Shavuos: Ahavas HaTorah, Staying Awake in Anticipation, and Learning Lishmah

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. The Yom Tov of Shavuos, which of course is the day that we celebrate Kabbalas HaTorah, the day that we, as a Klal Yisrael, as an Am Yisrael, we choigig, we celebrate Kabbalas HaTorah. And so the day is set aside for a lot of Torah learning. Many have a custom to stay up all night to learn. The reason for staying up, brought in the Magen Avraham, we stay up and we learn to be mesaken that originally, when we went to Kabbalas HaTorah, we overslept. He brings from the Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer that Klal Yisrael overslept, and because they overslept, they came late to Kabbalas HaTorah. It is for that reason that we stay up all night, anticipation, stay up all night, anticipation for Kabbalas HaTorah. Now, l'choira, if you want to be mesaken the fact that they overslept, so they should have done something different. They should have made a minhag, a custom, that you go to sleep and you wake up earlier. You want to be mesaken the fact— That you slept and woke up late, so mi'mesaken to sleep and to wake up early. That's l'choira the right formula, teshuvah for the so-called chet. If someone went to sleep and he overslept, so the tikkun should be to go to sleep and maybe wake up an hour early, to show that, fakert, I'm coming early. Why do we not sleep at all? What's the minhag to not sleep at all, entirely? Fakert. It's much harder to go to sleep and wake up. To stay up all night is a p'sniziyah zach, much easier. So al teshuvah, we should have been mesaken a minhag that we should go to sleep and wake up an hour early. I think to myself that could be, could be, that there's a kavanah that we bedavka don't sleep. Here's hakutte kasha: you want to fix the fact that you overslept an hour, so you know what? Pay back that hour. You want with a little kefel, all right, with a little interest, an hour and twenty minutes, all right? Remember, my zeide zichrono livracha once asked my brother, as a little boy, they say over from the Chofetz Chaim that when a person is goizel sheinah, when he steals sleep, there's no tikkun for it. There's nothing you could do to be mesaken. How are you gonna fix? How are you gonna pay back? You stole a guy—suppose you steal a guy's money, you can pay him back with money. But if you steal a guy's sleep, how are you gonna pay him back? So my brother said, Zeide, I don't understand. I have a way how you can pay him back. For example, let's say you took sleep from your parents, right? They were supposed to sleep Shabbos afternoon. They were supposed to sleep Shabbos afternoon, and you took away their sleep. Now you pay them back. You tell them, Motzaei Shabbos, go to sleep, and I'll do the dishes. Like this, you pay them back the hour. I remember my zeide, he smiled. He saw the wisdom in the question. The point is, you want to pay back for oversleeping, so take away an hour. Just like my brother's chidush was that if you want to pay back a lost hour, here too you want to take and pay back an extra hour, so take away an hour. Why were they misaken that we should stay up all night? Mildachtach, that they actually went to the root of the problem. What was the chisaron that they came late? It wasn't the coming late. The question was, how could you even go to sleep?

Anticipation. How many times does a person say the night before his wedding, he couldn't sleep all night. Why? He was so excited. The taina wasn't that you went to sleep and woke up late. The taina, how can you even go to sleep in the first place? Now, the truth is, Baalei Mussar speak that by Avraham Avinu, we find that he went to the akeidah, vayashkeim, he woke up early. Baalei Mussar say the chiddush is not that he woke up early, that he even went to sleep. The gadlus of Avraham Avinu was that he went to sleep. To go to sleep the night before the akeidah, and the answer is, if you have to go to sleep, you go to sleep. That's what Baalei Mussar bring out from Avraham Avinu. Good, but maybe Avraham Avinu was capable of that. But a regular, hamon am, Klal Yisrael, you should have been able to sleep. You should have been able. You should have been so excited and so, what's the word, nisragesh, that you shouldn't have been able to sleep, and that you slept and you overslept. So how do we misaken that? By not sleeping at all, to show anticipation. This gives me a yesod in Shavuos. Shavuos, we're supposed to express our love and anticipation for Torah. We're supposed to express to the Ribono Shel Olam our excitement. Our inner hergeshim, that mamish we can't wait. Nafshi choshka. Just like when a person gets married, he can't, he can't, can't wait. It's the excitement, right? The excitement. Torah was a chasunah. Klal Yisrael, by Matan Har Sinai, like they got married to the Eibishter. The Torah is the kesubah. Many have a minhag, a custom, that they read a kesubah, k'ilu there's a kesubah between the Ribono Shel Olam and Klal Yisrael. It's important to show and to express the excitement, the cheshek that we had. And that's a chelek of the Yom Tov. And that's where the minhag of staying up all night to show cheshek haTorah. It's not just enough that we learn the Torah, but we have to show our anticipation, our cheshek. What is cheshek haTorah? What is it? What's this cheshek haTorah? You know, there's a yesod in Torah called Torah lishmah. The Mishnah in perek Avos, in the last perek, emphasizes the importance of learning Torah lishmah. Rabbi Meir omer, kol ha'osek baTorah lishmah, zocheh li'dvarim harbeh. Aval lo... kol ha'olam kulo kedai hu lo. Tremendous. Torah lishmah, okay? Anyone who learns Torah lishmah gets everything good, this world, next world. Unbelievable. What's Torah lishma? What does it mean? Torah lishma is a sugya, complex. It's a sugya which many different opinions were given to explain what Torah lishma is, and I'd like to go through it a little bit, and then to see how it applies to us, and then how, if it does apply to us, in what level, and how can we achieve that goal of learning Torah lishma. As I explained to you, Shavuos, we're trying to not only just learn and celebrate Kabbalas HaTorah in commemoration of the fact that we accepted the Torah, but it's also about stressing. It's also about expressing the love, the cheshek, the ahavah that we have for Torah. You know, we say hakdamos before we read the Torah Shavuos morning. Hakdamos are words of beauty and praise, thanking the Eibishter for creation and Torah. It's such words of eloquence, of love, and expressing of feelings.

And like I say, because Shavuos was supposed to express our hergeshim, our feelings, our love, our cheshek, our ahavah for the Torah. What is Torah with cheshek? What is Torah with ahavah? What is it all? Torah lishmah. What is Torah lishmah? So there's an interesting Rosh that becomes the starting point of this sugya, this issue. Rosh is on a Gemara in Nedarim, daf samech beis. The Gemara says, Asei devarim, Reb Lezber Tzadik omer, asei devarim l'shem pei'alam. When you do, you do for the Creator, for the Ribono Shel Olam. V'daber bahem, Torah, you have to speak lishmah, which is lishmah, which is this Remeir, Torah lishmah. Says the Rosh, what does that mean, lishmah? So the Rosh: Kol diburecha u'maasecha b'divrei Torah yihyeh l'shem haTorah. Ah, lishmah means l'shem haTorah. Kegon, leida, l'havin, l'hosif, lekach u'pilpul, more learning, more understanding, more Torah, v'lo l'kanter u'l'hisga'yes, but not to make yourself big or to fight with others, to give yourself power. So Torah lishmah is for the sake of Torah and not for the sake of kavod and power. There's a lot in this Rosh, hapei say. Some want to say Torah lishmah means l'shem Hashem. What does the word lishma mean? Lishma, whose name? Whose name? You know, there was a joke that they used to say in the yeshivas, that people who learn Torah lishma, it's her name, to get a good shidduch. The guy's the best guy in yeshiva, so he gets the good lists of names, lishma. Zei flegt m'zogen a vitzel, a joke in the yeshiva velt. This guy, he learns Torah lishma. But what does lishma mean? Whose name? Lishma, her name, the kallah, the shidduch. This is a big issue. Who is the lishma? Darizal learns lishma means l'shem Hashem, the name of Hashem, Ribono Shel Olam. It is because of this that the Reb Chaim Volozhiner wrote his sefer Nefesh HaChaim to vehemently disagree with the kavanah of l'shem Hashem. It doesn't mean for the Eibishter. When you learn Torah, you're not learning l'shem Hashem. Now what does that really mean, l'shem Hashem? That's also not so clear. But we could say either it means one of two things. Either it means l'shem Hashem, l'shem hamitzvah. L'shem Hashem could mean either l'shem to get close to the Eibishter, or l'shem Hashem because the Eibishter wants it; it's for His sake. There's three ways to learn lishma meaning lishma the Eibishter. Again, rabosai, let me tell you, let me tell you, this is yesodei haYahdus, rabosai. L'reatach yesaidim, yesaidei hayesoidos. Every Yid must listen to this shiur. You have to. This is what the base of Yiddishkeit and Torah is all about. I'm just bringing it out in the context of Cheshvuos, where it's the Yontif which is designated for celebrating Torah. So dafka visimas Torah is, you have to know what it is. You got to know what Torah is that we're celebrating. So I'm telling you, it's not enough to celebrate the Kabbalas haTorah, that we accepted. It's not enough to celebrate that we learned Torah. But part of it is to celebrate ahavas haTorah. Shavuos is designated for Torah, not just Kabbalas haTorah and not just limud haTorah, but to express the love, the cheshek, the ahavah that a Yid has for Torah. And that's why hakdamas is the piyut that is said before we read the Torah, beautifully and eloquently expressing unzer hergesh, our feelings for Torah. Torah lishmah. What does lishmah mean? The ikar is Torah lishmah. This is the ultimate way of learning. It's the tachlis shel tachlisim of all the tachlis. Torah lishmah. What does lishmah mean?

Whose name? So the Ari learns lishma means l'shem Hashem. The question is, what does that mean? So we can learn l'shem Hashem means l'shem the mitzvahs Hashem. L'shem yichud Kudsha Brich Hu, like the lishma that we have, which is a question for itself, according to the Noda B'Yehuda, you're not supposed to say l'shem yichud. He was very vehemently against it, the whole inyan of l'shem yichud. But there's a whole world, Chassidim, fired, and they say l'shem yichud. So that could also mean lishma, l'shem yichud Kudsha Brich Hu, Shechinteh b'dechilu, l'shem Hashem, like all other mitzvahs. Or does he mean l'shem Hashem to get close to Hashem? Or does he mean l'shem Hashem for the sake, because the Eibishter wants it, he has from it? You know, Rabbeise, there's a Chiddah that brings from Rav Chaim Vital that lishma means to bring nachas ruach to the Ribono Shel Olam. That's what lishma means, to bring satisfaction to the Eibishter. Ashrei mi she'amal baTorah v'oseh nachas ruach l'Yotzro. We say it, we sing it, that when you learn Torah, it brings a nachas to the Eibishter. That could be what the Ari means. It's a good question. But all three pshatim in the Ari need to be examined. Does lishma mean l'shem hamitzvah, like all other l'shem yichud, l'shem Hashem? Does lishma mean that it has to be, like let's say by the Mikdash... V'asu li, mikdash li l'shmi, maybe here too. Lishma means li l'shmi, maybe. L'shma, li l'shmi, like in the Mikdash. Teiras kedosh, it's also kedusha, li l'shmi. Or does he mean li, to get close to me, l'shma, to get close to the Eibishter? Or does he mean l'shmi, for the Ribbono Shel Olam has from it, like the Chiddah brings from Reb Chaim Vital. Reb Chaim, balashon, vehemently argued with all this, and he said it has nothing to do with mitzvahs. It has nothing to do with deveikus, getting close to the Eibishter. He says there are many that make this mistake, and obviously he means this. He means the way a big chelek of Klal Yisrael understood the Arizal's pshat, that it's to get close to the Eibishter. He says it's not that, and he quotes this Rosh, where the Rosh says clearly, what does it mean lishmi? What does it mean lishma? L'shem haTorah. The lishma is not the Eibishter. The lishma means l'shem haTorah. The Arizal learns lishma, shel Hashem. Reb Chaim, in Nefesh HaChaim, says lishma, l'shem haTorah. People misunderstand Reb Chaim Volozhin, and they think, therefore, let's cut deveikus of the Eibishter out of the Torah. When you learn, you shouldn't think about the Eibishter at all. It shouldn't be about Hashem; it should be Torah only for Torah. It's also a mistake. That's not what Reb Chaim Volozhin meant. Because if you look further in Chaim, in Shaar Daled, in Shaar Daled, Perek Gimel, where he says this, and in Perek Daled he says, in the bottom in the Hagah, what does it mean to learn Torah lishmah? On the bottom he says, but you've got to be connected to the Eibishter the entire time. And if a person is learning and he feels disconnected from the Ribono Shel Olam, he should stop, and he should daven to the Ribono Shel Olam that he should get closer and connected to the Ribono Shel Olam. So you see that Reb Chaim Volozhin did not mean to disassociate deveikus of Hashem from the Torah. He meant only that that shouldn't be the tachlis, the goal. The goal is not to get close to the Eibishter, but it's definitely a tnai, and I would call it a tnai kodem lemaaseh, that you have to be close to the Ribono Shel Olam. You can't learn Torah on a beach, lehavdil, sipping a piña colada. It doesn't work that way. The Torah has to be with deveikus in the Ribono Shel Olam. You're right, it's not l'shem the deveikus, but it's got to be connected to the deveikus, hand in hand. You see over that the Brisker Rav, when he didn't understand the Tosafos, he would say, Ah, Ribono Shel Olam, Ribono Shel Olam. He would murmur.

Father in heaven, Tata, Tata. What was he doing? Either he was crafting because it was hard, you know, it's hard to learn the Tosafos, and that's how they used to craft. In Brisk, they learned everything up from the Brisker Rav that was with a special intent of halacha and hashkafa. So they explained that he was davening to the Eibishter. What was he davening? So maybe he was davening he should learn pshat in Tosafos. Yeah, but Tosafos has to come from you. Tosafos can't come from the Eibishter. Or maybe the Eibishter should help him understand the Tosafos, siyata dishmaya. Or maybe he was doing this, Reb Chaim Volozhiner, the dveikus, getting close to the Ribono Shel Olam. In Brisk they say that the reason why he would say this when he had a Tosafos he didn't understand, when he came to a Gemara he didn't understand, he would say Tata, he would daven to the Eibishter, dveikus. Reb Chaim Volozhiner has gone to the bottom to get close to the Ribono Shel Olam. You know, there's a beautiful Meshech Chochma story. Meshech Chochma was learning with his chavrusa. They came upon a difficult Gemara that they didn't understand, so the Meshech Chochma, Reb Meir Simcha, turns to his chavrusa, he says, Let us daven to the Eibishter that he should help us, v'ho'er eineinu b'seirasach, we should be able to. So the chavrusa said, It's a good idea. Good, let's do it. Wait, wait, says Reb Meir Simcha, what are you going to daven for? Let me hear. So he says, Let me, I'm going to daven to the Eibishter, he should help me, enlighten me, my eyes should open up and see gal einai v'abita niflaos miTorasecha. He says, No, that's not what you should daven for. You're not doing it right. You know what you should daven for? An example, he says: you have a child. He's crying. Everybody comes with a different solution how to get him to stop. One guy says, Let's give him a pacifier. The other one, Let me give him a rattle. The other guy shakes him. Another guy goes blah, blah, blah, makes funny face. Till the mother comes. The minute the mother comes, he goes, You don't understand, he's thirsty, he needs a bottle. Why? Because only the mother is close enough to the child to understand what the child is in need of, what's he calling for, what's the tzorech. It's called havanah, understanding of the mother to the child, and that's connection. Let's daven to the Eibishter that we should get connected to Torah, and when we connect to the Torah, we'll understand what the Torah is telling us. You hear? If we get connected to the Torah like the mother is connected to the child understands the child, we'll understand what the Torah is telling us. My zeide told me this story. My zeide, zichrono livrachah, told me this story. And I said to him—I was a little, so young kid at the time—I said, Zeide, can I say a different pshat in the tefillah that you're supposed to daven, and in the mashal to the mother? So first he said, No, no. He says, You always have to say something different. What's wrong with what R' Meir Simcha said? he tells me. What's wrong with this? I said, All right. I said, I feel a different pshat. He says, You know what? Okay, let me hear what it is. Then he tells me, Are you sure? Because you don't have Ramei Simcha, Ramei Simcha. You know, what he says was clear and final. I said, Zeidy, maybe the pshat is that actually we don't mean that we're going to connect it to the Torah. We're davening to the Eibishter. What does the child really need? Is it the bottle, or is it the attention of the mother? And that no one else could give him, you see. It's sometimes even the bottle, if someone would give it, wouldn't work, because it's not the bottle; it's the hug of the mother. I said, you know, in Torah, you know, sometimes what we're missing, the dveikus. Sometimes what we're missing is that to the Ribono Shel Olam, Vedabek libeinu b'mitzvosecha. We should become davuk to the Ribono Shel Olam. The fact that we don't understand is the other way around. We're not understanding what the Ribono Shel Olam is talking to us. Ribono Shel Olam, give us that hug, give us that warmth, and then we'll understand. So it's not so much the dveikus to the Torah, but maybe, if I can, that the pshat is that while we're learning, sometimes we're not that close to the Ribono Shel Olam. So we need to daven that the Ribono Shel Olam...

Should bring us, so to speak, close to Him. And with this we'll understand the Teisvis. Like the mother, mother is not giving a bottle. Someone else could have came up with the bottle. It's not the bottle. It's when the mother holds the child as she gives the bottle, and that's what the child is crying for. It's the hug of the mother. With this, Chaf Beis, I believe that we have to understand Reb Chaim Volozhin, that it's true, on one hand, Torah is l'shem haTorah, like the Rosh says. But it can't be. It's not going to work without the hug of the mother, so to speak, without the dveikus in the Ribbono Shel Olam. You know, I would say the Torah lishmah is the bottle. The kid wants the bottle. He needs the Torah. It's l'shem haTorah. But it goes well, and it goes down, and it flows in well when it's with the hug and the caress and the lullaby of the mother. That's the dveikus together, together with the limud haTorah lishmah. There is a pshat from the Chida, which is a little different than this Rosh, because the Rosh says it has to be l'shem haTorah and not what? What's the not what? Lizgais. That's this Rosh. The Chida says, v'loy l'kabel pras. I'm sorry, the Chida says, v'loy l'kabel pras. L'shem haTorah and not to get reward. You know, Chazal is full of the great reward for someone who learns Torah, especially our Mishnah we just read, that if you learn Torah you get all this. Says the Chida, but don't learn for this. That's not what you should be learning it for. That's what it means, lishmah. Lishmah l'shem haTorah. Rav says, v'lo lizgois, not to pride. No, no. V'lo likabel pras. You're not looking to have rewards. That's called lishmah. The Tiferes Yisrael, on this Mishnah, says lishmah, and not to not get punished for not doing it. You know, there's so much Chazal about someone who doesn't learn, how much punishment he'll get. So lishmah could be, I'm learning for the Torah and not to get punished. That's called lishmah, lishmah for Torah and not that I shouldn't get punished. So I don't know, are they arguing? Meaning, according to the Tiferes Yisrael, would it be a chisaron in lishmah if I learned it l'shem pras, if I learned it in order to get reward? I don't know. Lav davka, maybe not. Maybe if I learn Torah to get reward, there's nothing wrong. Chazal tell us that you get rewards in the Torah. The Mishnah says you get zocheh lidvarim harbeh. So maybe I can learn for a reward. The only thing is, I can't learn not to get punished. If I do it only because I'm afraid, that's not called lishmah. The Chida learns more. You need to have lishmah l'shem haTorah and not for the sake of the reward. In Chassidish sefarim, there's a lot of talk about Torah lishmah in a more Kabbalistic form. The world was created through Torah. These are called the shemos of the Torah. The osiyos haTorah create the world. So you have to learn the Torah. Lishma, in order that through the learning of the Torah, the world exists. Torah is the existence of the world, so you have to learn Torah lishma to have the existence of the world. Sfas Emes, in the Sfas Emes, in the Torah, the Sfas Emes, he explains Torah lishma like this. In the yeshiva world, they pretty much want very strictly to follow the inyan of Torah lishma, Reb Chaim Volozhin, that Torah has to be l'shem haTorah, like this Rosh. But it's interesting that in Ruach Chaim, which is the peirush of Reb Chaim Volozhin on the Mishnah, he adds an extra word: to learn Torah for ahavas haTorah. In Nefesh HaChaim, he uses this Rosh to learn Torah for the sake of Torah, and he explains, to learn more and to know more, and for the sake of ahavas, ahavas haTorah. You know, I want to tell you something interesting. You know, when you make birchas haTorah in the morning, it's different than all other birchas hamitzvos. Birchas hamitzvos usually is one bracha.

Here, how many brachos we have? Two: v'harivna and asher bachar banu. And even the two is not just strictly asher kidshanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu. It's asher kidshanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu, then v'harivna, and then asher bachar banu, which actually means there's three themes in Birchas HaTorah. There's theme number one, asher kidshanu. There was a mitzvah to do. V'hariv, sweet. Asher bachar, praise that we are chosen. Reb Chaim Volozhin—I'm sorry, the Brisker Rav speaks a major good question: women make Birchas HaTorah, but they're not mitzuvin in Talmud Torah. They're not mitzuvin in Talmud Torah, so why are they making Birchas HaTorah? So the Beis Halevi in Pashas Mishpatim says there's two parts to Talmud Torah. There's one part of Talmud Torah, to learn for the sake of learning, that women don't have. There's another part of Talmud Torah, which is to learn in order to know the mitzvos. Okay, it's interesting that the chayeh adam learns that that's called Torah lishmah. The chayeh adam in the hakdamah brings, and it's a reishis chochmah, what's called Torah lishmah? Torah to keep the mitzvos, lishmah for what it says inside the Torah. Which is really the pshat that the Beis Halevi is saying why women make Birchas HaTorah, because they have, for example, a woman has to light Shabbos candles. How would she know how to light Shabbos if she doesn't learn the halachos? Niddah, challah, so she has to learn those halachos. That's Talmud Torah, and she makes a bracha for that. Which according to the Chayei Adam and Rishon Chachma before him, this is called lishma. It comes out that actually women learn Torah lishma. Women are actually learning Torah lishma, which is a big chizuk, which is a big thing for the women to know in the Bais Yaakovs. According to many opinions, your Torah is mamash Torah lishma. The Brisker Rav, though, brought from Reb Chaim, which is interesting, who argues on the Beis Halevi, it's his father, that actually birchas haTorah is not a birchas hamitzvos. Women do it; it's a siman that it's not a mitzvah, it's not mitzuvah v'talmud Torah, which he's arguing on the Beis Halevi. So why do they make birchas haTorah? Because birchas haTorah is birchas ha-shevach: praise, shevach, praise. So I think to myself, why is there birchas haTorah shevach? It's not birchas hamitzvos; it's a birchas ha-shevach. And you see clearly, Asher bachar banu mikol ha'amim, it's a different type of a bracha, and that's shayach to women. So I have two pshatim in it. Pshat number one: because Torah, it's not enough just to learn Torah as an act. Torah needs to be learned with appreciation and love. The first bracha is v'haarev na: sweet, love, cheshek, ahavah. Haarev na, it should be sweet to me. The second pshat is, the second bracha is asher bachar, with appreciation, harachah. You have to appreciate the ma'alah of Torah. The Tiferes Yisroel actually uses this lashon in the word lishmah. The Tiferes Yisroel says, what's called lishmah? Not for punishment, like I told you before. Rak b'avur shmo hagadol, shenisbarer lo kavod gadol. You realize how great, how big Torah is. Nisbarer lo k'vod gadol. Ki hi tachlis kol adam v'tachlis kol habriyah. It's the purpose of man and creation. Teida, asher bachar banu mikol ha'amim, purpose, creation. Why were we created? Hashem chose us. So the two brachos are actually explaining: A, asher kid'shanu b'mitzvosav la'asok — that's the act. But with the act, there's two other parts to Talmud Torah, and that is Torah lishmah. What does lishmah mean? Ahavas haTorah, the ruach chayim. The second part is, besides that, there's also harachah, ma'alas haTorah, to see how important, how great Torah is, tachlis habriyah, asher bachar banu. That's the second brachah.

The different shiur we're going to talk about how women have shayches to all this. What shayches do they have to ahavas haTorah? Maybe. You know, there's two parts to ahavas haTorah. Ahavas haTorah is the love of the actual Torah, and ahavas haTorah, like we said, is the haracha through understanding how great Torah is. You know what women do? Women bring up their children. The Gemara says what zechus Torah do they have? They wait for their husbands, and they take the kids to the yeshiva. If there wouldn't be a Torah, children would never turn out normal. It's impossible. Take a child, the same without Torah. Look at the public schools. So there's no one more than a mother who knows the greatness of Torah. Ashreich. You know, she has a husband that she can be happy that he comes home, and that their children go to school and do what they're supposed to do. This, rabosai, is Ashreicha banayich, kol amim ahavas haTorah, harachas haTorah, shevach. That's why women maybe have a chelek in that part of Torah. The pasuk says, Shema bni musar avicha, v'al titosh Toras imecha, Mishlei perek aleph. What's Toras imecha? And the answer is, we don't mean Torah Rambam. We mean Torah the mother has a special Torah. That is chinuch Torah. It's the chinuch of Torah. Could you imagine without a Torah what it would look like? I want to tell you, years ago I used to have major, I guess we could call it almost fights, almost fistfights, with many of the parents here in the yeshiva. They didn't want their kids to learn. They, b'shum oifen, they don't. They wanted college, they wanted public school. And I would tell them, you don't realize the greatest and best thing I could do for your son is to learn with him. No, what, when, the school, doctor, bashmakhava. Okay. Years later, those that stayed in yeshiva, the parents came back to me and told me, I can't tell you how much we thank you. When they ever get together at the chasanas, those that stayed in the yeshiva, they're married with children and beautiful. And those that went the other way, shem yishmor, the difference, the contradiction, the contrast is so startling and so striking. How many parents came over to me and said, Thank you, thank you for forcing me. I said, I told you one day you'll understand what I'm talking about. The difference between a home that has Torah in it and a home that unfortunately does not have Torah, I can't, I don't have to tell you. You know what goes on in the outside world. I don't have to tell you, right? This, rabosai, is where the mother says, Asher borchah bonim mikol amim, a shevach for Torah, Torah tzivah lanu. This is Torah tzivah lanu. I think years ago I once said a pshat. When Yaakov Avinu sees Yosef, pasuk says Yosef falls on his father and he kisses him, while Yaakov didn't do so. Rashi says, Why did Yaakov not fall on Yosef and kiss him? He was in middle Kriyas Shema. You have no other better time to read Kriyas Shema? You couldn't think of a... So I always say pshat, he was traveling. Travel, he couldn't read Kriyas Shema. So the Minbi came to Mitzrayim. This is my Kriyas Shema. Yosef was able to read before. He didn't have to wait till the last second to read Kriyas Shema. Maharal says differently. Maharal says at that moment that he saw his son, he wanted to join the love of his son with the love of Hashem, share, so to speak, divide the love. Yes, I love my son, that love together with the Eibishter. I want to remember that I love the Eibishter too, to share the love with Hashem. Rabbi Yerucham used to say over that you think it's only Yaakov Avinu? Every Jewish mother has this. He said over that the Chofetz Chaim, when his son passed away, he said, You know, Ribono Shel Olam, till now I had to share my love, you and my son. Now that my son is not here anymore, I can devote all my love to you. Says Rabbi Yerucham, Yeah, the Chofetz Chaim, but where did he get it from? He said actually it's a story from the Inquisition of a mother who laid on top of her child after the child was killed, and she looked upwards and she said, Ribono Shel Olam, my son and you.

to share the love. Now that my son is not here anymore, I can devote all my love to you. Said Reb Yerucham that the Chofetz Chaim said, Okay, Chaim was a kadosh, was kedosh elyon, the Jewish mothers, that everyone in Klal Yisrael has this koach, this ability to share their love, Ribono Shel Olam, and their children. This is the shevach that we give, Hashem barach banu because of our children, meaning, Ribono Shel Olam, I understand that my child and you, it's all connected. I think with this I can explain really one another pshat why Yaakov Avinu, late red kriyas Shema when he sees Yosef. You know, the mefarshim tell us that Yaakov was afraid to come down to Mitzrayim. He was scared. What is he going to see? What is he going to see already in his son? Who knows what he's going to look like? Could you imagine 22 years in Mitzrayim, the land of tumah? He was terrified. What's he going to look like? Re'ei, panecha lo פיללתי. I didn't expect to see your face. I expected to see Joe. I didn't expect to see Yosef HaTzadik. I expected to see Joe. I came and I see Yosef. I don't see Joe. Yaakov says, I know where that comes from. You had Yiras Shamayim. Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu. I know what to thank. Birchas HaTorah, shevach. I praise the Eibishter. Because I know that it was the Eibishter, I know it was Yiras Shamayim that kept him all these years. That's why when he sees Yosef, Shema Yisrael, I know, he's thanking Hashem. It is You. It is Kabbalas Ol Malchus Shamayim that kept him. Yes, it's a very nice vort. This is something I was mechadesh this year. I think it's a meyridige vort, a whole new mahalach, that at the moment that he sees Yosef, he's thanking the Ribono Shel Olam. Look, look, I didn't expect to believe mamash as if he never left my house. How? In Mitzrayim, Shema Yisrael, koach of Kabbalas Ol Malchus Shamayim. These are the inyanim of shevach, that the mother also has shaychus too to the Torah. But al kol panim, what do we have? We have a big yesod, that Torah is asher kidshanu b'mitzvosav la'asok, like Reb Chaim Volozhin. Torah la'asok l'shem eisek. You know what eisek is? When someone says eisek, I always translate as business. Ma'asakim. You ever see when a guy tells you in Hebrew, ma'asakim shelcha? You know what ma'asakim? Business. A person has to learn Torah like it's his business. When a guy has a business, you know, he's 24 hours a day thinking about his business and how he can get more products and make more money and expand. That's this Rosh. Mamash the words of the Rosh: L'shem haTorah, kegon leida, l'havin, l'hosif, lekach. More products, more, more on the shelves of Teva, more Teva, more business, eisek. Asher kidshanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu la'asok, like an eisek haTorah, you hear? But there's also two more parts that must be emphasized and brought out and expressed, and that is v'harev ahavas haTorah, which is the ruach chaim. On top of Torah l'shem haTorah, there's supposed to be in it ahavas haTorah, and also, that's v'harev, and also asher bachar banu me'ilos haTorah. How important, how lucky we are to learn Torah. Do we have such a thing today, rabosai? Does it apply to us? You know, I talk about Torah lishmah, I was thinking, I can't even learn Torah. You want me to learn Torah lishmah? I can hardly learn Torah. You want me on top of that learn Torah lishmah? You know, the Chida brings from Rav Chaim Vital that already in his time there'll be no Torah lishmah. How do you know? Because the Mishnah says, yozechet l'... who knows what. Shekol ha'olam k'dai nikra reya ohu. Nobody has all this. Who has all this? All the things, the attributes that a person has for learning Torah, nobody got it. It's impossible. There's an expression in Yiddish.

Altz pa'einah, nitba keinim, that there should be every ma'alah, every attribute by one? No such thing. Altz pa'einah, everything by one; shtar by keinim by nobody. There's no such thing. And here the Mishnah is saying if you learn Torah lishmah, everything, all the attributes. So meileh it must be that we don't learn Torah lishmah. That's how the Chiddah brings from Reb Chaim Vital. Interestingly, Reb Yisrael Zalman Meltzer got up at the levayah of the Chazon Ish and he said that obviously the Chazon Ish learned Torah lishmah. How do we know? Because all the things it says in the Mishnah the Chazon Ish had. He was re'uy and he was ahuv, and everybody came to ask him advice. Whatever it says in this Mishnah about learning Torah lishmah is all true, came true in the Chazon Ish, which is a proof that he did learn Torah lishmah, which is interesting because the Chiddah says already in his time, no such thing. So obviously, if we talk about learning Torah lishmah, but then on the other hand we're saying it's almost impossible, so what's to talk about? And the answer must be, I believe, that there's different levels. There's different levels of lishmah. There's lishmah, of course, the ultimate lishmah, like the Chazon Ish, like the Chiddah is talking about, such, such ultimate lishmah. You're right. But then we have lower levels of lishmah. We can obviously come and say ahavas haTorah. Now what does ahavas haTorah mean? So we know Reb Ber Zech Tzadik Livrachah was a prince in ahavas haTorah. This was one of his—he exalted the beauty of ahavas haTorah. They say over a very nice maise. It's in the book of Reb Avraham Ber, that there was a fire near his home. So they were afraid, in anticipation that the fire would spread, so he told his wife quickly, Let's go save belongings. Let's get the stuff out of the house. Comes running out with a box. He tells her, I saved my jewelry. It was a sefarim. I saved my jewelry. Better run, go get your jewelry. Sefarim. He called them his jewelry. Reb Avraham Ber had tremendous ahavas haTorah. To him, ah, beauty, Torah, gevaldik. I would say even that's not for us. That's for tzaddikim maybe from a previous generation, that they should have such love for the Ribbono Shel Olam and such love for Torah. You know, I don't think the Olam knows. There was a time and a place, and I saw this by Yidden who left Europe. They almost don't exist, such Jews anymore, that when they came into the shul, they would hug the Aron HaKodesh, they would hug the paroches, and then when they would leave, they would bow. And it's all in halacha, rabosai. Still do it. Still do it. Ashkenazim used to do it. It's brought down in halacha to do it. All this is in halacha. The halacha says clearly that when you get up from the—you're supposed to bow down. The Rama brings it down in Kuf Lamed Beis, at the end of se'if beis, over there, mamash the end of Kuf Lamed Beis, that when a person leaves, he's supposed to bow down, like when he leaves the Beis HaMikdash. The Mishnah Berurah brings it down, and the Mishnah Berurah brings down that the Maharil is where it comes from. He used to actually bow down three times. Three times he would bow as he left. And as a matter of fact, it says that— He wouldn't leave back facing the Aron Kodesh. The Magen Avraham brings it backwards. Backwards. There was a time and a place where there was respect, love. Today we come, we go. We're weak. We're weak in kavod haTorah. We're weak in chashivus haTorah. We're weak in haarachas haTorah. It's all true. Yet, I still think that we could somewhat touch on the outskirts, so to speak, on the hems of ahavas haTorah, to be tofes something, to work on something of ahavas haTorah, and I'll tell you what I think. That's why I was telling you that the shiur is to explain that Torah needs ahavas haTorah. Shavuos is about expressing our love for Torah, and I would explain to you what it means to have ahavas haTorah and how to apply it to us. We're so weak. We're so far removed from the whole concept of kavod haTorah and ahavas haTorah. So how do we do—what is ahavas haTorah to us? I want to tell you a me'oridike maaseh. To me, this was a lesson, a lesson in life, and maybe I was zoche because I know the Eibishter knew I was going to teach one day, and I needed to teach ahavas haTorah.

So I had this as an example. Once walked into the sefarim store by Zundel Berman, and I see someone standing by the sefarim, the new, you know, they put them out on the tables, the new sefarim, and a guy standing next to this person is reading for him all the names of all the new sefarim: Be'er Chasayim, Beis Mordechai. And he says, Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, and they're going through the whole. And I'm thinking to myself that if you can't read the name, what it says on the book, then you definitely can't read what it says inside the book, right? There's definitely no need for you to have these books. Reb Zundel Berman once told me that a guy once walked into his store and asked for ten thousand dollars' worth of red sefarim. The covers should be red. Why? His bookcases are red. It had to match. His wife told him that they have to have matching sefarim, that should match the dining room set. I thought this was the same thing. He can't read the name of the sefarim, so what does he care? Yes, no, yes, no. I couldn't figure it out, so I went over to David. David is the guy that works over there, a very chashuv, not a very nice fellow. I said, David, could you explain to me what this is all about? He says, You want to see? He called the guy. The guy couldn't see; he was blind. I realized the guy could, and this guy was taking him. So I say, So what's the point? He says, Well, he buys these sefarim, he gives them to talmidei chachamim to learn from it. And then while they learn from him, he sits next to them, and he listens to the kol haTorah. He can't. He's blind. He was a lawyer. He was once a lawyer and he lost his eyesight. But his love of Torah, so he would buy books. So they would give him the names of the books, and he would say, This is a good book. I can bring it to the yeshiva; they'll use it. Okay? David said to me, You got to get to know this person. So he says, This is Rabbi Wolkin from Queens. He says, Great. I learned in Aruch Chaim every now and then. I don't know if you saw him. He comes sometimes with a dog. He used to come with a seeing dog, okay? He says, I know Rabbi Wolkin. Sure. Could you— and he tells the guy who's taking him, Could you bring me so-and-so sefer, this sefer, that sefer? It's perfect for Rabbi Wolkin. He brings me the sefarim. I didn't want to take it. So he asked David for a pen, and he writes. He couldn't see, so he wrote my name just anywhere on the front cover, you know, when you open the book. I said, What are you doing? He says, Like this I know it's sold. It's finished. The deal is done. I know you aren't going to take it. Sold. Finished. My little Mishnah Berurah. I have a little set of Mishnah Berurah that I take whenever I travel. He bought me that set of Mishnah Berurah. This is ahavas haTorah. Tell me, are we blind? We see. You're right. Sometimes we have a hard day. You're right. Sometimes not easy to come Sunday morning to this shiur. Is it easy for him? And yet he finds a way to express ahavas haTorah. How much could we learn from this? Ahavas haTorah, ahavas haTorah, ahavas haTorah, ahavas haTorah. Imagine, imagine someone who's blind, and this is his love for Torah. It's a beautiful story. If you only knew how much I learned from this, how much this was a light all my life. I always think about this story. As Chazal mention, someone could think of a way, so he should sit in the beis medrash to listen to the kol haTorah while they're learning with his sefarim, and that's his chus haTorah. Someone's gonna ask, But I don't have this ahavas haTorah. What should I do? I don't have it. I want you to know, rabosai, that I thought about this for a long time. How do you teach ahavas haTorah? I could tell you stories about blind people. Yeah, true. But I want you to know that I believe, over the years I came to understand, I believe this with all my heart, ahavas haTorah doesn't have to be taught. It's a natural, inborn hergesh in every Yid. It's from within the Yid himself. We could ruin it. We could destroy it with gaiva, with bad middos and...

We could ruin it. But it's really there, and I learned this from another story, rabosai, I'm going to share with you. There was a talmid here in the yeshiva. He came here. I'm not going to mention his name because you all know who it is. He's today from the big chashuve rabbanim in your community. But when he came to this yeshiva, he came with a polo shirt, a colored shirt with colored pants. He broke away from the college. He would go to college, and then he would come here and he would sit in my shiur. I saw he had no knowledge of the Gemara. He didn't know the Gemara I was teaching, because he never had any background. He was never taught. But he would argue in no shiur, as I would, you know. But I don't understand that you're really... And he was arguing on svara. He was arguing on the conceptual, but he had no knowledge of the text. The guys in the shiur who were already seriously learning, they said, you know, this is not a beginner's shiur. You belong in a beginner's shiur where they teach you the Gemara. You should find a shiur like that. This is not it. You can't come without knowing the Gemara and ask questions. And I hear in his questions that he really wants, and I hear that he has a good head. I see it. I'm listening because everything he's asking is to the point, just it lacks the knowledge of the facts. I said, you know what? Leave him alone. Let him be. Let him be. I'll talk to him. He should ask a little less. Let him be. Leave him alone. Good. So happens, a month, two months, he comes and he's asking, and I'm excited. The kid is a brilliant kid. I can't get over it. A young guy, a young, you know. He stopped coming. I thought maybe somebody said something to him, someone told him. You know, you never know behind my, after the shiur, what someone... So I turned to the guys to ask him, tell me, did you know why this guy disappeared? So he says, Ah, Rebbe, listen. His father and his mother one's a doctor, one's a lawyer. Sonei daas, they hate religion. You have no idea. They found out that he comes to the yeshiva here and he learned. Terrible, to the point that they took his tefillin, that they brought him at his bar mitzvah, and they put it in the incinerator. What? They burnt his tefillin. They threw out his tefillin. They burnt his tefillin. That's how much hatred and fear. They had fear that he's becoming dati, cult. So I told the guys in yeshiva, tell the parents we're not a cult, we're normal people. Torah, we learn is intellectual. And if they need to, they shouldn't be afraid of me. I'll put on a cap. I'll put on a blue shirt if I have to. I don't know, some kind of cool jacket or something, whatever. I'll come there and I'll say, Hey, I want you. I can also be normal, and I'm a normal guy. I'm not gonna steal your kid. It's never gonna work. Never gonna work. You don't know how sonei daas, how much they hate. I gave up. I hear this from the talmidim. I figure it's a lost cause. Six months pissed. I didn't hear from him. I get a message. One of the guys bring me, You know so-and-so? I met him and he sent me a message to tell Rebbe... That Reb, I go so and so. I couldn't even remember his name because it was months. I go, you know the kid with the Polish... Yeah, okay. Rebbe, the reason why I stopped coming, I go to college. My parents found out that I come here between sessions. So they lock me up. They lock me up in the room. They don't let me out only during college hours. They don't want that I... so they keep me on the lock and key, so to speak. At the time, I couldn't understand, lock key? What are you talking about? I go to college. You know, you see today, unfortunately, people get locked up for ten years. They can... someone away for ten years. They can keep them locked in a basement. They locked me in the room. Yeah. But they don't know that I'm in the room while they're locking me, thinking I'm locked away from the Torah, I'm learning day and night. Because on the internet, I was able to get all the sefarim, and I sit and learn Gemara, Rashi, Tosafos, Rishonim, and I'm growing every day in Torah. This was the message that was sent. Years later, he came back to the yeshiva. He got married. He learned kollel here. He became a big rav recently in the community. How did this boy learn?

Ahavas HaTorah. I want to know who taught it to him. What example did he see? By his parents? Did he see Ahavas HaTorah in his house? Did he see it in the college? I want to know where did he pick it up from. Where did this kid see an example of Ahavas HaTorah that he became such a, that he was ready to give it all up, so to speak, for Torah? And you know what the answer is? Every Yid has it within him. And if you're pure, and if you're naki, you could cultivate, you could cultivate that Ahavas HaTorah. Not like a nag. This, rabosai, says the Rambam. The Rambam says, V'lo shevet Levi bilvad. You know, Shevet Levi was separated from the rest of the world to be a holy kodesh, to be a klei kodesh. Says the Rambam in the end of Shemitah V'Yovel, perek yud-gimmel, halachah yud, V'lo shevet Levi bilvad, ela kol ish v'ish mikol ba'ei olam. The whole world, asher nadva rucho... to separate, la'amod lifnei Hashem l'sharso u'le'ovdo, l'de'ah es Hashem. It's possible. You know why? Rambam says, V'holach yashar, because he goes straight, kemo she'asahu Elokim, the way the Ribono Shel Olam created him. Man was created pure, u'porak me'al tzavaro ol cheshbonos harabah she'bikshu bnei adam, and he threw away all the complications that man searches in life. If we don't ruin the Ahavas HaTorah, if we don't ruin it, we'll have tremendous Ahavas HaTorah. Inside every Yid, there's a tremendous ahavas haTorah. Yes, there's ahavas haTorah from Gedolim. It's true. There's ahavas haTorah, the love, the love. You know, I once told you over from my zeidy, my zeidy, Rav Meir Shladinsky, zecher tzaddik livrachah, had tremendous ahavas haTorah, that he once walked into the beis medrash in Radin yeshiva, and he saw the way everybody's learning, and he was so moved by it. It meant so much, warmed him so much, that he went over to the oven, the heater in the yeshiva. There was like an oven. In Yiddish, an oven is an eivaleh. An eiven is an oven, and if you say it warmly, it's eivaleh, eivaleh, like Yankele, eivaleh. So he walked over to the— as he walks into the beis medrash, he gives the kiss to the furnace, and he says, Eivaleh, eivaleh, oven, oven, I envy you. Look how much Torah is learned because of you. I gave it a kiss, kissed the oven. Eivaleh, eivaleh, he said, Oven, look how lucky you are. That's ahavas haTorah, from Gedolim, big people. Our ahavas haTorah should be—we don't desecrate the Torah. That's already a good enough ahavas haTorah for us—that we machshiv the kavod haTorah, that when we come home from yeshiva, from work—excuse me, we come home from work—and we say, even if we're tired, I'm going to come to learn. I think that part of ahavas haTorah and that part of Torah lishmah is still applicable in our times. The Yom Tov of Shavuos is where we celebrate and express our ahavas haTorah. A person should utilize the Yontif to search, soul search. Does he really love Torah? Does he really respect the Torah? Is he really ready to give up something for Torah? Are you ready, like this blind person, to find a way to learn Torah? That's called ahavas haTorah, to find a way to learn more. Difficult? Yeah, it's difficult. Everybody has it. Nobody has it easy. But this is ahavas hateva, and this is Torah lishmah, l'histakek v'zechah. Have a wonderful Yontif of Shavuos, Kabbalas HaTorah, and l'histakek v'zechah to feel, to taste the love of Torah. The Or Hachaim writes, U'verachta es kol hatov, you should thank Hashem on all the good. Included in this is Torah. Why? He says Torah is very good. He says it's delicious. He says if anyone ever tastes, for truthfully tastes, he really gets a good taste of Torah, he'll never want to stop learning. He'll run in the streets like a drunk runs after his bottle of whiskey, addicted to Torah. Torah can be an addiction, yeah, it can be addicted to Torah. But you have to first taste. You got to get that first good taste of Torah, u'verachta, and then you...

Bench Hashem, birchas hashevach, על כל הטוב, on all the good. That's what I was telling you. Vaharivna. First make it sweet. Once it's sweet, then I do asher bachar banu, birchas hashevach, thanking the Eibishter that He gave it to us. First, vahariv. First, Rabbeinu should give us the taste of it. Now we say, now that we got the taste, thank you for it. Asher bachar banu mikol amim, v'nasan lanu es Toraso. We celebrate nesinas haTorah, so we'll celebrate the vaharivna, and we stay up all night to show vaharivna, that it's sweet and that we can't sleep in anticipation of getting this great gevaldige thing called Torah. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.