Hundreds of yeshiva bochurim participated in recent days in the “Bnei Hayeshivos Conference” held in Chafetz Chaim, culminating in the annual gathering attended by leading roshei yeshiva and headed by Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch.
As Rav Hirsch entered the gathering, the bochurim broke into powerful singing that accompanied him to the front of the hall, where an extraordinary group of senior Torah leaders awaited him. Among those present were Rav Yitzchok Ezrachi of the Mir Yeshiva; Rav Dovid Cohen, rosh yeshiva of Chevron; Rav Shimon Galei; Rav Chaim Peretz Berman of Ponevezh Yeshiva; Rav Issamar Garbuz, rosh yeshiva of Orchos Torah; Rav Chizkiyahu Mishkovsky; Rav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, rosh yeshiva of Mir; Rav Tzvi Drabkin, rosh yeshiva of Grodno Be’er Yaakov; and Rav Yisroel Bunim Schreiber, rosh yeshiva of Nesiv Hadaas.
A lengthy question-and-answer session with Rav Hirsch followed, addressing both the larger challenges confronting the Torah world and deeply personal questions faced by individual yeshiva bochurim in their learning, tefillah, and spiritual growth.
The following is the full interview, translated into English.
Rav Moshe Fish: With great reverence, we would like to present questions to the rosh yeshiva, upon whose shoulders rest the burdens of the generation in general and of the Torah world in particular, both in Eretz Yisroel and throughout the world. There are weighty questions on the public agenda and on the personal agenda of every ben Torah and every person striving to grow. The public thirsts to hear clear daas Torah and words of Torah from this great and elevated gathering.
Our first question is this: Right now, the Torah world as a whole, and every individual bochur, is being pursued with every means available to the authorities. Unfortunately, we are being relentlessly persecuted. The most basic question is: How should we daven to Hashem about this difficult period? Where should we have this in mind, and what precisely should we daven for?
We know that Chazal interpret the verse “Let sins cease from the earth” to mean sins rather than sinners. On the other hand, we have the bracha against informers, which was instituted regarding wicked Jews. What should we daven for? Should we hope that they do teshuvah? Should we ask that they be destroyed, uprooted, broken, and subdued? Where should we have them in mind, and what should we ask for?
Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch: I think that certainly, when we say, “May all wickedness disappear,” that can certainly apply. Likewise, “May the brazen sinners be speedily uprooted, broken, crushed and subdued” can also be said with this in mind.
Regarding “May all the enemies of Your people be speedily cut down,” that requires consideration. But what I mentioned certainly applies. We are speaking about their being subdued, completely subdued, and the elimination of wickedness. Certainly, one may have the present situation in mind when saying those words.
Rav Fish: Another question for the rosh yeshiva concerns something that troubles some bochurim on the fringes of the yeshiva world: the question of earning a livelihood.
There is a concern that if these government decrees continue and intensify, there will be major financial challenges. People need to purchase homes and support families. A bochur who is somewhat weaker emotionally may begin wondering whether, after marriage, instead of planning to devote himself to Torah day and night, he should begin thinking now about a source of income.
Is it correct to think this way? Should a bochur be concerned about this issue? And if he should not be concerned, why not?
Rav Hirsch: I think part of the question is based on the assumption that this is what people do outside Eretz Yisroel. But that is not correct. Today, people outside Eretz Yisroel do not do that either.
What he is describing was indeed the reality when I was a bochur. At that time, almost every person—even virtually every excellent bochur—would pursue some form of university education.
A university degree could ordinarily be completed in four years. But if someone attended classes three nights a week for several hours, he could finish in approximately eight years. At the time, someone who learned the entire day and went to university three evenings a week was still considered an outstanding bochur.
At a lower level, someone might attend four evenings a week and learn only until six in the evening. There were many different levels. But the concept of learning Torah the entire day with no secular studies whatsoever was almost nonexistent.
Then Rav Aharon Kotler entered the picture and changed all of America.
And I will tell you what happened with the earlier system: Not a single talmid chochom emerged from it.
The opposite approach produced results. There were bochurim who learned and learned and learned in Lakewood for years, and then remained in kollel for additional years.
I knew one person who was in kollel for 12 years. When he could no longer remain in kollel, he became an attorney after those 12 years. Another person spent six years in kollel before moving on.
Today, it is different. Today, every serious bochur goes to kollel and remains there as long as possible. Afterward, he finds some way to earn a livelihood.
But if you reverse the order and plan in advance to leave Torah study for work, I do not know how much benefit there is financially, but there is certainly, certainly an enormous spiritual loss.
Therefore, certainly not.
Rav Fish: With the rosh yeshiva’s permission, I would like to return to the first subject. The audience asks: Suppose the army could establish a framework that was completely pure according to Torah standards, hypothetically speaking, without any spiritual questions whatsoever. Would it then be permissible to join such a framework?
Rav Hirsch: It is absolutely clear that this question has nothing whatsoever to do with a yeshiva bochur.
Regarding a yeshiva bochur, there is nothing to discuss at all. He has no connection whatsoever to the army.
The question is relevant only to someone who is not learning. Someone who is working—if there were a framework that was completely pure according to Torah standards, would that be permissible?
The problem with the claim that something is completely pure is very simple: Today it may be pure, and tomorrow it is not.
What does that mean? The moment you are in the army, there is nothing preventing the head of the army or a commander from saying that all of these people must now go somewhere else.
We have seen this explicitly. In every place where they create frameworks that are supposedly completely appropriate for chareidim, those arrangements can easily be eliminated.
Rav Fish: Another question. We often read and hear about the tremendous desire for Torah possessed by the great Torah leaders and talmidei chachomim—the attraction expressed in the verse, “Draw me after You; let us run.”
A bochur asks: Right now, I do not possess that level of yearning for Torah. How can I develop the desire and thirst for Torah that characterized the talmidei chachomim of previous generations?
Rav Hirsch: We have discussed this many times.
For a person to experience joy in Torah, to genuinely enjoy Torah—the verse says, “The commandments of Hashem are upright, gladdening the heart.”
To reach the level where Torah truly gladdens the heart, Rabbeinu Yonah explains that three conditions are necessary.
The first is good middos.
The principle is that the more physical and materialistic a person is, the more that contradicts the joy of Torah. To experience the joy of Torah, a person must become more spiritual.
What diminishes spirituality?
First, poor middos. Rabbeinu Yonah says that a person must first develop good middos, and then he can truly enter the world of Torah.
Second, one must reduce materialism. I am not talking about complete abstinence from physical things. But there is a level of excessive materialism, of being deeply attached to physical pleasures, that directly contradicts Torah. A person who is strongly attached to that kind of materialism cannot experience the sweetness of Torah.
The third requirement, Rabbeinu Yonah says, is yiras Shomayim.
Without yiras Shomayim, Torah does not possess sufficient importance in a person’s eyes.
A person must understand what Torah means. The entire purpose of my life is to become close to Hashem. That is my purpose. I have no other ultimate purpose. And the best way—almost the only way available to us—to accomplish that is through learning Torah.
When a person understands that, Torah becomes immensely important to him. And when Torah is important to him, he experiences joy while learning because he is doing the most important thing in the world. That itself creates joy in Torah.
But without yiras Shomayim, Rabbeinu Yonah says, Torah does not possess sufficient importance. And without recognizing the importance of Torah, there cannot be joy in Torah.
So the three things are good middos, distancing oneself from excessive materialism, and yiras Shomayim, which produces an appreciation for the importance of Torah. Then a bochur will develop genuine enjoyment in his learning.
Rav Fish: There is another question. We live in a generation with enormous spiritual challenges, particularly involving technology. There have been very good and outstanding bochurim who were excellent for a period of time but later fell, Heaven forbid, because of this form of idolatry.
A bochur says: Right now, I am doing very well. I am learning properly, davening properly, and learning mussar. But I have seen friends who fell. How can I guarantee that this will not happen to me?
Rav Hirsch: “Fortunate is the person who is always afraid.”
Indeed, that is exactly the point. A person must constantly work and continue working. He must learn mussar, remain immersed in Torah, and daven properly.
But there can never be a situation in which a person says, “Ah, I have reached the point where I am fine.”
There is no such thing. This is the work of an entire lifetime.
Rav Fish: Regarding tefillah, there are people for whom tefillah feels like a burden. As the seforim describe it, they simply want to rid themselves of the obligation.
Others reach a level where they look forward to davening. They yearn for it and miss it.
How does a person reach that level? How can I acquire a taste for tefillah?
Rav Hirsch: One issue is very practical. Even if everyone more or less understands the words, most people do not truly understand the meaning of the tefillos and what is contained within them.
If a person would learn all of the chapters of Tehillim that appear in davening together with the commentary of the Malbim, and he would know what he is actually saying, then certainly his tefillah would be entirely different.
But the primary issue is something else.
The main problem is that, while davening, a person does not actually feel that he is speaking to Hashem.
If he does not feel that he is talking to Hashem, then obviously it is like someone simply saying words without speaking to anyone. Naturally, he has no desire for it.
I saw something quoted in the name of the Kuzari. The Kuzari says that the emunah generated by one tefillah should sustain a person until the next tefillah.
In other words, tefillah itself produces emunah.
Why?
Because when a person speaks to Hashem, when he feels that he is talking to Him and asking Him for things, he feels the presence of Hashem. And when he feels Hashem, that is tangible, emotional emunah.
What could possibly be more enjoyable than speaking to Hashem?
The only reason tefillah lacks taste is because people do not feel that they are speaking with Hashem.
A person must arouse himself and think: I am speaking to Hashem.
That is tefillah.
Rav Fish: There is a difficult question that requires some courage to ask, but with the rosh yeshiva’s permission, I will ask it.
The rosh yeshiva of Mir is sitting here. In the Mir kollel, there are many different learning programs: in-depth learning, breadth of knowledge, Daf Yomi, groups devoted to particular topics, Choshen Mishpat, Yoreh Deah, and more.
Many avreichim discover for the first time after marriage that they truly enjoy learning because they find a learning program suited to their particular abilities and nature.
The question is: Perhaps, at least in the older levels of the major yeshivos—and perhaps at least for average and weaker bochurim—we should arrange specialized Torah learning tracks suited to different types of people, such as studying a sugya through its practical halachic conclusion and other styles of learning.
Perhaps some bochurim would come alive through that approach. Why is the yeshiva world so conservative in this area?
Rav Hirsch: First of all, there are certain portions of Shas—particularly Nashim and Nezikin—that must be learned during a bochur’s yeshiva years.
The particular kinds of reasoning, analysis, precision, innovation, and differentiation required to understand a subject deeply are acquired most effectively through learning Nashim and Nezikin.
That is essentially why those masechtos were established as the standard yeshiva curriculum.
Before someone begins specializing in halachah or another particular field, he first needs the foundation of what people used to describe by saying that in yeshiva, a bochur “learns how to learn.”
That foundation is indispensable.
However, even within that system there are differences between people.
There are bochurim who naturally possess a tremendous capacity for depth and can immediately develop profound new insights. Other bochurim simply do not possess that particular ability.
The problem sometimes arises when a bochur sees that his friend has that strength and thinks, “I also have that ability.” He then attempts to produce the same kinds of insights even though it does not suit him.
His friend emerges with two beautifully clarified approaches, while he emerges confused.
But even someone who does not possess the ability to enter into extreme depth has many seforim available to him. One has to know which seforim to learn.
The works of Rav Elchonon Wasserman and the Steipler, for example, are accessible to everyone. Anyone can acquire a broad knowledge of the conceptual foundations of Torah learning and enter the world of lomdus in a manner suited to his abilities.
The same is true regarding earlier acharonim. A person may not be capable of learning the Machaneh Ephraim, while he may indeed be able to learn the Shaar Hamelech.
It depends on the particular acharon and on the individual.
In our generation, the two examples I gave—the works of Rav Elchonon and the Steipler—illustrate what I mean.
Rav Fish: A bochur asks the following question: He learns in a yeshiva of 500, 700, or 1,000 bochurim. He feels like just one more person among a thousand, another number on a list.
He thinks, “What value do I have? What am I contributing? What am I really doing? What makes me special or unique?”
For some bochurim, this causes tremendous discouragement.
Rav Hirsch: I genuinely do not understand the question.
Every person learns because he himself has an obligation and a purpose. His purpose in this world is to become close to Hashem. That is his purpose.
Therefore, what difference does it make if there are a million other people here?
But if we assume that the question nevertheless requires an answer, there is another answer as well.
The Ramak teaches a principle regarding the joining together of souls. One person’s neshamah strengthens another person’s neshamah.
In fact, this concept appears in several places in Chazal.
Hillel was worthy of reaching an extraordinarily high spiritual level, but he did not attain it because of the level of his generation. When there are people in a generation who are not good, it affects everyone, and the generation as a whole cannot reach as high a level because everyone is connected to everyone else.
So you may think, “I am one person among a million,” but in reality, everyone needs everyone else. Every individual who is present affects everyone else.
Chazal also say that Moshe Rabbeinu was capable of receiving the Torah on his own, while Klal Yisroel required 600,000 people to receive the Torah.
What does that mean? Each individual seemingly receives Torah independently. Why should the number of people make a difference?
The answer is that Klal Yisroel could achieve the level necessary for each individual to receive the Torah only through the combined strength of all 600,000. Without that collective combination, it could not have happened.
That means that every bochur who learns well places something into the generation. The entire generation receives strength from what he contributes.
That is the answer—if there really is a question. But in truth, there is no question to begin with.
Rav Fish: With the rosh yeshiva’s permission, one final question.
A bochur asks: We know that ours is a generation of abundance, luxuries, tremendous materialism, and many physical comforts.
Where is the boundary?
At what point can I feel confident that I am not becoming someone who indulges excessively while technically remaining within the boundaries of Torah? How do I know that I am not becoming overly materialistic?
On the other hand, there are things that are considered normal today. This can apply to entertainment, the quality of one’s home, clothing, or food.
How can a person determine what falls within normal, reasonable standards appropriate for our generation and what has crossed the line into excessive materialism? Is there some way to measure it?
Rav Hirsch: First of all, someone who genuinely learns mussar and learns Torah with consistency and diligence will begin to sense the answer himself.
And if he still is not certain, he should look at what the serious, outstanding bochurim and avreichim are doing and follow their example.
That is the answer.
Rav Fish: We want to thank the rosh yeshiva. May he continue to flourish in old age, full of vitality and strength. We daven and bless ourselves that the rosh yeshiva should continue to lead us until the coming of Moshiach, speedily in our days, amen.
{Matzav.com}
