With the month of Elul underway and the Yomim Noraim approaching, Rav Yitzchok Ezrachi, rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Mir in Yerushalayim, delivered an impassioned shmuess at Yeshivas Zichron Meir in Yerushalayim, led by Rav Isser Yehuda Malin.
In his remarks, Rav Ezrachi focused on the indispensable role of yiras Shomayim alongside Torah learning, stressing that even intense and diligent learning cannot accomplish its purpose without tefillah and deliberate work on a person’s inner world. He also warned against treating mitzvos casually and urged the bochurim to develop genuine sensitivity to the difficulties and suffering of others.
Rav Ezrachi began by discussing the unique closeness that Hakadosh Boruch Hu grants Klal Yisroel.
He noted that when the malachim sanctify Hashem’s name, their declaration begins with three words before Hashem’s name: “Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, Hashem Tzevakos.” Klal Yisroel, however, is permitted to invoke Hashem’s name after only two words, as in “Shema Yisroel, Hashem.”
“The malachim need an introduction of three words; without that they cannot sanctify His name,” Rav Ezrachi said. “And Klal Yisroel — us — Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings us closer than the malachim.”
That special closeness, he explained, is tied directly to the way a Jew conducts himself, particularly in the area of yiras Shomayim.
“Because you fear Me. And yiras Shomayim is everything,” he said.
Rav Ezrachi stressed that yiras Shomayim does not simply emerge automatically from Torah learning. It must itself become the focus of sustained effort.
He cited the Gemara’s account of the mother of Rav Nachman bar Yitzchok, who was told by astrologers that her son was destined to become a thief. She therefore instructed him to keep his head covered at all times so that he would possess yiras Shomayim, and she urged him constantly to daven for Divine mercy.
One day, Rav Nachman bar Yitzchok was sitting and learning when his head covering fell off without his noticing. Sitting beneath a palm tree that did not belong to him, he suddenly experienced an overpowering urge for its fruit and bit off a cluster with his teeth.
Rav Ezrachi pointed to the Gemara’s description that Rav Nachman was sitting and learning at that very moment.
“Torah alone, without yiras Shomayim, is nothing,” Rav Ezrachi declared. “He was sitting and learning — and this was Rav Nachman bar Yitzchok.”
He then cited the Gemara’s discussion of what a person must do to acquire wisdom. While increasing one’s time in the bais medrash is essential, the Gemara teaches that a person must also daven to the One to Whom wisdom belongs.
Rav Ezrachi said bochurim sometimes approach him seeking a bracha and describe their plans to learn with tremendous hasmadah and greater depth.
“You can remain an am ha’aretz,” he warned. “You can delve deeply and remain an am ha’aretz all the days of your life.”
The Gemara’s message, he explained, is that neither component can be discarded.
“A person can daven all day and not learn, and he will remain an am ha’aretz. A person can learn all day and not daven, and he will remain an am ha’aretz. One without the other is impossible.”
Rav Ezrachi returned to Rav Nachman bar Yitzchok, noting that after recognizing his vulnerability, he devoted himself so intensely to developing yiras Shomayim that he eventually became one of the generation’s outstanding examples of it.
“When a person hears that he is lacking something, and he understands what he is lacking, then he devotes his entire self to it,” Rav Ezrachi said.
The lesson, he said, is that recognizing a spiritual weakness must lead to serious work rather than resignation.
“Torah alone does not guarantee yiras Shomayim. For yiras Shomayim, you have to work,” he said. “Without work, there is no yiras Shomayim at all.”
Rav Ezrachi then turned to a teaching of Rav Shimon bar Yochai regarding the proper attitude toward mitzvos.
“Honor the mitzvos, because the mitzvos are My emissaries. If you honor them, you have honored Me; if you do not honor them, you have disgraced Me,” he quoted.
There is no neutral territory, Rav Ezrachi said. The way a person approaches a mitzvah reflects the way he relates to Hakadosh Boruch Hu.
He offered the everyday example of a bochur who is supposed to wake up at a certain time but opens his eyes, rolls over and goes back to sleep.
“There are probably bochurim like that everywhere who have difficulty getting up,” he remarked. A person may tell himself that he is tired or hungry, but, Rav Ezrachi said, he must understand the spiritual significance of treating an obligation casually.
“If he would know that by doing so he is disgracing the Creator of the world!”
The same principle, he said, applies to bein adam lachaveiro. If someone believes another person slighted him and retaliates, he must ask himself how his behavior accords with the commandment to love another Jew. Likewise, if a rebbi asks a talmid to do something and the talmid agrees but only gets around to it three hours later, that too reflects how seriously he regards the obligation.
“There is nothing in between,” Rav Ezrachi said.
Before acting, he urged, a person should stop and consider: “What am I about to do? Am I going to honor the Creator of the world, or, chalilah, the opposite?”
Even something as ordinary as responding to a mother’s request can carry that significance.
“A mother asked him to go do something. ‘Of course, I’ll do it’ — and he does it three hours later. Is he honoring or disgracing? I’m not talking about his mother — I’m talking about Hakadosh Boruch Hu!”
Rav Ezrachi said that Rav Nachman bar Yitzchok ultimately came to understand why his mother had insisted so strongly on his covering his head and davening.
“The moment he understood, he dedicated his entire life to yiras Shomayim.”
Understanding something intellectually, Rav Ezrachi continued, is only the beginning. A person must internalize it until it changes the way he sees and experiences the world.
“To feel it means acquiring an outlook of yiras Shomayim,” he said. “Without this, it is worth nothing.”
Rav Ezrachi then cited the Torah’s command regarding tzedakah, “You shall surely give him, and your heart shall not feel bad when you give him.”
Drawing on Rabbeinu Yonah, he explained that the act of giving alone does not complete the person’s obligation. The giver must actively work on his heart until he genuinely wants to give.
“As long as he does not work on his heart so that his heart wants it, nothing will help,” Rav Ezrachi said.
He then illustrated the importance of developing genuine sensitivity to another person’s pain with a teaching of Targum Yonasan concerning the enslavement in Mitzrayim.
Rav Ezrachi recounted the description of a delicate young pregnant woman who was forced to labor with mortar and bricks. She miscarried, and the fetus became mixed into the mortar. Hakadosh Boruch Hu instructed the malach Gavriel to descend, form a brick from it and bring it before Him.
The message, Rav Ezrachi explained, is directed at every person. It teaches how seriously one must take the suffering of another human being.
Sometimes, he said, people hear that someone is struggling, hurting, ill or crying, yet the information barely penetrates their consciousness.
“It sounds to us like music,” he said, describing the danger of becoming accustomed to hearing about other people’s pain without truly feeling it.
Rav Ezrachi cited the Chazon Ish, who writes that when a person hears that someone is lacking something, he should immediately try to help.
“If you cannot help him, daven for him, even if he is an unlearned, ordinary and simple person,” Rav Ezrachi said, quoting the Chazon Ish’s teaching.
Failing to respond, he explained, reveals that a person has not adequately developed the capacity to participate emotionally in another’s suffering.
Rav Ezrachi concluded the shmuess with a bracha to the bochurim and the yeshiva’s staff that they merit Divine assistance and success during the coming year.
“You should know that even to receive siyata diShmaya, one needs siyata diShmaya,” he said. “It is not simple. When you understand, know and feel, then you will feel that you are succeeding. Every person should rejoice in the success of his friend.”
{Matzav.com}
