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The shiur in English
The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 1,871 words · 11:35. Press a time to hear it said.
0:00 I am very, very, very sorry to hear everything that happened, this whole loss. A great pain, a very great sorrow; it is hard to comfort. When such a thing happens among our people, it is a terrible, dreadful pain. You know, many fasts, the Jewish people have many fasts, all kinds of fasts.
0:28 The fast of Yom Kippur is the hardest and most severe fast there is. There were many holy ones among the Jewish people who passed away, who died unnatural deaths, by murder, by all kinds of blows, but there is one fast that is remembered every year: the Fast of Gedalyah. Everyone says: There were many holy ones. Is Gedalyah the only one?
0:56 There were many holy ones who died. Maybe for every holy one who was murdered we should also make a fast for him, and remember him. Rather, the reason we remember the Fast of Gedalyah is only because Gedalyah was killed by Yishmael ben Nesanyah, who was of the royal line, and he is the one who killed him. Yochanan, who was the officer, who came to tell him that they were plotting to kill him, and that he must be careful, careful of Yishmael...
1:30 There was Baalis, king of Ammon. And he made a great feast, and Gedalyah made a very great feast. He ruled fifty-two days, about the least of all the kings who ever ruled. Fifty-two days he ruled. And then, he did not listen to Yochanan, who told him to beware of him, and Yishmael came, and at that feast he killed him and all the soldiers who were there. And from that day the exile began, the great exile, when all the Jews were scattered; all the sovereignty, the Jewish rule, crumbled, and it was truly, officially declared: the exile of the Jewish people.
2:18 The exile: seventy years the Jewish people were in exile, and no remnant was left, nothing. Not one thing was left, nothing. They lost everything. The greatest pain was that Gedalyah was killed. And ever since, we remember it. This is the greatest pain: that he was killed within our own people, Gedalyah, by our own blood.
2:48 That is what we remember, and that is what we weep over. And this sorrow and this shock over a young boy who was murdered with such great pain, at a simchah, where Jews are rejoicing and he is rejoicing. A very, very, very painful story. And it awakens us to reflect, here in this world, on how we look, and where we stand, and what we are being taught.
Read the whole shiur in English (17 more parts)
3:22 What is the purpose of all the learning we are taught? Why don't they teach about baseless hatred? Why don't they make an issue of it? Why don't they do it about patience, about being slow to anger? Why don't they teach about lashon hara, about gossip, about jealousy, about racism? Why don't they teach about the things that cause all the hatred among our people? That is what is called learning Torah. When they don't learn about the problems that exist among the people, they are not learning Torah.
3:50 Learning Torah means learning about the problems that exist among our people. This is our people. They are destroying our people. Only when Gedalyah was killed, that was it: the whole kingdom, everything fell apart. Nothing was left. Everything deteriorated; not a thing was left. If they had believed, and if they had been careful, they would have understood what this man was. And to my sorrow, I say this today in pain. You know, the Gemara in Tractate Megillah... in Tractate Yoma, excuse me, in Tractate Yoma, on page 23, side a, the Gemara tells, "Our Rabbis taught," the Gemara tells of two kohanim who went up the ramp; they went up the ramp together, to the altar, and one got ahead of the other and entered his fellow's four cubits; he took a knife, thrust it into him, and killed him.
4:43 He killed him. From then on they instituted that there be a lottery in the Temple. And the Gemara says that meanwhile the father arrived, and he sees his son convulsing. He sees the knife; he took the knife, and then he said: has the knife become impure or not? His son is convulsing, and the doubt is whether the knife became impure or not. The Gemara teaches that it was more important to them to deal with the laws of purity and impurity in the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple.
5:14 They debate whether the knife became impure or not, and they were not gripped at all by the fact that it had come to such a terrible deed: they stabbed the kohen in his heart with a sword, and he died. We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have rebelled, that such a deed has come about among our people and in our generation. On page 9b the Gemara says that the Temple was destroyed because of baseless hatred.
5:42 We are not aware at all of the level of hatred there is in our generation, one toward another. It is true that the generation is hard and people are miserable, but today people are taught only "my strength and the might of my hand." They are taught that if a person is shamed, he must strike back, respond for his honor. Yet on that very same page, page 23, the Gemara says: "Those who are insulted and do not insult, who hear their shame and do not answer."
6:11 King David was all humiliations; his whole life they shamed him, they said the harshest things about him. He did not look at it; he kept going forward: "What does Hashem say about me? I don't care what they say about me." People today are gripped all the time by "what are they saying, what will they say, my honor was hurt." Everyone reacts over an honor that does not exist; there is only the honor of Hashem. Stop the hatred, the gossip, the lashon hara, the strong arm; it is worse than cancer.
6:38 It is worse than all the diseases in the world. Look where we have come to. Where have we come to, when people use the sword in the hand and the sword in the tongue? Where is the honor of the Torah? Where is the honor of the Jewish people? The talking over there is disturbing. Today everyone is raised to love, each one to love only "my children, my wife," the children and the wife and the children. That's it, to care only about that. Everything else can go up in flames; what do I care?
7:04 They do not look at what it means to hurt another. To hurt the other side, to the point that we reach a state where they already lift their hands; instead of lifting the hands to wash for a meal, they lift their hands for death. Where have we come to? Where have we come to? So we see such a shocking deed. Everyone is shaken by the deed, that such a thing happened, but this is teshuvah that all of us need to do.
7:33 How did we come to such a state? Where? Where? What are we being raised on today? What are we being taught today? Where? Where is everyone? It only shows that if in the time of Gedalyah the rule had already come to its end and everything had already fallen, this too comes to awaken us, so that bad things should not come of this. We all need to awaken in teshuvah and truly reflect on what we are giving our strength to today.
8:02 We must, every single one is obligated, to stop, and to fight baseless hatred, the sword of the tongue and the sword in the hand; to stop it with all our strength. Help us uproot this evil from the world. Help us fight for this, for the honor of Hashem, for the honor of the Jewish people. How can anyone hurt Jews like this? How is it possible? Whoever does not feel that we are one...
8:28 We are one person. We are one person; we are all one. The exile broke the Jewish people apart into a million pieces. This exile brought us to this distance. But we are one people, and Hashem loves all of us. He loves each and every one of us. Whoever does not teach this and does not explain it, whoever denies it, whoever fights against it, is not from the root of the Jewish people.
8:53 The Holy One, blessed be He, loves precisely the one who is pursued, precisely the people who are pursued and threatened. And sorrow over such a young boy, over a person who lay wallowing like that. "They shall weep over the burning that Hashem has burned." This pain, that such a thing was done in our days, in our time, in our generation; let us do teshuvah for this. Let us all awaken in teshuvah over this, and awaken as strongly as possible, with all our strength, to awaken as much baseless love as possible, so that they stop all the evil that is in this world.
9:29 May the Holy One, blessed be He, give comfort to the dear family. May the Holy One, blessed be He, give you strength from Heaven, may He give you hope, may He give you comfort. May Hashem give all of you salvations from Heaven, amen; may He give you hope, and instill baseless love and unity in our people. A hashkavah, a memorial prayer, from his honor the Rav. A hashkavah, from his honor the Rav.
9:55 Perhaps a hashkavah. A hashkavah? There is nothing to do for him. He is in the highest place. Yes? He was twenty-one. And his name was? Twenty-one. And his name was? The name? His name is Binyamin. Binyamin. Binyamin ben Rachel. This was Binyamin, the son of Rachel. This is the secret of Binyamin, the son of Rachel, who was the most precious and beloved to Yaakov Avinu.
10:22 That is this holy soul. I cannot make a hashkavah for such a holy one; he is in the highest place. "May the spirit of Hashem give him rest" in Gan Eden. Amen. Amen. May we all learn, and be shaken, truly shaken; truly begin to awaken. May we truly begin to change our deeds, and may the hypocrites stop with all the baseless hatred that is in them, and all their looking away; may they begin to truly awaken. What is the true Tikkun?
10:57 This is the true Tikkun. It is more than a thousand Tikkun HaKlali. And everyone is busy fixing ourselves: fixing my soul, my livelihood, my salvation, my own affairs, and we abandon this holy blood of the Jewish people. "For these I weep." Yes; to gain understanding and truly awaken to the right path.
11:22 May Hashem give you strength from Heaven. Amen. And may He give you hope from Heaven. Amen. And may He save you, and the father, and the whole family. Amen. And may He give you all the blessings and all the salvations, every one.
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