019 Letter 141 (2)

Hi, good morning everybody. I hope everyone is well. I think we were in the middle of looking at אגרת קמ"ו the second paragraph of the letter. דבריך בענין פרשה ראשונה דקריאת שמע hutvu b'einai.

והדברים מעידים כמאה עדים על אמיתיות העובדה שהצלחת לעמוד בנסיונות. בשום אופן אי אפשר היה לך לחשוב מחשבות כאלו אם היית נלכד חלילה ברשת הסביבה.

Again, obviously there is no way of guessing what the divrei Torah were about the first parsha of krias shema, but the footnote comments that he sees in the divrei Torah proof positive that this talmid had successfully navigated the nisyanos because had he been entangled in the net, in the trap of the surrounding society, he wouldn't have been able to think such thoughts. It's an interesting insight. It reminds me of a story I once heard from רב חיים יעקב גולדוויכט, zichrono livracha, the Rosh Yeshiva in Kerem B'Yavneh. So Reb Velvel used to take daily walks for health purposes, and he would take someone along, he would invite someone to accompany him on those walks. And there was a tekufa once when Rav Goldvicht, zichrono livracha, was the one who was zoche to join him. So Rav Goldvicht was, he told me that the zchus that he had to join him, the quality which made Reb Velvel invite him, he said, "I knew how to be quiet," he said. He said other people if they were alone with Reb Velvel, so they would be the whole time they would want to try to squeeze whatever they could out of him. He said, "I knew how to be quiet," he said. So Reb Velvel liked that. So he left it to Reb Velvel when he, Reb Velvel, wanted to walk in silence and when he, excuse me one second, yes, okay, I'm sorry, I thought it was something to do with the Zooming. I thought someone was telling me the Zooming wasn't working. I'll call back now, okay. Okay, I'm sorry, I thought that was about this. So Reb Velvel was once repeating the famous Beis HaLevi on Lo Sachmod. Beis HaLevi responds the Ibn Ezra's kasha, how can the Torah legislate this instinctive reaction? If you have, nebach, let's say mashal, let's say l'mashal you have a very poor homeless person, rachmana l'tzlan, and it's a frigid night and he walks outside a beautiful house, well lit, sees the fire in the fireplace and sees the table set with all kinds of delicacies. So isn't it just an instinctive reaction to be chomeid? So mela the Torah can tell us to control our actions because actions require some kind of implementation, there's some kind of deliberation, but an instinctive reaction, so how can the Torah legislate that? That's the Ibn Ezra's famous kasha and he answers it in his way. The Beis HaLevi says, "Ay Ibn Ezra," and then he suggests an alternate, and the Beis HaLevi's... says that he gives a mashal as follows. Imagine you have a man, he's obsessed with a certain woman. Totally, totally, completely obsessed. 24/7, he can't think about anything else, there's no way he's able to disengage his mind from that. One winter day, so he sees her and between them there is a lake that's frozen over. So he starts crossing the frozen lake, headed in her direction. And again, totally obsessed, can't think about anything else, no room for anything else in in his mind. Then he hears this awful cracking sound. The lake that he had thought was frozen solid was not as solidly frozen as he had thought. So says the Beis Halevi, what happens when he hears that cracking sound? That thought which had so obsessively preoccupied him, so all of a sudden that's totally gone, totally gone. The only thing he can think about is the fact that he's about to fall in under the ice in in into the freezing cold water. So that means that no matter how powerful and no matter how much of a grip a certain thought has on a person, it's displaced by profound fear. Says the Beis Halevi, a person's Yiras Shamayim, the Ribbono Shel Olam tells a person that he's not allowed to be chomed, the sense of yiras cheit and Yiras Shamayim that the person should have, if if that thought, if that instinctive reaction even begins, so he should hear the ice cracking and that banishes the thought. That's the Beis Halevi's famous vort. So Goldwicht Shlita described how when he was walking with Reb Velvel, so Reb Velvel stopped at that point, he stopped in his tracks and reached out and and took hold of his, Goldwicht's arm and said, Chaim Yankel, you know, he says, azah pshat, he says, you can't say just with a moach. That pshat you have to say with a heart. The idea being that sometimes you see an adam gadol say something and involuntarily he opened a crack, a window into into his neshama because there are some pshatim that a person can't say no matter how brilliant a person is, no matter how creative, and no matter how original the person is, there are some which reflect experience and and what Reb Velvel was telling him is only someone who experienced Yiras Shamayim on that level with that intensity could say azah pshat. And and just to give another example of of such a pshat again where where the pshat says something about the person as a whole. It doesn't just tell you something about the person intellectually. In in the Rav's hesped for Reb Velvel, so he has a lengthy section about Reb Chaim's derech. And and he describes how Reb Chaim's relationship with Torah, again he compares it to that of nissuin as opposed to eirusin, ayen sham. And he says that Reb Chaim not only had a nefesh maskeles but a נפש בעלת חזון הלכתי. But a nefesh which which had again chazon as in chazon Yeshayahu, halakhic visionary. Halakhic analytical thinking is nourished, is nurtured from the precognitive vision. There's a mystical intuition which is intuition. האינטואיציה המסתורית היא מקור היצירה והחידוש ההלכתי. There's this mystical intuition which is the source of the Halachic creativity and the novelty. Ish haHalacha margish, he doesn't just think, but he feels, he intuits ideot Halachiot ke-illu, as though they were tochnei kol, as though they were mareh ve-reiach. The same way a person experiences sound and sight and smell, so that unique individual, he experiences those ideas. Be-shlav zeh, at this stage, התורה מתגלית לאדם לא רק בבחינת בינה. The Rav now uses the Sefirot to explain, to present this idea. Torah reveals itself to the person not just through the aspect of Binah המציינת את השכליות השאננה, the cognition, understanding, but also through the conduits of the aspect of Chochma. Chochma is שממנה שוטפת האינטואיציה הגאונית היוצרת. I'm skipping a little bit here and there. ha-pe'ulah ha-halachit ha-yotzeret, the creative Halachic gesture begins lo be-machshava, not with thought, ki im be-chazon, with a vision, lo be-nisuach, not with a formulation, ki im be-i-menucha, with a restlessness, לא לאור הבהיר של ההיגיון, not to the bright light of logic, כי אם בעלטה הטרום-הגיונית, but rather the mist or the cloud, the precognitive cloud. And the Rav continues with a remarkable description. There's no question that this also, like what Reb Velvel said about the Beis HaLevi is what a person can't just understand that intellectually and be able to imagine or reconstruct how Reb Chaim's creative process worked. It means that the Rav had the same experience, obviously in his modesty doesn't say that in the least, but again, it's the same idea as we have in this letter. Okay, so we'll stop here for now rabotai, so have a productive morning be-ezrat Hashem, be well, be safe and be-ezrat Hashem bli neder we'll reconvene at 1:30 on haDaf there with the Gemara bli neder and the Rishonim al haDaf bli neder. Kol tuv. Rabbi, can you hang back just for like 30 seconds after everybody hangs up? Sure.