It is such a kavod to have Mara D'Asra, Moreinu Harav Belsack. I'd like to try b'ezras Hashem to focus on just one aspect, one element of what we mean when we speak of greatness of Gedolei Yisrael in general and of the Rav in particular. Greatness, however, is multi-dimensional. So, by definition, the portrait this morning will be incomplete, will be unbalanced. But hopefully, hopefully b'ezras Hashem, maybe we can gain some appreciation of one aspect, one element of greatness. When speaking of Gedolei Torah, there are two different definitions or classes of greatness. The first, someone who knows kol haTorah kullah. He has learned, mastered, remembers every daf in Shas, every seif in Shulchan Aruch, every sefer koton in the Shach, the Taz, the Magen Avraham, the Biur HaGra. He shares his yedios haTorah, teaching, paskening. And unquestionably, such individuals are great. They're deserving, fully deserving of the label of the encomium, gadol b'Torah, gadol b'Yisrael, gadol hador. And these Gedolim certainly comprise an elite chaburah. There is, however, a small subset of that elite chaburah who meet a second definition of gadlus, of greatness. Perhaps it would be helpful to begin with a mashal before trying to put forth that second definition of gadlus. Let's reflect upon the following famous names from the history of science: Copernicus, Newton, Einstein. Clearly, each one was a great scientist. But equally clear is the fact that their greatness far surpasses the mastery of astronomy and physics. Each one made fundamental contributions to their disciplines, to the degree that one simply can't speak of modern astronomy without Copernicus. A person can't say that I'm interested in studying astronomy but I'm not really interested in Copernicus' discovery and what he contributed to the field. A person can't seriously on any level contemplate studying physics without the contributions of Newton and Einstein. Or in other words, their discoveries have become axiomatic. Their scientific breakthroughs, chidushim in quotation marks, have become foundational and fundamental. Their categories of thought: axiomatic and indispensable. To finish with the mashal before we try to proceed im yirtzeh Hashem to the nimshal, Copernicus, Newton, and the like were not merely great scientists, but they belong to the subset of scientific greats, the ones whose discoveries became a fundamental and indispensable part of science itself. L'havdil, the same is true in Torah and of Gedolei Torah. Let's begin im yirtzeh Hashem bli neder by trying to illustrate this type of greatness from the tekufas haRishonim. We'll begin microcosmically by mentioning individual categories developed by the Rishonim in the context of individual sugyos and then try to reflect more macrocosmically. Shmuel presents a very puzzling din that המוכר שטר חוב לחברו וחזר ומחלו מחול, that a person can sell a deed, a person can sell an IOU, and then the seller, after having legitimately sold the debt, can turn around and he can forgive the debt, v'chozar u'machlo machul. In making sense of this very, very perplexing din... So Rabbeinu Tam very famously basing himself upon a Gemara in Bava Basra explains how when a debtor takes out a loan and incurs a debt, so there are two shibudim, there's a shibud haguf, there's a shibud nechasim, there's the personal indebtedness that he bears, that he carries, but then there's also the lien on his properties, and then when you sell a shtar, you can only transfer the shibud nechasim, the shibud nechasim which is a type of functions as a guarantor, the same way you can have a cosigner who serves as the guarantor. So the shibud nechasim serves as one's guarantor. When you sell, you can only transfer the shibud nechasim, but the shibud nechasim functions as a guarantor, the shibud haguf remains between the original loveh and malveh, the original borrower and lender, which is why the original lender can then undercut the lien, he can undercut the shibud nechasim by being mochel. The Mishna in Shavuos has a din that אין נשבעין על טענת חרש שוטה וקטן. The Torah has a din of modeh b'miktzas. If if a person comes to court and claims $100 and the other litigant admits to the $50, so then he has to take a shvuas modeh b'miktzas on the on the balance. What happens if the claimant is a minor? So then the din is even though it elicits a hoda'ah, it elicits an admission, so אין נשבעין על טענת חרש שוטה וקטן. Comes the Ri Migash in in his chidushim and introduces a very very fundamental distinction and says that that would only be true of such a shvuah as a shvuas modeh b'miktzas where the shvuah, where the oath comes in response to a tayna, in response to a claim. It's the claim which is the trigger, which is the mechayev of the shvuah. Mah she-ein ken in the case of shomer where you deposit something with with someone and then he says that sorry I can't return it, it was it was stolen, armed robbers broke in, so then he has to take a shvuah, so the Ri Migash says this shvuah is not machmas tayna because the the one who deposits never knows for sure what happened. Here it's a shvuah which isn't machmas tayna, it's part of the the obligations that the shomer accepted upon himself, so since it's not machmas tayna, so then you would be nishba on the tayna of on the claim of a katan as well. Rava endorses the position that when it comes to Krias Shema only pasuk rishon requires kavana. שמע ישראל השם אלקינו השם אחד עד כאן צריך כוונת הלב.
Mitzvos tzrichos kavana should have to accompany the the entire mitzvah, so the Rashba famously explains that when it comes to Krias Shema there are two kavanos to speak of. There's not only the kavana to fulfill one's obligation, to discharge one's obligation, not only the kavana latzeis, but also the kavanos hainyan, the kavana that a person is knowingly, consciously being מקבל עליו עול מלכות שמים. When when the Rambam speaks of kedushas ha-aretz and kedushas ha-mikdash, so the Rambam famously draws a distinction. He says that the Beis Ha-mikdash retains its kedusha from the from the first Beis Ha-mikdash from the binyan of Dovid u-Shlomo. He says by contrast Eretz Yisrael forfeited its kedusha when we went into golus Bavel and was only niskadesh again bi-ymei Ezra. And then the Rambam says very famously velama ani omer and why why do I draw that distinction? Why do I think that that churban affects churban caused a forfeiture of kedushas ha-aretz, that the kidush of Yehoshua was undone, but the kidush of Mikdash and Yerushalayim was not undone? So the Rambam says because the kidush of Yehoshua was accomplished by kibush, by conquest. You undo the conquest, you undo the kedusha. Mah she-ein ken the kedushas ha-mikdash was because it induced the hashra'as hashchina, ושכינה אינה בטלה לעולם, and physical destruction cannot affect the the shechina. The Gemara says that when you weed, when when you pull weeds from the field, so that's a toldah of choresh. It's part of the it falls under the rubric of plowing on on Shabbos. Plowing is to improve the soil, to improve the terrain, with Which is what weeding does to facilitate its, its fertility for that it should be fertile when you plant there, but then there's a very puzzling distinction between whether or not you do the weeding in your own field or in your friend's field. In response to that, in response to some other Gemaros, so the Aruch very famously introduces his distinction between פסיק רישא דניחא ליה, פסיק רישא דלא ניחא ליה. Whether the unintended consequence is something a person welcomes or whether or not the unintended consequence is something that a person is disinterested in. What's the common denominator of these examples which could be multiplied not literally ad infinitum, but almost, almost? Is that in each of these examples the Rishonim developed conceptual categories and frameworks which have become indispensable. One simply can't seriously think about any of those sugyos without operating with and or responding to those fundamental, what have now become axiomatic categories. And what's more, very often these categories of thought and conceptual frameworks that the Rishonim developed and discovered and presented within the context and confines of a particular sugya have applications and implications for many, many other sugyos in Shas. When the Ramban explains to us that a master has two different type of kinyanim in his eved kna'ani, the Aruch's distinction between a welcome, between a welcome unintended consequence and one that a person is disinterested in, פסיק רישא דלא ניחא ליה, etc., these, these categories are indispensable for many, many sugyos in Shas. Now, the examples that we tried to survey were individual chiddushim. And these examples are only representative of the vital contribution each of these Rishonim made to our ability to think about and to understand Torah she-ba'al peh. It's unthinkable, it's ludicrous for someone who wants to seriously learn Shas to say, but I don't need to know what Rabbeinu Tam had to say on the sugyos. I don't need his categories, again, not just his, his individual concrete interpretations, but I don't need his categories, I don't need his conceptual, his conceptual framework. I don't need, I'll buy, I'll buy a Gemara without a Rif in the back. I don't need the Ramban's Milchemos. I don't need to see how the Rambam conceptualized and codified a sugya. You can't study astronomy without Copernicus and heliocentrism. You can't study physics without Newton and gravity. And many of us, such as myself, are am aratzim about whatever Einstein said, but if you really want to understand physics then you have to dispel that am aratzus and you have to understand what he said about physics. L'havdil, l'havdil, you can't study Shas without the categories, ideas, and axioms of the Gedolei ha-Rishonim. Not just the individual interpretations, but the ideas, the categories, and axioms of the Gedolei ha-Rishonim. What's true in, in the study of halacha and Gemara is equally true in Aggadah and machshava. Again, let's a few well-known examples and again we'll try to move im yirtzeh Hashem from the specific to the more general. Any serious discussion or study of bitachon has to, among other things, focus on Rabbeinu Bachya's Sha'ar HaBitachon. His definition of what it means to have bitachon, his definition of how bitachon expresses itself, his conceptual framework for the divine providence which provides the underpinnings for bitachon. One can't study Chumash without learning and trying to understand the Ibn Ezra's famous comment on Lo sachmod. How can the Torah seemingly legislate instinctive visceral reactions? One can't speak of Ta'amei hamitzvos or of principles, psychological principles of human behavior, without the Sefer hachinuch's category of אחרי הפעולות נמשכים הלבבות. Again, this time we're illustrating, or trying to illustrate, the same idea, but this time in the context of Agada and Machshava. It's not simply that the Rishonim gave us interpretations of individual Sugyos or offered insights, but they developed fundamental categories of thought, categories which are so fundamental that for us they're indispensable and it's simply unthinkable and in any serious legitimate sense impossible to learn without operating with these fundamental categories. The Rambam and the Ramban, the greatest of the Rishonim, not coincidentally provide the best examples of our theme. There can't be any serious halachic or philosophical study of Teshuva without the Rambam's Hilchos Teshuva. One doesn't have an adequate understanding of Yiddishkeit, of Torah and Mitzvos, without the Ramban on Kedoshim Tihyu, the Ramban on Shabbasos, the Ramban on Ve'asis hayashar vehatov. The categories are indispensable; they're axiomatic for our understanding of Yiddishkeit. Similarly, one can't, at least for us, study Chumash without the Ramban's explication and application of the Klal of Chazal of מעשה אבות סימן לבנים. The basic axiomatic categories of thought discovered and developed by the Rishonim have shaped and molded all subsequent study and understanding of Halacha and Agada. One can't speak of Jewish faith without the Rambam's thirteen principles of faith. One can't speak of the Jewish conception of Hakadosh Baruch Hu in any deep profound way without the Rambam's theory of negative attributes in the Moreh and so on and so forth. So to review for a moment, the second class of Gedolim, the elite of the elite, consists of those whose Chidushim have become axiomatic and indispensable to our understanding of Torah. In addition to the mastery of Torah itself, an extraordinary extraordinary accomplishment and one which already raises them to a very exalted level, the second class of Gedolim, that subset of Gedolei Yisrael, are those whose Chidushim have become embedded in the very fabric of Torah, indistinguishable from Torah, whose categories and frameworks have become axiomatic and indispensable for all future study. So until now, we've tried to illustrate this definition and second class of Gedolim, of Gadlus, with examples from the era of the Rishonim. But this class of gedolim certainly admits from the Tkufas Haacharonim as well. Right away in halacha so the names that jump out at us are the Ktzos, the Nesivos, Rebbe Akiva Eiger and so on and so forth. In machshava, the Maharal, Ramchal. Again, not to the exclusion of others. Within the realm of halacha let's focus for a moment on one of the greatest of the gedolim, both prominent and preeminent within that second subset of Gedolei Yisrael, the Rav's grandfather, Reb Chaim. Reb Chaim's categories, not not simply self-contained interpretations, sort of moving pieces around, but new. His categories are so breathtakingly new and so fundamental. He discovered and developed profound categories of thought and conceptual framework across the breadth of Shas from Zraim to Taharos, categories and frameworks that revolutionized our understanding and appreciation. The Rav gives some examples of this, lidugma, inyan shtaros bahalacha. Ad Reb Chaim, מבוסס היה עניין זה על כללים טכניים של כתיבה וחתימה שהם מחיצוניותו של השטר וצורתו מצד אחד על חזקות המושרשות בדפוסי תקופה והנהגה פסיכולוגית מצד אחר.
Until Reb Chaim, the whole topic of shtaros in halacha, of of deeds, was one of technical requirements for the writing and the signing of the shtar and psychological presumptions about what the implications are of the shtar being in in one person's possession. מה עשה רב חיים? What did Reb Chaim do? Hu chatar le - a little bit of a tongue twister here - it's the Hebrew word for conceptualization, but I can't really say it in Hebrew. Hu chatar le-conceptualization whatever, hu chatar le-conceptualization מלאה של כל העניין. He he penetrated, bavar bamachteros, he tunneled, he penetrated to a total conceptualization of the whole topic. Uleshem zeh, and for this purpose, הסיט את הצד הטכני מטיבורו של העניין, ubimkomo, and in its place, הכניס תכנים אידיאליים וקונסטרוקציות טהורות וחולל תמורה מקיפה הכל בלימוד הלכות אלה
and and came up with a brand new understanding on these halachos. The Rav illustrates it again with tefillah. Until Reb Chaim, he says, tefillah was a question of do you have to repeat Shmoneh Esrei, you don't have to repeat Shmoneh Esrei. ושוב קטגוריות חדשות מונחים שלא שמעתם אוזן מקודם גחו מתוך כבשונה של ההלכה: מעשה התפילה וקיום תפילה, קיום שבפעולה וקיום שבלב, כוונת התפילה שהיא גופה של תפילה בניגוד לכוונת מצוות שאינה אלא תופעת חוץ,
cheftza shel chova, reshus unedava, tefillas tzibur, תפילת יחיד כשתי חטיבות מסוימות. So Reb Chaim distinguished, he introduced conceptual categories, the difference between the act of tefillah and the essence of tefillah, the difference of the role of kavana in tefillah as opposed to other mitzvos, the difference between a Shmoneh Esrei which is obligatory and a Shmoneh Esrei that one undertakes as a reshus or as a nedava, etc. Nefesh HaChaim quotes from in Shaar Dalet from from the Zohar. That chiddushei Torah in this world create invisible olamos elyonim, supernal spiritual worlds. Whatever the kabbalah shebo means, there’s an exoteric analog to that. And that is that chiddushei Torah, again, genuine chiddushei Torah, not merely transposing and transferring old categories and ideas, but discovering new fundamental ones, create new worlds of thought. Just to clarify for a moment, just this is a little bit of a digression, but just to clarify for a moment, when we talk about the Rishonim discovering, we talk of the Rishonim’s chiddushim, it’s important to understand, crucial to understand the difference between what the Rav in one place refers to as the difference between chiddush and shinui. Chiddush, innovation, discovery, doesn’t involve or imply shinui, change. Newton didn’t change the physical world when he discovered the idea and the law of gravity. Nor did Copernicus change what the planets do and what the sun does. They changed our understanding of the world. They changed our appreciation and understanding of the solar system. They didn’t change the world. With their new categories, they allowed us to recognize, understand, and appreciate what was always present and true in the physical world. The same is true, again l’havdil, of the new categories of thought of the second class of gedolim. They’re not changing the masorah. כל מה שתלמיד ותיק עתיד לחדש לפני רבו is k'ne'emar l'Moshe miSinai. Every chiddush, every correct, true, genuine chiddush which will be said was already given to Moshe Rabbeinu on Har Sinai. The definition of a chiddush is they allow us to recognize, understand, and appreciate depths and dimensions of the masorah, of the words of Chazal, that had eluded us hitherto. To return to our topic, the second class of gedolim is a very, very select class. Moreover, especially in the tekufas ha’achronim, most such gedolim either belonged to the class of gedolei halachah or gedolei machshavah. There were very, very few who belonged to both classes, who belonged to that second class of gedolim, the gedolim whose contributions became so fundamental, so foundational, so axiomatic to learning, both in halachah and machshavah. This gives us some perspective on Rav Soloveitchik. He belongs to the second class of gedolei hadoros and in both areas, both in halachah and in machshavah. Maybe a good relatively easy and effective way to illustrate the indispensability, the axiomatic nature of the Rav’s chiddushim in halachah, if you take the volumes of Yahrtzeit Shiurim or you can take the divrei Torah reprinted in the Kovetz Chiddushei Torah or the divrei Torah in the volume entitled Igros ha-Grid. For instance, one of the Yahrtzeit Shiurim, the Rav already wrote this in a ksav yad misham decades earlier, the Rav focuses upon a perplexing halachah in Masechet Shavuos. If you have a shem Hashem written with a prefix and a suffix, so the question is, do either the prefix or the suffix have kedushas Hashem? When you write a shem Hashem, so there’s an issur m’chikah, lo ta’asun ken, you’re not allowed to erase a shem Hashem. The shem Hashem has kedushah. What happens if you attach a prefix or a suffix? So the fact that it is It's attached to the Shem Hashem, so imbues it with Kedusha, the Kedusha spills over, or no? לא תעשון כן לה' אלהיכם, so the prefix and suffix are not part of the Shem Hashem. So we pasken that the suffix has Kedushas Hashem, the prefix doesn't have Kedushas Hashem. After demonstrating the inadequacy of the seemingly simple interpretation, the Rav explains so beautifully that the extraordinary substance of Hakadosh Baruch Hu's bris with Avraham Avinu is lihyos lecha le-Elokim. Hakadosh Baruch Hu, whose existence is absolute. He is absolute and independent of anything and everything. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says to Avraham Avinu, I'm going to make a bris with you, I'm going to establish a covenant with you, that I will be known to the world, I will reveal myself to the world as Elokei Avraham, להיות לך ולזרעך אחריך. In this world, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, absolute, independent, transcendent, but I'm going to reveal myself in the world as Elokei Avraham, as Elokei Yisrael, and concomitantly exercise a special divine providence. The suffix, when we talk about your God, explains the Rav, is niskadesh with the Kedushas Hashem, not because it's a grammatical attachment, but because of a profound spiritual reality, the bris with Avraham Avinu. It's part of how Hakadosh Baruch Hu reveals himself to the world is as your God, their God of Klal Yisrael. The Rav's chiddush about Bein Hashmashos, conventionally assumed that the period of twilight, which we treat as ספק יום ספק לילה, is based on our ignorance of exactly when day transitions to night. So the Rav explains that really what generates that safek is an intentional disparity that the Torah has between two different definitions of yom and layla. In each of these chiddushim, the Rav discovered and developed such important fundamental categories of thought. He built olamos chadashim, new worlds of thought, that a person can't seriously learn these sugyos, think about these sugyos, without trying to understand what the Rav taught about these sugyos. As a very very little boy, so when the Rav was mechadesh, so his father would write the chiddushim up and he would send it to Reb Chaim. So Reb Chaim once received such a letter from his son, the Rav's father, and right away ran to take his jacket and started running out the door. So Rebbetzin asked him, where you going? I have to go show רב שמחה זעליג בער the Rav's chiddushim. Reb Chaim was nispail from just how basic and how fundamental the categories and conceptual frameworks were of his young prodigious grandson. The Rav was second to none in applying Reb Chaim's derech halimmud and building worlds of thought that are indispensable for us, that are axiomatic for us. The Devar Avraham in his famous letter that he wrote before the Rav came to these shores recognized this and says נחה עליו רוח זקנו, that the spirit of his grandfather resides within him. But the Rav also belonged to the second class of gedolim in machshava as well. But here, perhaps a word of introduction, another mashal perhaps would be helpful. Let's this time, we could do it in science, but I think it's easier in history of philosophy. There were a lot, there were thinkers who made lasting seminal contributions to philosophy, again, introduced very basic new categories of thought. But there were others, a subset who surpassed that benchmark, and they actually created new branches of philosophy, new sub-disciplines within the discipline of philosophy. They didn't just contribute axioms to the existing field, but they changed the field and the focus of philosophy. Modern philosophy, the modern era of philosophy, was ushered in by Descartes with his skepticism, followed by Hume with his empiricism and so on, focusing philosophy in a totally different direction, a totally different set of questions. The Rav didn't only—and hear this, rabbosai—the Rav didn't only mightily contribute to Jewish philosophy, but he created a new discipline within machshava. His chiddushim not only contributed axiomatically to machshava, but in fundamental ways redefined machshava. What does that mean? Before the Rav, there was a rich history of Jewish philosophy—Rav Saadia Gaon, the Rambam, Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, to mention the most prominent of that exalted holy chabura. Before the Rav, philosophy was a complement to halakha. It was its own discipline with its own set of questions and problems, its own foci, and for the most part, those questions were not answered by drawing upon halakhic sources. The Rav, in an extraordinary pioneering contribution, single-handedly, single-handedly—you wouldn't have thought that it was possible in the 20th century that there could be a chiddush, chiddushim of such magnitude, so momentous—but he single-handedly revealed a totally new, different relationship. Halakha and philosophy not as parallel, complementary disciplines, but he developed the notion of a philosophy of halakha, and tartei mashma. At the risk of being overly, overly superficial, but just to give a—to try to give a little bit of a feel, a little bit of a taste for what philosophy of halakha means, this new, new discipline within machshava that the Rav created. Before the Rav, no one ever reflected upon halakha in an attempt to depict the legal system of halakha and understand it in philosophical terms. People learned halakha, but to understand what the philosophical perspective on the halakhic system, it didn't exist. What did the Rav teach? The following—and again, I apologize for the superficiality, but maybe a little bit, just a little bit of a taste, ta'amu u'reu—the Rav taught that halakha is an ideal system, ideal from lashon idea. What does that mean? All of the legal systems begin with concrete reality and concrete situations, and then in response to the concrete situations. reality and concrete situations, so then there's a need to legislate. So people are going to be driving. People going to be driving in different directions. If we don't have traffic laws and we don't have red lights, so then there's going to be chaos on the roads. So the legal system, the traffic laws arise in response to the concrete problems of concrete reality. Not an ideal system, on the contrary, just a way of wrestling with, a way of grappling with, a way of coping with concrete reality. Halacha, the Rav taught, is different. Obviously, halacha, the Ribono Shel Olam intends for implementation in this world, but halacha isn't a response to concrete reality and its needs, rather it's an ideal blueprint to allow us to live up to its norms. The laws of the red light in the secular system are there to serve us. The analog to the laws of the red light in halacha are there for us to conform to them. There are countless, countless ideas, halachos, and sogyas in Shas which only make sense in light of this understanding and depiction of halacha. אין כאן מקום להאריך. But philosophy of halacha meant something additional as well in the Rav's pioneering contribution. The questions that philosophy, it wasn't just a philosophy about halacha, it was a philosophy that emerged from within halacha. The questions that philosophy traditionally dealt with, problems of freedom, causality, God-man relationship, creation, and nihility, had never been answered based on halachic sources. The potential to discover what halachic sources say about all these issues had never been unlocked. And the Rav illustrated somewhat and charted a path to try to show how there's a philosophy embedded within halacha, a philosophy that emerges from within halacha. It's 25 years plus at this point since the Rav's petira, and the following is intended descriptively, not with any not critically, but ad hayom hazeh, I think there is the Rav remains tremendously underappreciated and in terms of his membership in that second elite shebe-elite chabura of gedolei hadoros. The best way to encounter any gadol is obviously to begin with his own words. Once a person has exhausted that, so then one looks for the reliable secondhand sources. We're so blessed with Rav Shechter and everything he and others to a lesser degree have done to help perpetuate, but it begins with the Rav's own words. It would be a tremendous It would be a tremendous accomplishment and takeaway from the focus and preoccupation with the Rav on the occasion of his twenty-fifth Yahrtzeit for us to try to make inroads and to correct that, that imbalance of, of his contributions, of his membership in that second class of Gedolei Yisroel being underappreciated.