[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)
1 comment:
Excellent
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