Part of the series: Divrei Hashkafa by Rav Mayer Twersky
Transcript
AI-generated transcript. May contain errors.
Halacha Yud.
כל המשים על לבו שיעסוק בתורה ולא יעשה מלאכה ויתפרנס מן הצדקה, הרי זה חילל את השם וביזה את התורה וכיבה מאור הדת וגרם רעה לעצמו ונטל חייו מן העולם הבא, לפי שאסור ליהנות בדברי תורה בעולם הזה.
Amru Chachamim, כל הנהנה מדברי תורה נטל חייו מן העולם. ve'od tzivu ve'amru, אל תעשם עטרה להתגדל בהם ולא קרדום לחפור בהם. ve'od tzivu ve'amru,
אהוב את המלאכה ושנא את הרבנות, וכל תורה שאין עמה מלאכה סופה בטילה, וסוף אדם זה שיהא מלסטם את הבריות.
Halacha Yud Aleph.
מעלה גדולה היא למי שהוא מתפרנס ממעשה ידיו, ומידת חסידים הראשונים היא, ובזה זוכה לכל כבוד וטובה שבעולם הזה ולעולם הבא, שנאמר יגיע כפיך כי תאכל אשריך וטוב לך, אשריך בעולם הזה וטוב לך לעולם הבא שכולו טוב.
So I mean it's only a ma'alah gedolah for מי שהוא מתפרנס ממעשה ידיו. According to the Rambam there's no alternative, right? כל המשים על לבו שיעסוק בתורה ולא יעשה מלאכה, this is one of the most scary lines in all of Mishneh Torah. Clearly the Rambam did not feel that I'll just take tzedaka was a way to make a point here. This is unbelievable, right? Chilul Hashem, bizos hatorah, kiba me'or hadas, garam ra'ah le'atzmo, ונטל חייו מן העולם הבא. So what do you mean the Rambam turns around in Halacha Yud Aleph and says that it's a ma'alah gedolah? So lechora it's clear that the pshat is as follows. The first mishna in Zevachim, I think maybe in the numbering of the mishnayos it's the second mishna but in the gemara it's the way it's printed it's the first mishna in Zevachim quotes the התנא שמעון אחי עזריה. The meforshim, the Rav, the Melechet Shlomo, quote from the Midrash Rabbah that he was known as such, the Tanna was known as Shimon Achi Azaryah because his brother Azaryah used to support him. And that's what עזריה היה עוסק בפרגמטיא, שמח זבולון בצאתך ויששכר באהליך, that עזריה היה עוסק בפרגמטיא and he supported Shimon. And since Shimon's ability to single-mindedly devote himself to talmud torah was because of Azaryah's support, so he was known as Shimon Achi Azaryah. So that arrangement, it's a stam mishna as it were, right? So that arrangement entirely complies with Halacha Yud. Because it wasn't that Shimon was taking public funds, he wasn't taking tzedaka, he wasn't, you know, what I do and everyone else does, he wasn't getting paid, he wasn't getting a salary to teach. All of that is against Halacha Yud in the Rambam. But on the other hand, it's not Halacha Yud Aleph either, right? Even though he didn't have the ma'alah of being mitparnes mima'aseh yadav. And we know the Rambam himself writes autobiographically that his brother used to support him. The Rambam had a younger brother David who used to support the Rambam. He was in import-export, the Rambam's brother, and he supported the Rambam until he died in an accident. to support himself. But until that point, the Rambam allowed himself to be supported by his younger brother. Why? Because in Halacha Yud, the Rambam didn't insist. When the Rambam said lo ya'aseh melacha, lo ya'aseh melacha and having no other resources available, will then resort to yisparenes min hatzedaka, he'll resort to being mehene mi'divrei Torah by drawing a salary or something, so that's what the Rambam condemns as harshly as possible in Halacha Yud. In Halacha Yud Aleph, the Rambam is saying a different thing. Halacha Yud Aleph the Rambam is saying is, even if a person has a way of, he has means of support which complies with Halacha Yud, it's a middas chasidus, it's a ma'alah gedola that to be misparnes mima'aseh yadav. Kemiduma that the Kesef Mishneh here is, we have to check, but kemiduma that it's sort of unique in the annals of the Kesef Mishneh. Kesef Mishneh gives a makor of the Rambam. Most typically, he finds hasagos on the Rambam, the Ra'avad of the Rambam. Occasionally, he'll sort of throw up his hands and admit defeat, that he doesn't know a pshat in the Rambam's tochein. Here, the whole arichus is to say against the Rambam. The Kesef Mishneh quotes all the rayos that the Rambam has this arichus in Perush Hamishnayos in Avos where he presents this shitta of his as well and he quotes, and the Rambam adduces what he feels are many rayos. The Rambam himself, you know, is aware that everyone before him and even his contemporaries disagreed with what he was saying. The Rambam knew and was very much aware that he was a da'as yachid badavar and this Kesef Mishneh is ma'arich to say against the Rambam. He's ma'arich to be mad'che the shittas haRambam. The minhag ha'olam is based on the Ran in Nedarim on Daf Lamed Zayin where the Ran quotes the Yerushalmi that the Yerushalmi says schar, what are the nekudos? bitlan parve meaning בטלה שלהן הן נוטלין that it is acceptable to take schar battala. Schar battala means that in order for the rebbe to be present and to be teaching, so then he needs not to be encumbered by other professional responsibilities. If he's going to be working, you know, so many hours in whatever profession to earn his michya, so then he's not going to be available to teach. So the Yerushalmi, the Ran quotes Yerushalmi that schar battala. The consensus, again, against the Rambam, the Rambam is very much against this, but the consensus is, I think the Beis Yosef has this also like that, that not only don't we pasken like the Rambam ikar hadin, but that for ruba deruba of people, it's not even right to be machmir for the Rambam, but that it's a חומרא דאתי לידי קולא. That for ruba deruba of people, what would be involved and sort of the fallout, as it were, from being machmir for the shittas haRambam would ultimately be on the expen- at the cost of bitul Torah, at the cost of hafatzas Torah, at the cost of teaching Torah, which is why, again, the accepted practice is not like the Rambam. There has been yechidim throughout the generations, you know, who have navigated, you know, in a way that they were machmir for the Rambam. I think the Chazon Ish's wife had a store or something, and there have been gedolim. I think at one point Rav Nachman Zomber had a hardware store. There have been yechidim, but ruba deruba of mamash the gedolei, not just gedolei hador, but gedolei hadoros, again, followed that consensus. Again, not just a חומרא דאתי לידי קולא for an individual, but a חומרא דאתי לידי קולא for the for the klal. What's the Rav do with the Yerushalmi? I guess the question always is, you know, whenever you have a din, I mean there are obviously many such examples, and certainly certainly some of them made their way into into Mishneh Torah. You know, there are many dinim that appear in the Yerushalmi that the Bavli is silent on. So in each of those cases, you know, so the Rishonim, the Mechaber, the you know, those who who are posek halacha l'doros have to decide whether the Bavli didn't talk about it, in which case we certainly follow the Yerushalmi, or the stimas haBavli means the Bavli is against it. In which case, usually the the rule of thumb is that, again, that the Rambam doesn't always follow this either, but usually the rule of thumb is that when there is a machlokes Bavli v'Yerushalmi, that since the Bavli is is later, so we invoke halacha k'basrai and generally in machlokes Bavli v'Yerushalmi we we follow the Bavli. What about being mis'asek by one's brother? Does that not also result in bitul Talmud Torah or asei? Meaning if Shimon had wanted to devote himself to winning the decathlon in the Olympics, you know, Hazal wouldn't have supported him. Presumably. Hazal would not have supported him. So so then at the end of the day, why isn't it bitul Talmud Torah? So part of the answer, I'm not sure if this is all the answer, but part of the answer is So part of the answer, I'm not sure that this is all the answer, but part of the answer is. Even in the Yerushalmi's scheme, so let's say someone who's a Rav in a Yeshiva, so again the way we assume again that it's mutar and not only mutar but for most people it's a chov ועל דא סמכי דכולא to follow the Rambam is conceptually based on Schar Batala, right? That's what the Rambam says in Yerushalmi. But that notwithstanding, practically there is a quid pro quo, right? If the Rebbi just doesn't show up at all, so then he's not going to get his salary. Practically there is a quid pro quo, meaning the Yeshiva, achat kama vekama with tzedaka funds, there is indeed a quid pro quo. It's just purely on the taker's end. But even if it's structured as Schar Batala, there is a quid pro quo. Azarya, he didn't make any demands of Shimon. It wasn't that Shimon had to tutor him, Shimon had to teach him. Sforno was also supported by his brother. He writes that he dedicates things to his brother. Sforno had a brother who was in high circles politically also and who supported him, I forget what his name was. There's no quid pro quo with Shimon and Azarya. And with Yissachar Zevulun, Yissachar is not giving Zevulun anything that they're getting when you're receiving something in exchange for the divrei Torah, which is different than receiving support because you're devoting yourself to the divrei Torah. I think that's at least part of the answer. The former is not considered hana'at divrei Torah. Right, the fact that, again, Azarya is not interested in helping his brother become a gold medalist. But on the other hand, Shimon is not getting the support as part of a quid pro quo of giving Torah to Azarya. It's not that 'I want you to tutor me, I want you to learn with me', that's a quid pro quo. And even with Schar Batala, practically it's a quid pro quo. Okay, so the Yerushalmi says that's totally fine, and the Rambam says it's totally not fine. Ma she'ein kein here, there's bechlal no quid pro quo. So the hana'ah, in quotation marks, but you don't call that hana'ah in this context that Shimon is getting is the fact that he doesn't have to worry about earning a living, that Azarya is paying the bills. But it's not that if there's a quid pro quo, the hana'ah he's getting is the check. If there's no quid pro quo, the hana'ah he's getting is that he doesn't have to enter a profession, but that's מצוות לאו ליהנות ניתנו, that's not the point of hana'ah. The mishna obviously with which the Rambam concludes hilchos Talmud Torah
פרק ג הלכה י תורה שאינה עמה מלאכה סופה בטלה וגוררת עוון.
Now, al pi the Rambam, so maybe you could have said that the diyuk is not a diyuk. But I think the Rambam is underscoring that it is a diyuk. The mishna depicts the consequences of not only affecting the person, but as affecting the Torah that he learns. So you'll say, "No, that's not what it means, it means the person." But no, you look at the lashon ha-Rambam then when he switches to the sof adam zeh, so it's clear that the reisha is bedafka. It's not that the reisha is not bedafka and that תורה שאינה עמה מלאכה means אדם הלומד תורה שאינה עמה מלאכה, because if that's what the reisha meant, then he doesn't have to switch in the seifa, the sof adam zeh, because that's what he's meant all along. So from the Rambam it's clear that no, that he understands when the mishna says תורה שאינה עמה מלאכה, he means that the Torah itself gets distorted. And you see it, when in practice the system doesn't provide support, so all kinds of distortions emerge to justify that system. It's not only that the people are affected, it's the divrei Torah themselves get distorted. Chazal don't even say that that adam zeh is going to be especially that the nisayon that he's going to subject himself to is very great in terms of resorting to being melastem es ha-briyos. No, they just say the סוף אדם זה שמלסטם את הבריות. If a person, again, now not incorporating it into the Rambam's shita about not getting paid, let's say incorporating it into our system. If a person doesn't have a means of support, so Chazal are saying it's inevitable that a person ends up cheating on government programs and ka-hanei v'ka-hanei because מה יעשה בן שלא יחטא. Right, Chazal don't say that the odds of it happening increase significantly or even dramatically. No, this is what's going to happen. A leads to B. This is what happens. If a person doesn't have a means of support, this is what happens.
אין דברי תורה מתקיימין במי שמרפה עצמו עליהן ולא באלו שלומדין מתוך עידון ומתוך אכילה ושתייה אלא במי שממית עצמו עליהן ומצער גופו תמיד ולא יתן שינה לעיניו לעפעפיו תנומה.
Obviously, just in terms of practically, obviously that means not to a point where it's counterproductive. Everyone, it varies from individual to individual what that quantity is. Everyone needs a certain amount of sleep. The Rambam's not talking about, you know, where a person is pushing himself beyond his capacity. Everyone has their limits, but what the Rambam says is a person discovers what his limits are. You know, he doesn't necessarily coast and take the easy way out, but he sees what his limits are. But, you know, for a person to walk around sleep deprived all day that, you know, that he can't think, that he can't function at full capacity, that, you know, he's constantly falling asleep is not what the Rambam's talking about. He's talking about within a person's limits. They tell a story, I think in the biography of the Vilna Gaon, that the Vilna Gaon was already older and, you know, through no fault of his own, you know, widely recognized and acclaimed. So he met two, two bochurim or avreichim at this point, you know, who were basically subjecting themselves to a regimen similar to that of the Gaon. The Gaon told them, you know, it's absolutely assur for you to do that. You're doing a shaila to do that. So eich-she-hu they asked, you know, but what about the Rebbe? And the Gaon said that I was blessed with an unusually strong constitution, and I was able to do what I did because physically I was blessed with unusual strength and unusual fortitude. I think I think the Chazon Ish writes somewhere, forget where, Chazon Ish writes somewhere that if you would tell him that you discovered that a certain tanna used to sleep, I forget the figure he uses, six, seven, eight hours a night, he'd say, "I believe it." He wouldn't, he wouldn't think that that that that was apocryphal. No, he'd think that okay, so that given his physical constitution, that's what that tanna needed to do. The sefer of the Netziv, I think, Meir Bar-Ilan, Bar-Ilan was ha-ben ha-zekunim from Volozhin. He was the Netziv's ha-ben ha-zekunim. So he writes in his he wrote a memoir. He wrote it in Yiddish, it was translated into Hebrew, maybe into English also, Mi-Volozhin Ad Yerushalayim. So he writes in in his memoir that when the Netziv, when someone would come to be seeking to be admitted to Volozhin, so the Netziv would ask him what's the definition of a masmid? And, you know, invariably the answer was always a number. 16 hours a day, 18 hours a day, 20 hours a day, and whatever the number was, the Netziv said wrong. If they answered in those terms, so the Netziv would always say wrong. No, definition of a masmid is he learns when it's time to learn, and he eats when it's time to eat, and he sleeps when he's, when it's time to sleep. He uses his time efficiently. He makes the most of, he makes the the most of his time. But how that translates, again, the Netziv didn't spell this out, but that's you know from the Chazon Ish, from the Gaon, and there's every reason to think that the Netziv has this in mind as well, that's gonna vary from person to person obviously. He makes the most of his time, but how that translates, again, the Netziv didn't spell this out, but that's from the Chazon Ish and the Gaon, and there's every reason to think that the Netziv has this in mind as well, that's going to vary from person to person, obviously.
אמר חכם דרך רמז זאת התורה אדם כי ימות באוהל. רב חרל"פ זכרונו לברכה.
I told the story that as a teenager, so when he went there for the first time, he grew up here. His grandparents, רב יעקב משה חרל"פ, his paternal grandfather, lived in Yerushalayim, of course. So as a teenager, he went to Merkaz for the first time and I think he was already older and not well, Rav Yaakov Moshe. And he described, Rav Khalap, רב זבולון חרל"פ זכרונו לברכה described how his grandfather used to sleep at night like all the simple people in the world. He used to sleep on a board with a light shining in his eyes so that he would only sleep as much as his body needed to sleep because the very minute the fatigue wasn't stronger than the light shining in his eyes, then he would wake up. There are, there are, I guess in every generation there are paradigms of Hilchos Talmud Torah Jews. All of us should be paradigms of Hilchos Talmud Torah Jews. We have to do that first before we move on to Perek Gimmel, before we can move on to Perek Gimmel. There's a story that my brother Hashem yikom damo was fond of telling. In the last tekufa of Volozhin, Volozhin had two Roshei Yeshiva. There was a senior Rosh Yeshiva, a junior Rosh Yeshiva. In the last tekufa of Volozhin, so the Netziv was the senior Rosh Yeshiva and Rav Chaim was the junior Rosh Yeshiva. So Rav Chaim used to, Netziv had connections and Netziv always had the most beautiful and mehudar'dike esrog. So Rav Chaim used to bentch on the Netziv's esrog. One year, maybe it was Esrog Shmita, I think that's what it was, I don't remember, but one year Rav Chaim had a kulla and he didn't want to bentch on the Netziv's esrog which threw the Netziv for a loop. So the following night at 3 o'clock in the morning, so there was a banging on the door of Rav Chaim's house. Netziv says you have to come immediately. So Rav Chaim jumps up, he's afraid, some kind of emergency, what kind of sakanas nefashos is going on in the Netziv's home? And then he runs, I don't know what the distance was, he runs to the Netziv's home. Netziv is sitting there at his table and seforim piled up like this and he says, it's bichlal not a shaylah and starts talking. And Rav Chaim excuses himself and says, please give me a minute, I have to say Birkas HaTorah and it's 3 o'clock in the morning. And Netziv starts crying and says, what is going to be with the gadol hador of the next generation who was sleeping at 3 o'clock? Netziv was crying. Okay, so there are paradigms of Hilchos Talmud Torah Jews. Rav Chaim went to sleep at 2:30, you have to understand the story.
אמר חכם דרך רמז זאת התורה אדם כי ימות באוהל. אין התורה מתקיימת אלא במי שממית עצמו עליה באוהלי החכמה. וכן אמר שלמה בחכמתו התרפית ביום צרה צר כוחך. ועוד אמר אף חכמתי עמדה לי חכמה שלמדתי באף עמדה לי. אמר חכם דרך רמז. וכל המשמיע קולו בשעת תלמודו תלמודו מתקיים בידו אבל הקורא בלחש במהרה הוא משכח.
Learning audibly is a segula for remembering. I think the Ba'al HaTanya again because he's I think a da'as yachid in this. And I think the Ba'al HaTanya has in his hilchos talmud torah that he thinks that where a person could be mashmi'a kol, meaning sometimes in learning a person is thinking and can't, you just need to think, you need to be quiet and think. The Ba'al HaTanya is not not opposed to that. The Ba'al HaTanya is all in favor of thinkers. But let's say a person is I don't know he sees that's not the stage at which he's at, he's doing chazara he's whatever it is. So the Ba'al HaTanya holds that if a person could be mashmi'a kol and he's not mashmi'a kol, he's not מקיים המצווה עד כדי כך. Perhaps that's a da'as yachid of the Ba'al HaTanya, but this is a gemara that it's a segula for remembering is a gemara. Okay, let's stop here.