Toldos: Why the Imahos Were Akaros—How Tefillah Builds Closeness to Hashem

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. Ginz, for the tefillah, davening of Yitzchak and Rivka to have a child. For ten years they didn't have children. In the beginning of the parashah is mashma here, they really put the avodah to get children, started to daven stark, and the Ribono Shel Olam grants them their tefillah. Chazal point out that all the imahos were akaros, all the imahos. It's not only Rivka, but Sarah, Yitzchak, Rivka, Rachel, and a whole list, sheva, seven of them. The pesikta brings down the seven of the founding mothers of Klal Yisrael were all akaros. Why? Why are all the mothers of Klal Yisrael akaros, not to have a child is a tremendous yissurim, a tremendous tzaar. So there's an interesting Medrash Shir HaShirim. I'm sure you're waiting for me to tell you the famous Chazal, ... ShaKadosh Baruch Hu mis'aveh l'tefilasan shel tzaddikim. But I want to first tell you that that's not what the Medrash Shir HaShirim says. The Medrash Shir HaShirim says, Shelo yomru umos ha'olam. The umos ha'olam shouldn't say that it was our bracha that brought children to Klal Yisroel, that Klal Yisroel was produced, Klal Yisroel came about through one of the bracha. What's the bracha? Don't forget, Lavan gives a bracha, Achoseinu ati l'alfei revavah, veyirash zar'ech es sha'ar oyvav. Meiredike bracha. In order that the goyim shouldn't claim that it has to do with their bracha, so the Ribono Shel Olam shows, take a look, there's no children. You'll have to daven for it, and when they daven, they get. Kipshuto, I always understood that the pshat is that the goyim shouldn't feel that it's theirs. They take credit. You never know, one day they'll take credit for Klal Yisroel. You know, it's always the derech ha'olam. You do and the other person says it's all him. Maybe it's a chisaron that the Eibishter ki'ilu אפס, they'll take away from the Eibishter that the Eibishter made a Klal Yisroel. It has something to do with the fact that we don't want the goyim to think it's them. That's the kipshuto, yeah? Over the years, I've come to understand the deeper this inyan, and I believe there's a different pshat in the Chazal. What do Chazal mean that the umos ha'olam shouldn't take credit? ... It's their bracha. I mean, what's the ...? The yetzer hara, we kick the bracha, so what the Rebbe thinks that what? That it's not your child, it's his child. ... What's the issue here? What is the ... issue? ... The goyim ... they shouldn't think that it was their bracha that did it. Why? Why is that the issue? So, rabosai, I'd like to explain it as follows. We know the Gemara in Yevamos. The Gemara tells us that the reason why the imahos were akaros was because HaKadosh Baruch Hu mis'aveh l'tefilasan shel tzaddikim. Bothered me all my life, this question. Since I was a little boy. Since I remember my rebbe teaching me, I asked even in class this question: Rebbe, I don't understand. If the Ribono Shel Olam likes tefillos, what, no ... can the Ribono Shel Olam get as a means of davening? There's so many things a person could daven for. It has to be דווקא ...? It could be life, nisyonos, problems, tzaros, cholim, ... poof, dust. HaKadosh Baruch Hu mis'aveh l'tefilasan shel tzaddikim. So over the years, ... I always ... halachic ...

B'tchach nefeshes, a raya to the Sefer Chassidim. Sefer Chassidim, velt gebracht that a person is not allowed to daven to change the nature of the world. Teva is teva, and the Ribono Shel Olam answered azoi vet zayn, chutz, besides, for children. When it comes to children, there you could daven, and even an akarah, lo yolda, she was an ailonis, she didn't even have a rechem, and you could daven for children. Not dos meg. Aber gufa darf men farshtehn: favos? Favos takke is the pshat? Why is it that for everything else, ... the Ribono Shel Olam will. Punkt doh, by children, by akaros, dort meg men iberkeren the velt. It's an expression in Yiddish, iberkeren the velt, turn the world upside down to have children. Tefillah, davening, davening, davening. Vos takke pshat? Takke shtikle ah. You're right. The question is why does the Ribono Shel Olam need to give akaros, and the teretz is tefillah. Question: kesht davenen far andere zaken, the Ribono Shel Olam could give you other opportunities, nisyonos, that you need to daven for. And the teretz is Sefer Chassidim, to change the teva, which is a discussion for itself, a whole shailah: do we pasken like the Sefer Chassidim? It comes out that technically you can't daven for a nes. We'll talk about it a different time. There's a big discussion on the sefer Chassidim. But ha'ploni must daven al pshat Chadesai, that when it comes to the children, Megmin davening, fashimi hateva. Because alein, this itself needs to be explained. Right before the shiur, I found the pshat from the Divrei Yoel. A kasha I've had all my life, and I found the tesak meRav, and I guess it must be in Yoschus Chadesai, because I got to learn Divrei Yoel a lot. Never came across this. It was one piece after... It's a parshas Vayeishev... page reish mem. I’m flipping through the pages and I come and I say, mamash, the kasha. It's within a piece, a lange shtikel, at the end, on the bottom. The Eibishter wants me to say it over, so I found it. Reb Shlomo Shadron used to say, ... Kol shekein. ... So, ... l'choira the Ribono Shel Olam could give other things that the person could go and daven for, other problems, other nisyonos. Why is it dafka ka'as that the Ribono Shel Olam gives? Because he's misabel tefilosan shel tzaddikim, says the Satmar Rav, because a tzaddik, anything the Ribono Shel Olam sends him comes for the tovah. He says he bows his head, he's mekabel it. ... But when it comes to children... Taftecha b'kindes, the chamitzven, das, tachtov, tafkid and tachlis maymed zayn a Klal Yisrael. The chamitzve davnen. Rebbe, how far are we from tzaddikim? How far are we from the way they accept yadre? Irebbe can zogen, Rebbe shik shlaklich zachin, vos der Eibershter vil, mekabel b'ahavah, vos. Yadre. Avedas. Nit hobin kinder, az dos vet a tzaddik davnen, valeh, chamuz hobin, memuz, purvu, Klal Yisrael, boyin, tafkid habriyah, tachlis, l'soivra l'Shem v'syischares, tachtov, tafkid fun der briyah. Maybe gufa dos meit the sefer chassidim. He doesn't bring the sefer chassidim, but maybe that's all the same shmues. Hey, hey! Az der pshat is, yeh, that because this is a mitzvah, az ich muz hobin kinder, meileh dem megich beter, afilu misharas einam teva. Nefesh, nefesh. It's all b'derech hefshah. I want to say a mahalach, chaveirim. I want to share with you a beautiful derech, a beautiful, beautiful derech. There's an interesting tanna d'bei Eliyahu.

You know, I always understood the Chazal that the Ribono Shel Olam vil a tefillah. The mechaven. You know, in lashon kodesh we use the word mechuvan. Mechuvan means the tachlis, the point that it's there for, is the tefillah. Yeah? That's how you would learn, HaKadosh Baruch Hu mis'aveh li'tefilos shel tzaddikim. I want to tell you about Tana d'Bei Eliyahu. In Tana d'Bei Eliyahu it states, as the Ribono Shel... as a man shetzaddikim... Eliyahu HaNavi. V'fregt em, far vos macht der Ribono Shel Olam zolshomim kikinder? Why should there be such a thing? Far vos zol zayn aza zach in the briyah, a Yid that tut a mitzvahs, why should he suffer not to have children? Answers him Eliyahu HaNavi, ShaKadosh Baruch Hu ohev es Yisrael v'sameach bahem. Ribono Shel Olam is happy with them. Therefore, rotzeh l'tzarfan. He wants to cleanse them. Yiddishkeit menutzin in the lashon oisputzin, l'tzarfan. It's like when you make a kli, you polish it, k'dei sheyispallu al bneihem, that they should daven for children. Fregt em, tzurik dem mensch, nechteser? Afilu hetchegeret nechteser. Today everything you say to a guy in yeshiva, not nechteser. How do you know? Efsher vail der mensch iz a baal aveirah mit a dos, mit a... a pekel of aveiros caused... That he shouldn't have children. Zogt him, Tanah d'bei Eliyahu, Eliyahu Navi zogt him, biz niskarech. So nit azoi. It's vadai the Ribono Shel Olam metzaref k'dei sheyispalel. Klum, Tosafos and Tanna d'bei Eliyahu are me'ir a chiddush chadash. It's not that the Ribono Shel Olam wants the tefillah. The Ribono Shel Olam wants to cleanse the person, the yissurim, k'dei sheyispalel alav. That's not pshat. Ich hab baalimulefashtanen az der pshat is the Ribono Shel Olam vil der tefillah. All of a sudden you see that a loshon is mashma from the Tanna d'bei Eliyahu, az the Ribono Shel Olam vil tziruf, wants to give the person — the person should become oysgetaygn. So far an a pesha. A heilige mensch, al yissurim, al yissurim. So we're saying if the person was the ultimate already, then they would daven for children? But the Ribono Shel Olam is mechuvan. The point was that the person, as a person who is in hakarah, means she's a baalas yissurim. She grows from it. She shtaigt from it. Maybe he spoke the same thing. I'll tell you maybe, maybe not. I would rather think — okay, so I'll tell you where. If you think I come to say a shiur on diyuk with one diyuk, I have where to back myself up. You ready? I'm going to read to you a Malbim, a Malbim hafla vefeleh. Not only the yesod— Language of the Malbim. Zogt der heilige Malbim, okay? Haleidah bifnei adam sheyoled minoi shetoyleh bateva. It's nature. Like a fruit gives off fruit, a human being is to give off children. It's teva. Vachai l'hashir minoi. This is the way the creation was created, it should continue. Ulam sheyolid segulah. What kind of teva? A Yid is nit stam a kind. A Yid is a Yid. To be molid a segulah, something special. V'sheyetzei pri nivchar kodesh hilulim. Heilige frucht hu neged hateva. That's not teva anymore. I shake when I read this. Der hashgachah vos ligt in dem malchus, haflah, fella. Farshtein Yiddishkeit. You think when it's geboren a kind, az a kiddush, you did me better? You think it's just a kid?

You're giving birth to a kodesh ilulim, a fruit which is kodesh, hu neged hateva, v'tzarich l'zeh eizer Eloki. Need the Ribono Shel Olam for that. V'al kein hayah b'neseinu hakares, k'dei sheyeitzei min haklipah pri kodesh. They had to be on a higher madreigah than yemois; you don't just give us children like that, they say. Ulchenes me'atzmah, she had to prepare herself, al yedei hakoach haEloki, till she's able to give birth to such a child. Shezeh yesod al yedei hatefilah, and that comes through the tefilah, l'hatzil neshamah kedoshah, to radiate with a neshamah kedoshah, bas Elokim, to become like the daughter of the Eibishter, a bas Elokim, asher taas Chayil. Therefore she can bring forth such an offspring. ... You know what? ... Tefilos go with ... What's this? ... Zot demalbin Yitzchak, ... Yitzchak didn't have the problem. Who had the problem? Rivkah. ... Why? Because he went to the akeidah system. So he was already kodesh, that he can give off children which are kodesh. ... V'gam sheYitzchak kvar hayah muchan l'zeh me'eis haAkeidah. But Rivka, she came from a home and she didn't have all this. הויאסה מוכנת לזה, ועל זה אמר כי עקרה היא. That's why she's an akarah. Here at Beisai. The Tana d'Bei Eliyahu was fataitchi. Afenacht. Afenacht. For some reason, it gets overlooked. Heile geredt from the Malbim, here at Beisai. In order to have a Yankev Avinu, it needed that it should come giboyt, giboyt of yesoidus. And the yesoidus are that the mamer gedaven and gedaven and gedaven. These are the yesoidus. Which parsha is that in? It's right here, ... this week's parsha, right here, right here. The lashon bas. Tefillah. What is tefillah, Beisai? What does tefillah do for us? So there's a me'iri and the Ran, and the Ran says that the kirva, the kesher, the relationship that a person has through tefillah is nothing compared to anything else. Says up the Ran in the drashos, and Rivka achieved this through her tefillah. The hiskarvus was so strong through the tefillah. I think that's what the Malbim is meaning, bas elokim. The person has to be like a bas. You know, there's an interesting lashon of the Chazal. The Gemara in Yevamos tells us that the Ribono Shel Olam is mis'aveh l'tefillosan. You know what the lashon of the Medrash is? L'tefillosan v'sichasan. Shel haimais. Lalefchegit, vos meint v'sichasan? What does it mean, filosan v'sichasan? You know what I think the pshat is, my beisai? Just to bring it down in layman's terms. My daughter comes home every day, and she goes on and on about what happened in school. Not really I get to help her with it, and not really it's nogea to me, but a tachtah. That's the relationship she has with her father, that she comes home and ziret, and ziret, and ziret. That's what it is. The hiskarvus through the tefillah has to be such that she becomes basa l'kin. The hiskarvus is such an hiskarvus that it's not just she davens to the Eibishter. It's sichah. Aziret to the Eibishter. It's not only just a davening. It's a non-shaft that she davens, tefilasan v'sichasan, because it's about hiskarvus. I'll tell you where I got this from, my beisai. If you take a look, it says by Avraham Avinu, Vayiftach misham ha'anashim, vayelchu zdaimah, v'Avraham odenu omeid lifnei Hashem. So he's binevuah with the Eibishter, shteit in...

Vayigash Avraham vayomar. What mean vayigash? What's vayigash? He's talking to the Eibishter. Where's vayigash? Where is he? Zogt Chassidus, vayigash is loshon of tefillah. Zagt Reb Shteinman, shlita, Reb Shlomo Marichas yamim v'shanim, levuel, but it's still not vayigash like tefillah. Not as close. You could sit and talk to the Eibishter, levuel. He goes closer. Vayigash. Vayigash, he goes closer. I want to tell you an interesting thing. It states in pasuk in Yeshaya, we say Chazon Yeshayahu, that Yerushalayim was ki ishah akarah lo yaldah. What does that mean? Yerushalayim was like—what does it—so pashut it means the tzaar, or she misses her children, v'shavu banim me'eretz oyev. The people of Yerushalayim are considered the children of Yerushalayim. I'll tell you deeper, rabosai. I once found this in the Gaon. Ishah akarah asher lo yaldah. You know what an ishah akarah? V'boitzach. How does a woman become an isha that is able to have children? Through tefillah. Through davening. Ishah akarah asher lo yaldah, that how does she rebuild herself? Only through the koach of tefillah. Just like that akarah, there's an inyan of that akarah to be miskarev to the Eibishter, zu zechus boi. Safter Goyen, v'boit min Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim boitzach, with the tefillah, with the kirvah that you feel to the Eibishter in Yerushalayim. And I'll tell you over a meirdike zach. The Chasam Sofer says, we say every day in Bentching, Uv'nei Yerushalayim ir hakodesh, but boneh Yerushalayim. Wait a second. Uv'nei means you should build. What does boneh mean? Hoveh, that He is building. So maybe it all means is boneh, the one that will. It's not the verb, it's the noun. That's the pashut pshat in the bracha. Uv'nei Yerushalayim, and then you have something called boneh. The Eibishter is the boneh. The Chasam Sofer, boneh d'Rabbeinu Shel Olam is constantly building Yerushalayim. Rabbeinu Shel Olam is constantly building Yerushalayim. How is He building Yerushalayim? When a person davens for Yerushalayim, and a person misses Yerushalayim, and a person remembers Yerushalayim, and a person feels the kirvah to Yerushalayim, boitzach Yerushalayim. And ases up in Chasam Sofer. Boneh Yerushalayim means that the Rabbeinu Shel Olam builds, k'sayd Yerushalayim. The Beis Hamikdash is going to come, says the Chasam Sofer, ready-made. What happens to the mitzvah of binyan Yerushalayim, of binyan Beis Hamikdash, the mitzvah, no? What do you do with that mitzvah? I יש take a club. Lasid lavo, none of the mitzvos will become batel. So where's the binyan? So the Maharil Diskin asks this first kasha. The Maharil Diskin, here's the kasha that they say. You have, neh Yerushalayim, right? Borei Yerushalayim is going to build Yerushalayim according to Rashi; it's going to come down all peared. Beis Hamikdash will come down all done. Ay, what do you do with the mitzvah of binyan Yerushalayim? Wait. Zogt the Maharil Diskin, ... bivniyanoi, ... b'sikunoi. There's going to be one more thing that we have to fix. They'll leave, like you ever see, like the mezuzah, where you build the whole thing and then you come to the last thing, you got to like the mezuzah. He says that the doors are going to be left unfinished. ... b'sikunoi. That's what he says. Because otherwise, where is going to be the mitzvah of binyan, which is a chiddush, chayav for the last thing to fix, and that's the binyan. Says the ... sefer, ... im ein ... ... mimdas ... ... Yerushalayim ... haKodesh, azoi boitzacht Yerushalayim azoi boitzacht the Beis Hamikdash.

Sometimes you'll call that a binyan. The chiddush is that it's shayach through tefillah to make binyan. All right. But this you see the yesod, that just like Yerushalayim is k'isha hakarah, lo yaladah, yeah. What is the pasuk trying to say? The pasuk is trying to say, azevid ishah akarah. To Rabbeinu shel olam, and it's a tziruf. It's a way of becoming pure. It's a way of becoming muchan to have such a thing. The ishah akarah has to build herself, has to build herself, that she should be bas Elokim, bas Elokim, and mitoch that from the Eibishter that she should be able to have such a child. I want to end with a maaseh. It's a story that, to me, it changed my life, literally changed my life. My shadchan was a Yid called Reb Yaakov Tolidano, zecher tzaddik livrachah. He was the Rosh Yeshiva in France, Paris. He was the Rosh Yeshiva. He had the yeshiva. He was a talmid of Rav Shach. He later was the rosh kollel in the Gateshead kollel, a gadol baTorah, and even more, b'ir. His yiras Shamayim was something unbelievable. His tefillah, mamash k'eved k'hamischanen lifnei rabo, it was something to watch. He was a personality dynamite. His speaking, his being able to be made for Torah, an aristocrat. He never got a disease which made him deteriorate completely. Little by little, he deteriorated till he died. He was a young man; he wasn't an older person. So I went to visit him when I went to France to my in-laws. I said, I'm going to go visit him. I come there, and they had to feed him the coffee. They were giving him to sip the coffee. I couldn't see it. It was something to see. Al hay shufra d'bala ba'ara. I couldn't understand. How does such beauty turn into... He looks at me, voice veinsta, speaking Yiddish, voice veinsta. He said, I can't see it. Al hay shufra d'bala... I can't see it. He says, Her oyf veynen. Stop crying, he tells me. He says to me, Let me tell you. My sister. Now don't forget, because the father was Rav Boruch, Rav Boruch... from the greatest gedolim. He wrote a Kitzur Shulchan Aruch for the Moroccan Jews, the Kitzur of Tolidano. It's a famous sefer. They were Moroccan dayanim gedolim, but unfortunately there was a lot of haskalah. So the boys were sent to England to learn in the yeshivas. The girls that stayed back in Morocco, a lot of them went off the derech. They were saved because they went to Gateshead. They learned by Rav Schneider. He learned in Gates of Yeshiva. So his sister went off the derech, and his sister came to visit, and this is what he tells me. And she asks me, Su Torah v'zu secharah? How's I answered her? She didn't understand what I told her. You, as a ben Torah, will understand what I answered. This hiskarvus that I felt through my machshavah, through the tefillah that I davened for my machshavah, is something which I could have never felt, hiskarvus to the Borei Olam, in any other way, in any other situation. To the point, I thanked the Eibishter that it happened. She was to me, 'Herovein,' and she tells me, 'Stop crying.' I realized there's a deeper thing here. We think that the nisyonos and the tefillah and the Ribono Shel Olam is punkt farkert, is baitzach, is baitzach, and through the tefillah ווערט די hiskarvus. And that's what the Ran is saying, that the kirvah through the tefillah is so strong that only through that she's able to have—why? Because of the ... כלל ישראל.

Mit af kenen boinen a klal Yisroel is nisht stam a kind. Meileh, the Ribono Shel Olam makes hakaras. It's not the HaKadosh Baruch Hu mesavel l'tefilosam. It's mesavel l'tefilosan shel tzaddik. It's not the tefillah; it's the shafing dem tzaddik. And through the tefillah, as the Malbim says, you become the tzaddik. You become the tzaddik. Yitzchok went through the Akeidah, so Yitzchok was a korban, so he was ra'ui. Rivka had to go through this, and that's why she was zocheh to have the children that she had. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.