2013, L’chvod the Rav’s 20th Yahrzeit

There are many people whom I should acknowledge at the outset and whose reshus rightfully should be requested before beginning. I'm afraid that I would omit someone. I'll mention just four representatives, ask their reshus, and then bli neder im yirtze hashem begin. ברשות מורנו ורבנו הרב שכטר, bereshus Harav Lamm, President Joel, and my mother. In the comments that follow, I'm profoundly indebted to my mother. Not that she had a preview of what I'm going to say, not that she bears any responsibility, but for the following reason. In Adar Sheni of tashzayin, when my grandmother aleha hashalom passed away, subsequently the Rav came to live with my parents. My parents embarked on more than a quarter of a century of a labor of love, totally leshem shamayim, of kibbud av. They weren't looking for any benefit to accrue, but at least from my vantage point, a very definite benefit did accrue. Whatever exposure I had, whatever opportunities I had to interact with the Rav, are all due to that remarkable mesiras nefesh of my mother, she should live and be well, and להבדיל בין החיים ובין החיים, my father. So as I try to share a little bit of my understanding and appreciation of the Rav, I'm profoundly indebted on many levels to my parents. ברוכים הבאים בשם השם, this morning's wonderful gathering is an expression of kavod torah and kavod shamayim. A whole panoply of feelings and emotions brings us together: personal memories, feelings of love and reverence, fascination, reverential curiosity and so much more. העצם כבוד תורה ושמים, we seek to reflect upon the Rav zatzal and his teachings to draw guidance and inspiration. Who was he? As has been mentioned repeatedly, fortunately the Rav autobiographically addressed our question. I'm a melamed, he was wont to say. Now, it's not always prudent to accept people's self-description and self-definition due to a variety of reasons; self-description and self-assessment can easily be skewed. But in the case of the Rav, we would do well to take his words very seriously. He was, inspired by his emunah, a melamed. But what did he teach? First and foremost, he said shiurim. Shiurim replete with his own, his father's, his grandfather's dazzling chidushai torah on most of shas. The torah of Brisk is at once brilliantly, creatively, excitingly new and yet totally compelling, mechudash umuchrach. Rav Schachter once gave a very moving, poignant description and reminiscence, describing that he felt as if the malachim were descending from on high to listen to those beautiful shiurim. With the Rav, every shiur increased kavod torah and kavod shamayim. His shiurim revealed the brilliance, profundity, and artistry of divrei torah. The Rav's place in the annals of Gedolei Yisroel and in Jewish history would be secure based on this accomplishment alone. The Rambam quoting the Sifrei explains that a component of the mitzvah of Ahavas Hashem is שיהיה שם שמים מתאהב על ידך that one should be a source of others loving Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Shem shamayim was consistently misahev through the Rav's beautiful shiurim. But as impressive as that was and remains, the Rav taught more. In order to appreciate what he taught, we need to understand something about knowledge, about Torah and chochma. We perceive Torah, chochma, we perceive knowledge and branches of knowledge in a disjointed, fragmented fashion. We know of Halacha, we know of Kabbalah, we know of Jewish philosophy, l'havdil, general philosophy, science, so on and so forth. We know of them to the degree that we're familiar with them, we experience them as separate and for the most part unrelated disciplines. The truth, however, is very different. Ultimately, all of knowledge is holistic, one organic whole. Thus, the Gaon of Vilna and others insist that there can never be any discrepancy between nigla and nistar, between the revealed, exoteric parts of Torah, the hidden, esoteric parts of Torah. אסתכל באורייתא וברא עלמא Chazal tell us, Hakadosh Baruch Hu looked into the Torah and created the world. Somewhere in the Torah are encoded the laws of physics, the basic principles of chemistry and biology. Rabbeinu Bachya writes in the Chovos HaLevavos

כי החכמה ועם סימניה נחלקים בברואים היא ביסודה ועיקרה אחת

even though the manifestations of chochma are varied, at its root, at its source, chochma is one. Kashemesh, similar to the sun, אשר היא אחת בעיקרו ובעצמו, the sun is one entity,

ועם כל זה מתחלקות מראות ניצוציה בשמשות הנעשות מן הזכוכית הלבן והשחור והירוק

and yet its rays translate into a whole array of different colors depending upon how they're filtered. To experience and appreciate the holistic richness of Torah, one must with depth, with clarity and creativity, master the various bodies and branches of knowledge: Halacha, Kabbalah, Jewish philosophy, l'havdil, general philosophy, science. Not every generation is blessed with an Adam Gadol whose breathtaking creative command of all these disciplines allows him to grasp, experience, and teach Torah holistically. The Rav zatzal was such a rare individual. Much like the Gemara Nedarim says of Moshe Rabbeinu that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave Moshe Rabbeinu the Torah and ומשה נהג בה טובת עין ונתנה לישראל and Moshe Rabbeinu acted with a tremendous generosity of spirit and he shared it with the Jewish people, v'alav hakasuv omer and about Moshe Rabbeinu does the pasuk speak when it says טוב עין הוא יבורך. person of generous, generosity, generosity of spirit, he should be blessed. The Rav was a tov ayin. He couldn't share his entire holistic panoramic view of Torah. He was too great and everyone around him—and obviously this is testimony to his greatness, not to anyone else's shortcomings—people around him simply lacked the keilim to be able to receive everything that he had to offer. But he was able to share something of his holistic experience and view. It was this experience of the holistic nature of Torah which generated the Rav's seminal chiddush, the existence of a philosophy of halacha. The remarkable recognition that halacha isn't merely supplemented from without by philosophy and machshava, but that within halacha itself a rich world of philosophy and machshava resides. Through the lens of the Rav's Torah, mitzvos, halachic norms and precepts, concretize an underlying halachic philosophy. Mitzvos, halacha also objectify personal religious experience. Let us attempt to illustrate and sample the Rav's multidimensional holistic understanding of halacha. There are many mitzvos in the Torah of zechira. Remembering Yetzias Mitzrayim, remembering Ma'amad Har Sinai, and so forth. A very simple question begs that the mitzvos are understandable to the first generation. The first generation experienced these events. What one experiences, one can be held accountable to remember. But how do the mitzvos speak to us? How does a person remember what he never experienced? So perhaps just to give a little bit of a mashal to pave the way for the Rav's very beautiful answer to this question, imagine that a Holocaust survivor is confronted by the claims of those reshaim who seek to deny the Holocaust. And the survivor is asked to rebut those claims, to disprove those claims. He's challenged as to the rationality of his own belief, his own insistence that in fact the Holocaust happened. Do you have documents to prove it? How do you prove your case? So the survivor rightfully, undoubtedly, would turn around and say I have no need to prove anything, I lived through it, I experienced it. There's not a day that goes by when I'm not haunted by those memories. I have no need to adduce any external proof. Now imagine that the question is posed not to the survivor himself, but to the survivor's children. And they're equally challenged to respond, to rebut the wicked claims of Holocaust denial. The memories which their parents not only shared with them, but imbued within them, the response is as direct, as immediate, as visceral. Parents' memories and experiences become children's memories and experiences. And this understanding of masora which the Rav advanced, not merely of transmission but symbiotic sharing, happens again and again as every generation imbues its memories into the next generations. Thus the Rav writes, there's a living past. From this perspective we do not perceive the past as no more. If you should ask me, says the Rav, to name the halachic category that expresses this particular time experience, I would point at the concept of masora. Masora signifies not only formal transmission of knowledge, mores, laws and a way of life, it implies an awareness of the togetherness of centuries and millennia, of the unity of time within one experience. In sum, Mitzvos Zechira in the Torah reflect an entire philosophy of time, of a past which—of time not merely as something quantitative, not merely something which exists in a linear direction, but time as something qualitative, time as something with the past time continues to exist. Mitzvos Zechira reflect an experience of time, a personal immediate experience of time. All these layers are perceived by the Rav within Mitzvos Zechira. What we perceive as different branches of knowledge, halacha, abstract philosophy, religious phenomenology, all converge in the Rav's brilliant exposition. Such presentation of Torah, where a little bit of the Rav's holistic understanding and grasp of Torah he could share with us, fosters even more kvod Torah and kvod shamayim. The multi-dimensional view of halacha, halacha as concrete norm and mandate, halacha as reflecting profound philosophical propositions, halacha as objectifying subjective personal religious experience, teaches and exposes us to the incomparable vitality and vibrancy of halacha. And in fact a very important facet of the Rav's teaching was the uncovering and explaining of meta-halacha, the axioms of halacha, and this of course very much in keeping with his espousal of philosophy of halacha, with his holistic understanding of Torah. To clarify, I don't mean to suggest that the Rav's audience consciously focused on the fact that they were being exposed to philosophy of halacha, or that they consciously focused on the fact that the Rav's philosophy of halacha stemmed from his wonderful holistic grasp of Torah. But nevertheless there was a very profound effect that these snippets, these nivlos hachochma had on the Rav's audience, two generations of world Jewry. They were exposed to the vibrancy, vitality, which convinced them of the viability of halacha. They were inspired to commit to a life of Talmud Torah and observance. Let's perhaps sample another example of the Rav's teaching of the axioms of Halacha alluded to earlier by Dr. Shatz. Self-defeat, says the Rav, is demanded in those areas in which man is most interested, where the individual expects to find the summum bonum, the realization of his most cherished dream or vision. It is precisely in those areas that Hakadosh Baruch Hu requires man to withdraw. Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells man to withdraw from whatever man desires the most. Is there, for example, a more sensitive area in the lives of two young people, man and woman, than their love relationship? Therefore the principle of self-defeating action must govern the relationship in this area. And the Rav proceeds to quote the Midrash of which he was so fond from Shir Hashirim Rabbah of Sugu Bashoshanim. It often happens, the Midrash says, that a man takes a wife, when after going to great expense he wishes to associate with her, she says to him I have seen a rose-red speck. He immediately recoils. What made him retreat and keep away from her? Was there an iron fence? Did a serpent bite him? Did a scorpion sting him? No, only the words of the Torah which are as soft as a bed of lilies. The Rav taught about the axioms of Halacha, the redemptiveness of recoiling, the dignity of defeat. If only religiously confused, self-centered modern man would open himself to this beautiful, inspiring truth. He would cease speaking about insensitivity of Halacha, Rachmana litzlan, and become sensitized to the spirituality of surrender to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. A related seminal teaching of the Rav based on the opening Halachos in Hilchos Krias Shema where the Rambam amplifies the words of Chazal as to why the mitzvah of Krias Shema begins with the parsha of Shema, the Rambam says

שיש בהם יחודו ואהבתו ותלמודו שהוא העיקר הגדול שהכל תלוי בו.

The Rav amplified that Talmud Torah is an act of קבלת עול מלכות שמים. When a person studies Torah, that is an act, an expression of accepting the yoke of Malchus Shamayim. Chazal comment that אין עושין נפשות לצדיקים that שדבריהם הן הן זכרונן. On its most basic level, Chazal are telling us that simple biographical data is not important. The Torah taught by the tzadikim is. Possibly there is a deeper level of meaning to this as well. I heard a story once from Rav Goldvicht, the late Rosh Yeshiva of Kerem B'Yavneh. He was reminiscing about one of his walks with the Rav's uncle, Reb Velvel. Reb Velvel alluded to the Beis HaLevi's answer to the Ibn Ezra's question about how the Torah can legislate Lo Sachmod. How does the Torah legislate emotion, instinctive reaction? And the Beis HaLevi very famously gives his mashal to someone who's obsessed with his love or desire for a certain woman and he's running across a frozen body of water. water in her direction, and his mind totally preoccupied, totally obsessed, and then all of a sudden he hears a cracking sound. So what happens to that obsession, what happens to that total preoccupation? The only thing he can think of is that the ice is cracking and the fate that awaits him. So too says the Beis Halevi, if a person recognizes that Hakadosh Baruch Hu says no, so then the sense of yiras hachet and yiras ha'onesh that a person should have should be so great that it chases away any such thought, any such feeling, any such emotion. So Rav Velvel reviewed this famous pshat of his grandfather and then, as Rav Goldvicht recreated, he stopped in his tracks while they were walking and he grabbed onto his arm and he says to him, Chaim Yankel, you know such a pshat you don't say only with the head, such a pshat comes from the heart.

דבריהם הן הן זכרונן, אין עושין נפשות לצדיקים, דבריהם הן הן זכרונן.

One doesn't memorialize tzadikim; their words are what constitute their remembrance. So perhaps Chazal also mean that if you want a window into the soul of a tzadik, you want a window into the soul of an adam gadol, what provides that window are his divrei Torah. The Rav explained what the halacha's philosophy of time is that underlies the mitzvos zechira what the halachic man partakes of. He explained how Talmud Torah is an act of קבלת עול מלכות שמים and so much more. If we're looking for a window into his soul, it's these divrei Torah which provide that window and afford a glimpse. Another crucial component of the Rav's teaching and the Rav's legacy was the absolute confidence that he felt and radiated in Torah, in mesorah. My father very trenchantly commented that the Rav's immense erudition notwithstanding, his very liberal use of philosophy and western sources, nowhere does one find in the Rav's writings, nowhere did one ever hear in his droshes any apologetics. There's no attempt to show that Torah is congruent with western values. And that for the simple reason that for the Rav, there was nothing problematic about Torah. Torah didn't need to be validated by appeal to any congruence which may or may not exist, any points of congruence. There was nothing problematic about Torah. The Rav's self-description and self-definition that he was a melamed wasn't only an autobiographical reflection. It expressed a credo and not merely a personal credo, but rather a credo of Yahadus. In every generation, the Torah community is confronted by challenges posed by social, religious, political conditions and mores. Torah is not always in sync with the temper of the times. There are different approaches. Rachmana litzlan Torah should bend and accommodate. Torah should be accepted, but Rachmana litzlan begrudgingly so. The Rav's absolute emuna in the truth and eternity of Torah didn't allow for such approaches. We must not yield, said the Rav, to the passing charm of a modern political or ideological slogan because of an inferiority complex. I say not only not to compromise, but even not to yield emotionally, not to feel inferior. It should never occur to the one who has accepted Ol Malchus Shamayim that it's important to cooperate even a little bit with a modern trend or secular modern philosophy. In my opinion, Yahadus does not have to apologize, neither to the modern woman nor to the modern representatives of religious subjectivism. We should have pride in our mesora. What's the Rav's approach, what's the Torah's approach to challenge, challenge posed by contemporary mores and values? To be a melamed, to teach Torah. Torah is true, Torah is sweet, Torah is beautiful, Torah is profound. The answer to our problems and challenges is to be a melamed. It is in this context and only in this context that the Rav's advocacy for chinuch habanos, for women's education can be properly understood. The Rav advocated teaching and educating, as the Chofetz Chaim had before him. Undoubtedly the Rav wrote a stronger prescription with a heavier recommended dosage than did the Chofetz Chaim, but the approach was the same. It reflected, it was anchored in the Rav's not just autobiographical reflection but the Rav's credo to be a melamed. To miss this point, to see any bending or any compromise sadly not only misrepresents an individual position of the Rav, it is to totally miss everything the man stood for, everything the man taught. The Rambam writes that the pshuto shel mikra in the psukim in Parshas Va'eschanan

ושמרתם ועשיתם כי היא חכמתכם ובינתכם לעיני העמים אשר ישמעון את כל החוקים האלה ואמרו רק עם חכם ונבון הגוי הגדול הזה.

The Rambam writes that when we teach Torah, when Torah is presented, Torah is projected, it elicits a reaction, a universal reaction not only amongst Jews but beyond as well of רק עם חכם ונבון הגוי הגדול הזה: what a wise and discerning people this great nation is. The force of the Rav's majestic charismatic personality, his brilliant shiurim in halakha, the projection of the vibrancy and vitality, multidimensionalism of halakha, the confidence which he represented and Radiated in our Mesorah, all distilled the message of this melamed par excellence into a simple phrase well known to all of us. It was a message that his generation and our generation very much needs to hear. It was a message that could only be delivered by someone who spoke authoritatively as he did, someone whose credentials not only as an adam gadol in Torah, but someone whose credentials in chochma were also unsurpassed. When all is said and done, the Rav's message was משה אמת ותורתו אמת.