A talmid chacham

A talmid chacham is a Jew who lives with G-d and reflects G-d in all aspects of his life. For him, there is nothing other than G-d and His Torah and mitzvots. A talmid chacham is not measured by the number of pages of Gemara he has memorized. Neither is he measured by the number of hours per day that he devotes to learning. A talmid chacham is measured by his dedication to Torah learning…when I was about ten years old, my friend said something I’ll never forget. He told me that his little brother had come home from school after learning about how G-d had spoken to the Avot and the Nevi’im, and he had asked his mother, “Why doesn’t G-d speak to Daddy? He learns whenever he has time!” Their father worked in diamond polishing. He would go to work early in the morning and return late in the afternoon, but he learned at every opportunity. His little boy didn’t understand why G-d did not speak to Daddy too. This father represents what a talmid chacham is…It’s a matter of dedication.  R. Shimshon Dovid Pincus, Shabbat Kodesh, p.108-109

Told a little differently, I was once sitting at seder after a long day, my eyes were closing. I was drifting in and out when the Rabbi asked me a question. I mumbled something, sheepishly grinned and admitted that I hadn’t been paying attention, I was tired. He looked at me, smiled and told me a beautiful story.

He said, “I was once sitting in a class much like this, and in this class there was a man who would always be there, and he would always fall asleep. One day the Rabbi, asked him, ‘why do you always show up if you’re just going to fall asleep in my class,’ he replied, ‘Rabbi, I’m a working man, at the end of the day, I’m tired and all I really want to do is fall asleep in front of the television. But I know if I do that my kids will see it, and I don’t want them to see that, what I want them to see he me going to learn after I work so they will know that it’s important to me and so it should to be important to them.’ What you do matters.

Shavua Tov