The Yanuka Rav Shlomo Yehuda-הגאון הינוקא הרב שלמה יהודה שליט''א - בשיחה מרגשת על מסכת חייו • בעלייה לקברו של אביו נ＂ע ביום השנה

3:37 He was in the hospital a lot, and in exile, and they cheated him. He was innocent, innocent, innocent. He went through all the suffering there is, everything.

4:02 It is a very, very painful story, the story with him. Very, very, very painful, very, very. Something that really... To see a person who went through so, so much sorrow, and suffering, and humiliations, and hardships, and not a penny to be found in his pocket, and all that he went through, and only to live - and he did not succeed in the end.

4:30 There is not much peace of mind to speak, but may Hashem redeem us, may there be the geulah, and may He build the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple. People think that I have some kind of intellect, or that I have a memory.

4:55 I have no intellect, and I have no memory either. It is only from the money of such a man, with the poverty, and having nothing. He bought me the holy books, the Shas, all my books, everything I had. I had to learn - to take from the synagogue. In Spain I had to borrow a book.

5:19 There it was a rare thing. You could not take books home. You had to learn there in the synagogue. You take, you learn, you return, and you cannot take it out. And when he saw that I had finished the Shas, he had such joy. And it was not from a Shas that I had; I did not have it yet.

5:45 I had to take and return. So he went and bought me a Shas as a gift. It cost him a lot, a lot of money; it cost him something like... I do not know how much he paid for it, but let us say even a thousand coins. A lot - for him, it just was not there. He would send the money to someone in Israel, and he would not pass the money on to us - a lot of it.

6:16 But this is Torah that I learned in sorrow, Torah that I learned in poverty, since the one who bought it also brought it in poverty, out of what he did not have - what self-sacrifice, there are no words. Yasher koach. May the spirit of Hashem give him rest in Gan Eden.

6:44 "From the children of the poor, Torah will come forth." The hardship - the turning to Heaven is something else. When a person sits and thinks, what will be? As a child, you think, you understand that maybe you will not have a place to be.

7:08 The mind is different, the mind is other, the thinking is different. The heart is broken, the lowliness - the prayer is different. When there is success, it is different. I remember that once there was a bris for my nephew, and he was supposed to be the sandak; it was a Thursday. And on Wednesday night I was in Spain - this was when we were... I was at the window, I remember it, it was six in the evening, and I read Tehillim there at the window at night, in the snow.

7:36 Snow was falling, and I was right at the window; I read and I cried to Hashem. I said: what darkness the world is, what exile, what darkness. The next day he was the sandak; I remember that too. It was really something; it was a different way of thinking, a different way of looking, a different life.

8:01 When it is hard, when there is no... life is something else. I learned - it was on Pesach, it was Chol HaMoed Pesach, and throughout Chol HaMoed I learned Tractate Taanis. I had to finish a tractate in a week in order to return it to the synagogue, because you could not take a book out.

8:25 But sometimes I wanted to learn a few more things. Want to learn a tractate? Finish it, return it. You could not take two books, three. Take out, return - impossible. Learn, finish, return. There they would take... They would bring matzos from Madrid. It would come from Madrid - Madrid is some place there where there are all kinds of frozen dairy products, things in cans.

9:00 When you are in a situation where there is nothing, and we had no food for Shabbos - no meat, and no chicken. If once in a... there was something, that we would eat some special food, it was like - fish, once in a... He always looked after us. Toys too - as a child I did not have toys like the toys children have. But poverty - when a person grows up in poverty, and has to go abroad and be in poverty there, and alone, a lot of time alone, all the time there.

9:44 There is a very hard story about him, what happened there, and all the deceit with which they cheated him, all that they did to him - it is simply not for this time. And the heart, the heart, the heart, it is something... All the time he would say: "Do not invest in buildings, invest in human beings." He told me, "There were no buildings, I had nothing, I had no money, no buildings, but human beings.

10:17 People - help a person." He once said to me: "Know this: the stomach of a person who is hungry is the most important thing in the world." That is something he told me. A hungry person - there is nothing more important than that. "Is it not to share your bread with the hungry." There was a certain mute man who came to the shivah, and he began to cry, and cry, and cry.

10:48 I said, "Why is he crying like that?" Because Father was always making sure he had something to eat. He would go and bring it to this mute man; he had compassion for things. All the time he gave me this heart; it is something that will not be forgotten. May the spirit of Hashem give him rest in Gan Eden.

11:16 Yasher koach, tzaddikim, we love you; we must continue, we must keep seeing the good that there will be for everyone. May everyone have a good life, may everyone have good abundance. We must go onward, and look forward and hope for the building of Jerusalem, to gird our loins, to think, to light up the light of Hashem, to light up the light of the Torah, to take the good traits that were in the world, those figures, and to move forward.

11:48 Special, special. Special, special. Only my mother is in great sorrow; she has still not regained her peace of mind. She cries all the time, and it is hard for her.

12:15 She feels for him; that is what she cries about. She feels for him, she knows how much he suffered. Special, special. To be full of hope, full of good thoughts.

12:57 I went out with him only once in my life, once, when he came back. I remember, I was thirteen years old. Before the bar mitzvah he made a trip for me here, when we came back here; he made me a trip to the graves of tzaddikim. We traveled together, he and I, to Meron, and we traveled to Rabbeinu the Arizal, and to Tiberias; I remember that we were together.

13:27 We made this trip together. That too was something special. It was also something very special, at Rabbeinu the Arizal, and at Rabbi Shimon, and Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes. It was something very special. With the help of Hashem, may the Holy One, blessed be He, help us, that there be help from Heaven, that there be a good life, that great mercy be aroused.

14:18 Each one here is a story - "This is the book of the generations of man." Every person here is a story, each one. How many hearts, what a special nation. Rabbeinu the Ramak - when he passed away, Rabbeinu the Arizal asked, "Who sees something? Is there anyone who sees something?"

14:49 Do you know this? And what did he say? With the pillar of fire; and then the Ramak's students told him yes, so the Ramak told them that whoever sees this, then that is where my burial will be. Tell me, what are you doing in a place like this? Didn't Father take you out on a trip? Why did he bring you here?

15:15 Is this a place Father brings you? Think about the ultimate end - even from an age like this, it is good. Okay. You will have a little more fear of Heaven - it is only a little more. Because for a lot of fear of Heaven you need to think about the ultimate end all the time, so it adds a little more, again and a little more. Well done, tzaddik, fortunate are you.

15:40 Make sure to take him to happy places and to make him happy. What sweetness, fortunate are you. So Rabbeinu the Arizal said, "Who sees a pillar of fire?" There was one boy who saw. He went to him after that, told him, "Come tomorrow and we will learn." He came the next day; Rabbeinu the Arizal saw that he had become impure, through ruach hakodesh; he did not want to learn with him.

16:17 He told him - you lost everything, everything you had. Every person who passes away - you really see a light on him. For there were many tzaddikim who would go, and according to the... How did Rabbeinu the Arizal discover all the holy ones? He would see them; they would really reveal themselves to him. He would know where to go, who is here, who is there. May we have good abundance; may his merit protect us.

16:53 Salvations for everyone, a good life. Special, special, truly special, something special, special.