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The shiur in English
The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 4,157 words · 23:32. Press a time to hear it said.
0:00 (We finished) the chapter HaMafkid toward the end of the year, and many times I merited to bring in the names of each one of the children here to the Rav, and the Rav blessed you personally. Now the Rav also wants to see you. The Rav will not tell about himself... so I will tell you for two minutes, like that, briefly, even though I asked the Rav - I said to the Rav, maybe tell them a little so they are strengthened - he is shy. So I will tell you for two minutes who you are going to.
0:26 You are going in - as you know, once there was the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple, and we are right now in the mourning over the Temple. The Western Wall is a place the Shechinah never moves from, but now we are going to a place where the Shechinah moves... The Rav, quite literally, lives the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Shechinah all the time. Rav, You will be next to him for a few minutes; you will understand by yourselves, without many explanations, without many words.
0:56 But the thing you will hear about the most, and see in him - today I don't know how much you will manage, but if you look here a little, you will see a Jew in whom the whole Torah is folded up, in his heart - in his mind too, but mainly, mainly in his heart. And this did not happen all of a sudden. He was not born with the angel forgetting to tap him on (the mouth). Not at all - in fact, at first he did not know so much.
1:23 He opened the Gemara and he did not understand it. But he loved to sit by the window, and he would cry to the Holy One, blessed be He, that He open it for him: 'I want to understand.' He did not cry once and say, 'Ah, Creator of the world, I cried and it didn't help me' - not at all. And not for a month either - a year, two years, and three. And the Holy One, blessed be He, opened his heart, because he spoke from his heart, and Hashem, blessed be He, opens for whoever asks and truly wants.
1:48 And today the Rav is in a place where he is the youngest of the young, my age, and I do not come near his ankles. The whole Torah is with him; he knows everything, everything, in everything, as much as you can imagine that there is such a thing, in the idea of Torah - everything, and in the depth of study, until his strength runs out. Now, in a moment, you will go in to the Rav. You will see that the Rav is still on oxygen, although that is already toward the end; the Rav has had harder periods.
2:16 The Rav learns until... as is told about the Chazon Ish, that he would learn until the last second of his strength. Once they saw the Chazon Ish lying on the floor. They asked him, 'Rabbi, why are you sleeping on the floor?' After he got up, he said to them, 'Look, usually I learn until I feel I have only enough strength left to go to bed. The last time I learned, I did not manage to judge my strength correctly; I learned, collapsed in the middle and fell asleep.' I did not know the Chazon Ish; all of you, all of you know who the Chazon Ish was, so famous for his righteousness.
Read the whole shiur in English (41 more parts)
2:46 Several times I took the Rav, and the Rav was in complete exhaustion, unable to stand, from his study, from his lack of sleep, and from his strength in endless diligence, and all of it with a tremendous love of the Jewish people. You see, there are... these are a few more people, because we brought people down so that you can go in with honor and quickly.
3:10 But know that we are talking about hundreds more people. People wait here two, three months in line, and the Rav never - no matter how much strength he has - he will not leave anyone here whom he has not received. That is a lesson in love of the Jewish people. And I remember, at one of the shiurim the Rav gave, the Rav was really after three hours; before that he had not slept the whole night, he was completely finished. He held a public reception until four thirty in the morning.
3:35 After that, at four thirty in the morning, I had to lift the Rav up, since he had no strength. He could not stand; he tried to stand, his legs shook and he sat down. He was very pale. And even so, somehow I managed to lift him, together with a few others, and we walked with him to the car; the whole way he walked like this, half asleep, barely speaking; very weak words came out of him. He sat down in the car and opened a book to learn.
3:59 I was sure that now, as he gets into the car, he would collapse. The Rav opened a book to learn, all the way to Rishon LeZion - a burning fire; he became alert. All the way to Rishon LeZion he did not take his eyes off the book. Understand how much strength there is in the holy Torah, to give a person delight and enjoyment, and to find new strength, to bring himself back to life. Now we will say a few chapters of Tehillim together.
4:53 One: whoever brought a camera may take pictures, but here is advice for you: it is a shame to waste this time on taking pictures instead of being busy with what the Rav will tell you. Two: whoever does take pictures - without flash. You will go upstairs; you will see that it is all dark. The Rav has only a small yellow light. And the reason is that the Rav, because of his toil in Torah - his eyes, three quarters of them, were ruined.
5:18 The Rav sees, but light is very hard for him. He sees light; it is very, very hard for him. The Rav would learn all day, all day and all night. So a flash disturbs the Rav very, very much; he really blinks his eyes, it makes them burn. So please, I ask you: whoever takes pictures - without flash, under no circumstances. There are children here who already arranged it in advance, who have been waiting for months already, so there will be a delay until they go in.
5:54 Before they come in, we will do... Come, come, come... come in.
6:26 How old are the children? - Twelve; now they are starting thirteen. The first bar mitzvah was yesterday. - What is the most important thing? What is most important, children? What do you think is the most important thing? - 'Emunah' - 'Fear of Heaven' - 'Love of the Jewish people'.
6:54 - Who said love of the Jewish people? What beauty, what an explanation. What must one be most careful about? - Lashon hara. - Very nice. You know, there was the holy gaon Rabbi Naftali of Amsterdam - have you heard of him?
7:19 He was a very, very great gaon, tremendous. And there is the ban of Rabbeinu Gershom, which forbids a person - may you, with Hashem's help, grow up and enter into Torah, the chuppah and good deeds, and may you have no obstacle at all, with Hashem's help, in marrying a wife, and may you be holy and pure and tzaddikim, and rise higher and higher in Torah and fear of Heaven, without obstacles and without delays - so in order to be able to get a permission, one needs a permission from a hundred rabbis.
7:49 It is not a prohibition from the Torah, and it is not a prohibition from the words of the Sages either - not from the Torah and not Rabbinic - but over one ban. So Rabbi Naftali of Amsterdam said: if for one ban, in order to go against it, one needs a permission from a hundred rabbis to permit me, so that I can move past the ban, then for a prohibition from the Torah, how do people allow themselves to speak without any permission?
8:20 - Rabbi, how does one merit to reach the sweetness of the Torah? - You know that all of us, the whole Jewish people, we are included in the holy Torah, all of us, right? The whole Jewish people are inside the holy Torah; we are all included in the holy Torah.
8:45 The six hundred thousand, the sixty letters - that is all the souls of Israel, all of us. Against each letter in the Torah there is each and every Jew, each one of us. If you are careful with 'What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow' (whatever is hateful to you, do not do to your friend), which is keeping the whole Torah on one foot - that a person is careful not to hurt a child in the Talmud Torah, and to play with the friend who needs it, and to help the other, and that there be love among you, one for the other - then you will have the sweetness of the Torah.
9:17 Because the Torah - each one of you is a letter in the holy Torah scroll. And just as none of you has the nerve to go up to a Torah scroll and strike it, right? Nobody has the nerve. Does anyone have the nerve to go up to a Torah scroll and erase the letters, or harm it, Heaven forbid? No - it is frightening, right? You see the Torah scroll and you are in awe and trembling. So know that the most important thing is that each and every one of you is a letter in the holy Torah scroll, and you are forbidden to hurt anyone.
9:49 Now, it is true that you see - once you see a letter (a letter) Yud, and once you see Tav, and once you see Beis, once you see Reish, once you see Shin; you see letters, different and all kinds. Sometimes you see someone who is a bit small, short; suddenly you see someone who is a bit heavy; you see a bigger letter, you see a smaller letter; you see someone else who is different from the other.
10:13 But we do not laugh at him, just as you do not laugh at the letters in a Torah scroll. Right? We never laugh - why is the letter Yud so small, and giggle at it - why is another letter like that? We do not laugh; we are careful with the honor of the letters, and we do not even think about it. That is how you must see everyone in the Talmud Torah: each one is like letters. To respect each one, to see to it that no child gets hurt. You know that a child, just one child, his heart is hurt and he goes outside and cries, and he does not want to learn because they hurt him.
10:45 And afterwards he wants to sit and learn in depth, to understand what the Rebbe is teaching, and he cannot learn, because someone hurt him - his friend hurt him. So he cannot learn Torah, so he cannot move forward in serving Hashem. See how important it is - you are asking about the sweetness of the Torah: see what brings the sweetness of the Torah - guarding the tongue. Because by being careful not to speak, Heaven forbid, your friend will have the sweetness of the Torah, he will have focus in Torah, he will understand the Torah, he will enjoy the Torah, and then he will have sweetness from the Torah.
11:18 And this is important too: to respect your parents and your teachers. Be strict about it; know that it is a main principle and a foundation of the holy Torah, to understand the holy Torah and to connect to the holy Torah. This is the most important thing, which our Rabbis taught us about, that it is the main point of the whole Torah. You know what forbidden relations, and bloodshed, and idol worship are - put them all on the scales, it will not be anything that equals the sin of lashon hara.
11:47 How severe it is, and how much it pains the Holy One, blessed be He. And you also know why the Temple was destroyed, now that we are in the days of Bein HaMetzarim? And what the story is, do you know? And what happened there? Baseless hatred. So I want to ask you a question: how can it be that because of one person who behaved improperly, everyone is punished?
12:15 Why, if one person behaved improperly... but if one person did not behave properly, then let them punish him - why must everyone be punished? And whole generations? What is it? What did you say? Look in Tractate Shevuos, page 39a: at the end it says, 'All of Israel are guarantors one IN the other' - not 'one TO the other'; there is a difference between Lamed and Beis.
12:49 When I say 'one to the other', it is like this: all of Israel are guarantors 'one to the other'. But when I say all of Israel are guarantors 'one in the other', it is like this. So it means that if there is a rope that falls - if it is 'one to the other', then if this falls, it falls like this; but if it is 'one in the other', if this falls, it falls like this.
13:15 Did you understand the precision of our Rabbis? The Sages teach us that the whole Jewish people are guarantors 'one in the other' - one inside the other. So if one falls, he brings everyone down together with him. But if it were 'one to the other', when one falls, nobody falls together with him. See the precision of the language; that is why it is 'one in the other' - each one is 'one in the other', together with his friend.
13:44 We must understand: it is true that one person behaved improperly, but if one person makes a mistake, and one person speaks lashon hara, and one person hurts his friend and causes him pain, we do not know how far the severity of these things can reach, to the point that the pain will be so great that it can cause our exile to grow longer. For if each one of you will understand, and learn, and teach his friend, the other, that we are guarantors one in the other, we are one together, then each one will be careful and guard himself, and then the Holy One, blessed be He, will look at this, and then we will be able to say: if because of one Jew the Temple was destroyed, then in the merit of one Jew the Temple will also be built.
14:28 And through this, and in the merit of this, you will see that you, the holy and pure ones - you are the way and the beginning. And it is true that it is hard, and sometimes it is hard to learn, and there is difficulty, and it is not easy for you, but you are busy with the greatest and most exalted thing, and the Holy One, blessed be He, rejoices in you, and you draw great abundance and blessing into the world, and a great abundance of livelihood into the world.
14:56 You know, it is very hard for me too; to this day it is hard for me. You know, serving Hashem, blessed be He, is a thing that is hard; it is not easy. But it is good, it is sweet, it brings joy. But there is always work; there is no such thing as no work. Every day is a new beginning, and one must think only about what there is today. Don't think now about what will be tomorrow, in another week, in a few more hours...
15:24 Think now, focus now, and learn now. And that is what can give you strength to learn all the time and all day. If you want to focus, be busy with what there is now; learn now. And also remember 'Whatever is hateful to you, do not do to your friend' - that is the whole Torah on one foot. So what is meant when they say 'the whole Torah on one foot'?
15:49 What is meant by 'the whole Torah'? What can one say is the whole Torah? To really take in the whole Torah? And also to call it 'on one foot' - what, in one moment? So do you know what the answer is? How can it be? Do you have an answer? - The Rav is asking how it can be, about the story - you know the story: 'What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow'? How can it be that... How - what do you say?
16:21 He said that all the sins people do come from pride, and if a person is proud over his friend, and does what is hateful to his friend, then he has nothing to do with the Torah. - What beauty, what an explanation - another wonderful explanation. That is not what I wanted to say, but you know, what you said - I set aside my own view before what you said, and that is what should be said, not what I wanted to say. I wanted to say something else, but you said that a person who is proud, then from the pride - how did you say it? Say it again.
16:48 It is very nice; you say it again. - A person who does the sin - the reason is because he is proud, and if he is proud, it means he has no share in the Torah. - And because of that you say that... how did you say it? - And then the whole Torah on one foot, right.
17:17 - I explained it to them in class: that really, to bring down the pride, you need to give way to your friend, right, and then only by way of giving way to friends does one come to emunah and humility, and then, as a result, one comes to Torah. - Very true. Well, listen, that is very nice. I need to clap my hands for this new insight of yours. What beauty, what understanding you have! How beautifully you learn Torah - what beauty!
17:41 Fortunate is his teacher - they say that when one sees a person who toils in Torah, they say, 'Fortunate is his teacher who taught him Torah', and he toils in Torah. And thought. But I will tell you what I also thought, and you, if you have another new insight, we will hear that too. Let us think it through like this together, yes? They say the meaning is learning the whole Torah on one foot - that on one foot a person can stand and be steady?
18:10 It can't be, right? It is not steady. Have you ever seen a person standing on one foot? How long can he stay on one foot? He cannot stay that way for long, right? Because the moment he stands on one foot, he falls. He cannot really stand on one foot, right? Have you ever tried to stand on one foot? It is hard, right? It's impossible. So just as it is impossible to stand on one foot, and it is not steady, because a person cannot stand, he cannot lean, he cannot hold on to anything - but in the holy Torah, when a person wants to learn the whole Torah on one foot, it is a thing that is not possible.
18:49 Because when I say to be steady, and also to learn everything and to understand everything - the Torah needs steadiness. In order to serve Hashem and in order to learn the holy Torah, one must know that one has to be steady, like standing with your feet on the ground, because for a person to be steady, he must know exactly where he is going and to where he is going, and that he has a settled mind. That is how you must know to serve Hashem - with a settled mind, with patience, slowly, slowly. True, now it is hard, we are children, it is not easy, but we learn slowly, slowly.
19:23 But we need steadiness. But it comes to tell us: if you are only careful with your friend's honor, if you are only careful with your friend's honor, and you are careful not to cause him pain, then it is as if you get everything done just in one moment that you stand. Because for that you don't even need steadiness. To learn and keep the Torah, and to learn it, you need a lot of steadiness - and that is true, it is hard. But to be careful not to cause a Jew pain, and to guard his heart - that is worth as if you did everything in one moment.
19:53 Where else do the Sages teach us something similar like this? In Tractate Chullin, page 89, the Gemara says that the whole world exists on whoever restrains his mouth at the time of a quarrel, as it says, 'He hangs the earth on restraint'. How can that be? It is a thing very similar to this. What - the whole world, the entire world? You think: the trees, and the sun, and the stars, and all the fish, and in the sea, and whales, and lions, and leopards - the whole existence of the entire world.
20:24 The world now stops and stands, because of that person who wanted to get angry, and right away he remembered that it is forbidden to get angry, and he trusts in Hashem that everything is from Him, blessed be He, and he stopped himself. And then the whole entire world exists on the fact that he restrained himself at the time of the quarrel, as it says, 'He hangs the earth on restraint'. So the whole world exists in his merit. So what are they coming to teach us?
20:49 That the greatest things, the very greatest there are, flow down to a person at the moment of the test. When you have a test right now, to get angry, to hurt a friend - you want to put him to shame, and you want to say it with your tongue, and you don't say it; you want to speak lashon hara, and you don't speak it.
21:13 They say in the name of the holy Seraph, Rabbi Uri of Strelisk - you have heard of him - son of Rabbi Pinchas; he was the holy gaon, the 'Imrei Kadosh': he said that it helps like forty thousand fasts, and some say like sixty thousand fasts, when a person fasts fasts - if he wants to speak a word and he does not speak it, and he is careful with his speech not to say that lashon hara he wanted to, in the end he says, 'I will not speak this lashon hara that I wanted to' - it is as if he fasts tens of thousands of fasts.
21:49 So just see what a great thing it is when a person overcomes a difficulty; and that is what raises him as high as can be. And that is what our Sages taught us: to keep the whole Torah on one foot - how can that be? So: 'Whatever is hateful to you, do not do to your friend.' The good you want for yourself - give.
22:14 The hardship you do not want them to hurt you with - do not hurt with it. You have a test - stand up to it. These are the things that bring a person to the highest levels there can possibly be, and this is the rule and the main point that you must remember. May the Holy One, blessed be He, raise you higher and higher, amen. May you be holy and pure, may you have good blessings flowing to you, and all good, and from all good; 'Blessed are you to Hashem, Maker of heaven and earth'. May the Holy One, blessed be He, raise you up to Torah, the chuppah and good deeds; may you be holy and pure.
22:43 Fortunate are you, Israel; fortunate are you, Israel. Direct them, honored Rav, honored Rav... direct them, direct the...
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The opening of this shiur, in The Yanuka — Rav Shlomo Yehuda’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.
How old are these children? 12 years old. They are starting their 13th year The first Bar Mitzvah was yesterday What is the thing that is most important? Children, what is most vital? What do you think is the most important principle? “Belief,” “Fear of Heaven,” Loving Fellow Jews” Who said, “Loving Fellow Jews”? What a beautiful thing; what an amazing interpretation From what must we be most careful? Lashon Hara (defamation, lit., evil tongue). Very nice You know, there was once a holy Torah genius, Rabbi Naftali Amsterdam Have you heard of him? He was a very, very great and huge Torah genius. Rabbeinu Gershom enacted a ban that prohibited taking a second wife With Hashem’s help, you will all grow up, and enter a life of Torah, marriage and good deeds And, with Hashem’s help, you should not have any impediment in getting married And that you should be holy, pure and righteous And that you grow and ascend upwards in Torah study and fear of Heaven without any complications or delays Now, in the case where one needs a permit to take another wife, he needs a special authorization of 100 prominent rabbis Even though the origin of this prohibition is not from the Torah or from the Talmudic Sages It is not a Torah or Rabbinic prohibition But just an instituted ban. So Rabbi Naftali Amsterdam said: “If in order to circumvent a single enacted ban, one must receive official permission of 100 prominent Rabbis – to permit him to proceed taking another wife without transgressing the ban So for something prohibited by the Torah, how can people permit themselves to speak lashon hara without any official permission?!” “Distinguished Rabbi, how does one merit to feel the sweetness of the Torah?” You know that all of us, all of the Jewish Nation we are all included in the holy Torah. All of us, right?
Jump to a moment
- 6:26How old are these children? 12 years old. They are starting their 13th year The first…
- 8:06– to permit him to proceed taking another wife without transgressing the ban So for something…
- 9:42That each and every one of you is one of the letters of the holy Torah…
- 11:18It is also important that you honor your parents and teachers You should be particular about…
- 12:49When I say it with a lamed, it’s like this All Jews are responsible “one to…
- 14:28And through this, and in this merit, you will see That you, who are holy and…
- 16:04Do you have an answer? The Rav is asking how can it be – what happened…
- 17:37How beautiful! What intelligence you all have that you study the Torah so magnificently. How beautiful…
- 19:12So too, you must know that to serve Hashem with peace of mind with patience, little…
- 20:43as it says, “He suspends the earth for usage of restraint” So the entire world exists…
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