Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.

Good evening, everybody. It's so wonderful to be here tonight to learn together the Treasure for Life edition of the Orcha Tzaddikim, the Ways of the Righteous. We are in the middle of the Gate of Torah. Day number 180. So we know, we mentioned previously, of the incredible gift that we have to study Torah, the incredible joy, the incredible privilege, and
the incredible responsibility for us to learn Torah. And now he wants to bring a little bit from the Rambam's Mishnah Torah, from his introduction. At Mount Sinai, every mitzvah, with its full explanation, was given. With its full explanation. None of the mitzvahs, because we mentioned many times, the Torah tells us what to do, but not how to do. That's true. In the written Torah, it only tells you what to do, but not how to do. But the how-to was explained in the oral tradition. There's a reason for it.
The reason for it is that there should always be a relationship between a rabbi and a student. A rabbi and a student. There should always be a teacher-disciple relationship. And it should never be like, okay, I learned what I need to learn and I'm on my own. Goodbye. Because you'll need to verify, you'll need to have clarity and understanding. So everything, says the Rambam, that was given to us at Mount Sinai, was given to us with its explanation.
As the Torah says, in this past week's Torah portion, the portion of Mishpatim, where it says, the end of Mishpatim, which was last week, we read this, actually, during the Torah, at the end of the Torah reading, I pulled my son over, my son Yehuda, and I said, come, I want you to read this verse to me. I said, what does it make, does it make any sense? The Talmud in Brachot brings this verse in Exodus. And I will give to you, the tablets of stone,
the Torah, Torah is the Torah that is written, and the mitzvah is the explanation to it. And a little bit further is the Mishnah, and a little bit further is the Talmud, in that same verse, meaning it was all given to us already at Mount Sinai. But it wasn't written yet. It was orally transmitted till Rabbeinu HaKadosh put it, ink to paper. And Hashem commanded us to observe the Torah according to the explanations. And this is what we call Torah Shabalpeh, the oral Torah.
Moshe Rabbeinu wrote the entire five books of Moses, before he died. How many copies? Thirteen copies. Very good. One for each tribe, and one that was placed inside the Ark. So if you find the Ark of the Covenant, do you know what you'll find in there? Some very interesting things. You'll find the broken tablets. You'll find a completed book of the Torah, written by Moshe. You'll find one portion of manna. The staff of Moshe as well. And that's It will be forever.
What does that mean, mitzvah? It's the explanation of the Torah. He says don't add to it and don't remove from it. Again, the only laws that are added are laws that are rabbinic in nature that are already founded in the Torah. And because of this, Nikre is Torah Shabalpeh. That's why it's called Torah Shabalpeh, because it's orally transmitted till it was written and committed to paper. So for example, the mitzvah of placing a mezuzah on your door
doesn't say what a mezuzah is. It says to wear tefillin every day. It doesn't say what tefillin are. It says to slaughter an animal, but it fails to tell us how to slaughter the animal. Says from Moshe till Judah the prince, who was the leader of the Jewish people in his generation about 2,000 years ago, nobody wrote a book of the Torah from Moshe all the way till then. Nobody wrote it.
Why? Because they learned it orally from the rabbis. The rabbis would come and they would teach them and they would memorize. It's an amazing thing. You know, I said this story recently, but I once walked into my grandfather's house and he was so excited. You can see the joy beaming. I said, sahaba, what are you so excited about? He said, I heard a lecture from my rabbi 50 or 60 years earlier and I just figured out what he meant.
How many of us know what we ate for breakfast this morning? He remembered a lecture that he heard from his rabbi, rabbi Rocham Levavitz, 50 or 60 years early. I'm not sure of the dates. Either 50 years or 60 years earlier. It's unbelievable. How do they remember that? The biggest challenge today is that we don't use even a percent of our memory because we're so connected with technology. The computer will remember it for me. The recording up there, the video, the
tape recorder, it'll record it for me. My grandfather would always say when we would go to my grandfather's lectures, so guys would come and they'd put their little MP3 recorders. They're like, wow, it's amazing, right? Before we had all the phones and to bring this MP3 recorder, everyone would place there or a cassette recorder. And my grandfather would always give a disapproval you know, a disapproving nod to it. And I asked my grandfather, I said, what's the problem? I said, we want to review it. He says, yeah,
people are relying on the recorder listening to it so they don't listen. So they don't actually hear what I'm saying. Because they're always saying I don't need to listen because the tape recorder is listening and they never end up listening to what's really going on. If you don't have the recorder and you have to get every single second of it and you got to maximize it and you got to make it real, that's when it'll live by you. The author here continues.
This is something we said here dozens of times. Everybody had a notebook. Every head of every generation. They'd write the notes of everything they heard. Joshua had a little notebook and Elijah had a notebook and Samson had a notebook and King Salmon had a notebook. They all had notebooks that they wrote down. And then they would use those notes to teach it to their students in public. Everyone would write it according to the way he heard it.
And he says how the process worked of how anything new that was a new novel idea had to be approved by the high court. You couldn't just come up with an idea. I'll just share with you a quick story. When I was about 17 years old, I had this idea on the parasha like a real nice little shot, a little something. I ran over to my rabbi and I told him, I said, Rabbi, I had this great idea.
You see the pussuk says this and Rashi says this and I started, you know, giving my own thing. He says, wow, that's really beautiful. What's your source? I don't have a source. He says get it out of here. It's worthless. If you don't have a source because everything has to be sourced. In Judaism, we don't have feel good ideas. It's not about feel good. It's nice. It's beautiful. No. Is it true or not? You've got to have a source for it. And it was
very, very impactful on me because I learned something which was so incredible. I was so excited about it. You think I went away crying? No, I was like, okay, I got to go find a source for this. Right? You got to go find a source. You can't just make up things in Torah. Maimonides didn't make up things. He organized things. Rambam, you see what he did? What he did was is he learned all of the Torah, all of the written Torah
and all of the oral Torah, the Mishnah, the Kabbalah, the Midrash, the Talmud and had a conclusion of everything. And then he summarized it into the 14 different books of the Mishnah Torah. He did not make up anything on his own. He just organized it in a way. The Rambam and the Ramban have a disagreement on to what the 613 commandments of the Torah are. That means they both come up with the same number of 613 at the end of the day. But one includes this and one includes that.
This one is included in a different mitzvah. This one according to this opinion is included in a different mitzvah. So therefore, but this is I think fundamental for us to understand that the Rambam, the Shulchan Aruch, everything is based on a conclusion of the full study of and understanding of the Talmud, of the Mishnah and the Torah because everything needs to be sourced by a higher source. And everyone did this till the generation of Yehudah Nossi became Rosh B'Yamah.
And when he saw that in his generation people are getting weaker and people are not able to remember things. They're having less and less students. And there are more and more troubles that the Jewish people are experiencing from their oppressors. And the Roman Empire is spreading Ba'olam u'mizgaberes, poshetes ba'olam u'mizgaberes. It's becoming greater and greater. What's the Roman Empire is all of what we are experiencing now in the United States. The advent of luxuries, of materialism taking a central role in people's lives.
And because of all of these terrible pogroms and expulsions and terrible events that the Jewish people are experiencing, what's happening? They need to travel to all four corners of the world. And what's going to be? They're not going to be next to a study hall. They're not going to be with a rabbi teaching them. Oh do this, do that, do this, do that, learn this, understand this. They're not going to have that. So what's going to be? When he saw that the Jewish people were already starting to get confused.
And that the Torah was going to be forgotten from the Jewish people. Then he authored the books of the Mishnah, the 63 books of the Mishnah. So that everybody has access to real Torah. So that they learn it and they don't forget the Torah. And what did he do? Him and his entire generation, all the rabbis, they sat and they taught Mishnah to the entire generation. Now if you look at the Mishnah, the Mishnah is not written in a way that you can just
sit down and say, oh now I get it. This is what the Torah meant. No, no, no, no. The Mishnah is the last thing in the world that is easy for one to just pick up and say, oh this is the explanation for the verse. But rather what you need to do is you need to have the Talmud to explain and decode the entire Mishnah. The Mishnah is written in a code. Now it's a code that we can all learn.
And we can all translate and we have over here the books of the Mishnah. We have an entire shelf over there in our magnificent Levitt family library where we can learn Mishnah. And Mishnah is a very, very powerful study. What does the Talmud do? The Talmud takes every Mishnah and breaks it apart. And sources everything that the Mishnah says in the Torah. So the Talmud does a very, very difficult task of breaking apart each word of the Mishnah.
What's his source for it? What's Rabbeinu HaKadosh? What was he thinking when he says this? And bringing it to a higher level of understanding with all of the sources from the Torah. And there were thousands and thousands of scholars who were in the generation of Rabbi Yudan Nasi, who understood exactly what he was doing, learned it really well. You know, the Midrash was written then at the time of the Mishnah. Which is another one of the Midrash. And then they wrote Brysos, which is elaborations on the Mishnah.
Until the Amoraic sages, which is already one generation after Yudan Nasi. And they had disagreements in the different versions of what was being stated from the previous generation. Until Rabbi Yochanan wrote the Jerusalem Talmud in Israel. He lived in Jerusalem, even though it was not written in Jerusalem. It was actually written in Sfat. But it's called the Jerusalem Talmud. And about a hundred years later, the book of the Babylonian Talmud was written by Ravina and Ravashi. What does the Talmud do?
It just explains the words of the Mishnah and elaborates on the depths of it. He says from all of those, you can know what is permitted, what is forbidden, what is pure, what is impure, what is obligation and what is not an obligation. And what is permitted, what is forbidden, what is possible, what is invalid and what is valid. From everything they taught in that Mishnah, in that Talmud, in that Sifra, in the Toseftas, in the Brysos, everything, we have a conclusion from there.
All of this goes back from all of those notebooks that were handed down from generation to generation all the way until Yehuda HaNasi wrote in the Mishnah and later elaborated on in the Talmud. Another thing that was taught was to have a siyog. A siyog is a fence, a protector for the Torah. Moshe says in Leviticus, and you shall protect, you shall keep my ordinance, sorry, make a safeguard for my ordinance. Additionally, included are the customs and the institutions of each generation as mandated
by the best of that generation. And we're not allowed to deviate from them. It says in Deuteronomy, you shall not deviate from the teachings of our sages, right or left. I know this is a little bit, it's a lot of words here, it's a lot of reading, but he's quoting here everything from the Rambam. If we want to know where things are sourced from, it's important for us to know this. We are not the New York Times. We don't have anonymous sources.
Everything needs to be sourced in order for it to be valid. Where is it sourced from? And every time you have a Mishnah, the Talmud's job is to verify its authenticity. What are you talking about? Mishnah, you say this, prove it. And you have to have a verse to back it up. And that's the way it works. So what did Rav Ashi do, Ravina and Rav Ashi, when they wrote the Talmud, what did they do?
They gathered together those notebooks, all of the customs, all of the things that were backed up and verified in all of those writings. And with that, he compiled the authorship of the Talmud. What happened right after that generation? What Rabbi Yehuda Nasi saw was going to happen. He foresaw that people were going to be expelled to all different countries. That's what happened right after the Gemara was written. And what happened? Now you had some Jews in Australia, some Jews in South Africa, and you had some Jews
in South America, and you had some Jews in North America, and you had some Jews in Shanghai, and you had some Jews in all of Europe, and you had Jews in Russia, you had Jews all over the place. You know what they didn't have? They didn't have yeshivas. And they didn't have schools for them to learn. So now what's going to be? So every few, every little shtetl had one Gemara, right? The sages of yore, right?
Talking about 200 years ago, you know what people would pay to study from a Talmud? They had one copy in a city. They would go travel into the city so they can get to see the words of the Talmud. Today, what do we do? It's 1,500 bucks. You have the whole set from Artscroll. Or even less. Yeah, you can get it for free on Safaria, or you can get it on the tablet for like 700 bucks.
You got the whole Talmud with all the explanations in English. It's unbelievable. We're a very, very spoiled nation, generation, that, you know, we have all this right there on our fingertips. Okay, so here we go. All right. So they would study the Torah, whatever they were able to get their hands on, and learn it to its finest details so that they knew what the will of Hashem was. 948, in the middle. Then they were the Gaonim.
And if you look on this chart on the back here, we have the Tanaic sages, the Amoreic sages. And then we have the Gaonim. And they were all the way from year 550, all the way to the mid-thousands. Rabbi Sharira Gaon is one of the last ones. And that's at year 1006. That's when he was born. So they knew all of the Talmud inside out. They knew the Bavli, the Babylonian Talmud, the Jerusalem Talmud, the Sefra, the Sefri, the Tosefta, all the Midrash, all the Kabbalah.
They knew all of the Torah, all of the Halach. They knew everything. And that's if you look on the sides of the Talmud, you have commentaries. And the commentaries give clarity and understanding in every word. It's very deep, the Talmud. It's very deep. It's written in Aramaic. Together with other languages. So one would know what that word means. Well, you have translations that were written by the sages of those early generations. Because that was colloquial language then. Today we use different words.
Today we say yal, right? Which means something. In those days, they had a different way of expressing themselves that everyone in that generation knew. And everything that was difficult in the Talmud, they would go to the Gaonic sages, the brilliant, brilliant minds of their generation, respectively. And they would ask them, tell us, what does this mean? What's the understanding of this? And they would answer them according to their best understanding. And they would take those answers that they got from all those sages.
And then you have many more books that were written about the answers that the sages gave to the questions of the people of that generation. And also the Gaonim wrote books explaining, Levara Talmud, explaining the Talmud. And if you go to any yeshiva, they will have thousands and thousands and thousands of books on each tractate of Talmud. And these are from early sages to later sages. That you can't even imagine the brilliance that's going on behind every single word of the Talmud. It's Talmud.
Forget about, the Talmud is just coming to explain the Mishnah, which is coming to explain the Torah, right? So you understand how deep this is. There are some who just explained specific areas of Jewish law. And some only found certain areas that were difficult to them, so they wrote out an explanation so that others will understand them. Those who have commentaries like Rashi on entire tractates, on entire sections of the Mishnah and the Talmud. Which is like the Sudarim, the orders.
And they wrote many, many books of Jewish law based on the conclusions of all of the discussions of the Talmud appropriately. Matters that were pressing to that generation. So that way, someone who isn't able to understand the rest of the Talmud, would be able to learn those books and it would give them explanation. Rambam is writing here that that is a great service for the Jewish people and that's real Torah, that they made it accessible for people all the way from that generation till when
he's talking about, which is he was born in year 1135 and he passed away in year 1204. And he's saying over here exactly till what year this was. He says 4937 years from creation and 1100 years after the destruction of the temple, which is when the Rambam, the author, who the Orchis Siddiqum is quoting, when he's writing what he's... And now Rambam is writing about himself. In my generation, we're facing a lot of challenges. And because of the challenges, the urgencies of the moment are severe.
And the standing, the understanding of our sages is hidden. What was clear 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 300 years ago, says the Rambam, nobody understands what they're talking about, because they were writing it based on all of the knowledge of the Torah, of the Mishnah, of the Talmud, of the Sephiroth, Sephiroth, Septus, everything. But today people don't know that. So what does the Rambam do? Very, very, very few people, writes the Rambam, really know and understand the clarity of
what was explained by those sages in their books. Forget about people understanding the Talmud itself, whether it be the Babylonian Talmud, the Jerusalem Talmud, or the Sephiroth, the Sephiroth, or the Midrash. They need a lot of time. They need tremendous brilliance, tremendous patience to study this. And we see that people don't know how to understand Torah. So now he's explaining why he is about to write the book of the Mishnah Torah for the
Rambam, which is the code of Jewish law, the first ever code of Jewish law written. And this is only less than a thousand years ago, written by Rambam, by Maimonides. He says, and because of this, I girded my loins. Moses, the son of Maimon, the Sephardic Jew, and supporting myself upon the blessed rock and probing all of these works. What is the rock? We say, the redeemer, the rock of Israel and the redeemer of Israel. Therefore, because I studied and understood all of these writings,
I saw it fit for me to write a book, which will clarify everything that has been written thus far. What is permitted and what is forbidden. What is pure and impure, what is clean, what is unclean. And together with the other laws of the Torah, I'm writing them in an abridged form, succinctly. And all the letters, all the laws of the Torah in an organized fashion. I'm writing it in a way, you hear this, how the Rambam is talking?
He says, I'm writing it in a way that no one will have any doubts of understanding. It'll be so organized. It'll be so clear for everyone. No one's going to have any questions or debate. One saying one way and one saying the other way. You're not going to have misunderstandings. I'm taking everything that was written from Judah the prince all the way till today, and I'm organizing it in the book of the Yad HaChazakah, which is the Mishneh Torah,
which is Mishneh Torah means the review of the entire Torah, and everything will be organized in these 14 orders of Rambam's writings. And the 14 books, just so that you know, the 14 books are the Mada, which is knowledge, which refers to belief in God. Right? We mentioned this many times that we have no mitzvah. The lowest level of Emunah is faith. The deepest level is knowledge. So he calls it Hamada, which is the knowledge, which refers to Emunah, principles of faith,
proper behavior, Torah study, idolatry, repentance. That's all part of knowledge. Then we have Ahava, which is love, love of God, prayer, tzitzit, tefillin, other mitzvahs, which represent our love for Hashem. He talks about Zmanim, which is times, Shabbos, and other Jewish holidays. Nashim, women's issues, marriage, divorce, infidelity, all of those laws there. Kedusha, holiness, sexuality, nida, incest, adultery, conversion, kosher, are all part of holiness. Hafla, separation, which is vows, oaths, Nazarites, and donations to the Temple.
Seeds, agricultural laws, gifts to the poor, priests, tithes, second tithes, first fruits, and shmita. Number eight is Avodah, divine service, laws of the Temple in Jerusalem. Karbanot is number nine, offerings, laws of the offerings in the Temple. Tahara, cleanliness, ritual purity, Nezikin, injuries, criminal and tort law, Kinyan, acquisitions, marketplace laws, Mishpatim, silver law, and then Shoftim, judges, laws relating to legislators, Sanhedrin, kings, judges, Noachites, and for Messianic times. That's the 14 different sections that the Rambam, each one a book this big,
explaining in an organized one, two, three, four code, which is mesmerizing, and I highly recommend if you have an opportunity to study Rambam, it is breathtaking. He says, young, old, everybody will be able to understand what I'm writing. I'm writing it in the simplest way. And all of the laws that were instituted by the sages and the prophets. Here's the general rule. The Rambam writes, I'm writing this book so that if you know this book, you don't need to learn anything else.
You understand what the Rambam is writing here? You're confused about the Torah. I'm writing everything in one book for you so that you will have all encompassed. The Torah, the written Torah, which is the 24 books of the prophets and the writings. You will have all of the Mishnah in there. You'll have the Sifra, Sifrit, Tosefta, the Midrash, Rabbah, right? You'll have it all in there. You'll have as well all of the Mishnah and the Talmud.
Both Talmuds, the Jerusalem and Yerushalmi, you have it all in one package. And I'll tell you something. There is an international study of Rambam where people study a halacha every day, which just started two days ago. So if you want to jump on board, you can search online the study of the Rambam, daily study of the Rambam and you will find an incredible fountain of wisdom every day learning a halacha that can change us completely and transform us as the Rambam intended to do.
But it's amazing that the Rambam says, you won't need any other books. I'm writing it all in here. But you know what's the irony of all this? There is no book in all of the entire world that has more commentary trying to understand what it is writing than the book of the Rambam. Hands down, there is no book, even on the Talmud, on the Mishnah, on the Torah, there is no book that has more commentary written about trying to figure out what he meant
than the book of the Rambam. And the Rambam is writing, I'm writing it in the clearest way possible. You'll have no questions. You'll have everything, all of the Torah, the written law, the oral law, everything. It'll be organized to you. It's just a funny irony. He says in every single law that was transmitted from Moses all the way to the Talmud and from the Talmud all the way till the Rambam himself, everything is going to be included in it.
And all of the books that were written by all of the Gaonic sages to explain the Talmud, I'm putting it all in here. Calling this book the Mishnah Torah, which is the review of the Torah. If someone reads the book of the Torah, the five books of the Torah, and then reads the Mishnah Torah, he'll know everything. He doesn't have to read anything else. Nothing. That is the writing of the Rambam that's brought in by our author in the Orcha Sadiqim. He says,
He took Maimonides' book and he wrote more and more after Maimonides, explaining it and making it even simpler. And many, many more books were written. And of course, the Shulchan Aruch. He says, What happens? He says, even to the, by the way, the modern generation, see how many books are written in the last 20 years? Last 20 years. Why? Because people say, I don't understand what the Rambam is writing. I have no idea.
I need somebody who understands it to explain it to me. Do you know that on one chapter of what the Rambam writes, there's books and books and books trying to explain one chapter of the Rambam. It's the most magnificent thing. What are we studying to begin with? Let's go back to the basics. What are we trying to understand? We're trying to understand and we're trying to invest our lives in what is the will of Hashem. That's the bottom line. What is the will of Hashem?
Now, if someone is extremely, extremely gifted, they realize Hashem wants me to be close. I'm going to be a simple Jew and I'll just talk to God and God will give me clarity. And our sages actually tell us that there were those who were able to acquire their whole world to come in one instant. In one instant, one moment of clarity, boom, they got the whole world to come. What all the sages spent their whole lifetimes, respectively, investing, inquiring, writing. This guy got it in one minute.
It's unbelievable. The goal here is not just to keep us busy. The goal is to understand and have clarity in what is the will of Hashem. This is an amazing thing. Each one of the sages found something that they thought the generation needed. An example for that I've brought recently is the books of the Chavetz Chaim. The Chavetz Chaim, very interestingly, wrote 24 different books in his lifetime. One of them has six volumes. Okay, that's not six. That's just one of the, is the Mishtaburah.
Mishtaburah has six volumes, which is the summary of the Shulchan Aruch, which is the summary of the Rambam, which is, you understand, it's like making it simpler and simpler for us. Because he saw that the generation needed it. And he had a group of young guys that he heard were being inducted into the Russian military. And they were very concerned about their Judaism. What do we do? He heard that there were women who didn't have access to mikveh. What do they do?
He wrote a book for each of them. He wrote a book of the power and of the greatness of the mikveh to inspire women to go to the mikveh. And he wrote a book for the soldiers to inspire them to preserve their Judaism while they were soldiers in the Russian army. Because he saw each, in every generation, there's something that's needed. And he put ink to paper to ensure that his generation had what they needed to succeed in their service of Hashem. So he says, people didn't know.
People didn't know how to understand it. He's referring to Rashi here. Rashi is the great commentary on all of the Torah, on all of the Mishnah, on all of the Talmud. Very simple, basic commentary. He saw that the generation doesn't understand how to read the Torah. I got to write a translation for it. So that the Jewish people understand. And then the children, his generations after the Rambam, his own descendants became great scholars like Rabbeinu Tam, Rabbeinu Yitzchak, and other great sages.
And there were 60 sages in that yeshiva. I'm just going to translate this in a minute, don't worry. He says, then generation after the Rambam, they needed to explain even, the Rambam and Rashi. Rashi was a little bit, a little bit precedes the, they overlapped for just a few years, Rashi and Rambam. And Rashi wrote a very basic understanding. The Rambam did a different, each one had their own style of how they wrote.
Each one had their own responsibility of how they felt they're going to bring Hashem's Torah to this world. And he says that what they did was they all dedicated themselves, the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren of Rashi dedicated themselves to the study of Torah. They sat and learned Torah all day, all night, so that they have a clarity, so they have an understanding. Today we get it. We just put our headphones, pop our headphones in.
And I have a very special lady who many times is on the Zoom and she tells me all the places we traveled together, because she says that she pops me in her earbuds and she tells me, we walked on the bayou today and we went to Trader Joe's today. I'm like, what are you talking about? I was sitting here at the Torch Center. She says, yeah, I was listening to your class, right? Where that's, we have the, we're the laziest generation ever. And it's amazing.
We're so gifted, but we have to really, really think of how gifted we are that we have the opportunity to study Torah with the pleasure of the English language for things to be explained and for things to be translated for us. It's absolutely marvelous. So he said, even the translation of the Talmud, which is, or not the questions that were asked on the Talmud, I'll give you an example. Sometimes the Talmud says something in one place that it's, that seemingly is contradictory to another Talmud.
So what do you do now? That's what the Tosafos always resolves those contradictions. And always teaching us that there's a slight adjustment that needs to be made in our understanding. In this case, it's referring to this. In that case, it's referring to that. And even though it seems from the surface that they're a contradiction, you have to look a little deeper and you'll see that it's not. So they, people had a very difficult time understanding all of the Talmud, of the Tosafos.
So they shortened the Tosafos even more to make it simpler for people to grasp. ועדיין בימים ההם היו בקיאים בכל התלמוד והיו יהודים המצוות מתוך התלמוד עד שנשגל גיר ונשגור שומצפה צרפס until the Jewish people were expelled from France ששם היו מחזיקים בתורה והיו לומדים בעסק גדול where in France, they were very, very completely immersed in Torah study. They were able to study, but then they were expelled. One of the many expulsions as we have here at our disposal, all the time, the French
threw the Jewish people out. No, you don't even want to know about this. Oh my gosh. You have over here. Yeah. The main expulsion was in 1181. That was during the lifetime of the Rambam. The Rambam wasn't there. The Rambam was in, he was in Egypt part of his life. The Rambam was in other places, but he was not, he was not there. You have an expulsion also from France, also from England. One was property confiscation. What was expulsions?
Then you have London and York that mob attacks. You think it was started in Harvard? It didn't start in Harvard. So you know what the Jewish people had to do? They had to run wherever they were. The Jewish people, one of the amazing things you'll find in Jewish history, the Jewish people always lived next to water. And they, what was their occupation? They usually were diamond dealers. They were jewelers because those were small things they could just put in their pocket
and get on the boat and out. Because otherwise they would, they never owned real estate till this generation. Almost Jews didn't own real estate because it would be confiscated from them. And that, that was, that was tragic. I mentioned this today in our class that my grandparents in Germany owned the house in Berlin. Yeah. They never sold that house. Someone else lives in it now. My grandparents in Lithuania owned the house. They never sold that house. It was taken away from them.
My grandparents in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, they had houses. Gone. Taken away from them. So the Jewish people were always on the run. They always needed to, to go from place to place. What is the most important part of study? To review, to review, to review. Teach it to your children and review it constantly. That the words of Torah are always sharp in your mouth. That they're clear as day. Don't stutter when someone asks you. Be clear. I have a clear understanding.
I have such a strong grasp on this Torah. I have no doubts. Tell them right away and tell them with force. A person should be able to be ready to answer the questions. For any question, any answer that is needed for any question. Without many repetitions. It should be clear. It should be self-explanatory from how a person says it. That nobody has any questions, any follow-up questions. You should learn that for our Ask Away segment, right? I got to get better answers.
Make sure that I know my stuff cold, right? Remember the story I told you about Ramosha Feinstein? That he finished the Talmud four times? A hundred and one times? This is the source for it, the Talmud of Chagigah. It says that one who reviews his lesson a hundred times cannot be likened to one who reviews it 101 times. It's a different world. Every time you review the Torah, you get a better and better clarity.
And we see from Rish Lakish that he would review everything he learned four times before he came to his rabbi, Rabbi Yochanan. And every one of the sages in the time of the Talmud would study things four times. The most important part of study is review. Review, review it again and again and again. You have to review. It got late and the rabbis still didn't show up. Why didn't the rabbis come? Maybe they were busy with the Purim feast. He says, but they couldn't have eaten.
They can't eat it in the evening. So Rav Kahaneh replied, has the master not heard what Rava said? Don't you know what Rava says? Don't you know that if you eat the Purim meal at night, you don't fulfill your mitzvah? My time, what's the reason? Because it says, the days of feasting and rejoicing. That means the day, not the night. He says, does Rava indeed say this? He says, I reviewed this 40 times. And that's how we know he says this.
I reviewed it 40 times. And it's so clear to me, like I put it in my pocket. We all know what's in our pocket. It's clear to us. I own it. It's mine. He says, that's the way the Torah needs to be. It needs to be like it's sitting in your pocket that you've reviewed it so many times. We're almost done here. It was something easy for him to know, but he still reviewed it 40 times. He says, in our generation, people, even easier things,
don't review it maybe one or two times. He says, they would have a system of how many times they would review it every single day, how many times they would review every verse, how many times they would review every chapter, how many times they would. And if they were too busy during the day, they would stay up at night until they finished their review. And every 30 days, they would review all of their studies. I want to share with you.
We study every Sunday morning in our Everyday Judaism podcast. We study the Kitz HaShochanarch. The Kitz HaShochanarch is the abridged code of Jewish law. And Rabbi Heinemann, may he live and be well, who's the rabbi of Baltimore, the main halachic decisor, people come to him asking him halachic questions all the time. He says that 95% of his questions are from Kitz HaShochanarch. You can answer the questions if you just know this. So you know what he does? He reviews it every 30 days.
The whole, this is five volumes. This is, I'm only holding one. Five volumes. It's not a very long, it's not a very... 95% of his questions are in the Kitz HaShochanarch. It's an amazing thing. If we reviewed it, if we just committed every day, I'm going to learn five, 10 halachas, right? We'll have it like that. We'll know it and we'll own it. It'll be ours. Imagine if so, I can tell you now pieces of Talmud that I studied 30 years ago.
You know why? Because we had a special schedule in our yeshiva and we reviewed it again and again and again and again and again. So it becomes second nature to you. It's like, it's in my pocket. I own it. This is the way, and he's encouraging us to really do this. So you cool and regular. Okay. He says in France, they also learned like this. Until they got very, very holy and they got to great depths of understanding.
They didn't even need the books anymore because they remembered everything by heart. I'll tell you a story about this that'll shock you. I have a great uncle. His name was Rabbi Chaim Kreisworth. He was the chief rabbi of Antwerp. And after he passed away, he knew all of Torah inside out. And when he was on his deathbed, obviously they didn't know it was his deathbed, but he knew because he asked them to bring them a Talmud from, I believe it was Tractate Shabbat.
And he started crying. They brought him a Talmud. He said it's the first time since he's 23 years old that he looked at the Talmud. He reviewed it so many times, he knew it by heart. And he knew that now that he forgot it, he knew his time has come. And I went to his shiva at his house after he passed away. And I look at his bookshelf. Over here, it looks like the books are being used, thank God. It looked like the books were never touched.
So I asked his son-in-law, I said, can you explain to me why these books look like they're brand new? He says, because he never used them. He says when he bought this house, we bought him new books. He never used them. He knew them all by heart. You know what that means? He knows I have an uncle, okay? I have an uncle that if you don't need to tell him what Talmud. I remember I did a test. It's called the needle test.
You know the needle test? You go like this and you say, what does it say on page 42 on this line? He'll tell you exactly. So I told him, okay, tractate Tanit. He says, you already gave me the answer. I just told him what tractate. If you were to do this, you just read him one line from the Talmud, one line. He'll tell you exactly what Talmud it's in, what tractate, what page. And what line.
We have 2,711 pages of Talmud and he can tell you exactly. You just read him one line. He will tell you exactly what tractate, what page, what line. Why? Because he's a genius? No, because he reviewed it hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. That's what we need to do. We need to study Torah that it becomes ours. We own it. It's mine. And this is what the author here is trying to impress upon us is to not just say, yeah,
I went to a couple of classes. It was very interesting. No, no, no, review it. And again and again and again and again. I listened recently to a lecture that I heard, I can't, dozens of time from one of my rabbis. I heard the same lecture dozens of times. I can almost repeat the words, but it was a refresher. And review it again, review it again. Because if it's something which is important for us to know, then we should have the utmost clarity possible.
So we're going to just finish off here. He says like this. He says they didn't need the, they didn't need all of the books. They didn't need it because they knew it by heart. They knew everything that was written in the Talmud. They knew everything was written in all the commentaries. But then one day they were kicked out. And then they were wanderers in the land. They were no longer in the comfort of their own study hall and their own torch centers
all over France, sitting in study. They would be able to come into a study hall and learn Torah. They weren't able to do that anymore. And now they're on the run. And what happens when you're all harried and running around? You forget what you study. They would die for the Torah. Meaning they wouldn't allow themselves. Shlomo Zalman Orbach would sit and learn Torah all day. You know, his family was very, very poor. They lived in Jerusalem. This is talking about a hundred years ago.
It was before it was, you know, modern day Israel, very poor. The Jews were extremely poor. The whole family had one potato for dinner. One potato, that was it. And it was a luxury if they were able to put some butter on it. One potato for the whole family. So his brother comes to him, to the study hall. And he says to him, you know, today we have a treat. We have a potato. He says, come, come for dinner. He says, you know what?
It's okay. I'll just study Torah today. Tomorrow I can have a different potato. Right? And that was it. He gave up on the food for the day. We're talking today, if we don't have, you know, the fancy charcuterie board, right? What are we talking about there? You know, it's like the fancy things that are available to us is like, but they gave up their lives for the study of Torah. Because they killed themselves for the Torah. They understood it and they learned it.
But today we try to debate like they did, but we can't. He says, today we're wasting our time. People are confused. And we leave off learning after half the time. And then we sit there. Oh, I don't understand it. Let's move on. Let's, right? Let's just. He says, it's unfortunate, but the time wasting is solid and the learning is casual. They would go in the time of the Talmud. They'd go 10 years at a time to go study.
10 years, they wouldn't see their family. No cell phones, no apps, no nothing. They would sit and learn Torah. They would sit and learn all day, all night. When someone, when they're in the middle of study, when someone sneezes, everyone says, bless you. Not in the middle of Torah study. Why? Because it's stopping the study of Torah. The halacha says, even then don't say anything. Don't say anything because it would stop the study of Torah.
From here we learn how dedicated they were to their studies. Rav Yosef, the son of Rava, was sent by his father to study with Rav Yosef for a period of six years. At the end of three years, when the eve of Yom Kippur approached, I will go and see how my family's doing. I haven't seen them in three years. Let me go check on them. Shema Avua, his father, heard about this and took an axe and went out against him. He would charge them with an axe.
What are you, you crazy? You're leaving the study hall? Go back and learn. It is your mate that you have remembered. Meaning the Torah. We should be married to the Torah. That's what you need to be busy with. Ikadami Amorei, Yonascha Niskarta. Others say that it is your dove that you have remembered. They contended so long that neither of them partook in the pre-fast meal. And they went right into Yom Kippur. How committed they were to the study of Torah.
And you know what they merited? They merited to have Ruach HaKodesh. To have Divine Holy Spirit. He says in France, indeed, they had unbelievable Torah scholars who would learn all day, all night. And they would review everything they learned. And they did not speak anything that wasn't Torah study. They learned Torah all day. He says, let one always speak out his learning. Talk it out. Though he may forget it. And though he may not know what he is saying. Let a man first learn.
And later he will understand. And this, my friends, is the key. Let's learn. Later, we can understand everything. I've shared with you many, many times that my philosophy here in our TORCH classes. I love you all. Each and every one of you. But don't think for a second that I'm learning this to teach you. I'm learning this to teach me. I'm learning this for me to grow. And even though there are times that I would love to learn more.
Our job is to do everything we can to fill our time on this earth in our closeness with Hashem. And that's what we get through study of Torah. My dear friends, have a magnificent, amazing, terrific evening. Let's study Torah and let's review Torah. I'll just share with you that my grandfather, when he was in the Meir Yeshiva, they would have people who, after the rabbi gave his lecture, so the lecture was over. You'd think they'd go for lunch, they'd go for a break, they'd go for a walk.
No, they went to the next one of the students who understood everything the rabbi said to review everything. And then one of those would review it again. And then one of those would review it again to the point where you learned it at least four times. It says that Moshe taught the Torah to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, the elders to the sages. What's going on over there? The Mishnah says it turns out that each of them learned the Torah four times.
Each of them learned the Torah four times because less than four times we don't have a grasp on it. When you learn something four times, you start owning it. You start having it, then now it's yours. Nobody can take it from you. My dear friends, have a magnificent evening. This concludes day number something. I have no idea.

You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by Torch, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit Torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.