I won't be saying shiur tonight. I'll just make some mention some recollections, some reminiscences of different things that stand out in my mind from Rav Soloveitchik. My first recollections of Rav Soloveitchik were not really from the shiur but rather from the regular shiur that he gave in the Yeshiva but rather from other lectures. I remember when I was must have been about ten years old, I'll have to check the dates, but I was my family lived in Philadelphia and I was going to Yeshiva Ketana in New York. At that time there was no Yeshiva in Philadelphia and I was too young to I was staying by my grandparents or other people and I was very homesick from my parents. So my father had to take me by train to come home every so often, every month or so. So I remember once my father wanted to take me home for Pesach or something and the Rav was speaking, must have been in the Mizrachi, I don't know, the Rav was speaking that night so he took me, it was going to be too late, he was going to go hear the Rav and then he was going to go pick me up so he took me along. And I had to listen to the Rav's lange megillah, lange drasha, must have been about nine years old, ten years old, I don't know, and then he took me home by train. So that was the first drasha that I heard from the Rav when he was speaking about the German reparations money. And he was opposed to it at that time. The German government was offering reparations money to Eretz Yisrael and the shaila was whether they should accept it or not. So the pilpul that the Israeli government had at that time was an ethical pilpul, is it proper to take the money because in this way we'll in a certain sense be giving a kappara to the Nazis, to the Germans, but they'll feel as if their conscience was clear. So Rav Soloveitchik at that time said forget about the conscience clearing, they have a Din Amalek and he gave this speech with an aimas chayim that the Din Amalek is not necessarily those who are biological descendants of this nation, but rather any any nation that makes up its mind to wipe out the entire Jewish people. And the halakha says that not only are you not permitted to leave anybody from Amalek alive, you have to kill the men, the women, and the children, all of their properties as well. This was the first recollection I had of the Rav. I remember over the years at that time I didn't know whether yes, no, context, okay, little boy. So I was thinking over the years, I thought to myself, it's probably not right. Even even if they have a Din Amalek, I can't get back my own money? They stole millions, they stole billions, trillions from the Jews. I can't get back a little bit? So I thought to myself, you know, mistama it's wrong. But lately now you see mistama it's right because now they have in the newspapers that the Israeli government says that all of the highways, that all the reparations money was used for paving the highways in Eretz Yisrael and they have in the papers now I think last year that all the highways have to be redone because they did it wrong the first time. So all the reparations money went down the drain. I remember after that my father would take me before the Bar Mitzvah, must have been about twelve or maybe eleven, have to check the dates, the first Yahrtzeit drasha I remember stands out in my mind, where the Rav was speaking, he used to give the Yahrtzeit shiur in here because he insisted and it used to be so crowded and people would come, the boys would sit here from 2:00 in the afternoon to make sure that they get a front seat. And he used to sit with the gemaras and the Rambams, he used to stand over here, I mean sit, I remember he used to say the shiur over here, the place was crowded and it was so crowded, people would stand in the halls and people would stand outside in the street and they used to plead with the Rav every year that he should switch to the Lamont Auditorium. He said, 'No, no, he has to say the shiur over here, this is where his father used to say the shiur.' Then people said they didn't think that was accurate, his father used to say the shiur across the hall. But he said his father said the shiur here so he wants to say the shiur in this Beis Medrash that still it was just unbearable, so then he had to move to the to the big auditorium. So I remember the first Yahrtzeit shiur that I heard was about Kiddush and Havdalah, about kiddush b'makom seuda and about if you forget Ya'aleh v'Yavo in bentsching, if you forget Retzei, about hazkaras me'ein hame'ora. It made a big roshem. I remember, I remember it stands out in my mind today from poshute zikaron I used to hear the Yahrtzeit drashas, mora'dike drashas. Hespedim also, the Rav was noted for his hespedim. I don't think I think most of the people probably didn't get what Dr. Lamm and Rav Chaim Soloveitchik said yesterday. Dr. Lamm started off by saying he thinks the only one who could say a proper hesped for the Rav would be the Rav himself. Sounds a little funny, what did that mean? Rav Chaim Soloveitchik said the same thing. What they meant was that those who remember the old times remember the Rav said knock-out hespedim, mora'dike. I remember the story used to go, there was a legend, I don't know if it's true or not, they say that they once asked the Rav to say a hesped on someone and he said, 'I'm sorry, you have to let me know two weeks in advance.' That's what he used to say. I don't know, maybe it happened, I don't know, but he said quite a few hespedim that stood out in everyone's mind. Rav Chaim Soloveitchik was alluding to some of them yesterday. He would say at the beginning of the hesped, al pi din... Based on the testimony, based on the gvi'as eidus that the maspidim give. And that's why the posuk quotes from the Ovos Rabbosi that כשם שנפטרים מן המת כך נפטרים מן המספיד that if the maspid exaggerates too much, a little bit of exaggeration is understood, you take off a little bit, but if one exaggerates too much, so that's considered a violation of eidus sheker. So he would mention this every so often at the beginning of the hesped that a hesped has to be honest and you have to size up what the person was and what he stood for and he would analyze, he would give such a hesped and analyze some major aspect of the person's life or works or personality that was relevant for them to be a mussar shmuess, he'd explain what this person stood for in a certain area and then relate it to us. One of the major hespedim that stands out in my mind, this was of course after I was already in the yeshiva, was the hesped that he said for Rav Velvel Soloveitchik, his uncle that was referred to yesterday. Rav Chaim Soloveitchik yesterday alluded very briefly, he was giving remazim, I think most of the people didn't get it, he alluded, he said my father spoke in this hesped about erusin and nisuin but he didn't explain what it is. The Rav said in the hesped for Rav Velvel along with many other beautiful thoughts, he said that the posuk tells us תורה צוה לנו משה מורשה קהלת יעקב and the Chachomim comment אל תקרי מורשה אלא מאורסה, the Torah is like a na'ara miorasa to all of the Bnei Yisrael. So Rav Soloveitchik said that there are two levels in marriage, there's erusin and there's nisuin, nisuin is when the woman moves in and she lives with her husband. So Rav Soloveitchik said the Torah is like an arusa to the hamon am, everybody has a cheilek with the Torah, but in order to be a level of nisuin, that's only by great outstanding unusual talmidei chachomim. What is accomplished by nisuin? So he said al pi din, halacha in the Gemara in Sanhedrin in the third perek in the sugya of krovim psulim l'eidus the Gemara has a principle that אשתו כגופו בעל כאשתו, that not only am I posul l'eidus to my wife, I'm posul l'eidus to my wife's brother, to all of my wife's relatives and so on. So that principle only begins to apply after nisuin. During erusin, the Gemara says that principle does not apply because ishto k'gufo is only after nisuin. So Rav Soloveitchik explained how it relates to Torah, that when a person is married let's say for several years, so the couple gets to know each other so well, the husband already knows his wife so well and the wife knows her husband that they don't even have to communicate. When they're thinking about something they don't even have to talk to each other, they don't have to wink to each other, each one already knows what the other one would be thinking, what the other one's position would be about this certain matter. So he said that's what it means that everybody has erusin with the Torah, but unusual talmidei chachomim, outstanding gedolim like his uncle at that time he was speaking about Rav Velvel, have nisuin with the Torah and they have an intuition that when you ask them a shaila they can tell you based on their intuition what the halacha is. That's what Rav Chaim Soloveitchik was alluding to yesterday when he mentioned that there are some people have erusin and some have nisuin and his father zichrono l'vracha had nisuin like he said about his uncle. It's interesting, there is a Rashi on Parshas Tetzaveh, where Rashi is commenting on the bigdei kehuna, and it's a little unclear exactly what the bigdei kehuna looked like. So Rashi writes in one place u'libi omer li, and I have this sense, I have the feeling that it means like this and he starts describing what it is. So one of the talmidei chachomim from New York City passed away, Rav Gershon Zacks once commented al derech halatza a little bit, he said how can Rashi make such a comment u'libi omer li? What do you mean my heart tells me? Doesn't it say in Krias Shema ולא תתורו אחרי לבבכם? Are you permitted to follow your heart? The simple meaning is not a kasha, the simple meaning is you're not permitted to follow your heart to do some lustful act, but to follow your heart as far as interpreting pshat of a posuk, so that's not a violation of lo sosuru. But al derech halatza he asked this kasha, so he said the answer is, Rav Gershon said the answer is, when a person fulfills the posuk in Mishlei כתבם על לוח לבך, when he engraves, he has learned so much Torah that he has engraved it on his heart, so then if he follows his heart then it's okay, then libi omer li is okay, then no violation of ולא תתורו אחרי לבבכם. And this is what Rav Soloveitchik was depicting as in his mind was nisuin, that great outstanding unusual talmidei chachomim can feel an intuition as to what the halacha should be, they don't have to look through the sugya. So I remember a few years ago, the Rav was already not well, so one of the rabbanim who always used to consult the Rav with shailos called me up on the telephone and he asked me what do I think about a certain din. So I said I'll have to look it up. He says but what's your gut reaction? I said I don't have a gut reaction, I have to look it up. He says but what are you saying off-hand? He kept asking me. So I said I don't say anything, I don't know, I have to look it up. But come on, come on, the Rav always used to say he's got gut reactions. So I'm not the Rav. But the Rav said that, I told him over this vort, the Rav had an intuition and the Rav taki said like that. The Rav once mentioned in shiur that great geonim when they would be consulted, when they would be asked a shaila, they wouldn't first look through the sugyas and then... Not that they would go through meichadash without any negi'ah at all. They had made up their minds in advance. There's a famous story about the Chasam Sofer like that. The Chasam Sofer used to write his shuvos very quickly between Mincha and Maariv. He was in a rush and he would leave the shuvos on the desk and he would have his son the Kesav Sofer who was single at that time have his son go over the shuvos and then he would send it out in the mail and whoever it was to he would send it in the mail. And whenever the Kesav Sofer wasn't so convinced that this shuva should be sent out in the mail so he would leave it there. He wouldn't tell his father I don't like his shuva he just leave it there wouldn't mail it out. So there was one shuva that the Chasam Sofer wrote and sitting there for two weeks the Chasam Sofer understood the two weeks his son wouldn't have gone through the shuva so he asked him why don't you mail out the shuva so he says the one the sho'el the one who asked the shaila is adam gadol me'od so you write him and he understood it's זורק לו כאן ולא כאן so you write him a shuva and give him a pshat a rayah from a Gemara and then give him another rayah but not such a good rayah so the Chasam Sofer responded and the way they write all the stories the Chasam Sofer responded that as far as I'm concerned my instinctive intuitive reaction the muskal rishon is the main thing. His muskal rishon was one way he gives a rayah m'heicha teisa yeah rayah there a rayah there the ikar is my muskal rishon doesn't matter whether the rayah is good or not as long as there's no stira libi omri that was the main thing. In fact years ago the Yeshiva had a practice that there used to be a gorel the old-timers will remember that those students who were zocha to get smicha would have to be in a lottery to determine who's going to be mechubad with serving in the army as a chaplain. The Yeshiva insisted that we should have orthodox chaplains we don't have it anymore. So they used to draw lots and whoever got I don't know if he got the high number low number whatever it was had to go to become a chaplain in the army. So one year the students made a whole revolution they refused to go so Dr. Belkin said we have a psak we have a written shuva from Rav Soloveitchik that they have a right to draft us in the army. So one of the students the president of the SOY why was it takeh at that time he said he wants to see the shuva and if he doesn't see the shuva we're going to riot we're not going to give this. So Dr. Belkin had no breira he had to give in he gave the boy the shuva on the condition number one that he gives it back tomorrow morning number two he doesn't make any copies. So number one the student made a copy right away that night not any copy I remember I was in the dormitory upstairs and he showed me the copy and showing everybody the copy then he gave it back to Dr. Belkin of course the other condition was fulfilled gave it back the next day back to Dr. Belkin why not. So that's how the shuva it was a shuva in English typed by Rav Soloveitchik dear Dr. Belkin and it started off Rav Soloveitchik's stationery and he starts writing up the shaila. The shaila was not whether the Yeshiva can draft the students to the chaplaincy whether students be permitted to volunteer it was a whole another shaila what would you allow to volunteer for the chaplaincy hayos that you know that you may have to violate ma'achalos assuros and may have to violate Shabbos what's the din what's the issue of מכניס עצמו למקום של תקיעת איסור. He goes through the Ba'al HaMa'or the Ramban and he comes out why he thinks it's muttar okay. But at the beginning of the shuva he writes this klal he writes this in the beginning of his shuva in English that by he had the tradition that by great Geonim and great talmidei chachamim they pasken based on their intuition and then they check with the sources to see that it substantiates their intuition and he writes and my intuition in this situation is that one is permitted to volunteer for the chaplaincy he's going to proceed to show that his intuition is correct it's not that he went through the sources and after figuring everything out that he came to the conclusion based on his libi omri he thought that that was so. This was shuva of the Rav he always had quite an intuition and most people don't have such such ability to have such an intuition. I remember the outstanding hesped that Rav Soloveitchik said for Rav Moshe Shatzkes people were speaking about it for weeks and weeks afterwards where he commented on a Gemara in the beginning of Masechet Avodah Zarah the Gemara comments what does the Ribono Shel Olam do all day what is the seder hayom. So the Gemara says in this hour he does this and from ten to eleven he does this then the Gemara says there's one hour in the day when the Ribono Shel Olam plays with the Livyason. What does that mean he plays with the Livyason so he gave an interpretation of that aggadata that it means that the Ribono Shel Olam doesn't take the world so seriously you don't have to take everything so seriously so he was speaking about Rav Moshe Shatzkes zecher tzadik livracha that whenever he the Rav had some aggravation someone had insulted him or some politics or something he would be aggravated so he'd go to speak to Rav Moshe Shatzkes and he would complain al amai this one behaved this way and this one said this and this one said this and Rav Moshe Shatzkes would always say eh, geh you shouldn't take it to heart so much. So he was stressing this eh, geh it shouldn't take it so for weeks people were and he was the Rav stressing how important this madreiga is this ma'ala a tremendous ma'ala to say eh, geh. So for weeks everybody was walking around greeting each other eh, geh. They were chozer the whole the whole hesped in and in one breath for weeks people were chozer. I remember the Rav said an unusual hesped for Dean Sar aleha hashalom who died in this beis medrash in front of everybody there was a chag hasmicha and he had I guess a heart attack whatever and he was in the... his pocket he died trying to get the pill. He died in front of everybody. And the next day there was a levaya here in the yeshiva. So I remember Rav Soloveitchik said at that time, starting off בשם שנסתמין מן המת כך נסתמין מן הצדקנים, you have to tell the truth, so he developed every hesped he said was al gav ha-emes. He would develop a theme with a makor from the Gemara and a Chazal and a maamar and an aggadah and a quotation and apply it to this person. So he said at that time, there's a pasuk in Nechemia Perek Ches where it says that they started the Second Beis Hamikdash was built in the days of Ezra and Nechemia and they opened up the Holy Temple for the high holidays, they opened up on Rosh Hashana. And when they were leining krias hatorah, Ezra HaSofer got the first aliya. He was a Kohen. Got the first aliya, said ברכו את ה' המבורך and everybody said ברוך ה' המבורך לעולם ועד, everybody was paying attention to the krias hatorah it says. And then they were leining krias hatorah and they leined meforash v'som sechel. And the pasuk says that it was a bimah shel etz, it was a wooden platform in the Azara where the baal koreh was leining and Ezra got the aliya, he was standing on top of that platform. And there were about twelve people standing on the platform and the pasuk in Nechemia lists off all of the names. So the Ralbag in his commentary on the bottom of the page in the Mikraos Gedolos, in the regular standard Tanach, has a comment. Why do they need so many people? So many gabbaim? Why do they need so many gabbaim to stand on top of the bimah shel etz? So the Ralbag has a novel observation, they needed a minyan on the platform because you can't be metzaref the people on the floor and on the platform. All shtikel Torah fell in reshus bifnei atzmah. So Rav Soloveitchik suggested a different pshat. Because the Gemara in Nedarim on daf lamed ches comments on the hemshech hapsukim there that it says vayavinu bamikra, they were leining with geshmak and they were leining meforash v'som sechel. So the Gemara says what does that mean vayavinu bamikra? They were leining with trop and they were leining based on the keri u'ksiv. They were careful to lein keri u'ksiv. So Rav Soloveitchik said mistama what happened was that Ezra was leining according to the tradition, according to the keri, but the ksiv was different. So he told all the twelve people on the bimah, take a look inside. You see the ksiv? I'm not going to read what it says, I'm going to say according to the tradition what the keri is. And when you have a keri u'ksiv you have to point out that this is the ksiv and we're not going to lein like that. And he was ma'arich about that a little bit. And then he says that when we try to assess the people, so very often there's a keri and there's a ksiv. There's what it appears to be and then there's what it really is. The keri is what it appears to be and the ksiv is what it really is. When you look inside what is it in the toch tocho shel a person shel an adam, what is it really? So he spoke about Rav Shmuel Leib Zar alav hashalom that he appeared to be A, B, C, D, different things and he showed the way it wasn't really so. That Rav Zar wasn't all of those things. People thought that he was a ka'asni and different different midos. Rav Soloveitchik explained that he knew Rav Shmuel Leib Zar very well and he was explaining what the ksiv was. This was certainly so regarding Rav Soloveitchik himself. There were many things that people misunderstood about about the Rav. I remember when I first started in the shiur. So the Rav used to travel in from Boston every Tuesday morning and he would give a shiur for a group of about thirty students, college students, for about two hours and then he would, that would be the end of that shiur, then he would give another shiur, back-to-back, give another shiur, two hours to another group of semicha students, four hours in a row. And then he would give the Shiur HaMoriah at night, Tuesday night. And Wednesday morning right away there would be two shiurim, one for the college students, one for the semicha students, then he would go back to Boston. This would go on every week. And the Rav mentioned once at Moriah that in the early years when he used to travel in from Boston he used to say Tefillas Haderech. And in the later years when he used to go by plane he got so used to it already so he wasn't nervous at all so then he stopped saying the Tefillas Haderech. He thought that the din of Tefillas Haderech is only when one is a little nervous about it. So very often the Rav wouldn't always come in on a Tuesday morning, sometimes he would come in on a Monday morning, sometimes he would come in on a Thursday morning. So very often he would miss tefillah b'tzibbur, he would miss krias hatorah and he would come to yeshiva, he would want to make a minyan. So he would always ask after the second shiur, is there anybody here who missed krias hatorah? So there would always be more than enough people who would raise their hand. So then he said okay, we're going to davven Mincha in the Beis Medrash. We would be over there in that room on the side and he would walk into the Beis Medrash. So he would say Ashrei, and the high school students would be walking by, high school, college students would be walking by in the hall. We would say Ashrei, then the chazzan would say Chatzi Kaddish and take out a Sefer Torah like on a Taanis Tzibur, they'd take out a Sefer Torah and lein what you're supposed to lein in the morning, Monday and Thursday morning. Then he would put back the Sefer Torah, they would say Chatzi Kaddish, and then they would davven Mincha. So the people who passed by in the hall they would think it must be a Brisker shita, a sheineh mishigass, you got to lein krias hatorah at Mincha. They never heard of it, they didn't know that the Shulchan Aruch does say, they weren't so me'uyan in the Shulchan, everything must be a Brisker shita. Of course it wasn't a Brisker shita. There was a little Brisker shita here that the Rav said that Rav Chaim's opinion was that krias hatorah is a chovas hayom and not. ...nearly a chovas hatzibbur and if a yachid, if a yachid missed krias hatorah, so he should try to scrounge together a minyan in order to hear krias hatorah even. And Rav Chaim held that one can laining even like late the afternoon. There are some poskim who hold, the minorites, the poskim hold that קריאת התורה של שני וחמישי has to be davka in the morning, before chatzos during zman tefillah shacharis in conjunction with davening shacharis. And the Rov, other poskim hold הלכה כמאן דאמר that one can even lain krias hatorah in the afternoon. This was in fact Rav Chaim's practice when Rav Chaim would be traveling, this is recorded in other places. A lot of times the Rov used to tell us, and I used to wonder is this really true? This is a little too much to be true and then 30 years later I saw it printed in someone else's sefer, emor rabbeinu or someone else wrote in the name of Rav Chaim, not from the family, it's not they're quoting Rav Soloveitchik. I didn't have emunas chachomim? The Rov used to give sometimes hanhagos, the biurim and interpretations and I was wondering is this really the pshat and years later I found out that's the way a lot of gedolim said that. He wasn't the only Rov that, they quote Rav Chaim said that, Rav Itzele and others and other Lita'isher gedolim. He wasn't the only one. So this also, dos steht gepaskened, this was Rav Chaim's practice. Some people misunderstood a lot of times, they thought it must be a Brisk shitah that you lain krias hatorah at mincha. I remember on a yahrzeit once, the Rov used to daven for amud, on the yahrzeit he was davening chazaras hashatz out loud at mincha and then he would say sim shalom. Why did he say sim shalom? Oh, so a whole group of boys figured out a gantzeh torah, a gantzeh pshat, that what? When there's krias hatorah so everybody says sim shalom because we say birkas kohanim at mincha. Setzten sich up that when a person and the Rov was fasting, we all knew the Rov was fasting on his yahrzeit, so you see that the Rov holds, the Rov shitah, the Rov shitah, the Rov shitah, the Rov holds that the chazan says sim shalom even with a ta'anis yachid. So I remember a group of boys said that, I said you guys are crazy. There is no such thing. He said no, it has to be. I said it's wrong, go ask the Rov. No, obviously so someone finally asked the Rov. The Rov explained he says sim shalom to maariv also, he davens nusach Ha'ari and he says sim shalom. He's not gonna go check what you daven in the side room, so he has to go make a cheshbon how many people daven nusach Ha'ari, how many people daven nusach Ashkenaz, so he daven his nusach, he says sim shalom. So many people they misunderstood, many practices that the Rov was totally misunderstood and many things, I mean these are in a certain sense silly. In Shulchan Aruch there's an issue when the chazan finishes davening shemoneh esrei and he says yihiyu l'ratzon he should step back to say oseh shalom bimromav. So the poskim say that if he's going to say kaddish right away, then he can rely on stepping back oseh shalom bimromav of the kaddish, but if he's going to say tachanun, then the Magen Avraham quotes from the poskim that the proper practice is that the chazan should step back three steps, say oseh shalom bimromav softly before he gets to say kaddish, before he gets to say tachanun, he shouldn't rely on the stepping back after the kaddish. So that's what the Rov used to do when he used to daven for amud when he had yahrzeit on shacharis and mincha. So a lot of the boys didn't know that this is discussed in Shulchan Aruch. Oh, so the Rov has a new thing, so they would do the same practice on Shabbos and Yom Tov. Shabbos, Yom Tov we don't say tachanun, so there's no machlokes over there, everybody agrees that the chazan should rely on the stepping back oseh shalom bimromav, there's no machlokes over there. So finally we convinced some of these chachamim to ask the Rov, so the Rov said that's what it says in Shulchan Aruch. It's just when you say tachanun, then you shouldn't rely, the chazan shouldn't rely on the stepping back. So these are really that, these are really trivia. The Gemara in the first perek in Chullin discusses. The Gemara says that רבי התיר בית שאן based on the testimony of Yehoshua ben Zeruz, the brother-in-law of Rebbe Meir, that he said that רבי מאיר אכל עלה של ירק בלי להפריש תרומות ומעשרות,
so it's a ra'yah that the פרצה של בית שאן וחוצה לארץ וגם לא נתקדשו בקדושה שנייה.
So the Gemara says and how do you know that that's the maiseh? How do you know that that's the reason why, because it was chutz l'aretz? Maybe this and maybe that, and maybe he was hifrish baleiv and maybe he נתן עיניו בצד זה ואכל בצד זה? So the Gemara says what are you talking about? חזי מאי גברא רבה קמסהיד עליה. Yehoshua ben Zeruz is an adam gadol, he's telling you over, he saw a story of Rebbe Meir and he understood, he knew how to interpret it. So you see from the Gemara that if you have a gavra rabba telling over a maiseh rav, then you assume that he interpreted properly. But some people see an adam gadol do something, it doesn't necessarily mean that they understood properly, it may be that there were 99 points of information that are missing and they simply misunderstood. There were more serious things that the Rov was totally misunderstood, there was a story, the Rov used to tell mora'dika stories always, he used to tell a lot of stories in connection, very often in connection with the halachos. So stories always helped us remember the halacha, fascinating stories that we would remember so the middle would remember, remember the halacha. By the way, the way it's described in the Shulchan Aruch that when it comes to kaddish only one person says the kaddish. It was a recent innovation that everybody says kaddish at the same time. So there are rules and regulations to who has the right to say the one kaddish. So if one is shloshim and one is shiva... a father, and brother, and an uncle, and he's a Yahrzeit and he's not here, is he a member, is he not a member, how long did he live in the community, all kinds of rules. So once in the Sha'agas Aryeh's community, there was an aisek who's gonna say Kaddish? So the Sha'agas Aryeh says they should varf goral, they should draw lots. So some of the balabatim who were lamdanim they said, "But Rebbe, the Magen Avraham has rules and regulations. What do you mean varf goral?" Whereupon the Sha'agas Aryeh responded, "And how do you think the Magen Avraham came to those conclusions? He also drew lots. So we're gonna figure it out the same way the Magen Avraham did." So Rav Soloveitchik would tell over this story in certain, in certain instances when people would ask him, "What's the halacha in a certain case?" So he would say "Varf goral." And then they would wonder, "Varf goral? We asked him what's the halacha!" So he'd tell over the story from the Sha'agas Aryeh and he thought that they understood what he was driving at. That there are certain matters that are simply non-halachic. Just a silly mashal, you come to a community and they have red lights and green lights. And you don't know what's the minhag hamakom. Red light means go or red light means stop? So varf goral! Make up your mind whether red light means go or red light means stop. This is not a halachic issue. It's an arbitrary thing. You have to decide one way or the other. Whenever it's a non-halachic issue, so varf goral. So Rav Soloveitchik would say this very often and he would tell over this story. And many of the people that he told it to totally misunderstood what he said. They would get furious. "What do you mean varf goral? I asked for the halacha!" That's exactly what I answered: there is no halacha. The halacha doesn't have something to... what kind of a shirt should you wear? Should you wear a striped shirt or a white on white or a white? So he would say "Varf goral." It's not a halachic issue. You're not asking a shaila in din, so varf goral. So people misunderstood the Rav. I heard people saying, "Rav Soloveitchik said that all of the Magen Avraham's decisions in Shulchan Aruch were based on the fact that he just drew lots." That's what Rav Soloveitchik said? So why did he break his head all the time to figure out pshat in the Magen Avraham? Why did he break his head to figure out all these shivin nekiyim to figure out pshat in a shver Shach in Yoreh Deah and a shver Magen Avraham? That's not what he said. He was talking to people who didn't even understand his sichas chulin. What he meant to say was that it's a non-halachic issue, so there is no halacha, there is no psak, and you have to do whatever you want. Several years ago I was sitting in a pidyon haben next to Professor Twersky and he told me that he asked me if we can get a bochur from the kollel to teach Gemara in Maimonides school. They had difficulty getting a good rebbe. So I said, "To tell you the truth, I spoke to a few people already, the people from the yeshiva had already asked me, I spoke to some of the bochurim in kollel, they don't want to go because it's co-ed." So he tells me, "Oh, he understands that," and he tells me that he really misunderstood... he thought that he was close to his father-in-law the Rav all these years, he thought he understood the Rav's position, and he came to the realization that he didn't understand it. His father-in-law had told him just a year or two before, "That now that I'm getting old, he thinks that it's time that they should separate the classes in Maimonides, but as long as he was healthy and able to look around in the school, he thought his supervision was sufficient to watch over the fact that it's co-ed. But now that he's old, he thinks that they should separate the classes." So Dr. Twersky told me I should get a bochur, I should get a talmid chacham from the kollel and tell him that we plan to separate the classes. And tell him... so that's what I told the bochur. I don't know, I think they still didn't separate the classes, that's a problem. But this is what Dr. Twersky told me. This was already a major issue. We're not talking about Keriat HaTorah in Mincha, and we're not talking about oseh shalom bimromav, it was a more important issue. I remember the first year I was in Rav Soloveitchik's shiur, there was a story... I was pretty young, I was only 16 then, I was still in high school. And there was a story going around... so I heard the stories also, there was a story going around and I never ascertained it until yesterday. Yesterday I was sitting on the bimah so I had heard over 35 years ago who the baal hamaaseh was. So I spoke to him yesterday and I asked, "What's the din? Did he ever hear this story?" So he says, "Tell me..." Yeah, he was the baal hamaaseh and he told me over the maaseh she'haya. He said that when he was in the Rav's shiur, he's pretty close to the Rav, a very bright student, so he's pretty close to the Rav, and he asked him, "When you go out with girls, do you have to be medakdek to see that the girl wants to cover her hair?" So Rav Soloveitchik told him, "Are you going out already? Is it just theoretical or is it halacha lemaaseh?" He says, "No, I didn't start going out yet." So the Rav said, "When it will be halacha lemaaseh, then you'll ask me." So he didn't know why the Rav was so snappy. "It's okay." So he waited three quarters of a year, whatever, until the next year, started going out. Then he came back to the Rav and told the Rav, "He started to go out and I asked the shaila last year whether married... whether one should be makpid about insisting that the girl should cover her hair." So Rav Soloveitchik told him, "Absolutely. The halacha is halacha and don't ask me a kasha from the fact that there are so many choshuve rabbanim whose wives don't cover their hair. Halacha is halacha, and what it says on the Aruch HaShulchan, behalatza on the Aruch HaShulchan, it's narishkeit, dvarim betelim, that's not what he meant to say." People misunderstood the Rav in a tremendous way. They had the impression as if the Rav was interested in changing everything, changing over the whole mode of religious observance. I don't, my impression was not so at all. The Rav in one of the every three years there used to be a chag hasmicha and the Rav used to give the major address in the auditorium on the occasion of the chag hasmicha. And I remember on one occasion he was giving a drasha and it was getting on and it was long and he used to speak ba'arichus. So on one occasion I remember that he, it used to be in Yiddish all the time, he used to say, "Rabbosai, it's only once every three years you can sit and listen, nisht geferlach, you're not going to have to suffer for another three years, stop catching." And I remember on one occasion he used to give major addresses on the occasion of the chag hasmicha. I remember on one occasion he was speaking, he was giving an azhara to the yungersleit that they shouldn't rush to change the halacha when science comes up with some new facts. He says the halacha, the Torah is going to be with us for a long time to come and the scientists may change their mind in a year or two, so don't be so hasty to change the halacha. He was very wary of changing any halacha. I remember in fact when the Rav delivered the talk Kol Dodi Dofek, check exactly what year that was, I don't remember, I remember he was banging on the shtender, Kol Dodi Dofek. He was not every every ten minutes when he had another knock so he would give the presentation, he would give very dramatic presentation. Kol Dodi Dofek, all the opportunities that the Ribono Shel Olam gave Knesses Yisroel to come back to Eretz Yisroel and so on. So the good part of the drasha was published, but not everything was published. It stands out pretty sharply in my mind that part of the drasha was that Rav Soloveitchik was discussing the observance of Yom Ha'atzmaut, the end of the day. He said he understands that in Eretz Yisroel the practice is that they take haircuts and they shtell chuppas, they shtell chassunas on Yom Ha'atzmaut. In fact, he didn't mention it on that occasion, but they say, they have in the books, that all the boys in Merkaz Harav and for most of the yeshivos in Eretz Yisroel they don't shave during Sefira. And when it comes to Yom Ha'atzmaut so Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook insisted that everybody has to shave and whoever didn't shave and he would see them he would say הכרת פניהם ענתה בם, you can tell on your face that you don't believe in Yad Hashem, you don't believe in the Ribono Shel Olam's nissim veniflaos and it's terrible, you have to shave on Yom Ha'atzmaut, a heter gomur. So I remember Rav Soloveitchik had this side comment, it wasn't, I don't think it was a part of the major, it wasn't the major point in the address. He developed a theme at that time that we have beautiful, wonderful minhagim and we shouldn't forget them. So he, I think I was very young at that time, but I seem to recall that he said something that ran roughly as follows: that before every Yom Tov when we have a simcha, a yom tov'dige simcha, we try to make a cheshbon hanefesh and have a serious observance in advance to make sure that the simcha should be observed properly. So he said before Purim so you have Taanis Esther, before Pesach you have Taanis Bechorim, before Rosh Hashanah you have Selichos and many fast on Erev Rosh Hashanah, before Succos you have Yom Kippur, before Shavuos you have the whole period of Sefira. And he said on another occasion that according to the Zohar the period of Sefira is a period of aveilus min hatorah, it has nothing to do with talmidei Rabbi Akiva dying, שתהא הספירה הזאת טהורה מטומאתנו ומפגעינו, it's a time to be metaher ourselves and all arichus, when one is in a state of tumah is in a semi-state of aveilus. He gave a whole arichus d'varim on that, Lifnei Hashem, since it's Lifnei Hashem and aveilus is not Lifnei Hashem, since our aveilus is tied to the fact that one is tamei, is not admitted to the Beis Hamikdash, so obviously it's like aveilus in the sense that he's not Lifnei Hashem, he's staying away from Hashem. So he said he thinks that it's a beautiful minhag like all the Yiddishe minhagim are beautiful minhagim and he doesn't see why it's necessary for the purpose of observing Yom Ha'atzmaut to violate the minhagim of Sefira. In fact, I don't think his practice was to say Hallel on Yom Ha'atzmaut. When he used to daven with the tallis over his head, so the he would daven in the minyan, so if they said Hallel, so he would just, I understand that he didn't say Hallel, he would just stay in the minyan. On one occasion when he was davening across the street in the dormitory, so the students got a little carried away, so they not carried away, whatever, they had one of the forms of observing Yom Ha'atzmaut is to have a haftorah, I assume without brachos, on Yom Ha'atzmaut. So when they began to lein the haftorah, so Rav Soloveitchik walked out and he got, he walked out on the haftorah. He was so angry, I wasn't in the shiur at that time already, I was saying my own shiur, so that day he was so angry about the fact that the students had been so carried away with their observance of Yom Ha'atzmaut so he started to pour his heart out instead of giving the regular shiur, he's pouring his heart out about the fact, "Yeah, we believe in Religious Zionism and wonderful, we believe the medina is a wonderful thing, but still you don't go crazy, you don't you don't introduce all the observances from, you don't simply..." Everything? Everything? So Rabbi Finklestein after they heard that the Rav had exploded, he got so angry, so Rabbi Finklestein came to the Rav. And then he asked, both here in the high school we had a minyan and we want to know, we want to say Hallel. So does he disapprove of it? And if he doesn't disapprove, how would what would he recommend? Rabbi Finklestein said the Rav thought about it for a while and then he said if you want to say Hallel he recommends that you say חצי הלל בלי ברכה after the Shir Shel Yom. Okay, you can think of it, people can think of it, but that's what he said. So he personally I think said that he didn't say any Hallel, but this is what he recommended for those who do want to say Hallel. He didn't want to, he wasn't so keen on changing anything. He felt that if you go to start introducing changes, the hamon am won't understand why can't you change Shabbos and kashrus and taharas hamishpacha also? After all, if you're changing the halachos, let's change everything. He was very opposed, and until I used to daven all the time by baalebatim, I never davened in yeshivos till later years. So baalebatim, which shul by baalebatim says all the piyutim? In my shul where I davened they never said all the piyutim on Yom Kippur, they skipped maybe kfitzas haderech. The first time I ever davened by baalebatim and said everything was in Boston. The Rav said every piyut in the book. And then on Tisha B'Av we said every kinah in the book. In my shul by the baalebatim they didn't say all the kinos. Who ever said all the kinos? You say the major kinos that are written in a Hebrew that the people stand a chance of pronouncing and understanding. The kinos they can't even pronounce, they can't even understand, Az kotz kitz, the piyutim and the kinos that the Ibn Ezra makes fun of, Elos, Motzai, we didn't, we didn't say those. The Rav insisted on, and he said once, I remember he said once a ma'aseh in a shiur to the baalebatim that he consulted his father about this. And his father said you better not leave anything out. If you leave one thing out, the baalebatim's perception will be that you can change, and you can do, and you can snip, and you can do whatever you want. And then they'll want to know why, why do we do away with this, and let's leave out Musaf, and let's leave out Tekias Shofar, and let's leave out the other thing. Let's change everything. I was told, I didn't hear this personally, I was told that the Rav was opposed to rabbanim holding a drasha in the middle of a chuppah. If they want to speak, they should speak before the chuppah. Even though I thought that I was a big genius and I thought that I outsmarted the Rav and I had a whole taana and shiur when I learned with the talmidim, I explained why that's the best place to hold the drasha is in the middle of the chuppah because in the days of the Geonim, in the days of the Gemara, in the days of the Tanna'im, they used to have eirusin and then they'd have nisu'in a year later. And then in the days of the Geonim, in the days of the Rishonim is when they had the one juxtaposed to the other. They had the eirusin and then the nisu'in immediately following. So they have Tosafos Yom Tov in the name of Avraham ben HaRambam, Rashi, that they introduced the krias hakesubah to have a hafskah that it shouldn't look funny. Why you saying Borei Peri HaGafen? You just said Borei Peri HaGafen. Bizman HaTanna'im, bizman HaGemara they said Borei Peri HaGafen on kos eirusin, then a year later they said Borei Peri HaGafen on the kos nisu'in. Once you move up the nisu'in to be immediately following the eirusin, so the second Borei Peri HaGafen has no room. So that's what the Tosafos Yom Tov quotes, that they introduced the krias hakesubah for a hafskah. And he says the krias hakesubah specifically that you should read the kesubah slowly. Any of you, anybody who remembers Reb Leizer Silver zechono l'vracha, he used to read the kesubah, he would give a dramatic presentation of the kesubah. He would read slowly, and wait, and if anyone would be whispering he would wait until they'd stop whispering. So that's takeh, that's a hafskah. So I thought if the rabbi's going to hold a drasha, what better place is it than to hold a longer drasha and the chassan stands there all over there. All the hafskos should be in the middle where the Rishonim said you've gotta make a hafskah. So I thought I was so smart. But then I understood, then they told me Rav Soloveitchik said no, you can't do it in the middle. I said what do you mean you can't do it in the middle? Adarabba, that's what the Rishonim said. So I think what he probably meant was I don't think he meant al pi din, he meant like he said from his father about the Rav, that where rabbanim have to be careful not to introduce any shinuyim because the perception on the part of the baalebatim will be that we have the right to change, everything is just ceremonies, and you can change the ceremonies at will, and then the people will want to change everything else also. Adarabba, the Rav was very insistent on retaining old minhagim even those that have been neglected already for hundreds of years. Like in Shulchan Aruch, the Rav, whether it's a minhag, a din, whatever, that on a taanis tzibbur, in the Chazaras Hashatz of the Mincha on a taanis tzibbur you have to have two people standing next to the chazzan during Chazaras Hashatz. So the Magen Avraham says that our practice is not so. Only Yom Kippur is a taanis tzibbur. No taanis tzibbur in Bavel except for Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur the mechaber writes that you have to have two people standing next to the chazzan during the tefillah, during Chazaras Hashatz. So the Magen Avraham says our practice is not so, we only have the two eidus standing next to the chazzan during Kol Nidre, so that's for Hataras Nedarim. And then during Neilah because Neilah is a tefillas hataanis, Neilah is a tefillah that's only, it has nothing to do with Yom Kippur, Neilah is recited on every taanis. So Rav Soloveitchik thought that we should go back to the old minhagim, even though it hasn't been observed for so many years, and he insisted, and in Boston they had it like that, and they introduced it here in the yeshiva also, that they have two people standing next to the chazzan during the Chazaras Hashatz of Shacharis, and Musaf, and Mincha as well. Or in Shulchan Aruch the Rama quotes a minhag... Others' tashlum in the Gemara. So even though that's not the common practice, so the Rav eventually used to observe the practice of bowing down for the whole Modim from the beginning to the end, like the old minhag that was recorded in the Rema. Or the Rema has another minhag that the Mishnah Berurah says has already been neglected that when a person gets an aliyah, so he shouldn't look into the Sefer Torah, lest people will think brachas written by Torah. The Gemara Megillah has such a concern. So one Tanna says you have to close the Sefer Torah in order that no one should think that you're reading his brachas from the Sefer Torah. We don't pasken like that Tanna. We pasken that there's nothing to worry about. So the Rema says well, mi'ikar din you don't have to but it's proper yes to worry about it, therefore you should turn to the side, and instead of turning to this side you should turn to that side, check he has a whole minhag. And then the Mishnah Berurah says the minhag is not so, just leave the Sefer Torah open and you close your eyes. So the Rav used to have the practice and all those who saw the Rav, my Rebbe followed that in the yeshiva then he had that practice, to turn to the left side. He would he liked to he liked to revert back to old minhagim. In fact he told us that in the early years when he was first married, so that later he explained why he changed his minhag. He said in the early years when he was first married he had the practice to follow the minhag of the Ba'alei Tosafot that they would daven mincha first and then have the wife bentch licht to be choshesh for the shitas Bahag. Because the Bahag says that הדלקת נרות על ידי הבעלבסטה is קבלת תוספת שבת בעל כרחו של הבית, so if the baleboste's gonna bentch licht then you can't daven mincha because once you mekabel Shabbos, once it's tosefet Shabbos you'd have to daven tefillas Shabbos. So the practice of the Ba'alei Tosafot was, I think the Magen Avraham quotes it from the Rishonim, that they would daven mincha in shul and then they would send the little boys home to tell the mothers that they should bentch licht. So he said that was his custom, he used to daven mincha b'yechidus before his wife would bentch licht. Then in later years he changed that practice. He had a lot of issues where he would revert back to old minhagim. In fact I remember that he mentioned that usually on Erev Pesach when you're holding by when the rabbi's just about to sell chametz, some baleboste calls up the rabbi and asks him and says he forgot to hashraat hachametz, he wants the rabbi to sell the whole chametz. Fine, so the din is that you don't have to make a kinyan sudar, you don't have to sign a document, if you appoint a shaliach b'al peh, that's also sufficient. But the Rambam quotes in Hilchos Mechirah at the beginning of Hilchos Mechirah the Rambam writes that there was such a minhag and we still have the minhag today to make a kinyan sudar when you appoint a shaliach, that to make a kinyan sudar with the shaliach where the rabbi gives a handkerchief to the baleboste in exchange for which the baleboste gives the rabbi the koach to be the shaliach. But this baleboste's calling on the telephone so he can't do it, so he can't so the Rav said no, he thinks he should try to observe the minhag even if he's calling on the telephone. Well how can you observe the minhag? So he had with a chochma that the Rambam explains in Hilchos Mechirah that what is this minhag all about? It doesn't make any sense. The Rambam is right that there are certain kinyanim where a kinyan is not necessary and it's not even chal. So why do we make a kinyan if it's not even chal, it's not even nitpas in a kinyan? So the Rambam says the purpose of the kinyan is to demonstrate that he's appointing the shaliach בלב שלם ובלב גמור, just to demonstrate that there's a full g'miras daas. So then the Rambam says l'fichach what if the person appoints a shaliach and says בלב שלם אני עושה דבר זה I'm appointing you b'lev shaleim, then there's no the Rambam says there's no meaning to the minhag at all and then it's useless to make a kinyan, no need to make a kinyan. So the Rav said if you have a baleboste calls you up on the telephone and he can't come in person and he wants you to be his shaliach, so ask him are you doing this b'lev shaleim? Are you appointing me with all of your heart? You're appointing a shaliach? He says yes, then you're yotzei the minhag. Then you're yotzei so he said the rabbonim should try to be yotzei the minhag that the Rambam records an alter minhag to make a kinyan sudar even though the baleboste's calling on the phone, how can you observe the minhag? He says no because the Rambam says that that satisfies the minhag. Just recalling I remember the first year that I learned in the Rav's shiur they put up a sign on the bulletin board that the Rav will not come in to say shiur until the third week in the term. All students are expected to prepare תל דלת עמוד אלף. Everybody else starts shiur right away and the Rav is not going to come until the third week. So I remember when we were learning tel daled, a bochur told us a story and then later on I heard that it's a true story. He told us a story that there was some shul in Boston, it used to be an orthodox shul, they had separate seating with a mechitza, and the balebattim the board had a vote and they decided to take down the mechitza and have mixed seating. And Rav Soloveitchik was chas v'shalom very unhappy about that. So he, that's how the story goes, he calls up Rav Leizer Silver with whom he was very friendly and he asks would he be maskim to sign an issur and they're going to print it in the newspaper. So I remember the talmidim in the yeshiva said over the version that Rav Leizer Silver said, "An issur? Any time. Mixed seating? Any time." I don't know, that's the way the story goes, I don't know exactly where they heard the story. So they printed this issur in the newspaper, the Rav Soloveitchik, Rav Leizer Silver put an issur on davening in the shul because they took down the mechitza. So the story goes that the first night of Slichos the chairman of the board or the vice president or whoever it was got up in the shul and said these fogies are telling us that we have to have this mechitza so we're not... That was before Selichos, the first night of Selichos, that was the first night before Selichos, and then around 2 o'clock at night he got a heart attack and he died. So the Talmidim took it as a mofes that it was a killelas ha-sof. So we were petrified. That would be before the Rav says the shiur. We were petrified, this guy, how this man has the power that he gets angry at us, wow. Just imagine this zman for a year like that. And I was wondering, I was wondering to myself, what's the matter, all the other Rebbeim start the first week, who does this man think that he is? What do you mean we have this, this sign this regest put up a sign on the bulletin board all over I used to learn over there at that place, so all the students have to prepare till Lamed Vav Rabbi Soloveitchik cannot begin the shiur and for... what's this? Everybody else starts from day number one. מה נשתנה הראש ישיבה הזה מכל הראשי ישיבות. Then the Rav came in the third week on the Yom Tov Lamed Vav. He gave two shiurim on Tuesday and Wednesday, he was ready ahead of everybody else. The others said a shiur every day of the week, Sunday through Thursday, and they started the first week and they were already two and a half weeks into shiur, and the Rav gave the first shiur on Tuesday, he had already stayed ahead of everybody, he already covered all the material. I remember even the first shiur, one of the first shiurim on Sunday, we were learning Sanhedrin then. One of the first shiurim on Sanhedrin, the Rav had a big yesod which persisted years later in the Teshuvos Ha-Smicha, that there's a dispute between the Rambam and Tosafos what the nature of the din of smicha is. So his main yesod was based on the Or Sameach. In one of the earlier shiurim, he mentioned the Or Sameach has a biur on the Rambam that the Rambam's binyan is that smicha is not a din beis din, but rather a din hora'ah and din psak. And then the Rav expanded upon that. The Rav on many occasions quoted many Acharonim. Yesterday Rabbi Soloveitchik mentioned that his father in his library didn't have too many sefarim. He had a limited library. He clearly had a limited library, that's a fact, but in Europe he used all of these sefarim. The Rav used to mention in the shiur sefarim pshutim from the members of his family, used to mention the Minchas Baruch. Everybody who learned over there by the Rav remembers the Minchas Baruch. The first shiur in Hilchos Ta'aruvos would be to rip apart what the Minchas Baruch said. Minchas Baruch was always quoted by the Steipler, always quoted the Minchas Baruch, was Rav Baruch Karinka, I think he's from the Bais HaRav. The Rav used to mention the Malbushei Yom Tov, who was a Rav, he was a Rav of Chaslavitch. The Rav was in Chaslavitch for a while. He used to mention and in fact the Rav told over the story the way his father was so eager to buy the sefer Amudei Or that he would put away a few pennies every week until he finally scrounged up until he finally got enough money to buy the sefer Amudei Or and he bought it, he enjoyed it so much. So in America we have money, so I heard the sefer, I went right away and I bought the Amudei Or. I don't understand why his father liked the Amudei Or. I don't understand why he saved so much money, but he said his father was mechabev this sefer the Amudei Or. Gevaldig, maybe he's also a relative. The Rav mentioned, he once, the Rav once came into the shiur when they were saying shiur on Bava Metzia. So he brought in the notebook of Rav Chaim, so he's reading the notes and he said Rav Chaim quotes the sefer Ma'ayanei HaChokhmah and he doesn't know what the sefer is. Ma'ayanei HaChokhmah is a pilpul sefer on Bava Metzia by Rav Leibel Schor, the one who wrote the 150 sefarim on every miktzoa she-ba-Torah and every topic in the Torah. The Rav once told over a story, it happened that we discussed it last week, the Rav told over a story about the way Rav Eisel Charif said that when he comes to Olam HaEmes he's gonna bring the Noda BiYehudah to the din Torah for being maktzer him five rubles. So the Noda BiYehudah writes a teshuvah to the Bechor Shor, a Sephardish Rav who was in Constantinople, and he writes הרב הגאון החסיד ובקי חריף, everything, such fancy titles. So the Rav, Eisel Charif, Eisel Slonimer saw the titles in the Noda BiYehudah sefer, so he figured such a great gaon, it's kedai to buy the sefer, so it cost him five rubles and he bought the sefer Divrei Emes. And it's a Sephardish sefer, topics that's nothing special, off the bekius, nothing special. So he said he's angry at the Noda BiYehudah why he misled him with all the titles. When he comes to Olam HaEmes he's gonna have a tveia on the five rubles. So the Rav said that Rav Chaim right away responded to the Rav Eisel Charif about a certain issue, what's the din about אי דאית ליה איסורא, so it applies by nashim, and he said it's certainly good, Rav Chaim said, Oh, look in the Divrei Emes. Obviously Rav Chaim handled these sefarim and he looked in the sefarim, I never heard of the Divrei Emes until the Rav told the story. Now I see it tells him the story. I still wouldn't buy a Divrei Emes even if it's in the stores. So obviously Rav Chaim handled these sefarim and he looked in the sefarim. He used to say over the Rav would quote the sefer Eglei Tal. He didn't have it here. When we learned Sanhedrin he used to quote a Chassidish sefer on Sanhedrin called Sifsei Chachamim on Sanhedrin, Tana. He used to quote from a lot of sefarim. He used to quote the Kzos, the Nesivos HaMishpat. He used to quote a lot of sefarim. In fact I remember when the kollel first started, the second kollel, not from the Europeans in the 1940s, in more recent years, when they started the kollel, so I think we started learning the end of Bava Kama. So I remember one evening the Rav came over and he said, Oh, the end of Bava Kama, he remembers learning Bava Kama, that part of Bava Kama, he says this is the shmentena of Bava Kama, the end. The best, the most geshmak part. He remembers learning this part of Bava Kama with his father with the Yam Shel Shlomo. I had never seen a Yam Shel Shlomo. So he used to learn with his father with the Yam Shel Shlomo. I remember that time he told the boys, "I understand that the Chazon Ish has a sefer on Bava Kamma. He recommended we should look at the Chazon Ish." And he gave us his explanation why. He said, "I don't think he ever met the Chazon Ish." He said that he heard that the Chazon Ish wasn't that much of a bal kishron. He wasn't that much of a genius. And whatever all that he accomplished was through pure yegia, that he worked so hard, and he mastered kol hatorah kulah. He mastered so much. Everything has Zeraim, Kodashim, Taharos, Nashim, Nezikin, everything, Moed he has what to say, comment, very penetrate comment on everything. And everything that he accomplished was through yegia. So he said, "That's kedai, boys, you understand the sefer from the Chazon Ish. You should get the Chazon Ish's sefer." We never got, we never got the Chazon Ish. But that's what he recommended. He would encourage us, I remember originally when they formed the Kailo, the Rav thought that part of the Sidra Hakailo should be Tanya and the Ramban Al Hatorah. Every week we should learn the Ramban Al Hatorah. The Gemara in Eruvin has a certain sharp comment, a certain critique regarding talmidei chachamim who learn without a niggun. כל השונה בלא זמרה עליו הכתוב אומר וגם אני נתתי להם חוקים לא טובים ומשפטים לא יחיו בהם.
Yeah, what does it mean you take them literally with a niggun? Okay, you have to learn with a niggun also. But I think perhaps included in the Gemara is, included in the Gemara, I don't think this is pshat, but included in the comment that the Gemara makes is the following. You have some talmidei chachamim who are experts in halacha. They can formulate the halacha, they can give you very sharp definitions. But when it comes to aggadeta, they don't have any ability at all. When it comes to drush, upgeret, they don't have the koach hadrush. And this is a little bit the chisaron of Torah. You have to have halacha, you have to learn with a little bit of a niggun, with a little bit of ruach chayim. You have to have aggadeta also, and you have to have drush also. And the Rav would say aggadeta, it was moradik. When the Rav would say drush, it was moradik shebemoradik. One of the, one of the Rashei Yeshiva in Eretz Yisrael, and one of the Mizrachi, one of the heads of the yeshivas pointed out to me, I'm not familiar, you tell me the Rav Kook writes in one of his essays that all of machshava, Jewish philosophy, is important but it all has to be based on halacha. If you just give machshava that's not based on halacha, so how do you know that you know what you're talking about? So this Rosh Yeshiva told me that he learned a lot of sifrei Rav Kook, I'm not familiar with all the sifrei Rav Kook, rather doesn't do it so much. He says the one who does it is Rabbi Soloveitchik. And that's what he always did. The Rav would give a machshava, a rayon would always be based on halacha. In aggadeti, you know, it's float and say, and drush, upgeret, you can float and say whatever you want, you can float away in the clouds. But if you have a din, and the din indicates that this is the hashkafas hatorah, and then when you want to expand that hashkafas hatorah, its hypothesis, and then you base, then you can expand a little bit. But the makor and the shoresh has to be from something in the halacha. There is a very beautiful essay that's printed in Rabbi Besdin's book, Reflections of the Rav. The first volume is a collection of 20 essays, 20 drashos that the Rav gave. So there's one knockout drasha that the Rav gave on an aggadeta in Sanhedrin daf zayin. On דף ו עמוד ב, the Gemara talks about din peshara, whether you're permitted to have peshara. Then on daf zayin, the Gemara gives a back a whole list of aggadeta, seven memras in the Gemara, where the Gemara says ההוא דהוה קאזיל ואמר, that there was a fellow who always used to say a certain pisgam amami. He used to have a certain statement. And then the Gemara quotes an Amora who will back it up from a pasuk in Tanach. So what was the, what's going on over there? Why did the Gemara feel the importance of quoting a pasuk in Tanach to demonstrate that the folk saying, that this poshete balabos said, had any significance? And why does this appear in Sanhedrin in the middle of the sugya of peshara? What's the connection? So that's what Rabbi Soloveitchik explained, and it's written over beautiful. The essays there are written over very beautiful, I would recommend it. It's written so clearly, an intelligent high school student can understand it well. But it's not on a low level. An older person will also see, and then say, "That's it." That's in the essay. It's a very beautiful essay. So Rabbi Soloveitchik explained that peshara is also a din Torah. That's what he said in the shiur. Peshara is also a din Torah. Except that din is a din Torah where you pasken based on din. Peshara is a din Torah where you pasken based on lifnim mishuras hadin. So who is to determine what the lifnim mishuras hadin is? What yosher dictates? The sechel haadam? Who says that the person has sechel to know what's right? So that's where the Gemara has a whole assumption that Jews have an intuition, they have a certain common sense to judge what is yosher. Why should this be so? So Rabbi Soloveitchik quoted the maimar in the aggadeta in the Gemara in Niddah, which Rabbi Soloveitchik used to quote every so often in many drashos to bring out different ideas. But the Gemara says that before the baby is born, whether it's a baby boy or a baby girl, before a baby is born, the malach teaches the baby kol hatorah kulah, and then the malach makes the baby forget. So if the malach is going to cause the baby to forget, so what's the significance of teaching kol hatorah kulah? So that's what the Rav said, in order that when the child... baby's born, he already has a knack, a natural inclination towards ahavat Hashem, towards shemirat hamitzvot. The Rav quoted that the Rambam writes in the end of Perek Bet in Hilchot Gerushin that when a man doesn't want to give his wife a get and the halacha says that he's supposed to give his wife a get, so the Mishnah says: כופין אותו עד שיאמר רוצה אני. Beat him up until he says rotzeh ani. So the Gemara in Masechet Bava Batra asks what good is that? He doesn't want to! So what good is it that you beat him up? So the Rambam quotes one of the answers that the Gemara gave—it's a difficult Rambam, it should be popped from the other end—but the Rambam quotes the one answer that the Gemara gave, that his true inner self really wants all along, he wants, and the vov is a pseudo personality, his real ani really wanted all along, because every Jew really wants deep down in his heart, wants to do ratzon Hashem. There's what the Baal HaTanya calls an ahava hamusteret towards Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The Rav was very fond of quoting all of this—Baal HaTanya with this Rambam with this Gemara with the malach—he quoted it on several occasions that I heard. And the vov is a pseudo personality, his yetzer hara that doesn't let him do the ratzon Hashem. So then we beat him up and then he says rotzeh ani. He's got rid of this false personality and the real ani is now coming out and he's saying what's really so: the real ani really wants to give the get, he really wants to do ratzon Hashem. By the goy, there's such a concept of tabula rasa, when a baby is born, he's born with no innate knowledge, no innate tendencies. Yeah, that's by goyim, that's true. But by us it's not so. We don't have tabula rasa because the malach has inculcated it in us by teaching us Torah, has inculcated the ratzon to serve Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That's the source of the ahava hamusteret. And the only way to get to that ahava hamusteret is by learning Torah. That's what the Rav said, that by the Gaon, the Gaon, I never saw this anywhere, never heard it anywhere else, the Rav said that by the Gaon, the minhag was, they used to rope off the bimah on Simchat Torah when they used to have the hakafot. Why? So they said the Gaon said that the dancing on Simchat Torah with the Sifrei Torah around the bimah is really dancing around the Shechinah. And the pasuk that we say in Atah Hareita, ואמר ביום ההוא הנה אלקינו זה קיוינו לו ויושיענו, etc., that's the key pasuk in the Atah Hareita. The Gemara in the end of Masechet Taanit says le'atid lavo Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to make a machol for the tzaddikim. Machol means a round circle, and the tzaddikim will be dancing around and pointing zeh, zeh means pointing with the etzba, they'll be pointing towards the Shechinah, who will be in the middle, and they will say הנה אלקינו זה קיוינו לו ויושיענו. So we today make this dance al shem he'atid, we're preparing for the dance that's going to be le'atid lavo. So when we're dancing around the bimah, the Shechinah is supposed to be in the middle. So the Gaon was makpid that during the hakafot they rope off the bimah that nobody should walk there. Shechinah is there, so it's not proper that a basar vadam should be there. So the Rav added on to this, by the way, he said so why do you dance with Sifrei Torah around the Shechinah? So he said because all of the points around the circle represent the ideas that all the points are pointing towards the center. So the only way to reach the Shechinah is by learning Torah. And he added on a minhag agav minhag, and said why is it that the other days of Sukkot we have the Sefer Torah in the middle and we dance around with the arba'ah minim? So he said it's a hemshech of the minhag. The minhag is that only through shemirat hamitzvot can a person succeed to get to the center of the circle, to limud haTorah. If a person is going to learn Torah without shemirat hamitzvot, he will not succeed in being mature, they're in a different type of discipline. And only through limud haTorah can a person succeed to get to the center of that circle to get close to the Shechinah. So this is what the Rav explained in the Gemara in Sanhedrin daf zayin. The Gemara quotes the tisgamim amameiyim, the folk sayings that the people had, and the Gemara says the folk sayings that Klal Yisrael say must be rooted in an intuition that they got from this ahava hamusteret from the fact that the malach taught them kol hatorah kula and they have this innate love towards Hakadosh Baruch Hu and they have—and they have proper hashkafot, naturally they're born with these proper hashkafot, that we don't accept tabula rasa as far as Bnei Yisrael are concerned. So he said that's the kavanah of the Gemara, and that's why the Gemara felt compelled to find mekorot in Tanakh to demonstrate that these tisgamim were correct. And that's why the Rav used to consider minhagim as very serious things, very serious things. Minhag Yisrael Torah, he used to say Minhag Yisrael Torah doesn't only mean that you're obligated to observe it. Minhag Yisrael Torah means that it's something that you have to learn like Torah she'kibbalnu miSinai, you have to try to break your head to understand what the minhag is based on. And he used to spend a lot of his shiurim, the chazara over whole shiur, apart from Nashim, Nezikin, they ran through minhagim, but on Inyanei Orach Chayim, Yoreh Deah, he used to spend a lot of time to explain what the minhagim are based on. And he was not too quick to change any minhag. That's what Rabbeinu Tam says, the minhag is otiot Gehenom. But sometimes a minhag is a minhag taut, you don't have a minhag to follow it, but unless it's mamash ascertained that it's a minhag taut, we assume that the minhag must have a very good shoresh and it's—and it's something meaningful. The Rav of course pointed out that there are two different types of minhagim that shouldn't be confused. Sometimes you have a minhag that developed from the people, that's this type of minhag that we assume that Klal Yisrael has this type of intuition to figure out something that's really a ratzon Hashem, that the Ribbono Shel Olam really wants. Then you have a different kind of minhag that's instituted by the Chachamim, which is really along the lines of gezeirah or takanah, take for example that's what the Rav explained. יום טוב שני של גלויות is a dispute in the Rishonim whether it's a minhag or a din d'rabbanan. So the Rav once asked, if יום טוב שני של גלויות is only a minhag, so how come we don't wear tefillin on Yom Tov Sheni? Bishlama if it's a din d'rabbanan so then we understand you can say יש כח ביד חכמים לעקור דבר מן התורה בשב ואל תעשה
v'rabbanan takkinu not to lay tefillin. But if only a minhag, that's like Minhag America where people don't wear tefillin. Minhag America they don't keep Shabbos, Kashrus, Taharas Hamishpacha. What kind of a minhag is that, a minhag not to lay tefillin? What are you talking about, what kind of minhag? So the Rav said no, it doesn't mean that kind of the minhag that stems from the people, it's a minhag that stems from the Chachamim. He said there's a different kind of a minhag. That's the minhag Rabbeinu Tam talks about this in a sefer. The Rav quoted the same Rambam. He wasn't familiar what Rabbeinu Tam had said. He used to joke about that from time to time, used to say over something from his father and he called it Toras Avi, and then he said he heard this from his father kodem matan Torah, meaning before Rabbeinu Tam was in session. Before Rabbeinu Tam was in session, he heard this from his father kodem matan Torah, he used to say. So he wasn't familiar, wasn't familiar what the Sefer ha-Yashar says either, he used to write over what he heard al peh. He didn't know the Sefer ha-Yashar from the sefer. He used to say what he heard from his father. A lot of times it didn't correspond exactly to what it said in sefer, was a totally different presentation, a lot of details. So Rabbeinu Tam also, he didn't know what the Sefer ha-Yashar says. So he quoted the same Rambam, so the Rambam says that if one violates a minhag, he's in violation of lo sasur. So the Rav explained that's a different kind of a minhag, not a minhag that stems from the people, it's a minhag that the Chachamim introduced and it carries the ba'alei batim until today, so that type of minhag is something like a takkanas d'rabbanan that there would be a lo sasur. That's what the Rav said. That even the Rishonim say that יום טוב שני של גלויות is a minhag, it doesn't mean that it's a minhag that the people started, but it means that it's a minhag that was introduced by the Chachamim and it encouraged everyone to follow it. The Rav didn't like to change minhagim, just on rare occasions. He used to encourage the Rabbanim during Aseres Yemei Teshuvah. The Rav for many, many, many years used to give a drasha, a knockout drasha, Kinus Teshuvah, hundreds and hundreds of people would come from all over. So he always used to encourage the Rabbanim to reintroduce the reciting of Selichos during chazaras hashatz. He only says Selichos im hachazara? No, we only say Selichos at Maariv on Yom Kippur and during Neilah. And the printer left out the Selichos by Shacharis and Musaf and Mincha. And Aruch ha-Shulchan complains about that. He says the printers just want to save money, they want to charge the same money for the book and save money on printing all the pages, so they left out the Selichos. He says there's no reason to leave out the Selichos. Until very recently the Selichos were printed in the machzor. And the publishers and printers didn't ask anybody reshus to leave it out. So that's Rav Soloveitchik also used to complain that it's not right, that really we should reintroduce the Selichos, that it wouldn't cause a major war. But the same thing about Hallel on Leil Pesach, he felt that the more correct practice was yes to recite Hallel with a bracha in shul with a minyan. He said unless it would make a major disruption in the shul and make a major machlokes, he thought that the Rabbanim should be meshaneh the minhag of the kehillah and reintroduce it. The Rav used to speak about the responsa of telling over the history about duchening on Shabbos. He said when he first came to Boston he was the Rav, I don't know all the details about this, he said he was the Rav of a shul there and the minhag in the shul was that they wouldn't duchen on Shabbos. So he said they're going to duchen. And he was very young and very fiery and he let them know who's the boss and he let them know that they have to duchen or else. So he says he won the fight and he lost the stelle. He said before Yom Kippur he was fired already and he lost the job. I don't know exactly but he was still the boss, I don't know exactly how he had a different job, I don't know exactly the historical details. So he told us in shiur, he said, boys, make sure when you go into the rabbinate make sure that the people duchen even when Yom Kippur falls on a Shabbos. But you don't have to be moseir nefesh, he says. If it means losing your stelle, ad k'dei kach you don't have to fight about that. The Rav spent much time giving shiurim on dinim d'rabbanan in Moriah. He spent many, many years learning Masechet Berachot and then after that learning Masechet Megillah in yeshiva also. He said shiurim on Masechet Berachot to the talmidim. So he explained that one shouldn't think that learning dinim d'rabbanan is only a mitzvah talmud Torah m'd'rabbanan and min hatorah bitul Torah. Min hatorah you're learning nothing. You've wasted your time. So what did he waste all those 11 years in Moriah spending his time on Berachot? It's all dinim d'rabbanan. So he said no, and he gave this distinction which he alluded to on different occasions that there were two parts to Torah: there's the cheftza of Torah and then there's the chovas h'gavra. The dinim d'rabbanan although the chovas h'gavra to observe these is only m'd'rabbanan, the obligation to observe these d'rabbanan is only m'd'rabbanan, but the cheftza of Torah it becomes min hatorah, it becomes a תורה שבעל פה min hatorah. So as far as the mitzvah of fulfilling the mitzvah talmud Torah, one would have a, he felt one would have a kiyum mitzvah d'oraisa of talmud Torah even if he's only learning dinim d'rabbanan. And just to give a משל למה הדבר דומה, he referred to the Gemara in Eruvin in the first perek on daf yod gimmel where the Gemara says that אלו ואלו דברי אלוקים חיים, speaking about all of the many disputes between Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel. So the Gemara says even though Beis Shammai's opinion is not accepted, not only not accepted, it's absolutely rejected. The Gemara says in Berachot on daf lamed vav, בית שמאי במקום בית הלל אינה משנה, not even considered a mishna and whoever makes כל המקל ראשו בהלכה כמאן דאמר בחוץ לארץ chayav misa and so forth. Nonetheless the Gemara says in Eruvin that one who no Beis Hillel at all. The whole Sugya is only Beis Shammai, you're spending up your time understanding Beis Shammai's view, that doesn't constitute Bittul Torah because what Beis Shammai said is not Cheftza Gavra, Halacha Lemaaseh we absolutely don't pasken like the Beis Shammai, but still it's a Cheftza Deoraisa, Dinei De'oraisa. And because all of the Dinim Derabbanan become a חלק עצמי שבאדם מן התורה, so that's why the Chachamim always felt compelled to make Takanos Derabbanan in the fashion of כל דתקון רבנן כעין דאורייתא תקון. When you make a Takana Derabbanan it has to fit in with rules and regulation, has to be an extension of Dinim De'oraisa. So the Rogachover often stellt zach op in Shiurim on a Din Derabbanan and give a whole pilpul and explain what from a Din Derabbanan he'll show what the Din De'oraisa was. And I remember he said a fantastic shiur on the Din Derabbanan of Tevel, that before Reiyas Pnei HaBayis, from the Torah what is the meichayev of Tevel? But mid'Rabbanan, one has to din to eat Tevel achilas keva. You wanted to make it eat achilas arai, so where do you find such a din? And he says the Rabbanan, all the issuros mi-d'Rabbanan is only asur achilas keva. Look at achilas arai, you have Basar Bechalav derabbanan, you have Shuman Hagid derabbanan, you have so many issuros derabbanan. And eicha taisa you make a distinction between achilas keva and achilas arai, never heard of such a thing. Ela mai the pshat is כל דתקון רבנן כעין דאורייתא תקון, this is the reflection of what the Din De'oraisa is on Tevel. Why is there a Din De'oraisa that you have to have Reiyas Pnei HaBayis? The answer is because whatever you eat before Reiyas Pnei HaBayis is always labeled as achilas arai. Whatever one eats after Reiyas Pnei HaBayis is always labeled as achilas keva. So that's the hagdarah of the Din De'oraisa and כל דתקון רבנן כעין דאורייתא תקון was an extension of the Din De'oraisa. So mid'Rabbanan they introduced that there are other things that are koveia. Min HaTorah, the only thing that's koveia is Reiyas Pnei HaBayis. Mid'Rabbanan they said a mekach is koveia, a melach is koveia, Shabbos is koveia, and bishul is koveia, and all the other things that are koveia. You're not allowed to eat achilas keva in Tevel, that's the Din De'oraisa. And the Rogachover points out there's a Peirush HaMishnayos LeHaRambam where it says that. But at the time we didn't know that, but later on, years later, we found the Rambam writes like that, the whole vort from beginning to end. The Rav said this on many situations, on many cases, he would explain how the Dinim Derabbanan reflect Dinim De'oraisa and he would explain why it has to be so, because in every discipline you work with different categories of thought. If you're dealing with physics or you're dealing with chemistry, you can't start talking about sine or cosine or integrals. Mathematics has its own language. Every discipline has its own, has its own categories of thought, has its own terminology, has its own concepts. So when you're dealing with Halacha you have to have Halachic concepts. You can't introduce a non-Halachic concept. So when the Rabbanan make Dinim Derabbanan, it also has to be with Halachic concepts. I remember the Rav was saying over the Rav Chaim on קטן שהגיע לעונת הפקודות, this doesn't appear in the Rav Baruch Ber quotes from Rav Chaim, but when you read the Rav Baruch Ber in Kiddushin, you probably wouldn't be able to make heads or tails how the Rav Baruch Ber is fully written there. And many people who read it from the Birchas Shmuel swear the Rav Baruch Ber said one thing, but after you hear the shiur from the Rav and then you read the Rav Baruch Ber afterwards, then the pshat reads better the way the Rav said, like Dr. Lamm told over this story yesterday. After the Rav said the whole shiur and then he says, now read the Chidushia Ran, now read the Levush. So the Rav Baruch Ber quotes from Rav Chaim what the Rav said over like this. There's a din of קטן שהגיע לעונת הפקודות. Even though the child is not Bar Mitzvah and a Katan is a Lav Bar Daas, how can he make mekach umemkar? It's not חל או קניין או מדעת. So mid'Rabbanan they made a takanah he can make kinyan. But the Rav said besheim Rav Chaim, how can it be? Were the Chachamim Chassidishe Rebbes that they can make a mofes, they can give the child who is not Bar Mitzvah daas? It's a cheftza of Lav Bar Daas. How can they make a mofes and give him daas? That was the loshon he said in Yiddish. Nor the teretz is they didn't come up, they cannot give the child daas if he's a Lav Bar Daas. So he said to make a kinyan mid'Rabbanan there's no need for daas, it's enough kavana. But the Katan has kavana. And he gave a whole arichus on this. Rav Chaim has a whole chalitza on this. But even a Katan who is a Lav Bar Daas, he is a Bar Hachi of kavana. Whenever Halacha just says that he needs kavana, a ratzon, a machshava, the Katan is a Bar Hachi. Rav Chaim has sugyas to indicate that this is so. So then Rav Chaim continues to explain, but that's only shayach, that's only feasible by all other kinyanim. But if you want a קטן שהגיע לעונת הפקודות to make a kinyan sudar, by kinyan sudar Rav Chaim explained the biur in the Rambam there is no maaseh kinyan at all. The symbolic act of giving over the handkerchief is just a symbol to demonstrate that there's a gemiras daas, and the gemiras daas accomplishes the kinyan. So if the Katan is a Lav Bar Daas, what does the Lav Bar Daas? How can the Chachamim say over there by sudar that the Katan can make a kinyan sudar with kavana alone without daas? The whole kinyan consists of daas. By other kinyan, hagbah, meshicha, kesef, something else, where the kinyan consisted of a maaseh kinyan and you need daas in addition that it should be a meaningful maaseh kinyan, so the Chachamim can say nu nu, over here you don't need daas, kavana is enough. But where the whole kinyan consists of daas, what are they going to say, the kid has daas? He doesn't have daas. So he can't make a mofes. This is one of the applications that the Rav had. It stands out very vividly, very vividly in my mind when the Rav... spoke at Columbia when on the occasion of the Catholic Church, the, I don't know exactly the leshonos in their avoda zara, but they had a whatever, a convention of their galachim in the Vatican to decide that the Jews are no longer to be held guilty for deicide, and we should be a little more friendly. They wanted to show friendship towards the Jews. Rav Soloveitchik gave a major address at that time, I remember at Columbia University, and he explained at that time what the pshat in this psak din was. What are they driving at? So he said, what does it mean that the Catholics hold the Jews responsible for killing oso ha'ish? Are they ridiculous? We were the ones who killed oso ha'ish? Pshita tzeit lomar that the Jews killed him? Those are the Jews who lived 2,000 years ago. What has it got to do with us? So he said the teretz is that when they say that the Jews killed oso ha'ish, it means that we continue to kill him today. That's just a melitza; they don't mean דאס האבן מיר געהארגעט אותו האיש. When you say you don't believe in their avoda zara, that's in their language, that's the same as saying that you killed their god. Not believing in their avoda zara means that you killed him. Now, what does it mean why are they prepared to absolve the Jews of the guilt of killing oso ha'ish? So he explained that there, according to their understanding, there's going to be a second coming in the year 2,000, but there's a condition, there's a hitch, that oso ha'ish is going to yechayenu miyomayim. The Gemara in Sanhedrin talks about this in Perek Chelek; there was a whole dispute that the Akiba and the Chachamim, how to understand the pasuk yechayenu miyomayim. So the Christians also had their own pshat, that Yoshke is coming back after 2,000 years, in the year 2,000. So they hold, part of their belief is that oso ha'ish will only return from the dead if all of the Jews will believe in him, if all the Jews will be converted to Christianity. But if the Jews will still be rejecting him, so then he's not going to come back. So they're worried, nebach, they're worried he's not going to come back from the dead. So they're stepping up at this... this was a long time ago, a long time ago, thirty years ago, when was it? At that time they started pouring in millions and millions of dollars into missionizing, into missionary activities all over the world, America and Eretz Yisrael, all over the world, to get as many Jews to convert to Christianity as possible. So the Rav said that's what it means. That's what it means. They're absolving us of the guilt of killing Yoshke because they're going to see to it that we're not going to be guilty. They're going to see to it that we're all going to embrace him, we're all going to convert to Christianity. So he said that's terrible. We shouldn't give him a yasher koach for that. They want to shmad up all the Yidden. It's ridiculous. And he said, how do I know that this is the pshat in their statement? So he said at that time, my father taught me how to read in between the lines. He says he reads what they have in the newspapers. He says he reads it and he reads it and he understands that that's what it means. I remember several years ago, we used to have a Rebbe in yeshiva, Rabbi Zerubavel Shustal, so he was very close to the Rav from years ago. He was one of the older talmidim, from the early talmidim of the Rav. So he wrote up, before he passed away suddenly, he wrote up a few pieces from Rav Soloveitchik which were printed, I think, in Hamivaser or the Commentator, six or seven pieces. This, I think this was one of them. That one night after the Rav finished the shiur in Moriah for the ba'alei batim, so there was a fantastic shiur on Agadata in Berachos. The Rav spent so much time explaining every Agadata. Halacha, even if the ba'alei batim don't understand, they'll understand that it's Halacha, so they don't understand, but an Agadata if they don't understand, they'll think the Gemara is saying stupid things. So the Rav used to spend an awful lot of time to explain all the Agadatas, all the chalomos in the end of Berachos; the Gemara interprets all the dreams. He would spend many, many hours explaining every chalom, why this chalom means this and this means this, and every Agadata. And sometimes there were just fantastic explanations, quotes from the Moreh Nevuchim and from the Kuzari and from all over the place. Everything that he had at his access, he would quote other mamarim of the Agadata just in order to explain this Agadata at hand. So on one occasion, Rabbi Shustal zichrono livracha asked the Rav, "Where did you get the tradition to interpret like that? Where, where do you get it from?" So the Rav asks him, the Rav asks him, "Why didn't you ask me that about my shiurim in Halacha? Where did I get that from?" So Rav Shustal said, "Well, more or less we can figure that out, you know, the Rishonim and a little bit and the way people think today, so we have a little bit, so you have a little better than us. You can understand deeper, but the Agadata? Mamash like yesh me-ayin! Where did you get it from?" So he said, "No, my father taught me how to read in between the lines." He taught him how to read in between the lines in Halacha, he taught him how to read in between the lines in Agadata, and he taught him how to read in between the lines in the Catholic documents also. The Rav used to analyze everything. Yesterday, the Rav's son, sheyichye, Chaim Soloveitchik, concluded his remarks by mentioning what a strong bond there was between the Rav and his talmidim, that there was such an attachment that somehow more so than with other talmidei chachamim in an unusual way. So I remember, I seem to remember on one occasion I was very young, I don't know, it must be, must be printed, must be, must be tapes of this, I remember when I was very young, the Rav held a drasha at one of the Chag HaSemichas in the auditorium, and he spoke about why a talmid chacham is called a chaver. חבר אני לכל אשר. about why one transmits the mesorah to somebody else, why is there such a strong bond? And on other occasions, on later occasions, he also spoke about this. If I'm not mistaken, this is also written up in Rabbi Besdin's second volume of Drashos HaRav Soloveitchik, Beis HaRav. This is written up in one of the issues of Chavrusa, of the Rabbinic Alumni, I think Rabbi Noah Goldstein wrote it up. And the Rav on different occasions would speak about this. He described how he once depicted how he's an old man and he comes into the shiur and he can't, can't walk into the shiur, and he comes in and he sees these young faces, the young bochurim. He says, "What do I have to, what do I have to offer to these guys? These guys are so young and they're so vibrant, and I'm an old man, I'm falling apart." And they're all staring at him, and he starts reading the Gemara and he gets stuck in a Rashi and he has a kasha against Rashi. And all of a sudden the Rambam comes, the door opens, and the Rambam walks into the room, and the Rambam helps us out in pshat in the Gemara. And all of a sudden the Shach comes in and the Shach screams at the Rambam and he says, "What are you talking about?" And then all of a sudden the Nesivos comes in and he defends the Rambam. And then my grandfather comes in and he argues with the Nesivos, and then one of the young boys pipes up and he starts saying, and another boy says that. And then by the end of the shiur, everybody's involved. It's a lebedike mesorah from all the generations from, from 3,000 years, from the tekufas haTannaim, till haAmoraim, till haRishonim, till haAchronim, till today. Everyone is involved and then he becomes, the Rav said he became invigorated, it's mamash a metzius. That people saw it many times, both in the yeshiva and in Moriah, in the later years, the Rav was so shvach and he would come to say the shiur, he would a lot of times start the shiur and he could, can, can hardly pronounce the words. But then as he kept on saying the shiur, he became so invigorated, by the end of the shiur he had chayis, he had chayis. So he was speaking about this type of concept of chaver, of a bond that connects one generation to the other, and he referred to the Mishna in Eduyos that picks up the hemshech hadoros, the connecting link between one generation and the other. I think, I remember on one occasion the Rav spoke for the Rabbinic Alumni, if I'm not mistaken it must have been in the 1950s, a very, a very beautiful talk. At that time he was, he was explaining, I spoke many times, I mentioned it in my shiur. He spoke at that time about the fact that some professor from the seminary had published in a book that the reason, the thing that prompted the Tannaim to be meikel so much in the construction of a sukkah, to say lavud, and to say שתים כהלכתן ושלישית אפילו טפח, and to say gud achis and gud asik, was because in the days of the Tannaim there was a scarcity of wood in Eretz Yisrael. There weren't enough trees and there was a shas hadachak, so they had, mimaila, they had to be meikel in the say that all these kulos in the sukkah doesn't have to be so, so built up as other things. So the Rav said that per se he doesn't consider the person epikores just because he said that. Nistalai omar, could be that that was the motivating factor that prompted the Chachamim to get together and poldern and break their heads in order to figure out, געב זיך אן עצה, what to be meikel. But he says that doesn't explain the formula, why it works. You can't just say there's a shas hadachak and it's going to work. Shas hadachak doesn't help. So he gave משל למה הדבר דומה, that during the period of the Second World War the American government realized that the Nazi Germans were working on atomic energy. They also had their physicists. And if only they would have developed the atomic bomb before America, they would have controlled the whole world. So the American government got a whole bunch of Einsteins, the geniuses, together and they made the atom bomb and then they saw it that they won the war. So what prompted the American government to make the atom bomb? A shas hadachak, fighting with the Nazis. So if you want to understand how come atomic energy works, it's simple, there was a war with the Nazis and they had to make a conference and they got together, shas hadachak, so they made it. So he says that's the historical background but that doesn't explain the formula. You have to give a formula for explaining it. So he says the same the Gemara says, משום עגונה אקילו בה רבנן. What do you mean משום עגונה אקילו בה רבנן? So what's the kula? There was a makom iggun, the Goyim were killing a lot of Jews and men disappeared, the woman was aguna, so it was a shas hadachak. So that was the motive, the motivating factor that prompted the Tannaim to get together and try to metakes eitzah, to געב זיך אן עצה, what can you come up with? So they came up, the Gemara says they came up with something. They came up with a formula, this formula has to explain how the halacha functions. Just to say that there's a shas hadachak and therefore משום עגונה אקילו בה רבנן, that's just the historical background but that doesn't, that doesn't explain what the formula is. So he says nistalai omar as far as he's concerned, azayn azoi, could well be that there was a scarcity of wood from the days of the Tannaim and they felt, "Look, if we're not going to give some kind of a kula, the people just won't be able to sit in a sukkah," so they convened a conference of rabbonim and they said, "Whoever has an idea..." it's a din of lavud in hilchos Shabbos, even if there it's a din mechitzah, it's a din dofen, and maybe it's not exactly the same, they based, maybe, maybe hach maskinan, maybe that's what happened, they discussed and discussed and they came to the conclusion that הוא הדין נמי בהלכות סוכה and there was a din of gud achis and gud asik in hilchos Shabbos. So maybe they were pilpeling whether they should apply that to hilchos Sukkah, they came up with that also, but he says that doesn't explain the formula, the formula has to be worked out over here, the historical background is tsikave information. I remember I was, there used to be a course here, maybe there still is, a course in the college for the non-science majors, I took the chemistry course for the non-science majors. So they used to give the history of chemistry, what prompted them, what what brought about, this one had a dream with the molecules dancing in a circle, I already forgot the whole what what the atom and what the things, what element it was, but five molecules dancing in a circle in a shape of a hexagon, whatever, all that, but that doesn't explain the what the essence of the thing is. This is the historical background. So the same over here. So I remember on that occasion when the Rav said that one drasha, that was some beautiful drasha, that should really be, I don't know if it's printed. So on that occasion he was reading from the Rambam in the hakdama to the Yad HaChazakah. So the Rambam writes that Moshe Rabbeinu was teaching the Torah to Pinchas and Elazar and Yehoshua Bin Nun, and then he was moser the Torah to Yehoshua Bin Nun, v'tziveihu alav. One line after the other. The first page in the Rambam hakdama. He says very striking, very strange. He just said the Rambam just said that he taught the whole Torah to everybody and especially to Pinchas and Elazar to Yehoshua and then he says and he was moser the Torah to Yehoshua v'tziveihu alav. He just said he taught it to them. So he said no, a Rebbe can have many talmidim and everybody listens and one is sharper than another, but then the מסירת התורה שבעל פה is only given to one or two, it’s not given to everybody. So that's what the Rambam says, the one who became the ba'al ha-mesorah was only Yehoshua Bin Nun and he gave an arichus because he was meshamesh Moshe Rabbeinu, לא ימוש מתוך האוהל, he was meshamesh גדול שימושי יותר מלימודי, he was meshamesh Moshe Rabbeinu more than the others. The Rav said that there are many people who are great talmidei chachamim but they're not necessarily considered ba'alei ha-mesorah. Ba'alei ha-mesorah were those to whom was given over the whole big bundle, the big package of the Torah she-ba'al peh. So many of us always had the feeling that the Rav had this tremendous, tremendously bulky, heavy mesorah which consisted that he had from his father and from his grandfathers and from other Geonim. He didn't only talk of his two grandfathers, he talked of other great people as well. The Rav used to tell us in shiur, he spoke to a bocher there and he says, איז מילד און נישט פארברענט, every Tosafos in Gittin ba'al peh. He was surprised. Spoke to Rav Shimon Shkop, spoke to Rav Henach Eiges who was the Dask, spoke to Rav Chaim Ozer alav ha-shalom and learned, spoke with many Gedolim, there were many people around. There were many people around. Rav Soloveitchik zichrono l'vracha had this tremendous mesorah from his Rebbeim, a mesorah which consisted of Gemara and yesodos in hashkafa and hanhaga and psakim and a style how to paskin, not just particular psakim and particular hanhagas, a style how to paskin, he had his own style, his own unique style and many stories. Yesterday, Dr. Twersky pointed out that a lot of the Rav's machshava is based on a lot of the stories. The stories that he used to tell over over the years, he never sat down on one occasion to tell over a hundred stories, but over the years he told over many hundreds of stories. Many of those stories were in connection with Halacha, to give the historical background of tshuvos of some tsikave stories about the about certain halachic debates or disputes that got people interested in learning. Many of you are familiar with Rabbi Rakaffet from Eretz Yisrael. He published an essay about the Cleve Get and he writes in the introduction he was so inspired to research the topic because the Rav made it so fascinating in shiur. The Rav made it like a mystery about what was going on with that Cleve Get. So that inspired him to go read up all the sefarim and to write an essay about it. The Rav used to make many issues in Halacha very fascinating just by stories. So he had a peckel of stories that was part of his mesorah, stories in connection with Halacha, and stories which demonstrated hashkafa, points of living hashkafa in life, how Gedolim, how Geonim and how Tzadikim throughout all the generations lived out certain yesodos in hanhaga. And part of the Rav’s mesorah was minhagim. He would tell over minhagim from Brisk and minhagim from other communities and he would explain many of the minhagim, beautiful minhagim that most people today never heard of. And the Rav different from many other people, different from most of the many there were many great talmidei chachamim, the Rav more so than others somehow, we had the distinct sense that he was really one of the ba'alei ha-mesorah. He was transmitting this mesorah. Of course he couldn't, he couldn't pass on the whole mesorah, if you give one shiur and try to give everything that he knows on that Gemara, so the students would walk away with nothing, they wouldn't be able to understand anything. So like Dr. Twersky said yesterday, the Rav always had to be m'tzamtzem himself. If he wouldn't be m'tzamtzem himself, if he wouldn't restrain himself, we would have got lost, we wouldn't understand anything. So he gave a little bit now, a little bit later, a little bit later, but over the course of all these years... years, he tried to transmit הכל בכל מכל כל. He tried to tell over all of these hanhagos and all of the psakim and his style of psak in Halacha and Aggada and Drush and Machshava and minhagim. Everything he tried to transmit. So in a certain sense my feeling was that that's why there was such a unique bond between himself and all of his talmidim because this really represented to us one of the ba'alei hamesorah, and this is the special, that's what mesorah is all about, the link of the one generation to the other. In a certain sense the Rav felt how heavy this mesorah was that he was transmitting and this in a certain sense humbled him very much. He never really had the, I don't think he ever had the perception, I don't know anyone who has the perception of himself, but he never had the perception of how much influence he had on other people and what position he played in the Jewish community. He never understood that if he would, he had hundreds of people come all the time to the shiurim and so on, that if he would have told people that they should be medakdek in a certain din, everyone would have been medakdek in many of the dinim that he told, somehow he never realized that. He never realized what position he played because he was like so busy carrying on this big mesorah, he was so involved in transmitting this mesorah that he never realized that. He never realized his position. And the Gemara in Berachos says, commenting on the pasuk of והודעתם לבניך ולבני בניך יום אשר עמדת לפני ה' אלקיך בחורב,
we should teach the Torah to our children, we should transmit the Torah to our children in the same way that the Torah was given to us at Har Sinai, that just like at Har Sinai the Torah was given באימה וביראה ברתת ובזיע, Bnei Yisrael trembling, vayecherdu ha'am, vaya'amdu meirachok, they were quivering, so too throughout all the generations the Torah should be transmitted from one generation to the next with such an eimah, yirah, retheth, and zi'ah. We used to sit with the Rav, we used to quiver, we used to quiver, and I remember when I was a little boy the Rav sat with, we used to, I used to have the distinct feeling as if the malachim had come down from heaven on Tuesday and Wednesday morning to hear the Rav's shiur in the classroom. We used to have krias hatorah Monday and Thursday and we used to have kabbalas hatorah from the malachim as if the Torah min hashamayim was given again, Torah misinai was given in the shiur. The shiur was so convincing, it was like a בחינת שכינה מדברת מתוך גרונו. It was so, it was so lebedig, mamash like כיום שמחים כנתינתם מסיני. And we had the distinct feeling that this is mamash a man who's linking us up with the whole mesorah, he's transmitting to us the whole baggage, a tremendous, tremendous baggage of the mesorah. Many of the things that he said beshas ma'aseh we used to wonder, what, what kind of bobbe-mayse is this, is it really true? He told a story about Rav Chaim, told another story, and it took us years, years later till we found it printed, other people told over the same story, so he would say pshat with a wonder. Just last week in shiur I was saying the Gemara in Kesuvos about אין אדם משים עצמו רשע and I didn't understand for over 35 years what my Rebbe had said on the sugya of אין אדם משים עצמו רשע until we learned it last week and I understood what was bothering him. I never understood what was bothering him. There were so many things that the Rav said and I just turned off my hearing aid, figuratively, I thought what is he, this is off the wall, what is he talking about? So I stopped listening, I thought it was utterly wrong, and then years later I saw in this sefer and that sefer and I couldn't understand what in the world are they talking about and I felt so bad if I would have paid attention I would have understood it, the Rav said the same language and beshas ma'aseh didn't know what he was talking about, so I didn't pay attention. And other geonim said the same thing and I, they don't explain what they mean. The Rav commented on different occasions at different hespedim, at a hesped for many geonim, he commented, he mentioned the Gemara in the end of Perek Hanizakin in Sanhedrin where the Gemara says when Rabbi Eliezer was about to die and the talmidim, the Tannaim came to visit him, and he said he learned so much from his rabbeim but he barely learned ככלב המלקק מן הים, and he tried to transmit, Rabbi Eliezer Hagadol tried to transmit so much to his talmidim, but he didn't really succeed, he only was able to give them mamash kemikchol beshfoferes, a schmeck tabak, nothing. So the Rav commented on that Gemara, that the Gemara is describing the sort of the tragedy that's always involved in giving over a mesorah, that whenever you give from one generation to the other the Rebbe tries to give everything. And the Gemara has at the end of Sotah commenting on the way the Tannaim were learning one from another, so the Gemara says יותר ממה שהעגל רוצה לינוק הפרה רוצה להניק. When the cow is full of milk, when the udders are full of milk, so the mother is in pain, so the mother wants more to get rid of the milk than the baby wants to drink the milk, to suck the milk. So the Gemara comments on talmidei chachamim who have a tremendous, tremendous baggage of a mesorah that they have a greater desire to transmit the mesorah than the talmidim have a desire to learn the mesorah, to receive that mesorah. So the Rav commented that that's what Rabbi Eliezer is commenting, he's not just saying on himself and his talmidim, this is the way it always was in all the generations, that's what mesorah is always about, the one who has this tremendous mesorah has a responsibility and a great desire to transmit everything to the next generation and it's just impossible, it's not shayach. And I remember on one occasion of a yahrzeit shiur I think the Rav mentioned in the middle of the Chelek Ha'aggada the Gemara in Berachos. The Gemara says that a Rav passed away and then the talmidim had traveled to the Beis Hakvoros and on the way back they stopped off to eat sandwiches by a certain river and then they washed netilas yadayim and then it was a shaylah when it came to bentching, can they bentch mezuman or not? In order to bentch mezuman, the din requires that they shlosha she'ochlu k'echad. The Rov gave a shiur on bentch mezuman so at the end of the, always he used to give on the yartzeit, the night of the yartzeit he would give a shiur halachah for four hours at least. In the earlier years, later years he was already weak, he didn't give so long, but in the earlier years he would give four hours, he'd give two hours halachah and two hours aggadah. And then in the morning of the yartzeit he would give shiur all day long in mishnayos. He used to daven Shacharis, then he wouldn't eat, he would fast. The family tradition was that they never fasted, only on Yom Kippur. But the Chaim Brisker gezogt that everybody says Zachur Shem Shapira. So the Rov said he doesn't follow the family tradition, he doesn't hold of it, so Zachur Shem Shapira he eats and he drinks and he's healthy and he feels that he's healthy and enough to fast.