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17 March 2024

MY SUPPORT OF THE EXAULTED POSITION OF TORAH LEARNERS

 

 [From A Drusha by Rav Avigdor Miller zt”l on Parshas Pekudei


The King’s Scroll-Room and The Great Mesivtos of Bavel


– And it was on the

first day of the first month of the second year in the wilderness and the

Mishkan was erected (Shemos 40:17). The greatest day in the history of the

world had finally arrived. On the first day of Nissan the dwelling place for

Hashem was established and the Presence of Hashem would now rest

among His chosen people. The Mishkan was now going to be the place for

the revelation of Hashem in this world, the fulfillment of Hashem’s

promise: “And I will dwell among them” (ibid. 25:8).  And what was the 

first thing that Moshe did after spreading the roof over the Mishkan? 

He set up the kodesh kodoshim, the holiest space on the face of this earth, 

the room where the Presence of Hashem would dwell most intensely.


[…]  Hashem commanded that into this holiest part of the Mishkan, 

the room that symbolized His place in this world, should be placed 

the two stone tablets engraved by the Hand of Hashem, and 

afterward the Torah itself was put alongside the luchos 

(Devarim 31:26).


A Mountain In The Little Room

And that’s what Dovid Hamelech said in Tehillim (68:18):

“Hashem has settled among the Am Yisroel.” And how did He do that? 

“Because Har Sinai is now in the Mishkan.” That great day of the

Giving of the Torah at Har Sinai is now found in the kodesh kodoshim. 

The Sanctuary was the heart of the nation, and it was the Word of Hashem,

the stone luchos and the Torah, that were at the heart of the Mishkan.


What we’re learning here is that preparing a home for Hashem to live

among us, really meant preparing a home for the Torah to reside among

us. And the Mishkan in its entirety was actually an altar of devotion to the

Word of Hashem. And so instead of a throne for Hashem to rest His

Presence on, the revelation of Hashem in this world came by means of His

Torah. And the Am Yisroel in the midbar lived according to that revelation.


What Did They Do All Day?

I’ll explain that. Because really we have to ask ourselves: What was

the Am Yisroel doing in the midbar for forty years after all? They ate what

fell from the clouds; they didn’t have to go to the factory to get a paycheck.

And so we have to understand that for forty years they had nothing to do

except to study Torah. The entire nation actually became one big yeshivah.

And it was a yeshivah where they studied day and night; they didn’t

have newspapers to read, or radio to listen to. And even if they would

have been able to get their hands on something – let’s say a ben Yisroel

would try to pick up a newspaper from a neighboring tribe, from Midian

– you couldn’t get away with such a thing in the machneh Yisroel. You

were in a kollel, and every kollel has a mashgiach. And this kollel in the

midbar had more supervision that any kollel since then! Every nine men

had a mashgiach who watched them, the sar asarah, and so they had to

behave. And every forty nine men had a super mashgiach, the sar

chamishim. Every ninety nine men had a super super mashgiach, the sar

mei’ah. And every nine hundred and ninety nine had a super super super

mashgiach, that was the sarei alafim. You couldn’t sneak anything past

this army of mashgichim. And Moshe Rabbeinu with his watchful eye was

overseeing the whole thing, the whole Yeshivas Hamidbar.


But the mashgichim didn’t have a very difficult job, because they

were serious yungerleit in that yeshivah. Never, in any subsequent era,

was the Torah so supreme and so studied as under the forty year rule of

Moshe Rabbeinu, the Torah teacher par excellence. “You should speak in

the words of Torah when you sit in your house, and when you walk on the

road, and when you lie down and when you arise” (Devarim 6:7) wasn’t

merely a possuk, a mitzvah, or even an aspiration to yearn for – it was

their way of life! The sole occupation for the Dor Hamidbar was Torah

study. The midbar was actually a forty year kollel, a Torah Academy.


And it was that kollel that would define what the Am Yisroel would be

forever. The Gemara in Sanhedrin (92a) says:… that the word sarid, 

“leftover” or “the one who remains” refers to a talmid chochom. 

Now that’s a puzzle, why is a talmid chochom called a “leftover”?

He’s not the leftover; he’s the main dish after all!


There are various pshatim, but the simple pshat is that originally the

whole Klal Yisroel were chachomim; the entire Dor Hamidbar was a big

kollel of talmidei chachomim. And therefore, anyone who studies the

Torah today is a ‘leftover’ from those days in the midbar. Because it was

then that the Am Yisroel in its entirety recognized the truth that the goal

of every Jew is to be a talmid chochom.


And from then on, the study of Torah became the national vocation

and pastime. Never did the Am Yisroel, in all its subsequent history, ever

use their leisure time for anything else but Torah. There was no telling

stories of adventure and war, and no playing sports. There were no

theaters or stadiums and no amusement parks either. We found everything

we wanted and everything we needed in the study of Torah and in the

raising of families to be ohavei Torah. The word entertainment doesn’t

exist in the lexicon of our people.


Why Are We Still Here?

And that’s what Rav Saadia Gaon meant when he said (Sefer Emunos

V’deios 3:7) […] , that we are a nation only as a Torah nation. 

It means the following: We have no right to exist. We should have

long ago disappeared. Where is Edom? They disappeared! Where is

Amon? They disappeared! It’s all gone! Where is Ancient Mitzrayim? All

gone! Ancient Greece is all gone, everything is underground. You’re going

to need a lot of shovels and you’ll have to sweat a lot before you can see

all the ancient nations of the world.


So why are we still here? We’re also one of the ancient nations, so

why didn’t we also disappear along with all the others? And the answer is

that we are only here because of the Torah. We are a Torah-nation and

that’s the cause of our existence. It’s the study of Torah that defines the

Am Yisroel; it’s our life-breath, our way of life. We are a nation of Torah

learners and that’s why we are forever. Hashem is forever, His Torah is

forever, and we who study His Torah will be forever.


THIS IS THE EXPERIENCE THAT SHOULD BE REPEATED IN OUR DAY TO UPLIFT THOSE IN LEARNING AND IMPROVE THE RESPECT GIVEN BY THE REST OF AM YISROEL AND THE NATIONS.


The Pageant In The Mesivta

You know that in Bavel there were great Mesivtos, great yeshivos

where the chachomim gathered to study and to teach. There was a Mesivta

in Sura where Rav was, and there was another Mesivta in Naharda’eh

where Shmuel lived; two big Mesivtos that were the center of the Am

Yisroel. And there were other Mesivtos too that functioned in Bavel.

But the Mesivta wasn’t a place where you just learned Torah and

heard shiurim. It was a very interesting experience, the Mesivta.

Everything was done with a procedure. They used to march into the beis

medrash at the beginning of the session; the chachomim marched in first,

and then the talmidim marched in behind them, and everyone took his

place; each one of the chachomim had his particular place. And there

were designated people who would make the announcement, “The

chachomim are coming in now; they’re entering into the Mesivta.” It was

mamish like a pageant; that’s how they opened up the Mesivta.


Babylonian State Of The Union

And not only in the beginning of the zman; every day was like that. It

was done with a certain panoply, like in a royal tribunal, with certain

procedures, formalities and announcements. Like in the Congress l’havdil

or in a king’s palace; it was done with the greatest kind of ceremony. And

we should ask ourselves: What was this for? Why all the fanfare?! Why

couldn’t they just get busy with learning already? Isn’t that what they

came for? It wasn’t the State of the Union address after all; it was a

yeshivah! And they didn’t do this once a year; it was every day!


And the answer is that this pomp and the ceremony was vital for an

understanding of the place of the Torah in the Am Yisroel.

In the midbar, where they all saw the Mishkan, and they all knew that

hidden inside, in the room that Hashem chose to reside in, was the luchos

and the Torah, so the entire nation lived with a tangible understanding

that it was the study of the Torah that was the core function of our people

– everybody was learning in kollel, and there was no question in anyone’s

mind that limud Torah was the function of our people. But in order to

keep that fire of kavod haTorah alive forever and to understand the

centrality of the Torah to our nation, the nation had to see with their own

eyes the glory of Torah. And so the Mesivta functioned with the

prominence it deserved and the Am Yisroel learned that the aristocracy

of our people were the ones who were studying the Toras Hashem in the

beis medrash.


The Great Kiddush Hashem

In Bavel they also established the Yarchei Kallah together with the

Mesivta. Twice a year there was a yarchei kallah, a kiddush Hashem of

remarkable proportions. You know they were almost all farmers in Bavel,

so when the farming season was over, two months a year, tens of

thousands of people came to the Mesivta. The town was overflowing with

Jews. They slept on the streets, on the roofs, and in cellars, and they were

learning all the time. The entire month they were learning Torah. And the

chachmei haTorah were there to test them, to see if they knew it!

Everybody was learning the same thing – it was a scene to behold – they

were all learning the same mesichta and the chachomim farherred them.


And it wasn’t little children we’re talking about; these were adults,

men in their forties and fifties, older than that too, men with families.

From where did this fire of dedication to Torah come? How could a nation

of so many different personalities: workers, wise men, simple folk,

intellectuals, rich and poor alike all humbly submit themselves before the

chachmei haTorah?


And the answer is that it wasn’t something that began in Bavel; 

it was already engraved on our souls from the Dor Hamidbar. 

The same way the Dor Hamidbar submitted themselves before 

Moshe Rabbeinu, the Am Yisroel continued that practice always. 

And therefore there was always a tremendous outpouring of 

Torah learning, a tremendous demonstration that Torah is 

everything for the Am Yisroel. We are always a nation of

Torah learners


Nothing But Torah

Once upon a time Jewish men didn’t stay home at night. They weren’t

at the movies either; they were in the study halls, in the shuls. When

fathers and sons would return home at night from the beis medrash they

would bring all their baggage of Torah with them. Mothers and sisters

would hear nothing but Torah. And therefore the Jewish street used to be

a street of Torah.


Even a certain writer, an enemy of the Torah – I won’t honor him by

saying his name here – when describing Cracow in the times of the Rama

he said that the children in the street “babbled Torah.” And the truth is

that it wasn’t only Cracow. That’s how it was in every Jewish community;

every town was a yeshivah town.


I remember when I was a little boy in Baltimore, when the new

immigrants arrived, they used to laugh when they saw that the shuls were

locked during the day. Locked?! “Aren’t there people learning all day in

the shuls?” And it wasn’t the talmidei chachomim who laughed; it was the

peddler, the poor working man trying to eke out a living. It was something

impossible to them! Because in Europe, even a hundred years ago, they

were still emulating the Dor Hamidbar, and still learning the lessons of

the Mishkan. Some were there all day, some would come in for an hour

here and there, but to close the shul?!


No Seats Available In Shul!

When I was in Lithuania I once visited a shul in a small town and an

old melamed, a remnant from the old generation, said to me, “Before

World War I there was a time when if you came a little bit late to this shul

on Thursday night you couldn’t find a seat. It was filled with people

learning late into the night. Every night the shul was filled with people

learning.”


In Slabodka, a bachur whom I learned with b’chavrusa once told me

that in Beers, his hometown in Lithuania, there used to be a chevrah

mishmarim. This was a group of people who were peddlers all week; it

was their bitter lot in life to put a pack of merchandise on their backs and

trudge through the gentile hamlets and villages to peddle merchandise

among non-Jews. Now in those days a Jew still looked like a Jew, so the

gentiles would set their dogs on the Jews as they passed through the

town. It was a hard life, a wearisome week of work. And where did they go

when they finally returned home? They gathered in the shul in Beers

where they would spend all Thursday night learning to make up for the

time they missed during the week. That was the chevra mishmarim!


And as a young man in New York, I saw echoes of those great days. I

once tried spending the whole night learning in a chassidishe shtiebel on

the Lower East Side on Montgomery street. I tried staying awake, but I

kept dozing over the Gemara. But I couldn’t sleep anyhow because the

Poilisheh chassidim started coming in while it was still dark. They put on

their gartels, took down their Gemaras, and started learning before the

morning came. Early in the morning when it was still dark, the shtiebel

was packed with Jews sitting and learning. And in the Gerrer shtiebel I

used to watch a Litvishe Jew standing and learning Mishnayos by heart all

night. Once in a while he would look into the open Mishna to refresh his

memory. That’s a remnant of the older generation; once upon a time the

Jewish nation studied Torah.


The Greatest Mitzvah

There are two pesukim in Mishlei: One says […] “All of the things 

that you desire cannot equal to the Torah” (Mishlei 3:15). All

the things that people love in this world – people love wealth, they love

honor, they love food and all types of pleasure – it’s nothing compared to

the Torah. Everybody desires things in this world, all good things; health

and happiness, nachas, long years, and wealth. But nothing compares to

one word of the Torah.


But there’s another possuk, […] (ibid. 8:11). Here it doesn’t say 

chafatzecha, your desires; it says chafatzim, all desirable

things, even the things that Hashem desires, […]  cannot compare to

the Torah. What does that mean? It means that even all the mitzvos of the

Torah cannot compare to the mitzvah of studying Torah (Moed Kattan 9b).


Of course if you have to do a mitzvah, and there’s no one else who

can do it, you have to stop learning and do the mitzvah; but the mitzvos

of the Torah are not as great a privilege as the one mitzvah of studying

Torah. […], all the things that you consider important, […]

and even all the things that Hashem considers important, all the mitzvos,

[…], they don’t equal one thing of the Torah.


One line of Torah is more important than all the mitzvos put together.

How can that be?! It’s astonishing! All the mitzvos together, the tefillin and

mezuzos and tzitzis and matzah and korban pesach, all the obligations of

the Torah cannot compare to one thing of the Torah. You sit down, open

a Gemara and learn one line, it’s such a tremendous happiness, such a

great achievement, that it eclipses, it far outdoes all the good things

together. If you can open the Gemara for one line, you should know what

you’re doing for yourself in this world. I’m not saying you’re a talmid

chochom already; that takes work after all. But you’re already joining the

aristocracy of the Am Yisroel; you’re emulating the upper class, the elite

of our nation. You’re becoming a Torah Jew; because that’s the function of

a Jew in this world.


In Europe, before World War l, there were a lot of Jews who moved

into the shul in the morning, and they didn’t move out till late at night.

There was a whole population like that all over Eastern Europe. It stopped

with World War l, it began to disintegrate little by little. But way back,

throughout our history, all the shuls had a big populace of learners. Many

men were driven away to the shuls by their wives. These dedicated

women, the noshim tzidkoniyos, said “Don’t work; you sit and learn and I’ll

take care of the parnassah.” All over Eastern Europe it was a frequent

thing. Even when I came to Europe in 1932, when it was already ruined, I

saw it. The wife stood in the store and her husband sat in the beis medrash.

[…]


That’s what the Gemara says:  

[…] “The young men of Israel will in the future emit a fragrance like the 

forest of Levanon” (Brachos 43b). The time will come when the young talmidei

chachomim, the yeshivah men who spend their days and nights learning,

will issue a sweet fragrance like the cedar trees of the Levanon. It means

that one day the world will recognize the truth; the whole world will learn

to look through the Eyes of Hakodosh Boruch Hu. And everyone will see

that it is the Torah learners who smell pleasant, that they are the ones

who give off the sweetest of fragrances in this world.


But we are expected to recognize that truth even today. When you

see a yeshivah man, you should imagine that he smells like sweet smelling

roses. Let’s say you see a group of yeshivah boys walking in the street.

Now, there is nothing especially attractive about them. They’re all wearing

the same uniform, white shirts, and black pants; nothing special. So what

about it? What’s so important?


But if you understand this lesson of Parshas Pekudei, you understand

that these yeshivah men are the aristocrats of our nation. Because it was

in the midbar that the Am Yisroel learned that our nation is only a Torah

nation. That’s the lifeblood of our people; it’s what we are. 

[…]  


Our nation is a nation only because of the Torah.” 

And it’s those who keep pumping the blood of Torah through the veins of our nation, who are keeping us alive. And therefore it’s the Torah learners who are the aristocrats of our nation, the ones whom we admire and emulate.


Once you understand this, you have gained a new perspective on the Am Yisroel, and you’ve learned to see our nation the way Hashem sees them!




MAIN SOURCE:  https://torasavigdor.org/

BASED ON: https://torasavigdor.org/parshah-booklets/pekudei-5784/

(some omissions, and some of the Hebrew due to the font)



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