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The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 3,179 words · 21:20. Press a time to hear it said.
0:04 Hashem, G-d of Avraham and Israel, our fathers, keep this forever as the inclination of the thoughts of the heart of Your people, and direct their heart toward You. What is 'keep this forever'? To keep what? [unclear] that they will not be able to disturb us, to feel his image before our eyes, and to receive from it strength of body, strength of soul, so that we can hold on to this until soon, [unclear] the knowledge of Hashem, to the resurrection of the dead, speedily in our days.
0:43 The great Gaon, Rabbi Shlomo Yehuda Be'eri, the Yanuka, shlita. - With the permission of Hashem our G-d, King of the world, [unclear]. Amen. With the permission of our masters and teachers, the great ones of the Torah, the holy city, a city of Torah; with the permission of all the honored rabbis, the geonim, and with the permission of the holy sons, the tremendous and awesome Gaon, who lit up the eyes of all, who established a kingdom of Torah, raised up sons, lions of Torah, students, lions of Torah, mighty men who engage in the battle of Torah, all of them geniuses and honored men of the land, a pure, clear and polished intellect.
2:03 I merited to meet with him several times. I merited to see his holy face. It is a great merit for me. I merited to know a little, like a drop from the sea, of his great wisdom and greatness, of the humility, of the character traits, of the wisdom, of the pure and clear intellect, his ability to understand in a brief moment everything that is said and asked of him, with a pure, clear and polished intellect, in all matters of taharos, the laws of purity, for he once told me that this matter is so, so important to him; he so wants people to engage in it and speak of it and engage in it.
3:01 And he was so happy with the son's work on the purity of vessels; he said there had been nothing like it, a work so wonderful, that covers the whole subject. Every time he would say: perhaps it will be of benefit, that the world will engage in it and learn it. We are in a generation in which we merited to see from previous generations.
3:31 He merited to receive Torah from Rav Shach, the greatest of the students of Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer, from his greatness in Torah, the continuation of the Torah that he taught, the way of his method, and the learning and the depth. This he bequeathed to all the geonim, to all the holy students, to raise up lions and a kingdom of Torah.
3:59 It is written in Eichah Rabbah, in section 1, that the passing of tzaddikim is as hard as the burning of the House of our G-d, and in Tractate Rosh Hashanah, on page 18b, to compare the passing of sages and tzaddikim to the burning of the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple, because these holy geonim, when they depart from the world, leave us without a shepherd.
Read the whole shiur in English (26 more parts)
4:25 They engraved here in the world their knowledge and their path, for us to walk in it, the remnants of the generation of knowledge, the remnants of previous generations, to hand down to us the path, that we merit to contemplate a little and see. For Rashi in Tractate Sotah, on page [unclear], side b - Rashi explains that 'the meeting house will be...' and so on.
4:50 Rashi explains that already there is no Torah, there will no longer be sages, they will not be able to receive Torah, they will not understand how to receive the Torah. When [unclear] and the sages are gathered in - in Tractate Sanhedrin, on page 97a, Rabbi Yochanan says that in the generation in which the son of David comes, not only do all the troubles and hardships appear and come to the world, but the Torah is forgotten by those who learn it, and all kinds of decrees are renewed, until the first has not ended before the second, and the Jewish people do not know where to go and what to do.
5:28 And all of this, all of this is the beginning and the result of their departing from us: the shepherds depart from us, the geonim, and especially one so great and awesome who was in our generation, whom we merited a little, a little to see, and to see the radiance of his face, and to receive from him; perhaps one can say only a drop. The holy Gaon writes, Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Yehuda Yechiel Safrin of Komarna, in Zohar Chai, Bereishis, on page 113a, he explains that if the world would contemplate and understand that the extension of [unclear] - he explains the words of Rabbi Shimon - in each and every generation, the extension of Moshe is revealed in each and every generation, and just as there was the Ari, and so on, Rabbi Shimon is revealed in every generation.
6:30 He gives this reason, he explains, so he writes in Zohar Chai: this was in order to protect the Jewish people from the heads of the erev rav and from the rule of the erev rav, [unclear] sages, in order to save us from the opinions and the thinking of [unclear]. And therefore our master the Arizal also writes so in Sha'ar HaLikutim, in Parshas [unclear], so too he writes it on page 37b, in Parshas Bereishis.
6:57 And there he writes that in this time, when brazenness has grown strong, and [unclear] - so he writes - and this rule - so he says - that it becomes upside down in the Torah, [unclear] there are no true sages, and the brazen ones rise up; they are the ones, and all that causes the tzaddikim to be called 'like the dust of the earth.' The great, true, wise tzaddikim are like the dust of the earth, everyone tramples on them and pays no attention to their greatness and their wisdom.
7:27 And if they would look and understand and see that the holy ones and the tzaddikim are the apple of Hashem's eye, blessed be He. Zechariah the prophet already said, in chapter 2, verse 12, that thus said Hashem: 'After glory He sent me' this 'after glory He sent me to the nations,' that the Holy One, blessed be He, says, 'after glory He sent me to the nations' 'who plunder you,' 'for whoever touches you is like one who touches the apple of His eye' - that is to say, it is not 'like touching', it is touching the apple of His eye.
7:58 For the Jewish people, the tzaddikim, the holy tzaddikim, are the apple of the eye of the Holy One, blessed be He, of Hashem, blessed be He; this is the most precious and the purest thing in the world in the eyes of Hashem, and whoever touches them touches the apple of His eye - it is not 'like touching', but it is really touching. For after all that everyone goes through, and all the world goes through, these are the pure remnants who are left to us, to hold on to the Torah.
8:33 These are the sages, the eyes of the congregation. And this is our merit and our obligation: to fulfill and to follow everything they say - 'and you shall do according to all that they instruct you.' There is a responsum of the Maharam Schick, in siman - in responsum 303 - where the Maharam Schick writes; there he warns about heads of communities, for in his time there was a great dispute between several heads of communities, and he writes that there are heads of communities, and the responsibility is on true heads of communities to root out the dispute and to increase love without cause, and that there should be no hatred without cause.
9:07 And the more there are true sages and true heads of communities, that is what increases unity, that is what increases love without cause, that is what protects the Jewish people, and this is the way to walk in, this is the thought and this is the contemplation, and for this we need to contemplate, the more we think. There is the book Milchamos Hashem, which is attached to the Machzor Vitry, which also appears in Midrash Peliah, under the letter Alef; he writes there an awesome and terrible thing.
9:34 He writes that at the time the geulah comes, toward the time the geulah comes, he says, not only, Heaven forbid, are decrees renewed, and troubles and hardships, he says, the truth will become flocks upon flocks, and everyone will flee from the truth, and there is no greatness and there is no Torah and there is no leader in Israel, and the gates of wisdom and the gates of understanding will be locked, and all the doors of Heaven - the Holy One, blessed be He, closes all the gates, everything, and troubles hurry to come, and [unclear] Mashiach the troubles will grow even stronger, and all kinds of hard things that one cannot at all describe or imagine, their saying and their hearing because of the fear of Hashem and the greatness of Hashem, blessed be He. For we await the geulah in order to see the sages who will rise for us at the resurrection of the dead,
10:24 who will continue to lead us on the straight path. And for this we must, every day, fulfill - to merit - what we want to gather from that sage, from that tzaddik who departed from us: we must learn his character traits, we must learn mussar every day, every day to receive from his Torah, to receive from his knowledge, to follow Hashem, blessed be He. The Chayei Adam writes in klal 143, at the beginning, he writes there that it is an absolute obligation to learn mussar every day, for 'what does Hashem your G-d ask of you, but to fear.'
10:56 The sages already taught in Tractate Avos, chapter 3, mishnah 17, that if there is no fear, then there is no Torah; and if a person does not learn mussar, to come close to Hashem, blessed be He, to receive from that sage, then he can never receive the Torah, since they do not truly receive the fear of Hashem. And the more we think and the more we contemplate, and contemplate and think, that the whole purpose and all that we can ask of Hashem, blessed be He, is that He lead us to His kingship, to a true and pure leadership, that they will be able to see the honor of the sages, the honor of those who learn Torah.
11:31 This is all one can say: 'fortunate are you, Israel,' fortunate are we that we merited it, that he raised up so much Torah in this generation, and it is impossible to estimate the kingdom of Torah that everyone knows and everyone recognizes. I once learned a new insight that he loved - we once spoke, and he said, about the time to come, that there will be impurity. There are two midrashim that contradict each other. In Midrash Shocher Tov, in siman 146, it says that in the time to come impurity will be nullified, the impurity of niddah will be nullified, perhaps impurities.
12:06 And seemingly this contradicts the book of Yechezkel, chapter 44, verse 25, where it says, 'and he shall not come to a dead person to become impure.' Seemingly, this is about the Third Temple, that the impurity of the dead will indeed remain, and the impurity of niddah will indeed remain. So why engage in all these matters? And so it also appears explicitly in Midrash [unclear], in siman 73, that the more one learns, the more one understands that even when the geulah comes, the impurity will still remain.
12:32 So how can it be? So presumably, if the impurity is nullified, or the impurity will not be nullified - and the matter remains in need of study. But one can resolve this, based on what one can think, as the Leshem writes - and the book, he has the book Sefer HaDe'ah - he writes this in part 2, in drush 4, in branch 12, and siman 9, based on what is written in Midrash Shocher Tov, in siman 18, in the name of Rabbi Yudan, which he brings, that the more we contemplate, he says that the geulah does not come all at once, but the geulah will come little by little, it will come bit by bit.
13:05 When the geulah comes bit by bit, that means that not all the dead will rise yet, and for the impurity to be nullified, everyone must rise; and only when everyone rises, then in practice it will be nullified - all impurity, completely, from the world. And then will be fulfilled 'He will swallow up death forever,' as Yeshayahu writes in chapter 25, verse 8, where he writes: 'He will swallow up death forever, and Hashem G-d will wipe away tears from every face, and the disgrace of His people He will remove from all the earth.'
13:32 This means that the kingship of Hashem, blessed be He, will be revealed in that everyone will rise at the resurrection of the dead, for each one will need to rise in his own tikkun. So one can resolve this with the words of the Leshem, for without his holy words the matters remain in need of great study, if in practice we see that there is still a contradiction between the matters: why learn so much, if in practice the impurity will be nullified? But we see that in practice it will still not be nullified. So that means that even when Mashiach comes we will need to engage in impurity and purity, because still there will not actually be the resurrection of the dead, in practice, for everyone; everyone will rise slowly, according to the end and according to the tikkun
14:09 and their root. And the more we engage in this and prepare ourselves more - and especially what the Rav, may his merit protect us, the supreme holy one, who bequeathed to the world his holy sons and the holy students and the holy Torah and his kingdom, that they engage in this in order to bring the end closer. It is written in Midrash Esther, in siman 10, in the name of Rav Berachiah, that at the beginning of the creation of the world - the Holy One, blessed be He, is the One who calls the generations from the beginning - He decides who will be the head in each generation.
14:44 Hashem, blessed be He, decides who will be the head in each and every generation. And then the Midrash says: Adam HaRishon is the head of all created beings, and Kayin is the head of all killers, and Hevel is the head of all who are killed, and Noach is the head of all who escaped, and Avraham Avinu is the head of all the circumcised, and Yitzchak Avinu is the head of all who were bound, and Yaakov Avinu is the head of all the wholehearted, and Yosef HaTzaddik is the head of all the pious, and Yehudah is the head of all the tribes.
15:13 And so he explains, and so he begins to count, and we continue too: that Shmuel the prophet is the head of all who anoint, and Shaul is the head of all the anointed, and David HaMelech is the head of all the musicians, and Shlomo HaMelech is the head of the builders, and Achashverosh is the head of all sellers, and Haman is the head of buyers, and Sancheriv and Nevuchadnetzar the wicked, he is the head of all the destroyers. So the Midrash explains, that if a person thinks in his mind that he is the one who chooses the head, he never chooses the head; rather, the One who calls the generations from the beginning, He is the one who chooses the head.
15:45 Hashem, blessed be He, the King of the kings of kings, Hashem, blessed be He. And we need to pray according to the words of the Midrash, to ask - that we want Hashem, blessed be He, that He be the one who is our head, and He is the one who will redeem us and bring us back to the Temple, that we merit to see the honor of the Torah. We must all be strong and cleave to the holy Torah, to crown Hashem as King, and that our heart be true with Hashem, blessed be He.
16:18 As explained in Sanhedrin, on page [unclear], that the face of the generation is the face of a dog. And the Maharsha explains: like the face of a dog, which on its face shows a happy face and a loving heart, but inside its heart it thinks thoughts of wrongdoing, it thinks what is not good. And about this we must remove it from us, from the generation, so that we merit unity and love without cause and peace and good bounty. And may Hashem, blessed be He, bless each and every one, and the rabbis and the holy sons, that they continue to light up the Rav's Torah in the whole world, and that your wellsprings spread outward.
16:51 and may you have all good bounty, in good that is seen and revealed, that we merit the complete geulah and the resurrection of the dead, speedily in our days. Amen and amen. Amen. Thank you very much. Yosef, Yosef HaTzaddik and Aryeh. The Rav remembers the two names. Yes, both Aryeh and Yosef, and here there is Aryeh, the kingdom, he raised up lions.
17:54 Yes, yes. 'The lion you spoke of has become a fox.' It did not become one - it was a fox and remained a fox. [unclear] - I merited to accompany you, thank you very much. Amen. [unclear] miracles and wonders, a good life, and continue to make the Torah great for the whole world, and may your wellsprings spread outward. Amen. And continue Father's path. I merited to see him and to speak with him, and I know how important your work was to him.
18:26 How much he spoke of it. Every time, every time, this is what was important to him. Is it marginal? It is not marginal. This is what he took pride in and marveled at, greatly, that you merited to do such a thing. A minor writes; an adult stands over them. Thank you very much. - The Gaon, Rabbi Aryeh [unclear], shlita.
20:30 - The geonim, shlita, each [unclear] and his stature. We will follow the custom of our master, of blessed memory. When [unclear] asking permission of the rabbis, [unclear] mention names. There is nothing to see in me. My masters, My masters, My masters, My masters,
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