פרשת ויחי
In this week’s Parsha, Yaakov Avinu’s astonishing life is about to come to a close. Before Yaakov departed from this world, he decided to give each and every one of his children a special blessing, which would also reveal tremendous insights into each of the twelve tribes’ attributes and what they needed for perfection. We can learn a great deal by studying every one of the blessings given, but I would like to focus now on that of Yissachar. The verse concerning Yissachar’s blessing states, “And he will see his portion of the land, and it will be good and pleasant, and he will tilt his shoulder in order to bear the cumbersome burden of the Torah.” The commentaries are extremely bothered by the apparent dichotomy in this verse. On the one hand, the beginning of the verse seems to indicate that Yissachar will be blessed with a leisurely lifestyle, not really having to sweat too much, and then in the very same sentence, the verse tells us how Yissachar is going to have to shoulder a massive burden. Which one of these prophecies is the correct one?
R Zalman Sorotzkin explains that both of these descriptions are true. Yissachar is well aware of the world and all the pleasures that it has to offer. One should not mistakenly assume that Yissachar was naïve. Nonetheless, Yissachar chooses the Beis Midrash over the earthly pleasures because of his deep and burning passion for the Holy Torah. He leaves the material accoutrements behind in order to follow his irresistible yearning to plumb the depths of Hashem’s wisdom and explore every single possibility that will lead him to truth. For this end, he is willing to literally live like a donkey – depriving himself of proper sleep and sustenance, sleeping sometimes along the wayside, and giving up every other comfort to pursue his spiritual goals because he values it above all other entities that exist. When I studied in Brisk, I was told that the senior Rosh Yeshiva, R’ Chaim Brisker was a living model of this idea. They said he would learn standing for hours at a time, clearing everything else from his mind, until he would completely collapse from exhaustion. His son, the Gri”z once related that he was with his father during one of these Torah marathons, and his father collapsed and fell into a deep sleep for two hours, after which he woke up, and sprung up from his bench and began answering the most profound and sublime questions that were being fired rapidly at him. It actually seemed like he was sleep talking during this entire interchange, as if he knew the Torah even in his sleep. R’ Abramsky once told of R’ Chaim that he was with him one time when he learned for many hours straight, maintaining full concentration the entire time. At the end of this unimaginable display of dedication and focus, R’ Chaim looked up and seemed puzzled that there were two logs attached to the sides of his body. His students reminded him that those were called “arms” and they truly belonged there. R’ Chaim’s dedication should serve as a paradigm for us to understand what it means to fully dedicate oneself to the Torah, leaving all worldly and material concerns behind.
R’ Yerucham Levovitz offers a slightly different approach to explain the difficulty in this verse. Human nature is, and has always been to seek comfort and security in all of its forms. Ideally, we as a species would like to attain complete financial, emotional, and physical security so that we can just relax and never have to worry about anything ever again. Ironically, explains R’ Yerucham, the seeming contradiction in this verse is teaching us that the exact opposite is true. The Torah says that Yissachar attempted to shoulder the burden of Torah, while he was simultaneously seeking inner peace. Only when a person masters the art of remaining calm despite his challenges, instead of trying to shirk them, will he achieve true serenity. The reason for this is quite simple. When one becomes dependent on his comforts or his luxuries, if these are taken away for some reason, his productivity will drop drastically, depending on how reliant he was on his opulence. They say that The Steipler was unwilling to learn in an air conditioned study hall, reasoning that he never wanted to be in a situation in which if he couldn’t have his air conditioning, his learning would suffer. A person must be constantly training himself to reach a state in which no outside influence can distract him or deter him from his advances in Torah study and character development.
When I learned in the Brisk Yeshiva, R’ Dovid Soleveichik told us that his father, the Brisker Rav was constantly giving him and his brothers all sorts of missions to go on in the middle of their Torah study. But they would ask him if he could find somebody else, or at least give consistent tasks which would allow them to work their schedules around, as they were reluctant to leave their precious Torah learning. The Brisker Rav explained to them that they were missing the whole point. He specifically wanted them to retain their composure during these escapades in order to train them in the art of advancing spiritually despite the distractions going on around them. He would explain to them that if they thought about it, this is the only way to achieve tranquility. If their peace of mind were dependant on the circumstances around them, then the minute those circumstances were to change, they would lose their peacefulness. Whereas after the “Brisker training”, nothing in the world could deter them from pursuing their objectives.
I would just like to conclude with a thought provoking story told by the senior Rosh Yeshiva, R’ Shimon Green. When the Nazis invaded Poland and Western Russia, many of the Jews fled, hoping to find a refuge where they wouldn’t be hunted and killed. The Mir Yeshiva was able, with miraculous Heavenly aid, to obtain visas to Japan, and eventually to escape to Israel and America. After many trials and tribulations, and near disasters, they made their way to the Russian coast, and were able to consign a barge from Russia to Shanghai, which would ultimately be their trail to freedom. While on the boat, many of the students were understandably shaken up, and the last thing on their mind was their learning. So a few days into the journey, one of the frazzled students walked up to the Rosh Yeshiva, R’ Chaim Shmuelevitz, and asked him where they were holding, referring of course to their geographical progress. R’ Chaim, in his inimitable cool manner, responded that he was holding in Shmaitsa aleph of the famous Torah work, the Shev Shmaitsah. In other words, for R’ Chaim, the fact that their lives were in peril for the past few months was completely irrelevant. Right now, he had a few moments of stillness on the boat, and he intended to use them for what moments are best for – learning. There is no doubt about it that R’ Chaim couldn’t have reached this level of inner solace were it not for years of training in the qualities that we have described.
May we all merit to achieve true inner peace by consistently educating ourselves in the importance of the Torah study under any circumstance!