Picking a Neighborhood With a Yeshiva

A few weeks ago, we spoke about choosing where to live and we zeroed in on the variable of trying to eliminate commuting time, which thereby pshuta kemashma in terms of productivity, in terms of quality, extends a person's life. Let's perhaps continue that conversation for a few minutes about choosing where to live and focus on another consideration. דרך בריאתו של אדם, as the Rambam very famously in

פרק ו' הלכות דעות: להיות נמשך בדעותיו ובמעשיו אחר רעיו וחבריו נוהג כמנהג אנשי מדינתו.

Human nature is such, the way Hakadosh Baruch Hu designed our personalities is that we're affected and we're influenced by those around us, by our surroundings. And as the Rambam proceeds to apply this, clearly that has to be a major, major consideration in where a person lives. Of the many elements that a person would look at in choosing an environment to live in, let's for tonight just focus on one, which is living near a beis medrash and perhaps optimally, not just a beis medrash, but near a yeshiva where there is a very energetic and pulsating beis medrash. On the most basic level, if we're surrounded by people who are learning, so then we're going to be influenced and we're going to be drawn to learn and we're going to derive chizuk from that. A beis medrash is a place where people are learning. But the influence that our surroundings exerts upon us is not only in terms of what we do, it's not only b'maasov, it's also bedeiosav. And at least in this context, part of what falls under that rubric—maybe it's a little bit homiletical in terms of the context in the Rambam, but in this context, part of what falls under that rubric is that not only are we affected in terms of what we do by our surroundings, but how we measure ourselves is also something which is heavily influenced by our surroundings. Am I sufficiently involved in Talmud Torah? If I live in a community where the average balabos comes to the rabbi's shiur an hour before mincha on Shabbos and I'm doing the same, so then the application of this principle of דרך בריאתו של אדם להיות נמשך בדעותיו ובמעשיו is that I'm going to have a good feeling about what I'm doing. If I live in a community where There's a lot of buzz about Daf Yomi and people daily come and attend and listen to a Daf Yomi shiur, so then my standards and my hasagos and my sheifos will be higher. But if I live in a community where everything is good: to go to the rov's shiur on Erev Shabbos before mincha is good, to listen to a Daf Yomi shiur daily is wonderful. If I live in a community where people actively learn the daf and have hasagos of not just going through a seven and a half year cycle of attending a Daf Yomi shiur but of trying to learn and retain as much as possible, so then that will affect my self-perception as to whether or not I'm adequately involved in Talmud Torah and it will affect my self-perception as to whether or not my kvias itim is enough or whether or not it needs to be improved upon. So it's not only lihiyos nimshach bema'asav but even one's hasagos, even one's hasagos. And we really see it ma'aseh bechol yom, the effect, the extent to which, again, not only one's actions but one's perceptions and one's ideas are affected by what is the norm around us. Many many people unwittingly, without really realizing that they're doing it, if they're making a cheshbon hanefesh as to whether or not they're living modestly in accordance with the perek alef, perek beis, perek gimmel, hilchos de'os, the midah habeinos. So how do we measure it? We measure ourselves by the people around us. And inevitably, if I go on less expensive vacations and drive a less expensive car, so I very self-righteously feel that I'm obviously living very very modestly. It may be the case, but it also may not be the case. It just may be that I'm living a little less immodestly and a little bit less extremely than those around me. When a person exposes himself to a beis medrash and even more than a beis medrash, all things being equal to a yeshiva, it's not only that there's a strong or stronger kol torah but the hasagos in terms of aspiration and self-definition as to one's learning are very different. There's another quality, again it doesn't have to be located only in the beis medrash of a yeshiva, it can be in a beis medrash of a shul. But another quality that one looks for in a beis medrash, in a beis medrash that one wants to be nimshach after bede'osav uvema'asav, a person can learn, person can learn. Maybe a half hour in the morning, maybe three four hours in the morning. A person can learn, again, maybe the same half hour, maybe the same three four hours, but he learns with a sense of כי הם חיינו ואורך ימינו. He learns with a sense of ki lechach notzarta. It's not the same Talmud Torah. Again, everything is good. Everything is good. לא באנו חס ושלום לקנתר. A person learns a half an hour, it's a wonderful thing. He learns three four hours, על אחת כמה וכמה, it's a wonderful thing. But it's not the same. It's not the same learning when a person when when you walk into the into the beis medrash and you can get a feel that there's a sense that people are driven by this sense of כי הם חיינו ואורך ימינו, of ki lechach notzarnu. It's a very different influence that will be exerted and it's a very different type of chizuk that one can gain. Another quality besides looking to see what the hassagos and she'ifos are, besides looking to see whether there's just Talmud Torah that's happening or Talmud Torah with a sense of ki heim chayeinu and ki lechach notzarnu. I give you a mashal. I think we all know if you go to a chagiga, you go to a chasunah, so I think everyone who's dancing is feeding off of each other's energy. Some kind of some kind of transference of energy. If everyone around you is is energetic, so that in a very positive sense, so it it energizes a person. There's a transfer transfer of energy. The same thing happens in a beis medrash. Again, you can have a beis medrash where again where it's wonderful, people are learning, but you don't necessarily feel the the energy. People are sort of shuffling around in a circle in the mashal to dance. Okay. And then sometimes it gets really leibedik. And when it gets really leibedik, so everyone feels that transfer of energy. Everyone feeds off of everyone else's everyone else's energy. When you have a beis medrash, again, it doesn't have to be limited to the beis medrash of a yeshiva. It doesn't have to be, and halevai that that it shouldn't be and that it isn't. But when you have a beis medrash, again, where there's tremendous energy in the learning, so there too, the להיות נמשך בדעותיו ובמעשיו is going to be qualitatively very different than a beis medrash where there's just where there's learning. If a person walks in and there's a there's a certain electricity in the air in a beis medrash, so inevitably so we'll learn with a greater bren. Maybe if a person maybe even if if we walk in a little bit a little bit flat for whatever reason, but when you feel, when you sense that kind of that kind of energy, again, the transfer happens. We'll learn with a greater bren. There's no question, no question that if I'm tired at 11 o'clock and there's 20 people in the beis medrash, it's one battle with the yetzer hara to continue learning. And if I'm tired at 11 o'clock and there's 80 people learning in the beis medrash, it's a very different battle, many more allies in the second scenario than the first scenario. Which is why just to digress for a minute, whenever whenever a person has to make a judgment call. To miss a seder, whether it's a Sunday morning seder or whatever the seder is, so a person always has to always has to do make a double calculation. A person has to calculate for himself. It's true I do have a soft spot for my fourth cousin twice removed, but does it really really justify going out of town and missing three days of learning to go to the thirty-second anniversary of her fourth sheva brachos? Could be that it doesn't, you have to make a shikul. But even after the person makes the shikul for himself, so sometimes the answer could be no, you know what, it's takeh it's warranted. It's warranted, but then the question also is, so it's not only everyone functions, right, we all function in a dual capacity. We function as yechidim and we function as part of a tzibur. And if I'm not in the Beis Medrash Sunday morning, so it means I miss Sunday morning seder, but it also means that there's a little less energy, the kol Torah goes down a decibel. There's a little less chizuk for everyone else. And whenever we have to make those decisions, and they can be very difficult decisions, very very difficult judgment calls, it has to be after making this double calculation. Just to state the obvious, even though we're talking tonight about the consideration of living near a Beis Medrash, living near a Yeshiva in terms of the דרך ויישוב של אדם להיות נמשך בדעותיו ובמעשיו, but obviously that's not the it's not the only consideration, it's not the sole consideration, just as when we spoke about the minimizing and eliminating as much as possible commuting time, that's not the only one either. And ultimately when decision time comes, a person has to integrate all the considerations and see where it comes. We're talking about them individually, but obviously in real life halacha lemaiseh, the consideration, you know, rarely rarely boils down to a single factor. And the other in that vein, the other type of consideration that comes up halacha lemaiseh is that one can't always measure the effect of the להיות נמשך בדעותיו ובמעשיו that a Beis Medrash has merely in numbers. Very often it's the case if a person feels more at home in a certain surrounding, even though objectively maybe there aren't as many people in the Beis Medrash, maybe the kol Torah isn't as great, but the fact that he feels a part of it and on the inside rather than the outside, so in terms of its effect on him, the effect on him is going to be greater. And that can often that's why it could be that a person could live in a community, it could be that the shul has a Beis Medrash with X people learning at night and then there's a Yeshiva which has many more people learning. It could be that he'll derive more of a chizuk in his shul's Beis Medrash than he will in the Yeshiva's Beis Medrash, and a person has to try to assess that reality as well in trying to implement what we've been talking about halacha lemaiseh.