אבי מורי הרה״ג ר׳ שלום לאווי שליט״א | אם בחקותי תלכו – Transcript

Im Bechukosai Telechu: The Rogatchover’s Chiddush on Halicha as Kinyan and the Imperative of Continuous Growth in Torah

Opening Remarks

I can’t say that for me it’s a shame to be a Muslim. Just sharing with the world a little bit of my own feelings, a little bit of what… I don’t have enough time to keep up with all the things that are going on in the Muslim world. But a little bit of what I see on the train is what is going on.

The Rogatchover’s Chiddush: Halicha as Kinyan in Torah

Rav Yitzchak [the Rogatchover Gaon] said that when the Rambam is sitting in Peirush HaMishnayos, in Bava Metzia, the Gemara says that halicha [walking] can’t do it — that’s what the Gemara says. I say, yes, but how can the halicha not do it? The Rambam says that only one halicha can do it.

There are the shutfim [partners], who are the shutfim in a thing, they make a chalukah [division], and they tell me the truth, this is what the Gemara says: to be sure that each one of us is mevarer [clarifies], then only the halicha helps. That’s what the Rambam says.

The Rogatchover says that for every Jew to be koneh [acquire] in the Torah, only the one who is truly mevarer is allowed to be koneh in the Torah. That’s why the halicha is also koneh. It means that the one who is mevarer is the one who is truly koneh in the Torah. That’s what the Rogatchover is saying.

The Deeper Meaning: Halicha as the Only Way

But I think that in the pasuk [verse], or whatever you call it, there is a certain thing that Im bechukosai telechu [if you walk in My statutes] — the pasuk says halicha, but there is only one way, and that is to be able to do it. I mean, it’s the same with the Jews, with the shutfim, with the chalukah, and so on. But there is the halicha, not only the chiddush [novel insight], but half of the halicha, which means that the way to be able to be koneh the Torah is only with the halicha.

The Concept of Being a Holech: Continuous Upward Movement

So everyone knows that a person should be a holech [one who walks/progresses], and I think that many of the behemos [animals], or the malachim [angels], should be a holech. So because of this place, because of what they say, that a person should be a holech.

Rav Shimshon Pincus’s Mashal on Sefirah

So they told me, Maya Sviri [what does it mean], I had heard about it from Rav Shimshon Pincus, I heard a lot about Maya Sviri. So I said, Sefira [the counting of the Omer], we count from 1 to 49.

He said, how long does it take for you to reach the levana [moon], how long does it take for you to reach the levana? I don’t know, 200,000 miles, I don’t know, a little more, how long does it take for you to reach the levana.

A person walks in his life an average of 100,000 miles, I don’t know, he’s an average walker. Of course, at the end of his life, he had to say, halfway to the levana. But after the whole 100,000 miles that he walked, he didn’t get any closer to the levana. Every time he stepped on his feet, he would step something. He would say, I stepped on my feet, but at the same time he would lift it back up. So, it doesn’t come to anything.

Because, you know, the chamor [donkey], which is connected to the rechayim [millstone], I don’t know how many miles he has walked, I don’t know. It could be 200,000 miles in his life. But he doesn’t walk. He just walks. He goes around, around, around, around, around, around, around, around, around, around. And then he gets up.

One of the things that makes me sick, makes me sick too. In our country, we call it education. So, I think of education. The first thing that comes to mind is the English language, or a book, whatever — college age. But that’s education. But so wrong. That the whole life is like — as long as a person rises, as long as a person goes up, goes down, comes to the next — there is something in the world, there is a person, he stops there.

Then the Gestapo did the whole thing. They didn’t want to say the Torah, they didn’t want to say the Jewishness. The first thing they said was, we’re not going to stop, but the second thing they said was, we’re not going to stop, we’re going to stay in the same place, the same place we’ve been. But it means a lot to me. They really understand what the holech means.

What True Halicha in Learning Means: Not Just Covering New Material

Because a person can say, so, now I want to go up and wait. What do I do now? Now I’m going to learn in the yeshiva, in the beis medrash, I don’t know, in peace. So, I learn new things. I learn new things. What do you think about it? What did you learn in the weeks when you didn’t learn where we came from? Yes, the words are different words and the inyanim [topics] are different inyanim.

But what do you do there? The exact same thing. I have basically six or seven things that I can do. I can ask if the thing is a sibbah [cause] or a siman [sign], if it is a one din [law] or a two dinim, and that’s it.

And what it did when we came and when we left, now it did the same thing this week. So it goes on another street, but it’s not really a holech, it doesn’t go up, it doesn’t go down, it doesn’t go further.

The only time a person is a holech is when they can actually have a new idea, they can now look for a new way, not the same thing over and over and over again and just now. And now it’s in a different place.

Education as Lifelong Growth: The Kiddush of Continuous Learning

I see how strong the Kiddush [sanctification] is. You know what I mean. The Kiddush says for everyone, that education never stops. So people actually say, we wake up, we go to school, until the age of 120, to actually climb and to be different in the way of understanding the Torah, in understanding the world, in understanding the Ribbono Shel Olam [Master of the Universe].

I don’t want to take away any time from it, but it’s the same as what I said about the Ketzos [Ketzos HaChoshen]. That’s the point. The point is to come up with new ways of thinking, new ideas, a new language, a new shprach [conceptual language] in your head.

And this is the greatest miracle for me, what I see. That’s why we need so much help, because most people are just happy just to go around and around and — I mean, there’s a guy in Egypt, but they’re weak. That’s the Jewish people. The Jews, what do you get? What do you get from that? Why do you keep them open? Why do you open them up for new opportunities, new heights, new heights? And continue to educate themselves and go higher and higher for their whole life.

The Unique Combination of Sinai and Oker Harim

That’s really a great thing that I see you just, you know, I still get the seforim [books], it’s hard to understand how many terabytes you and the adults are taking in the process, it’s unbelievable. They take all the information and it’s normal and it’s like that when you open the Sinai and the oker harim [one who uproots mountains].

And naturally, as I often say, I’m a talmid [student], and it’s natural that it doesn’t go together at all. Some people are a mekabel [receiver], and they take information, others are a misgaber [one who prevails], and they tell their own stories.

But that’s all it takes to be able to take out so much information. And at the same time, the person is with stories on the floor, with lies, a way of everything in the world, it’s not normal. Every thing from Zeraim to Uktzin, from Chumash to Kabbalah, from Stam [plain] to halacha, anything in the world, you know, it’s often a chiddush for my business.

Every thing, it’s my own tradition, it’s my own way of acting. Actually, it doesn’t matter if they reinvent the wheel, because that wheel goes down with the chiddush. It’s something to watch and it’s my own plai pla’im [wonder of wonders].

Halomed Mikol Adam: Learning from Everyone and Truly Hearing the Source

I mean, the greatest Kiddush is, when Zoharimah [the Mishnah] says, so, you and the eizehu chacham [who is wise], with the Rebbeim [teachers], just look around. There is no one who is different from the spectrum. You can learn from everyone in the world, everyone has something to give.

I mean, the real task in the life of the talmid, because it is the only thing a person can learn from. They learn, and they say, what does the Rambam say? They learn, it’s great, the Rambam — he has his own hanachos [assumptions], what does mazik [damages] mean? What does tefillah [prayer] mean? What does this mean?

But the Rambam still says what the Rambam says. But they really have what the Rambam says. They see what the Rambam says, how the Rambam learned, and what his hanachos were in life, what are his assumptions. And they actually learn what the Rambam meant when he did the Rambam. It’s the same for everyone.

So the real halomed mikol adam [one who learns from every person], we have to take it from him. We have to take it from him. And now I’m going to take it from everybody. From the young Jews. But we come to that. I can’t just say that the lomdus [analytical Torah study] is for everyone. But thank you.

The Foundation Crisis: Why Our Yesodos Remain at a Child’s Level

The Real Lomdus in Learning Rambam

I mean, the real touch in the life of the Kaludim [scholars], because it’s a thing — a person has to learn Rambam, to learn Rambam. I don’t understand, what does Rambam mean? To learn, it’s very expensive in Rambam. He already has something, like, what does mazik [damages] mean, what does tevila [immersion] mean, what does this mean?

The father in Rambam, the father in Rambam, the father in Rambam, the father in Rambam, the father in Rambam. They saw what the Rambam said, how the Rambam was learned, what his life was like, what his assumptions were, and they actually learned what the Rambam meant when he did the Rambam. It’s the same for everyone. The real lomdus and chaludah [sharpness] are different from each other. That was the case.

The Universal Problem: Hearing What Was Actually Said

Now I’m talking about everybody. I’m talking about the young Jews. But we come to the point. I can’t just say that they are lomdus for everyone. But I can say what he said. What the priest [possibly “pasuk”] said. What the novite [navi] said. What the priest said. What the priest said. What the priest said. What the priest said. What the priest said.

This is a tradition that we have. You have to think about it. It goes back to the same thing. People have to look at the details in their lives. It’s basically the same as in halacha machshova [Jewish thought] in lomdus or wherever it is. That basically stays the same. And the details are a little bit more.

The Tragedy of Stunted Foundational Growth

But the biggest thing that we have to remember is — but the main, the most important things in life: the stories of men, the stories of Yiddishkeit, the stories of the people of the world, the stories of the people of the world, who are the people of the world and how do we relate to them?

And these stories are always, the people of the world are always, you know, they are a genre from books, what they didn’t tell you in nursery school. I would say, you learn what they didn’t tell you in kollel, you know, in post-graduate. Because it’s a thing of the past.

The Mashal of Disproportionate Growth

A person, he doesn’t know, but it’s like the emotions that we have. A person grows, grows, grows, and the head stays the same as it was a little while ago. And the people still live like that. They serve their people with their slaves [possibly “with their love”], with their children, their children, but the head and the heart stay the same as they were a little while ago.

Whatever is picked up from the anemones [possibly “emunah”] in kitah gimmel [third grade], that’s exactly the level, the level, the level, the level we have left. I have to say, today, at least, it’s like a capoeira [possibly “chevel” – tragedy].

The Path Forward: Growing in the Yesodos

The sides of things, where they are, what it is to do, what’s this all about — there you can surely climb the next one, and come to a new avunis [understanding], a deeper avunis, not just the chasim [possibly “same things”], the same things.

And then there were three or more reimers [possibly “levels”] in the same basic elementary or bench from the 60s. And then there was this place, and they said, it’s a lot of Jews. And they said, the Jews will see this, and they will understand this, and they will draw to this. And it was a huge, huge thing.

The Mission of This Place

But we know that the Jewish people have a lot of respect for the Jewish people. They have a lot of respect for the Jewish people. And I think that’s what’s important. And I think that’s what’s important.

If you can support the people, if you can give them a light, on the Shina Oven [possibly “on the learning”], on the khuvudig oven [possibly “on the important matters”]. It is for themselves, for their own children, for their own families.

It also brings the smell [possibly “nachas”] of the Lebanese people [possibly “Ribbono Shel Olam”], the people who live in the tents, who are in need of help, who are in need of help from the Lebanese people [possibly referring to spiritual elevation].

Closing Bracha

So we can be sure to do what we can, to think seriously about what we do, and what they say. And we can all come together, climb and fly, and if we can, we will be able to do it.

Thank you.