Dancin' in the Rain

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning how to dance in the rain

Vivian Greene

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   

Parsha Va’etchanan

This week’s Parsha contains perhaps the most famous and important idea in all of Torah. The Shema has many important ideas in it, but none more important than the imperative to teach our children the ways of our people. In this sentence we learns that although a person might think that the mitzvah of learning Torah takes precedence over that of teaching others, the opposite is in fact true. We learn from the emphasis on teaching children the proper approach we should have when we begin to learn Torah.

When Jews do mitzvah’s we create a change in the physical world, we elevate physical objects and seemingly mundane tasks and make them holy buy using those objects in the performance of mitzvoth and in our service to gd. The practical performance of the mitzvah is therefore more important than the intentions of the person doing the deed. The action itself brings spiritual illumination into the world.

In contrast to this Torah learning’s purpose is to refine and elevate the individual. When a person engages in the act of studying Torah their intellect becomes united with the gdly wisdom contained within and that wisdom affects the individual. Aiding and helping us to be more gdly people whose thoughts and actions are holy. Therefore learning Torah is in essence a process of humbling oneself and nullifying oneself with the goal of approaching gd with an open heart and mind.

Before we learn Torah we must subjugate our own ego and ask ourselves what does the Torah want from me? Our Sages say that without this prerequisite, Torah learning can be like a poisonous drug. Without asking this question we can actually damage ourselves.

I’d like to thank, Chabad.org and the Lubavitcher Rebbe zt”l for this insight, Shabbat Shalom.