Why You?
Lamm, Norman
WHY YOU? The President of Yeshiva University charges and challenges the graduating rabbinic class NORMAN LAMM To be a rabbi, one must first of all be a ben Torah. What or who is a ben Torahl The...
...his refusal bespoke his feeling of injury on his people's behalf...
...And it is also true that there wasn't much to like about these Israelites...
...Inscribed in the cornerstone of our yeshiva is the principle that R. Hayyim of Volozhin cemented 180 years ago in the foundation of his yeshiva, Yeshivat Etz Hayyim, the mother of all yeshivot since...
...The love of Israel means that even if I do not approve of them or endorse their views or relish their company or even like them—I must love them...
...This duty of the ben Torah towards his fellow Jews was already adumbrated by Moses...
...Moreover, he is cut off from his moorings, alone in the world...
...I have long wondered about an imbalance between our early morning and our late evening prayers...
...The day you stop studying, the day you stop climbing the road to Torah excellence, is the day you are no longer a ben Torah...
...It is this love of Israel that will inspire you to devote your lives, whether vocationally or avocationally, to the sacred service of Torah and Israel...
...They were an impetuous and whining and capricious lot...
...Let me confess to you: I, too, am uncomfortable with many Jews and with many types of Jews...
...He had little respect for them, he had no desire to impress them, he did not seek their approbation, there was virtually no mutuality between him and the people...
...This mishnaic dictum, v'talmud Torah k'negged kulam—the study of Torah outweighs all other commandments—is to be taken not quantitatively, but functionally...
...Your teachers have found you worthy of bearing the mantle of the rabbinate...
...That is what the love of Israel is all about...
...Remove all that and ask: What makes (or should make) us different and special...
...After your years here, so much must by now be obvious to you...
...It is a medicine that if kept on the shelf and never dispensed is no longer a medicine but merely a chemical, one that in time can become dangerous...
...Remember that Moses was the only human being in history to whom God made the offer that, for his sake, He would abandon the Children of Israel and raise up a new people from his, Moses's, loins, and that this new people would be the Chosen People, descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and—Moses...
...He loved the Jews so much that he was willing to forfeit, for them, his life, his fate, his destiny and eternity...
...to travel far and wide to seek out our people...
...Any rabbi, any principal, any Jewish leader, any president of Yeshiva University has to deal with a variety of people of whose views he may not approve, whose life-styles he may not share, whose company he may not enjoy—or whom he simply does not like...
...he is inauthentic...
...Jews who are indistinguishable from WASPs and Israelis who regret that they are not WASPs...
...These are the basic attitudes that inform and orient and motivate him...
...Truth to tell, Moses was not the sort of man who could be easily pleased...
...For [the words of Torah] are our life and the length of our days" (Siddur...
...The night prayer seems reasonable enough: "May it be Thy will...
...zealots who burn the Israeli flag and Israelis who believe that now that we have a Jewish state we do not need Torah...
...Society today is highly narcissistic...
...Are there, then, other ingredients, beyond study, that are required of the ben Torahl There is ahavat Yisrael, the love of Israel...
...Someone once said that education is what a person has left after he has forgotten all that he has learned...
...So the love of Torah is an absolute prerequisite in the mentality of a ben Torah...
...He gave up this stunning opportunity...
...A ben Torah without Torah is an orphan...
...Moses loved them enough to risk and sacrifice all for them—but he did not like them very much...
...Accordingly, the study of Torah is the source of all Jewish life...
...to habituate us to thy Torah, and to cause us to adhere to Thy precepts," etc...
...What, in other words, are the attitudinal foundations that inform the mentality of a ben Torahl The most obvious and the primary answer is that a Torah person loves and esteems the Torah and Torah learning...
...Applying this to a ben Torah, we might then ask what distinguishes a ben Torah from others after you have subtracted all that he has learned of Talmud Bavli and Yerushalmi, of Rashi and Tosafot, of Rishonim and Acharonim, of Rambam and Ramban, of Tur and Shulchan Aruch, of Shach and Tax, of R. Hayyim and R. Akiva Eger...
...What or who is a ben Torahl The translation, "a scholar of the Torah," does not do the term justice...
...On that day, all that is written on your rabbinic diploma is rendered meaningless...
...You will recall that Ramban interprets the commandment "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" as dealing with function, not emotion...
...For after he asked God to forgive his people, he went on to say, "And if not, erase me from Thy Book" (Exodus 32:32...
...But Moses refused...
...His mind and his heart are sealed even if his eyes are open...
...We expect you, therefore, to enhance your own love of Torah...
...to grant that I lie down in peace and that I rise up in peace...
...Instead, we pray, "May it be Thy will...
...And the list goes on, and on...
...it is their very source...
...A rav who does not practice "habituate us to thy Torah" is not only in a state of somnolence...
...By the same token we should expect that the morning prayer should ask that God grant that we rise up in peace, that we prosper, that we be spared all misfortune...
...From this there derives a deep malaise in our community, a malaise that must be exposed if it is to be uprooted...
...And it is especially incumbent upon Jewish leaders and b'nei Torah...
...I have no doubt that that trust and that confidence will be vindicated as you go forth, each in his own way, to spread the learning of Torah and to serve your people Israel and, in the process, bring much comfort and pride to your families, your teachers, your yeshiva...
...He pointed to the heights of the spirit, and they yearned for the fleshpots of Egypt and coveted another fleishig meal...
...all the other commandments are the branches of that tree...
...of all the other commandments...
...The problem with too many of us in the yeshivot is that we have somehow managed to assimilate—excessively—the spirit of the times...
...Everywhere, the quest is for self-fulfillment, for self-expression, for self-realization...
...That is why your overarching commitment is to learn, and then learn more...
...this is the love that complements your love of Torah...
...The disgrace of ignoring or denigrating those who are not yet within the circle of Torah and mitzvotl I do not want to be unkind or unfair...
...Similarly, ahavat Yisrael is volitional, not affective...
...Let it motivate you to greater learning, let it inspire you to goad your fellow Jews until they, too, achieve the status of being Torah persons, and always know that a rabbi is not a rabbi if he is not a ben Torah...
...I believe, rather shockingly, I suppose, that Moses did not especially like his Jews...
...Not only that...
...A better definition would be "a Torah person"—bearing in mind that one cannot truly be a "Torah person" without first being an accomplished Torah scholar...
...However, accompanying these blessings are two additional petitions that are not really analagous...
...Because a true ben Torah must know and understand that without Torah, he cannot know that he is awake...
...Moses broke open for them the horizons of Heaven, and they concentrated on their trivial needs and petty wants...
...Why the assymetry...
...Without our daily contact with the eternal, without this glorious communication with the transcendental to elevate and transform the routines of daily life, what difference does it make whether we are sleeping or not sleeping...
...On your behalf, I—and, I am sure, all our people—pray for you, in the words of the latter half of that morning prayer I discussed earlier, the prayer that begins with a petition for habituating us to His Torah and letting us cleave to His commandments: "Grant us today and every day, grace, favor and mercy, both in Thy sight and in the sight of all men, and bestow loving-kindness on us...
...to risk problems and peace-lessness of mind...
...I must dedicate my life to saving and enhancing and enriching their lives, to healing them spiritually and physically, to comforting them, to bringing them to Torah and Torah to them—and them to each other...
...The Talmud refers to the study of Torah for its own sake as "an elixir of life...
...But Moses was passionate in his love for Israel...
...These twin loves, the love of Torah and the love of Israel, are what a true rav, a true ben Torah, has left even after he has forgotten all that he has learned...
...Remember always that Torah was not meant exclusively to provide for you own spiritual needs, your own religious integrity, your own intellectual creativity...
...But it is the kind of medicine of which you must be not only the consumer but also the pharmacist...
...How do we know that our lives are not but dreams—and not necessarily pleasant ones, at that...
...Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who bestowest loving-kindness on Thy people Israel...
...For Torah was meant for all Jews, not just for a small circle of the religiously privileged, the halachic cognoscenti...
...But—and this is my point—so what if I am not comfortable with them...
...They were ungrateful, stubborn, slow to learn and narrow...
...We are too concerned with our own Torah growth, and the result of this spiritual introversion is an indifference, at times even an antipathy, to Jews who are unlike us, who are, by our standards, deficient in learning or in commitment or in observance...
...He did not find them congenial, he was not comfortable with them, he did not enjoy their presence...
...It is not an easy mitzvah...
...I recognize the psychological reality: After such deep immersion in the study of Torah here at Yeshiva, with criteria and standards so very different from, so far beyond those that prevail in the "outside" world, it is understandable if we sometimes feel discomfort with those who have not attained such a level, who have never aspired to it, who—perhaps—look down upon it because they have never experienced its intellectual stimulation, its moral beauty, its ethereal sanctity, its transcendental significance...
...The study of Torah is not only greater than the sum Norman Lamm is President of Yeshiva University...
...Upon arising in the morning and upon going to sleep at night we recite two blessings that are quite parallel to each other...
...Torah is the "tree of life...
...Moses was the ultimate archetype of the rav, the rosh yeshiva, the talmid chacham—the ben Torah...
...The temptation of smugness...
...So, if a ben Torah forgets all that he has learned, his first task is—to learn it all over again...
...Let not my thoughts upset me—nor evil dreams, nor sinful fancies," etc...
...Jews who are embarrassed by their Jewishness or who are aggressively holier-than-thou...
...Similarly, after reciting the Sh'ma before retiring, we bless God "who closes my eyes in sleep and my eyelids in slumber...
...He offered freedom, and they complained that they were thirsty...
...I can give you a whole list of my own pet peeves, of Jews with whom I do not feel particularly relaxed: Jews who are either enamored of or intolerant of non-Jews...
...To possess true love of Israel means to overcome your dislikes and your distastes, your peeves and your plaints, and to serve your people heroically...
...As a consequence, even those who admirably devote their lives to the teaching of Torah, as rabbis or as educators, confine themselves to preaching to the converted, come to see themselves as halachic technicians...
...it is far too restrictive...
...So Moses teaches all Jews, and especially Jewish leaders imbued with Torah, that love transcends liking...
...As a result, he was impatient with them, intolerant, angry and upset...
...This is a revised version of his ordination address to the graduating class of (Orthodox) rabbis at the Chag Hasmichah of Yeshiva University's Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, March 1983...
...It was meant for laymen as well as rabbis, for those who yearn for the poetry of Torah as well as for those who revel in its intellectual rigor, for those who are not yet observant as well as for those who already are...
...This means that they have trust and confidence in your learning—and also in your love of learning and in your love of your fellow Jews, all of them...
...What, then, are the extra ingredients, beyond talmudic learning, that go to make up a Torah person, a Torah personality...
...It is usually difficult to develop an easy relationship with a perfectionist, let alone the greatest prophet who ever lived...
...And that means that rabbis, whether in the pulpit or the classroom, must use all the forms of communication in order to bring Torah close to Israel— not just those forms that confer prestige in the halls of the yeshiva...
...His difficulties, his challenges, his ambivalences and his resolutions are all a model for Torah leadership in the personal and social problems that confront us...
...He offered them a career of holiness, and they snivelled about leeks and onions Rabbi Lamm and Rabbi Joseph Solov and garlic...
...act lovingly towards your fellow man even if you do not particularly like him...
...In the morning we bless God "who removes sleep from my eyes and slumber from my eyelids...
...Op-Ed page writers who loudly proclaim their Jewishness and then go on to excoriate Israel with venom...
...Their sense of responsibility for others' lives— physical as well as intellectual, worldly as well as spiritual, psychological as well as scholarly—is inadequate...
...Unfortunately, we have too often adopted that self-centeredness in its spiritual form, and we have thereby become religious narcissists...
...Perhaps that is why, right after we ask God that it be His will that He habituate us to Torah, we add, "Lead us not into sin, transgression, iniquity, temptation or disgrace...
...The mission upon which you now embark is, truly, a mission of love...
Vol. 8 • September 1983 • No. 8
