Derech Halimud

What we talk about has bearing on seder and hopefully the rest is worthwhile as well. Devarim peshutim but worthwhile. Basically in the morning, if you had the zechus to be going to a very good shiur, so maybe it could be said that the whole morning seder and night seder should revolve around the shiur. You presently, unless you're about to switch shiurim, don't have that zechus. So what you're doing in the morning is not, the world doesn't revolve around the shiur, it revolves around da'ish mekadesh. That's what the world revolves around. So let's talk a little bit about again devarim peshutim about derech halimmud and some of it has bearing for what we're doing in the morning when we're learning the sugya, when we're preparing the sugya. If you have questions at any point so please feel free to ask. I won't necessarily answer them but feel free to ask. I think the English terms most often and to some extent accurately used in describing Reb Chaim's derech, Reb Chaim's approach, are the terms abstraction or conceptualization. What do those polysyllabic words mean? So basically Reb Chaim operated with the understanding that underlying the concrete dinim that you have in the Gemara are ideas which are reflected and then concretized in a certain way. And when we learn a Gemara, a Rishon, and we encounter some rough sailing, we encounter a bump in the road, so that means that we probably don't have an accurate understanding of the idea, hence the conceptualization, the concept which is underlying the din. So just to give the most recent example, not contextually the best example, but most recent because of where we're holding now, so yesterday in learning the Rashbam, the problem that we encountered was why does the Rashbam need to introduce not only the yesod that ההוא גברא דזבין אדעתא למיסק לארעא דישראל is not only operating with umdana d’da’ata but also it's necessary to understand that by dinei mamonus in general there's no need for mishpetei hatnaim. So why is it, especially given that the other Rishonim, the Ri, says no, just the fact that you have an umdan and an omed hadas is enough to explain why you don't need mishpetei hatnaim. So that forces us to sort of rethink or think about what the din of mishpetei hatnaim represents. What's the concept which is concretized in the requirement of mishpetei hatnaim, which led us, again obviously not that we're breaking new ground but just speaking rhetorically, which led us to the understanding that mishpetei hatnaim is not a gezeiras hakasuv in terms of how the da'as is, it is not a function of this is the only way that you can clearly and successfully communicate what your da'as is, but it's gezeiras hakasuv in terms of dibbur. That for whatever reason, and we haven't gotten to the idea which underlies this yet, but for whatever reason the Torah here has gezeiras hakasuv in terms of dinei dibbur and that a gilluy da'as doesn't substitute for that. So that's again b’ze’er anpin an example of what it means that Reb Chaim sought to understand what the concept underlying the concrete din is. That the din is that you have to have mishpetei hatnaim, that you have to have t’nai kaful, you have to have hein kodem. the lav v'chulu, you have to have all the mishpetei hatnai. Now in the context of learning the sugya, of learning the Rashbam, so the, so we're able to peel away the first layer, that doesn't mean that we hit pay dirt yet, but we're able to peel away the first layer that recognizing that what the gezeiras hakasuv is, that for some reason the Torah is being makpid on dibbur, that it's not that this is your way of, that otherwise you haven't communicated your da'as, no, but for whatever reason the Torah is stipulating gezeiras hakasuv of dibbur. Again, it's, it's not such a good example because that's only the first step and we haven't really finished the sugya, but that's the basic approach, that dinim are, there's a certain understanding, there's a certain havana which underlies the din which is, the din is sort of the result, is sort of the application of a certain understanding which underlies that din, and therefore to accurately understand it, so you have to penetrate to that underlying idea. Now how did Reb Chaim do it and in whatever incomplete and wholly inadequate way how do we try to learn in that tradition as well? So I think that there is a common misunderstanding in terms of Reb Chaim's derech. It's sometimes thought that, you know, the same way my father zichrono livracha once said that people think that the Chasam Sofer walked around all day saying חדש אסור מן התורה. So the Chasam Sofer writes it in one or two places in his teshuvos, but it wasn't that he spent his whole life marching up and down and saying חדש אסור מן התורה. Okay, in a couple of teshuvos in the Chasam Sofer he does does write. So similarly, I think sometimes there's a misperception that Reb Chaim walked up and down all day making chakiras and saying, is it a din in the gavra, is it a din in the cheftza. And I don't think that's quite an, not exactly an accurate portrait. To the best of my understanding, to the best of my knowledge, it actually, things happened in the opposite direction. De'hainu, when you learn a blatt, when you learn a blatt Gemara, you don't come with any automatic questions, because lema'aseh Reb Chaim didn't have all Reb Chaim's questions to ask already, right? So all the categories that we borrow from Reb Chaim and superimpose on a sugya, so you know when Reb Chaim went to the seforim store, so he wasn't able to, he wasn't able to buy that prepackaged. So that's clearly not how he operated. Reb Chaim learned the sugya. Reb Chaim learned the sugya, and again, you learn a sugya without, just alertly, as alertly as possible, not looking to be mechadesh. A person never ever learns looking to say a chiddush. It doesn't matter, even if you have a deadline to give a shiur in ten minutes, you can't be looking to say a chiddush, even if you have a chabura that you have to give tonight, next week or something, a person can't learn a sugya looking to say a chiddush, because that's not the way anything amittik generally emerges. It might on occasion, but generally that's not the way. A person learns just alertly. In the course of learning, again, how much this will happen will depend upon how much a person knows, how well-trained he is, ve'chulu ve'chulu. But in the course of learning, so you sort of notice certain things that aren't misyashev, that don't sit well. Sometimes it can be, I don't know, you're learning through the shakla v'tarya in the Gemara and there seems to be a logical gap. Okay, so the first thing you do is you make sure that you have the teitch right and you have the perush hamilos right. But assuming that it's not something as basic as that, assuming that it's really there, so then that points to you, oh, so there's something here which doesn't sit straight, right, it doesn't add up. About this Gemara and whatever assumption the Gemara is operating with are two different, two different assumptions, two different sets of assumptions. And that then puts something on your agenda in this sugya. So sometimes it’s very obvious, the Gemara has an ibaya, so it’s obvious that there are two tzedadim here to understand. Is it like this? Is it like this? The Gemara has an ibaya, so it doesn’t... we don’t need such a developed chush to realize that this is something, that this is a point about which we have to be me'ayen. You have... you come across there's a machlokes Rashi and Tosfos in how to learn pshat in the Gemara. So again, so clearly אינו אומר אלא דורשני, so what underlies Rashi? What’s the havana which underlies Rashi? What’s the havana which underlies Tosfos? So Reb Chaim always... I don’t think, I don’t think he ever, certainly in my very limited experience, the Rav didn’t do this either, they didn’t make chakiras, they didn’t make chakiras. Ela mai, where does this misunderstanding come from? So I think it comes from the following. How Reb Chaim did it be-al peh in Volozhin and elsewhere I don’t know, but certainly in the sefer, pedagogically, the way Reb Chaim presents things often is yesh le-histapek, meaning that the way he comes to it is, so you have a Gemara which is against the Rambam. Let’s take it as blatant as that. Okay, so then... so then you have to rethink, so on the surface the way we learn the Gemara, not just on the surface, maybe the way Rashi learns the Gemara, maybe the way the Ra'avad learns the Gemara, not just on the surface. So the Gemara seems to be saying such and such. So obviously the Rambam had a different understanding of this din. So what was the Rambam’s understanding of this din? Oh, so maybe the din could be understood not this way but that way. Okay, so then you can sort of present that and package it as you want as a chakira, but it doesn’t evolve that way, it doesn’t, it doesn’t develop that way. It develops that it’s in response to, it’s guided by a particular question, right? There’s a question that this line in the Gemara didn’t make sense. Ich veis, when we were learning again, I’m just referring to what we learned together, so that way we have a common set of examples to refer to. So when we were learning milah and shliach oseh shliach, so we saw that Rashi seemed to have a very literal understanding of מילה לא נמסרה לשליח. Okay, so then... so obviously it wasn’t just that Rashi was so literal. So then we thought about it, we were me'ayen and understood, hopefully correctly, that what Rashi is saying is that shliach oseh shliach doesn’t mean that a shliach has the standing that he’s a ba'al to be memaneh shliach, but it rather means that a shlichus can be handed over. A shlichus can be nimseret. So it’s not that, it’s not that, it’s not that Reb Chaim or the Rav would have us make a chakira in what shliach oseh shliach is, but rather there’s something here that’s prompting us, something here that’s giving us a cue. Now what difference does it make whether you sort of go מן הפרט אל הכלל or whether you go מן הכלל אל הפרט? So the emes is that sometimes you’ll end up in the same place. Sometimes you will end up in the same place. It could be a person might be mechaven, it could be he’ll open the sugya of shliach oseh shliach, the sugya of milah, and he’ll make a chakira, it’s well within the realm of possibility. Well, what does it mean that the shliach oseh shliach? And it could be that then he’ll say, "Oh, and from Rashi you have a raya to this understanding." Yitachen that it could unfold in that fashion. And sometimes they do yield the same results. The danger of going in the other direction, of sort of without any cue, without any prompting, not in response to something in the Gemara, is sort of twofold. One of them, there is a joke which is told in yeshivos, it’s associated with a particular yeshiva, but I see no reason to, no reason to mention which one. I don't know if there's any basis for that either. The Yeshiva guys are sitting around and they're drinking a cup of tea. And they're making the following chakira. So they're drinking, they're drinking tea with sugar and the tea is sweet, you put enough sugar in the tea, the tea is sweet. And they're making a chakira, what is it that makes tea sweet? So is it, so one side is that what makes tea sweet is sugar, right? That's one side. And the other side is no. It's not the pshat that sugar makes it sweet. The pshat is that the act of stirring is what makes tea sweet. אלא מאי וכי תיקשי? But if you don't put sugar in you can stir all day long and it doesn't get sweet. So the sugar is only a tnai that the stirring should have a chalos shem of stirring. But really the emes says that the pshat is that it's the stirring which is responsible for the tea being sweet. So what's wrong what's wrong with chakira? It's very sharp, no? So that's the way you're supposed to learn, no? You have a sugya, so you're supposed to ask: Is it gavra, is it cheftza? So the answer is that if it's not prompted by anything, if you can just take things at face value and just sort of automatically a chakira, so then you can end up with a cup of tea chakira. Now if you're fortunate enough that what you're dealing with is not the cup of tea, so then ein hachi nami, you may be mechaven to what's correct going in this direction as well, but you also run the risk of ending up with the cup of tea chakira. The other reason why I think Rav Chaim always went in the direction of from the prat is that and this is something if you take a look in the Rav's hesped for Rav Velvel which this point that we're about to discuss he has a whole section there as you know about Rav Chaim's derech is that one of the things the Rav emphasizes is that what Rav Chaim always did is that the categories emerged from the sugya. Meaning if when you learn a blatt Gemara so right away you ask is this a din in the gavra or is this a din in the cheftza? Okay, so you may be right. There are many dinim which really do break down that way and you may you know you may win the lottery, you may win the lottery. But it also may be that if you just say that unprompted, if that's not if those categories weren't sort of suggested by the question or the difficulty that you had in the sugya, but you just they were pre-packaged and you superimposed them, so then maybe it's neither gavra nor cheftza in this sugya and that you're going to be, you know, trying to force a square into a round circle. So when you begin with the question, when there's something in the sugya which prompts you, when there's something in the sugya which is a cue, so then and then you come up with a category based upon the cue, all right, it doesn't mean so unless you're infallible, it doesn't protect you from making mistakes, but you're not going to be you're going to be less prone to again trying to superimpose a category which doesn't really match it. Because again, is it this or is it that? Well, maybe it's maybe it's neither. Maybe gavra and cheftza is very helpful for Shvuos and Nedarim but maybe it doesn't help you in this sugya. So that's why even though in the Sefer so Rav Chaim often will introduce the chidush with a yesh lehistapeik, but that's not how he came to it. He came to it because he was prompted. Because he noticed that something was amiss. How do you notice something is amiss? Again, so sometimes it's obvious. You have a machlokes Rishonim then there's some ambiguity here, then there's some so what is it? What's underlying Rashi when he says this way? Tosafos... that's obvious. And then the more accomplished one is and so sometimes Rav Chaim noticed things that no one else in the world noticed with that same derech. Let's say Rav Chaim has a piece in the Sefer about kinnui u'stira. So the conventional understanding of kinnui u'stira, the Gemara says that מפני מה האמינה תורה עד אחד בסוטה? Why does the Torah believe eid echad be'sota? Because it's raglayim ladavar. Because since there was kinnui ve'stira, so the קינוי וסתירה רגלים לדבר. So The regular understanding is that raglayim ladavar means that there's a strong basis for suspicion. That since we know the baal was mekaneh her and even after the baal was mekaneh her and she knows that she's under suspicion and that he's probably got private detectives watching her and nevertheless she goes ahead and and is nisteres, so there's smoke. So where there's smoke, there's a good chance of there being fire. Right? So that's the simple pshat in in raglayim ladavar. So Rav Chaim says but there's a Gemara in Sotah. And the Gemara in Sotah has a machlokes about בעל שמחל על קינויו whether kinuyo machul or not. Let's say that already after the stira happened, the baal says, you know what, never mind, אני מוחל על הקינוי. Ani mochel hakinuy. So Rav Chaim again, Rav Chaim, Rav Chaim notices, right? Rav Chaim has has this sense, he has this this chush. But how can a mechila, a mechila doesn't doesn't change the fact that at the time she was nisteres that that was a very, very suspicious thing to do. Because even if he's mochel hakinuy now, but at the time she was nisteres, so how can, so how can it, it can't rewrite how suspicious or or how suggestive that was. From which, from which point, from which leads Rav Chaim to say, which leads Rav Chaim to say, no, the kinuy and stira doesn't mean the raglayim ladavar in terms of just circumstantial evidence, it means that al pi din kinuy v'stira are ossrim. So again, so it's, so you couldn't have, you couldn't come to Rav Chaim's chidushim just by by making chakiras. Because there's no reason that alright, now once Rav Chaim said it, so it can occur to us and others, so יש לומר הכי נמי and sometimes it works. It absolutely does work sometimes. But Rav Chaim never could have come to that that way. It wouldn't occur to you in a million years to to make a chakira whether or not kinuy v'stira is is it stam an umdena that it's creating, that's what the Gemara means, or are they ossrim. No, but Rav Chaim wasn't operating that way. Rav Chaim was responding to a cue in the sugya and then with his כיד ה' הטובה עליו was able to produce. Good questions. Meaning if somebody starts off with a chakira and so on and then maybe based on the two nekudos you were saying, but in the end is going to be let's say meshubad to the Rishonim and isn't going to keep his own knowledge of the chakiras in the end. So shouldn't it rework itself? Meaning if your chakira was off in the beginning or it so then when you get to the Rishonim and you see it doesn't fit in, so then it will help you rework things. Meaning what Rebbi was saying is let's say a person just reads the Gemara and makes a chakira on his own. So then you could get in real big trouble. You're making a chakira that has no daas and maybe on one side it's really off. The gavra and cheftza don't work. But in theory if someone now is going to go back into the Rishonim, so if it doesn't work, then won't it just help him rephrase? It might and it might. But see the thing is this, see in general in in learning, right? Let's say you have a mahalach in a sugya, you have a mahalach in a sugya, it happens maaseh bechol yom. You have a mahalach in the sugya and then then you come up with a kasha. There's a Gemara which well that's the whole question, which either is farkert or seems to be farkert, right? So the question is a person sometimes is in a position to know and and sometimes not. You know one of the leshonos which the Rebbi used to say which people people quote and and it's it's worth quoting is you know the Rebbi used to say in Yiddish he used to say you know you don't die from a kasha. So you don't die from a kasha, but on the other hand when you have a tiyufta, so you have to you have to retract. You have to say, you know what, I was wrong. So a person has to have a chush sometimes for what's what's a kasha and what's a tiyufta. So what what can go wrong in in your scenario is that alright so maybe if I begin with a chakira, so then maybe I think Rav Shechter once said, he says what happens is he says he says you walk into shiur, he says you make a mistake, he says you make a mistake, fine. He says one of the talmidim catches you. So what you should do is say listen I blew it and you know I should have turned the page when I was preparing the sugya. Okay, but you don't do that. So what do you do? So then to fight for that Gemara, so you have to make another mistake in that Gemara. But then another talmid is going to catch you from a third Gemara and you know until the bell rings you're not going to be off you're not going to be off the hook. So the question in your scenario is so are we going to recognize oh so you see from the Rishonim that what I said was wrong or are we going to then you know... teitch the Rishonim to make it consistent. Nah, you’re right, ein hachi nami. And lemaiseh what you’re talking about certainly does happen. Let’s say whatever you try to understand, a Rambam, a Ra’avad, a Teshuvos ha-Rosh, whatever, whatever you deal with. So once you think you have a havana, so then the first thing you do is you go back and you reread it and you see, and now reading it with a particular sevara in mind, so you may notice certain diyukim which either will confirm or contradict. So what you’re talking about certainly happens, but it doesn’t also if a person has the wrong chush about what he sees in the Rishonim vis-à-vis his own pre-packaged chakira. And becholal, there’s no... it has to be prompted, it has to be guided, otherwise... Anyway, so basically I saw quoted once beshem Rav Velvel. It’s always hard to know when you read things second and third hand, but here the content is very emessdik. So there’s every reason to think that Rav Velvel said it. Rav Velvel said that the goal in learning is that the blatt Gemara should be glatt, should be smooth. Now that’s the goal in learning. And that, I think, assuming that he said it, reflects what we’re talking about, meaning that the goal is not to have ten chidushim that you can now put in your sefer on this daf. No. The goal is that the daf should be glatt. Now lemaiseh in most dappim, given probably how little we understand initially, so yeah, it probably will entail ten chidushim for your sefer before the blatt is smooth, is glatt. But I think, assuming that he said it, that that’s what he meant. Because again, because the ha’aros, the chidushim, they’re prompted. There’s something there which leads you to it. There is this misunderstanding of what Rav Chaim’s derech was was already in his lifetime. My father zichrono livracha heard the following story from yibadel lechaim from Rav Dovid Soloveitchik. Rav Dovid told him that Rav Chaim was once traveling on a train. Rav Chaim, as you know, didn’t... he didn’t have "Hello, my name is Rav Chaim, author of חידושי רבנו חיים הלוי על הרמב"ם". He used to forget that at his desk at home. He traveled incognito. So if you didn’t have Gedolim cards, then you didn’t know, you didn’t necessarily know who he was. He looked like an alter Yid, like an alter Yid with a hadras panim, but you didn’t necessarily know any more than that. So he’s sitting on a train once and there are some yeshiva bachurim, and he also didn’t travel with an entourage either, so there was no cue that... there was no cue, no hint whatsoever. So he’s sitting on a train once and he’s listening... some guys are talking in learning, and they’re being mepalpel. And he keeps quiet, keeps quiet, keeps quiet, finally he can’t take it anymore. And he says to them, "Why don't you just say poshut like this?" They’re being mepalpel in some sugya. He says, "Why don't you just say poshut?" and tells them poshut pshat. And they’re busy with all kinds of pilpul. And so they ignore him. And then he says again, "Why don't you just say poshut?" They say, "You’re from the old school. You don't understand. We don't learn that way anymore. It’s not just that..." They were referring to his derech. They were telling him, "You’re from the old school, you don’t know about Rav Chaim’s derech." So that was apparently even in Rav Chaim’s lifetime, there was a misunderstanding about... it wasn’t to look for amkus. You can’t search for amkus. You have to be... it’s sort of like when they, I don't know, when they're looking for where there may be metallic deposits, so they have this, what’s the tool they use which then reacts if there’s a... a Geiger counter. So Rav Chaim had a Geiger counter. Okay, so we don't have the same one, but there has to be some kind of the equivalent of that Geiger counter and then you know where to dig. That tells you where to dig, but just stam to dig, so sometimes you hit pay dirt anyway. Sometimes you do. But I think when we learned the sugya in Kinyan Sudar, we mentioned Ohr Sameach, is not like that? That once we have the chidushim of Rav Chaim, we look back for those who didn't work with the same mehalech, so how do we... The Ohr Sameach also says a chiluk, I mean it's also, it's also... and dafka the Ohr Sameach in this sugya per se, more fundamental. One of the comments I think which the Rav makes in, in that, in the hesped for Rav Baruch Ber when he's talking about Rav Chaim's derech, which again I think is, is expressing some of the ideas what we're talking about, is again the idea about how the, the categories were never superimposed, but, but they always were, were, were built from within and emerged from the sugya. I think he says that one of the simanim hamuvhakim of בית מדרש של רב חיים is that he doesn't recycle, is that the, the categories, they're always new and fresh. So, and again, and I think what that's expressing is what, what we're talking about now is that again, if there's sort of, if there are pre-packaged categories that we can impose, then, then, then they're not necessarily new and fresh. But if in every sugya you have to, you have to build it within every sugya, so then ein hachi nami, it's always gonna be, it's gonna be freshly baked and it's, and it's gonna be new in every, in every sugya. Now obviously since, since no one sugya or no one inyan stands in, in isolation from, from the rest of Torah, so the, the implementation of of Rav Chaim's derech at all stages, both of the stage of, of noticing what's not smooth in the Gemara, as well as having noticed that trying to iron it out, you know, can never be separated from, from a bekiyus. Sometimes the Gemara itself is perfect. I mean, most Tosafos, right, Tosafos is not bothered necessarily something minei uvei in the sugya, but what Tosafos says, the bump in the road, is how does this sugya, how does, how do, how do you reconcile it with, with another sugya? And so, you know, a person in theory could have a, a razor-sharp chush and could still, will still be, be as limited as, as his bekiyus often is. And the same is true in terms of, in terms of how successful we will or won't be in, in trying to farentfer the difficulties that, that one recognizes also. That often it's not just a question of iyun, it's a question of, of knowing another Gemara which, which points you to the, which points you to the idea. So it's the, the again, the, the notion sort of that that Rav Chaim's derech isn't machshiv bekiyus is also a, also a distortion. It's rather that, that bekiyus is sort of taken for granted, meaning that, but not that there's rachmana litzlan any, bekiyus is not the, is not going to give you the ultimate answer, but it's certainly the, the keilim and the tools are, are partially, partially tied up with, with the bekiyus. In the ספר שערי תלמוד תורה, he, he tells the story that, that Rav Chaim once told someone that at the time I think the story is about Rav Velvel when he was a young boy, so he said he knows Shas with Rashi, all Shas with Rashi, didn't know Rambams, didn't know Tosafos yet, but, but he knew Shas with Rashi, that's what he said, that that's what, that's where he was, he was holding. So that's also a, important understanding. It is true, it is true that I think that the, the ultimate in Talmud Torah. wasn't the bekiyus, but the bekiyus was absolutely necessary and a very important part of it, but the ultimate was the havana and the ultimate was the chidushei Torah. In that sense, I think it follows very much in the tradition from Volozhin. If you take a look in Nefesh HaChaim in Sha'ar Dalet, which is the sha'ar about Talmud Torah. So when Rav Chaim Volozhiner is talking about how, how through learning that that sustains the whole world and without learning so if for a moment the the world were were empty of Talmud Torah it would cease to exist. And then he says in Perek Yud Beis he says וכל שכן חידושים אמיתיים דאורייתא המתחדשים על ידי אדם that as great and as almost indescribable as Talmud Torah is that that I've described until now he says ve'chol shekein and and even higher and even greater are chiddushim amitiyim d'Oraisa.

אין ערוך לגודל נוראות נפלאות עניינם ופעולתם למעלה שכל מילה ומילה פרטית המתחדשת מפי האדם

and all this kedarka, by the way he quotes a Zohar and and Midrashim to to document

שכל מילה ומילה פרטית המתחדשת מפי האדם קודשא בריך הוא נשיק לה ומעטר לה ונבנה ממנה עולם חדש בפני עצמו והן הן השמים החדשים והארץ החדשה שאמר הכתוב.

And then he's ma'arich here. So that I think that that that is true that the sort of the the peak or the ultimate in learning was to to penetrate to the chiddush, to the havana is true, but that that meant a zilzul in yedi'os or bekiyus is absolutely not true. Adaraba, that was sort of the the alef beis. That was the alef beis. I mean even in Rav Chaim's sefer, right, it's very convenient that that when there's a Yerushalmi in Terumos which unlocks the sugya in Gittin, it's very convenient that Rav Chaim happens to know the Yerushalmi in Terumos. He doesn't, you know, but it's quite clear that that the bekiyus is is the alef beis and is of inestimable intrinsic value, worth and importance, but the ultimate is like Rav Chaim Volozhiner says here, the ve'chol shekein, the chiddushim amitiyim d'Oraisa. How do you balance the two? Like when or if everything works out with what you know now, how much investigation do you have to go into? So in theory, in theory, so we should all be, you know, like like Rav Chaim point to a Vav, we should all know Shas with Rashi before we're we're m'ayein. The Ba'al HaTanya quotes, I think it's where is it? the Gemara in Shabbos where the Gemara says לעולם ליגמור איניש והדר ליסבור והדר לעיין. So again, from the Gemara itself you couldn't bring a rayah because you could say maybe things were different when Torah she'ba'al peh was was ba'al peh and maybe ba'zman hazeh it's different. But the Ba'al HaTanya quotes it in his... so in theory that's that's what we're we're supposed to be doing. Le'maiseh that that we don't, so I don't know, so we always have to be reminded of our of our limitations and you know there's no such thing as as no such thing as saying, you know, I'm going to lock myself in a room, you know, and not come out of the room until I find Tosafos' kasha in Rashi or until I find the Maharsha's kasha on Tosafos. At a certain stage so maybe a person can do that, but but for us it can get very lonely after a while. So not such a good idea. But ein hachi nami, a person has to be has to be aware of both in terms of how long he sits on a kasha because maybe it's not just a question of thinking more, maybe I'm just missing the not just Rav Chaim's Yerushalmi in Terumos, maybe I'm missing a Gemara in Bavli which is which is going to unlock things and so ein hachi nami, a person has to be both in terms of how long he sits on a kasha as well as how convinced he can be of a... of a teretz. A person has to be very much aware of his, of his limitations. You know, the Rav writes a very sobering comment in the hesped for Velvel. So the Rav writes that so the Rav writes that Reb Chaim had two talmidim. Two talmidim. He refers to his father and to Velvel. So if nothing else, the point is that we shouldn't be quick to delude ourselves, you know, to what extent we either understand or successfully implement the derech, but we should know what we aspire to doing, what we strive to do. But shouldn't be lulled into thinking that there's anything easy about it. Some of the other emphases within Reb Chaim which to us seem like dvarim peshutim, but they weren't dvarim peshutim when Reb Chaim said them. Reb Chaim's attitude towards Rishonim. So first of all, I think Reb Elchonon quotes this somewhere that that Reb Chaim said that our job is not to be mechadesh. The Rishonim were mitchadshim, our job is just to understand the Rishonim. And that's what Reb Chaim said, right, which seems somewhat ironic coming from Reb Chaim, you know, our job is to understand, you know, where the Rishonim were the mechadesh. But clearly what Reb Chaim meant by that and what he did, if you take a look just for purposes of contrast, just to, again, this is said non-partisan, מי אנו ומה אנו to speak in any other way, but if you take a look in the Sha'agas Aryeh's sefarim on Shas. So the Sha'agas Aryeh keseder, you know, tells you what Rashi says in Tainis, or what Tosfos says in Tainis, and he doesn't like that pshat and says, I think this is the pshat in the Gemara. Sha'agas Aryeh is keseder like that, keseder like that. Whereas Reb Chaim, the Torah is all in the Rishonim. And that's what he meant by that that we sort of approach the Gemara through the lens of the Rishonim. And again, due to Reb Chaim's profound, profound influence, we sort of take that for granted, but when you look back, you see that even in Lita, that wasn't something which was taken for granted and there were gedolei acharonim even amongst Reb Chaim's contemporaries, even in Meromei Sadeh, you find in the Netziv, the Netziv says, we'll say his own mahalach in the Gemara, which isn't in the Rishonim. And there's hardly any, there's very little of that. That's what Reb Chaim said, that we approach through the Rishonim. The other thing which we take for granted, but again, the earlier gedolei Lita didn't necessarily, was Reb Chaim's insistence that the Rav used to say in the name of his father that amongst the Rishonim every machlokes is אלו ואלו דברי אלקים חיים. That what the Gemara says about Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel certainly applies through the end of the tekufas ha-Rishonim. That every machlokes is אלו ואלו דברי אלקים חיים. Which is why, again, the very first piece in the sefer is not like that, but with that exception, so Reb Chaim, everything works out evenly, so this is the Rambam's mahalach in the Gemara, this is the Ramban's mahalach in the Gemara. And again, beshito was something which other gedolim, no, other gedolim sometimes, okay, Rashi is right in this Gemara, Tosfos kvodam bimkomam munach, but on this Gemara we think. I think Rashi got it right. The teshuvos of Mishkan Yaakov, the teshuvos in the Shaagas Aryeh, so all the teshuvos are about about machlokes rishonim, they're not they're not new shaylos. They're all they're all old shaylos and they're they're being machria, the Mishkan Yaakov says, here's a gemara like Rashi and against and against Tosfos. This insistence that that every machlokes rishonim had it be eilu v'eilu was also part of Reb Chaim's derech halimud and it also it it it also is I think part of what animated in in the practical realm the the the idea or the practice of being machmir just practically halacha l'maiseh for certain shittos. Obviously is one which is, you know, the more the more aduk one is in the eilu v'eilu in in one's learning so then the more natural and the more understandable it's going to be in the practical realm that one is machmir for every shittos. Lav davka that it has to follow, I mean, Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel is eilu v'eilu and we do like Beis Hillel because hachroa doesn't mean that you're saying one is right and one is wrong. When you say acharei rabim lehatos, it doesn't mean the miyut is wrong and the rabim are right. It means that there are two different decisions. There's one level of what's truth, they're both truth, אלו ואלו דברי אלוקים חיים. Then there's a second, fine, they're both truth, but lemaiseh what what what what what do I do? Lemaiseh what do you do with the tzoras ervah? So Beis Shammai osrin and Beis Hillel matirin and she's wanting to know, you know, do I get married, do I not get married? You know, so lemaiseh what do you do? So clearly it's not that klalei hachroa klalei hachroa are are based upon saying that this is true and this is not true. That's not at all the case. But the significance of of being convinced that in a machlokes rishonim it's eilu v'eilu is the further away you get from from an absolute hachroa like the Bas Kol and and the more you have to be machria on your own, so then the more natural it is that that in the practical realm that that what Reb Chaim's derech is going to imply is is the being machmir to be yotzei the Rambam and and Tosfos. Again, not not that it's muchrach, but it it it feeds into it. This difference between Reb Chaim and the Netziv, Reb Chaim and the Shaagas Aryeh, is there room for machlokes about this? Or meaning either we accept eilu v'eilu to that extent or we don't. Well you want to know whether this is eilu v'eilu? Pardon me. There is machlokes though, that's a fact, there is machlokes though. How did Reb Chaim know that that goes to the Rishonim? The Gra, the Gra was machria against Rishonim also. I don't know that the Gra agreed with this. I think the Gra did not agree with this. Did Reb Chaim argue with the Gra? I mean you you can say it that way, or you can say that when the Gra said Rabbeinu Tam was wrong, so Reb Chaim said maybe Rabbeinu Tam wasn't wrong, maybe he's also right. So I don't know that it's Reb Chaim arguing with the Gra. It's it's to Reb Chaim saying there's a difference between if if I don't know, if if I get up and I ich veiss and I tell you something of Shas was all wrong, right? And you disagree, so you're not disagreeing with me, you're there's a difference, right? So I I don't know that I would describe it as Reb Chaim arguing with with the Gra necessarily. But yeah, but is it a different but if we say it differently, is there a different approach, is there a different understanding? Yeah, I I think that the Gaon clearly the Gaon says about Rabbeinu Tam's zman, he says hachush makchish. He says hachush makchish, he didn't think there was any eilu v'eilu about about the machlokes between the Geonim and Rabbeinu Tam about zman. But the Geonim were right and Rabbeinu Tam was wrong and the Gra has some whole gevaldiggeh yetziah telling you what the what the pshat and the eilu v'eilu is in the machlokes between the Gaon and and Rabbeinu Tam. So is that a different approach? Absolutely, it’s a different approach. So what made Rav Chaim call it this? I mean, by definition it’s not something that you can prove, right? I mean, by definition you can’t, you can’t prove either side. It was also revolutionary, it was against what the previous generations held, so he had to have a reason to, to start up a new, a new derech. I don’t know if it was, I don’t know if it was revolutionary. He didn’t create, he didn’t create the idea of eilu v’eilu, right? He didn’t create the idea of eilu v’eilu. He said that eilu v’eilu goes, goes beyond Chazal in, in into the Rishonim. You have it, you actually do have it in, you have others who say that also. Rav Chaim is not the only one who said it. Do you have others before Rav Chaim saying that? I don’t know. I don’t know, is there an explicit... it’s implicit. I think we actually discussed this either last year, two years ago, whenever. It’s implicit in, in the Ramban in, in his hakdama to Milchamos when, when the Ramban that we discussed, when the Ramban writes that, that in learning he says, I’m going to defend the Rif, he says. Don’t, don’t think that I’m implying that what I’m going to say for the Rif is absolutely right and that what I’m countering I think is absolutely wrong. He says that there are no tshuvos nitzachos in, in, in learning. Meaning that in learning you can’t, it doesn’t mean that, that, that, that, that it’s subjective and, and relative and say whatever you want and anything goes. But what it means is that between two gedolei olam, the Ramban says it can be that there are no tshuvos nitzachos. So basically if the Ramban says that what I’m responding to the Baal HaMaor on the Rif, that, that modina that what I’m telling you is to tell you how the Rif is cogent, how the, how the Rif is right, but it’s not necessarily a tshuva nitzachas. So that’s basically what Rav Chaim said. It’s, I’m not telling you the Baal HaMaor is wrong necessarily even though he often writes, it sounds like that’s what he’s telling you, but in the hakdama he says no. He says what I’m telling you is I’m telling you how the Rif is right, I’m not necessarily telling you how those who disagree, how those who dissent are wrong. And how does the Gaon respond to... The Gaon won’t, won’t have difficulty defending his position, I don’t think that’s gonna... okay... bli neder.