The Yeshivah Draft

Shiur 16 – The Yeshivah Draft

We find ourselves in the nine days. We are thinking about the Beis Hamikdash with its avodah and the hashroas hashechinah. All these things are greater and beyond our concepts.

Currently, in Eretz Yisroel, we are faced with the drafting of yeshivah bachurim. This requires us to look at the yeshivah system.

There are boys in the yeshivah system who are not very productive. People automatically think that something needs to be done about this. I am not one of these people. I am aware that there is such a problem, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that these boys need to leave the yeshivah system.

The issue with doing something else is like Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch recently put it. He said that if a bachur goes to the draft, his Yiddishkeit will be in danger. In my words, Rav Moshe Hillel was saying that a bachur’s endangering his Yiddishkeit is tantamount to saying that he will lose his ‘anchor’. An anchor does not move and stands firm even in a storm. It therefore provides stability.

The basic chinuch system of the yeshivah world is for the talmidim to excel. This creates pressure since not everyone can be excellent. Excellence and being anchored are a contradiction in terms. To be anchored means that even when things don’t go well, the person remains firm and remains in the same place. As far as the pursuit of excellence is concerned, if a person falls short, then this itself is a failure, regardless of how strong the person remains anchored and committed.

A ship needs to be anchored through something that is not itself. To anchor yourself to yourself will not help you.

A lot of people think to anchor themselves by living alongside like-minded yeshivisha people. This is a big thing. However, there needs to be something in chinuch that serves as the anchor.

How do we create such an anchor?

Many people talk about hashkafah to create an anchor. However, Derech Hashem and Daas Tevunos are too lofty to create an anchor.

Regarding girls, they also need to have an anchor. I know this from my daughters. They experienced lots of different things as they were growing up. But they remained rooted and anchored to Torah.

One response to the draft in Israel is making hafganos. This is a response. This is perhaps a hishtadlus. However, this is not the purpose of the hashgachah of Hashem. The purpose of what is happening is that we must remember to be rooted. This is the only thing that will save us in such a disastrous situation.

Although there is no draft in America for the yeshivah bachurim, making the children more anchored is relevant to everyone.

The first way to become anchored

The Nefesh Hachaim in Shaar Dalet speaks about a person who leaves Torah. He describes him as taking off his clothes of kedushah and putting on clothes of chol and tumah. 

He describes these clothes in the plural, meaning that each person has multiple pieces of clothing of Torah and tumah. However, we find in our yeshivahs that people are only interested in listening to those bachurim who say a shiur with a chiddush about the sugyah that the yeshivah is learning. This means that such bachurim only possess one piece of clothing-the iyun of the yeshivah. This is not sufficient to create an anchor in Torah.

A person can only have an anchor in Torah when he sees all his different aspects of his reality expressing Torah. To come to yeshivah and say a pshat on Chumash isn’t bitul torah!

I learn with my brother bichavrusah once a week in chumash rashi. We do not go according to the parshas hashevuah. We go possuk by possuk. We are currently up to Parshas Beshalach, the parshah of Mon. If I come up with a chiddush from this limmud which I want to share with an outsider, I would need to pick very carefully somebody who would be happy to listen. The correct person whom I would find to listen would, in their eyes, be doing me a great chessed to listen. Once we finished speaking, he would probably instantly erase everything that I had said. If it’s not the current parshah, which we can talk about at the Shabbos table, people are just not interested! This is a problem.

Similarly, I ask bachurim if they know how many shaarim there are in Shaarei Teshuvah. They mainly say that there are three and don’t realise that there’s a small one at the end. Also, very few bachurim know the order of the chapters of Mesillas Yesharim.

In the past, people used to walk around well-versed in the non-Yeshivah seforim. They used to walk around with Torah opinions about life.

(As an aside, this is a pshat that I recently was machadesh on the possuk ‘Reu ki hashem nosan lochem es hashabbos, al ken nosen lochem es lechem yomayim, yeshvu ish tachtov al yetzei ish mimekomo’. This talks about the concept of techumim. Why is it necessary to start with reu ki hashem nosan lochem es hashabbos in order to be able to metzaveh about techumim?

When we prepare for Shabbos, the world isn’t saying anything about keeping Shabbos. We, ourselves, are mekabel Shabbos.  This is independent of the world. However, in the midbar, there was a neis. The world said ‘keep Shabbos’. This is reu-see that the world was saying to ‘keep Shabbos’. 

The world is not obligated in Shabbos. Only people are obligated in Shabbos. If so, why was the world getting involved with the obligation to keep Shabbos? 

The world saying to ‘keep Shabbos’ means that on Shabbos, the only space in the world is human space. The whole world is only man. (Since Shabbos is a topic of man, and the world is saying man’s topic, therefore, on Shabbos, the world is man). If the whole world is man, then the Torah says not to go out of the space of man (the techum) because there is nothing else besides for himself. (This is why the Torah preceded by saying, see that Hashem gave Shabbos before being metzaveh about techumim.)

Now, let us return to what we were saying about yeshivahs not encouraging learning things besides the yeshivah masechtah. Such an attitude promotes a desire for ‘excellence’ and chiddushim.

I am not opposed to such Roshei Yeshivahs who give over this attitude. Reb Nachum zt’l was one such Rosh Yeshivah. A bachur came to Reb Nachum zt’l on Chanukah and began speaking to him about an ohel in maseches Menachos. Reb Nachum spoke to him in learning. At the end of the conversation, Reb Nachum asked him why he was speaking about Menachos? The bachur replied that it was because it’s Chanukah today. Reb Nachum said regarding himself, that to him it was Baba Kamma today!!

Indeed, the yeshivah masechta is very important. However, there are also other ingredients to the yeshivah.

To put all one’s kochos into only one aspect of Torah prevents a person from creating an anchor. One can only make an anchor through being connected with all different aspects of Torah.

For example, at the Shabbos table I have mentioned the sayings of the famous Chinese thinkers, such as Confucius, who said ‘a big journey also begins with one little step’. I then proceeded to demonstrate how this is nonsense. Confucius assumes that everyone can go on long journeys, only that they struggle to begin the journey.

However, it’s to the contrary. People’s main struggle is going on a long journey. For example, how long can people keep a thought/aim in their brains? Two minutes. How long can people remain committed to something? Two days. If so, every ‘big’ journey ends after two minutes or two days! So, our problem is really with going on a long journey, not how to begin it.

I would then explain at the Shabbos table what the Torah perspective on this matter is. Take, for example, tefillah– we do not go on a long journey. Instead, tefillah is happening fully when we begin davening. In ‘Baruch atoh’, we are now davening. This is where our journey and our tefillah are, because we are metzuveh veoseh also in this, right at the beginning. Non-Jews don’t have such a concept because they are not metzuveh veoseh.

This is an example of where we see that Torah speaks about all different aspects of life. Torah has expressions everywhere. Connecting with this diversity creates an anchor.

The second way to become anchored

The second issue nowadays is that we don’t know how to listen to the Rov. Even if the Rov might be incorrect, nevertheless, his words need to be held in the center of how we listen to his words. They must be held as being above the listener’s realm of understanding and hence not given over to the listener’s judgment. Nowadays, when talmidim listen, they are more interested in saying their own opinion.

For example, I learnt with the mashgiach for 23 years. Only once did I challenge the mashgiach. We were learning a piece of Reb Yerucham in chelek 3, which was a five-line piece. The mashgiach said that the pshat was such and such. I argued and said that the pshat was the other way around. The mashgiach said ‘I hear what you are saying, but I think that my pshat is correct.’ I persisted and said, ‘I don’t think so.’ This was the only time we had a machlokes.

We then went to America and met Rav Simchah Zissel, who came to visit the mashgiach in Flatbush. The mashgiach said that we should ask Rav Simchah Zissel what the correct pshat in Reb Yerucham is. He told me to bring Reb Yerucham chelek 3. 

The mashgiach told Reb Simchah Zissel how he understood the Reb Yerucham. Reb Simchah Zissel read the piece and said that this is not what Reb Yerucham was saying. He argued that the intent was contrary to the mashgiach. It was saying that one shouldn’t learn like the masgiach’s understanding. Immediately, the mashgiach turned to me and said that I was correct.

I didn’t take pride from this event. I learned from this event how the mashgiach had such a great yesod that he held of so strongly, which caused him to misread the Reb Yerucham. The Rebbe’s words are so far above us, even if they make a mistake. Such an approach also creates an anchor through being connected to someone and something bigger than ourselves. 

Whilst hashkafah is needed for a person’s brain, the issue of being anchored to Torah is much more deeply rooted in the neshamah than just having a straight hashkafah. Instead, two ways to become anchored to Torah are through connecting with all aspects of Torah and through listening to the Rebbe’s words in the correct way.

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Written by Rabbi Rapport