths that my heart knows and feels, and over the years, I've come to understand and to realize, and from my own experiences, and from within my neshama, from what brings me happiness and what helps me in times of unhappiness. And that is that I realized that a Yid, a Jew, the things that cause officially happiness in the world will not bring him happiness. The neshama of a Yid needs something completely different to bring him happiness, to uplift him, the neshama of a Yid. Needs Torah. Torah brings happiness. Torah gives the ruach and the neshama v'yid spiritual happiness, which nothing in this world could bring him that happiness. And he could look and search the whole world with all its tanugim, enjoyments. It's not going to bring him, because the neshama is looking for something completely different. Let me talk to you about the neshama. Let me talk to you about the Yiddishe heart. We all know that the ultimate is to learn Torah lishmah, to learn Torah for the sake of Torah. What does that mean, to learn Torah for the sake of Torah? Nefesh HaChaim, Reb Chaim Volozhin, speaks in great length. What does it mean to learn Torah lishmah, Torah for the sake of Torah itself? But there's a little less known writing from Reb Chaim Volozhin in his Sefer Ruach Chaim on the Mishnah of Kol ha-lomeid Torah lishmah. Reb Chaim Volozhin says, Kol ha-lomeid Torah...

Lishma. What does lishma mean? L'shem ahavas haTorah. Love of Torah. Love of Torah. The neshama of a Yid loves, loves. It loves HaKadosh Baruch Hu. It loves Torah. Yes, it loves Klal Yisrael, every Jew in Klal Yisrael. And without it, the neshama is starving for that love. It's missing something, and there is nothing that you could give it that it will bring out that sipuk, that enjoyment, that satisfaction that the neshama is looking for. I've thought a lot about this. Torah and the neshama of a Yid. I'd like to share with you a story, just that brings out what it means ahavas haTorah, the love that every Yid has, the internal love that every Yid has for Torah. The Klausenberger Rebbe, zicher tzaddik v'kadosh livracha, went through the concentration camps. We have many stories that today we read and see of different tzaddikim who lived through the most harshest of conditions, the most torturous of conditions, and what gave them their koach to survive, what gave them the power to be able to withstand, to live the day, and to walk away. Unscarred, in a way that they were able to rebuild, in a way that they were able to continue living, regardless of all their loss that they lost, and all the torture, and all the pain, and all the horror that they saw. These are stories of Torah avodah that went on in the concentration camps. Rebbi, many a story is said about him. There's one in particular which speaks to my heart, speaks to my neshama. Choyzimeger Rebbe, in the concentration camp, the Chassidim around him arranged that he shouldn't have to do labor on Yom Tovim and Shabbos. They used to have to work. Shabbos and Yontif, they arranged it, they took care of it. One particular Simchas Torah day, they found out that whoever wasn't going to work was going to be put to death. They had the quota, the list. So they didn't set up that the Rebbe shouldn't go work, because they wanted him to go work, and like this he wouldn't be killed. They came and they told the Rebbe, Okay, you gotta go work. The Rebbe said, Today is Simchas Torah, I can't go work. It's Yontif. He didn't know that they didn't arrange his, that he shouldn't have to work that day. They took him and they beat him mercilessly. They beat him. They tortured him. The Chassidim weren't sure if they did the right thing. They figured they meant well, but look, look, he might not survive the beating. And the punishment for not working. They waited quietly to see, and the Rebbe survived the torture, but barely. And they brought him back to the barracks, and they laid him down on the bed, and he was completely shattered, completely beaten and broken. They thought he would never recuperate; he would just lay there and pass away. An hour or two later, the Rebbe, with all his koiches, got up, and he began to dance around the chair. It's Simchas Torah. With what did he dance? He took out from his pocket. He had a piece of paper, a photocopy of a few Mishnayos that he photocopied, that he carried with him so he could learn. He took that piece of paper and he held it near his heart, and he danced around the chair, Simchas HaTorah, happy with the Torah. How does a Jew in such conditions happy? How? How could he be happy? How could he dance? And the answer is Torah, Simchas HaTorah. Explain it I can't, but I know it is a...

This is what brings a Jew ultimate happiness. Where does this love come from? This unconditional love for Torah that brings such happiness to the neshama. I believe, rabosai, it was instituted, incorporated, so to speak, in the neshama of a Yid by Kabbalas HaTorah. When HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave Klal Yisrael the Torah, it says, kafa aleihem har k'gigis. The Ribono Shel Olam took the mountain and He put it over our heads, and He forced us to accept the Torah. If you accept, good, and if not, kafa aleihem har k'gigis, I will drop it and sham tehei kevuraschem. This is Kabbalas HaTorah, a forced Kabbalas HaTorah. We happen to learn, we happen to learn from kafa aleihem har k'gigis chuppah, that just like the mountain, it hovered over the head, so the marriage also, chuppah, but it was forced. So how do we learn a marriage from a matan Torah that it was forced? Marriages can't be forced. That's a marriage? That's how we accepted the Torah? Says the Maharal, it wasn't forced, what we think forced. It was forced from love. Hashem put so much love of Torah into our hearts that we were forced to say yes. There's no greater force than the force of love. ושכני אחריך נרוצה. Shem drew us close, and we had to run after the Torah because our neshama was attached with so much love to the Torah. Nafshi yatza b'dabroi. It says that when Hashem gave us the Torah, and He said, Anochi Hashem, our neshamos flew out. We died. We passed away, and Hashem had to revive us. There was a lesson in this, that a Yid, his neshama — Yiddish expression, geit ois far Torah — he can't live without the Torah. Nafshi yatza b'dabroi. And what's mechayeh him, what brings him back life? By Matan Torah, the Torah itself. Searching for happiness, it's in the Torah, rabboisai. Mesameach lev. It's mesameach the heart. All the books that bring you ideas and solutions for happiness, not going to work for the Jew, whose real happiness and his only happiness and his true happiness is to learn Torah. It's ingrained in our neshamos as a Yid. This, I believe, in my humble opinion, is the correct and the only solution to fight unhappiness and to avoid addictions, because our true addiction, if we compensate it, is the addiction of Torah, that every neshama is addicted to Toras Hashem. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.