The Special Yeshiva of Shem & Eiver (Parashas Vayeitzei) (HaRav Yitzchak Breitowitz)

uh so the prices for Yates is leaving Eric Israel and he is going to run and Jacob ravino was leaving for two reasons uh reason number one is that asov is going to kill him so he has to run away for his own safety and reason number two is he is not supposed to take a wife from the Canaanite women and therefore just as Eliezer went on behalf of Yitzhak to find a wife because himself couldn't go to so yaakov goes to find a wife so it turns out there are two different reasons why he's leaving one is he has to get out of where he is and the other is he has to go to a certain destination meaning sometimes when you leave a place the main reason is the leaving and sometimes the main reason is where you're going and that's marumas that's marumas in the actual words by Yates beersheva valliel and he goes to Quran meaning there's a reason for leaving and there's a reason for where he's going the reason for leaving is Asa wants to kill him and the reason for coming is to find a wife that's right sometimes uh you know you're leaving just to escape and you don't care where you go and sometimes you don't really care about leaving you like where you are but you need to go to another place yaakov has both motivations but according to Ghazal even though if you read The Narrative of the Hamish you know jakov had a dream and Jacob had you know saw the latter and then he comes to kharan there actually was a 14-year break from the time that he left his father's house till he had this dream 14 years that are not recorded in the Hamish where before yaakov left Eric Israel he went to a Yeshiva he went to learn and he went to a Yeshiva what yeshivas were there the Yeshiva of Shame and Aver shame is not alive anymore but shame is Noah's son in fact shame is actually Abrams great great great great grandfather and a very shames great grandson so Ava's alive shame happens not to be alive and yaakov spends 14 years in the Yeshiva of Shame and Aver and uh because I will actually say for those 14 years he didn't sleep I'm assuming we don't have to take that quite literally you really can't go without sleep for 14 years but it means you know whatever little naps would like just like the villagome like the villain the gown for many years only slept two hours in a 24-hour period and it was divided into four periods of 30 minutes so he never he slept he never slept more than 30 minutes in fact they tell an interesting Meister with the velnagant that he very rarely left film I mean it's only going you know sadly learned all day but one time he went to akasana in a certain place a close family and uh in this Village he was staying in a room that was a second story that was his like mote hotel room or whatever whatever it was and some enterprising entrepreneur got a ladder so people could stare at the villagan while he was sleeping they could look through the window and he actually charged them for it uh and uh they could look through them and you know through the window to see they've only gone sleeping for half an hour so the story is recorded that that one time he slept for 31 minutes one minute over and he didn't know he was being watched but he started crying and sobbing he said I missed a minute of learning this town is a sleepy Town it causes sleep uh yeah yeah I can't come here again so for for the next 25 years he never came back to that town but then he had some occasion to come back to that town uh and uh when he went for his uh nap he only slept 29 minutes and he was so happy he says Hashem gave me back my minutes and the people who were watching there were people who were eavesdropping then too you know they were there Hashem they were so happy they felt that finally we took something away and we gave it back so when we say yaakovino didn't sleep for 14 years it probably means something like like the bill mcgone situation uh those 14 years are very significant because it's very interesting how if if you factor out to 14 years just look at the Hamish text itself how many years was yaakov separated from his parents 20 well actually never saw his mother again but how separated from his father yet 22 years why because when he came to Quran he worked seven years thinking he would get Rachel and instead there was a switch and he got Leia then he worked another seven years to get Rachel although let me point out a point that sometimes people don't know I'm sure it was covered yaakov didn't have to wait seven years and he got Russell on credit meaning to say he married Rock Hill one week after he married Leia meaning he worked seven years he thought he was going to marry uh Rahel instead love unswitches him so he winds up with Leia so for seven days they rejoice and have you know that Chevrolet but seven days of rejoicing after those seven days he married Rachel on the condition that he worked another seven years so I think it's a little different than people think people think that yaakov did not marry Raquel till after 14 years in reality that's not Ms uh yaakov married Raquel seven years and one week after we came to Levin's house but he did have to work another seven years so that's 14 years and then and during those second seven years that's when the tribes were born except for Benjamin that was born in Irish Israel all the tribes were born in that second seven years and then yaakov worked another six years to kind of build up his economic prospects so that's 776 that's a total of 20. years and then finally Hashem said it is time to come back to eres Israel and it is brought down that until yaakov came back to yitzrak there was another two years of both traveling and uh being in parts of Earth Israel where he did not come to yitzler so yaakovino was separated from his father yitzrak for 22 years right that's what the hummus tells us 22 years so hazal of a famous teaching about this and they say Yosef was sold by the brothers when Joseph was 17 years old and yaakov did not see how safe until Yosef was 39 years old that the Hamish itself tells us so it turns out that Yosef was separated from yaakov 22 years so the teaching is because of the 22 years that yaakov did not honor yitzrook his father Yosef was separated from yaakov that Yosef did not honor his father for those 22 years now that's a famous gazelle that the reason why Yosef was separated from his father for 22 years was a getter of an onesh because yaakov was not makayaim keep it of the aim for those 22 years now the obvious question and even in Prussia is well what do you mean here what do you mean yakub is getting punished because he did not fulfill kibet of the aim who told yaakov to leave Eric Israel which was his mother and his father his father too so yaakov did not do anything wrong in what he did at most one could say after he left Levin's house it took him too long to get back the insects that would be two years that would not be 22 years so one of the patterns simply is that Jose don't mean that yaakov is being punished for this there was no sin that yaakov committed but rather he keep it up the aim is something that gives you Merit and it gives you protection meaning it's not that if I don't do keep it of the aim God is going to punish me although that might be true as well but I don't have a special zuchus that could help me that could protect me and Jacob lamisa didn't have that success it's not his fault he's not accountable but he didn't have the Lamesa dickers or the practicals of honoring his uh parents honoring his father and therefore he was vulnerable to many types of service but what's interesting is this in reality if we factor in the fact that before yaakov even had this dream he took a detour of 14 years in the Yeshiva of Shaman Aver so Jacob was not away from his father for 22 years yaakov was away from his father for 36 years so why isn't yaakov held accountable for those years so Rashi brings again it's a long long route she goes through a lot of chronologicals Rashi says from here we derive that the learning of Torah is more important even than honoring parents and therefore for the 14 years that yaakov was osak potora that is not counted against him in terms of an ownish so he was gone 36 years but he's only held accountable for 22. the 14 years are the years of talmud Torah and this is called Godot mikhibit of the aim talmud Torah is greater than keyboard of a VA this has actually I don't want to get in too many difficult issues that maybe need to be discussed uh privately but this is an issue that you know people often face right my parents don't want me to learn uh in Yeshiva my parents demand that I come home so I can give you I can make an easy statement but then I have to qualify it with a much more difficult statement if somebody were to ask me according to halacha must I listen to my parents because they want me to leave Yeshiva the answer is absolutely not you are not obligated to listen to your parents meaning keep it up the aim does not obligate you to listen to your parents because the Mitzvah of Torah overrides keep it up VA but but but this is a very important series of butts uh here and that is even if how logically you are permitted to stay in Yeshiva whether you should do so is a much more difficult question that has to be balanced with many many many factors I think the problem is that sometimes people just assume that once we conclude there's no midst of keeping up the aim that's the end of the discussion and therefore I'm going to stay well no you have to look at the long-term consequences number one what will your economic support be number two what will your relationship with your parents be and how much you'll need that relationship to continue to grow as a Jew Etc so all I'm saying is if you ask me can is keep it up VM going to be a veto on your Yeshiva plans no it's not a veto but you got to take account of what your parents say because there's a family Dynamic that shouldn't be ignored the same thing is true for sure if I want to marry somebody and my parent and everyone everyone wants their parents blessing right and my parents don't approve so it depends how you ask the Shyla if you ask me am I high of to listen to my parents the answer is no you're not high of you are holocratically allowed to ignore to ignore your parents wishes that's very clear Lala but does that mean you should ignore your parents wishes does that mean I shouldn't take into account their concerns it certainly doesn't mean that okay so you be sure you understand the difference here it's not a keyboard of the aim thing but there's family Dynamics and your parents may have a point as well you know Mark Twain famously said that when he was 17 he thought I'm paraphrasing he thought his parents were idiots but when he got to be 21 he was so amazed how smart they got in only four years and that actually has uh maybe 21 is a little young but but you know but I can tell you at 30 or 35 uh you will sometimes appreciate the wisdom of your parents more than you did as a teenager or whatever it is so be sure you understand the two Dimensions here tomatora overrides keep it of the aim and she dug him overrides keep it up again but that doesn't mean you don't take into account uh what your parents are saying but now let me raise another question so yaakov took off 14 years to learn in the Yeshiva of Shame and Aver now how old was yaakov when he left his father Jacob was not a youngster Jakob was 63 yakovanisha There were twins yaakov is 63 years old again Rashi gives us a very detailed freshman so yaakov took off 14 years 63-77. to learn in Yeshiva you're never too old right but here's the thing what did yaakov do for the first 63 years of his life he was living in the home of yitzrak and until he was 15 avram was still alive and what was yaakov doing the terror tells us what Jacob was doing ASA was a hunter yaakov ishtam Yakov was a perfect person yose oh halim who dwelt in the tents that's understood a person who studied of course we'll have to discuss what do we mean by Tory that that's a good question too but putting that question to the side for a moment so yaakov spent 63 years of his life Yoshi Vey Holland so why does he need to go to a Yeshiva of Shame behavior for 14 years if for 63 years he was learning Torah in the home of avraham for the first 15 years and then yes what what purpose was this extra education be for him so let's go back a little bit and we talk about this Yeshiva of Shame and Ava what we don't know how many students there were you know we really don't have we you know very little about the Yeshiva of Shame Behavior but what was the curriculum in the Yeshiva shave ever do they learn Gomorrah I mean there really wasn't gomoria there wasn't even hummus it's nice like what did they learn uh interesting question the short answer has to be well well there are there are two answers I would I would suggest there were two things in the curriculum one was that this was not for Jews in particular this was for people and they learned the seven Mitzvahs that all human beings are supposed to keep now you might say sure we can cover that in five minutes I mean seven Commandments have never it says like 14 years uh what is it about so the answer is first of all that that's actually not quite true the seven Noah laws which are binding on Humanity maybe maybe there are seven laws that you can state but they have halachos too right uh for example uh don't steal so that requires honesty in business and not lying I mean one could spend you know years and years and years going over just as we would go over in gemara you know what's called theft what's called deception what's called dishonesty so number one the halachic curriculum would be the seven Commandments of Noah but even then there would be many many discussions as to the laws of those things the seven misses have many many many many laws that would have to be studied but I would suggest as well that the second component of the curriculum was what you might call godliness how to connect to God in fact if I had to put a modern label on it it might have been something like Kabbalah meditation prophecy communing to with how to develop a relationship with Hashem in other words interestingly enough it may have been a more spiritually uh richer curriculum than we might have in a modern Yeshiva which gets us into a whole interesting discussion you know maybe you've experienced this a little bit of a dilemma the person wants to come to Yeshiva because I want to find God I want to know what my purpose is in the world I want to understand reality so you come to Yeshiva and we open up and you sit down ready for your first class in the morning and there's something about two people holding a Talus and each person is claiming it's mine or if an egg is laid on the Shabbos are you allowed to eat that egg Etc and it's hopefully it's interesting hopefully it's engrossing I mean some people unfortunately takes them a while for that but you know it's interesting different arguments different positions okay and if you uh if you kind of have a legal mind or an analytical mind you know you'll usually like it but I think it may lurk in people a certain sense of malaise or confusion as to how is that how is this bringing me closer to God now it's not addressing the big issues now what's the matter is actually better than a lot of other places not because we have other classes really Godly but whatever it would be but in a mainstream machine you're not even going to have that here we have that but even here part of the day most of the day is two people holding on to the Thomas or whatever it is and this is a real it's a confusing question a little bit because why do we spend so much time on what you might call the technicalities of halachic argumentation in fact it's not even even in terms of the two guys holding on to the towers you don't really know what the bottom line is even on that so we're looking at this position that position this argument this argument Etc so in the Yeshiva of Shame Behavior there weren't as many halachos as we have today so they did focus more directly on spirituality the question is what about us like what do what do we do so here there is a concept and it's developed at great great length by raffian Village great talmud in his safer nephew which is a book of kind of the it's almost a mission statement of the Yeshiva World because in chardalid in particular the fourth chapter he talks about what is Torah learning about why do we learn Torah what does Torah do for us and in 30 more than 30 chapters he goes through everything and the basic idea is an idea that at first glance when you first come to Yeshiva it may not may not even make sense to you because it's fundamentally a mystical idea but in the course of time the hope and the prayer is it will make sense to you because hopefully hopefully you will experience what he's talking about and he says that Hashem is an undivided entity meaning unlike a human being I have my right there's me I have my hands I have my fingers I have my arms I have my head I have my brain in other words every human being can be subdivided into different capacities how College Park was an undivided Unity meaning to say God does not have parts God is only one an undivided Unity so therefore the will of God is the same as the essence of God unlike me where I could say there's me and there's my will my desires with Hashem the will of Hashem is the same as the essence of Hashem meaning when I connect to God's will I am connecting to God's essence the Torah is a concretization of God's will because this is how he Wills us to live and by Torah I include the written Torah the oral Torah all of those things so when I learned Torah I'm connecting to God no matter what I learn in Torah meaning I'm not only connecting to God when I learn about godliness and Purity and spirituality I'm connecting to God when I learn about two people carrying a Talus in other words what you might call on some level the non-spiritual aspects of Torah because you're connecting to God's will and when you connect to God's will you're connecting to God's might see us so what is the difference Rahim said if you're connecting to God via this port or that port like a computer that has a million ports of connection you're connecting to Hashem and what you're doing is it's like literally charging a battery you are connected to the ultimate power source which infuses your nishama with holiness it infuses your neshama with closeness to what others were now this is a mystical idea because from a rational intellectual standpoint a person would say okay I get if I study about spirituality and I study about Holiness okay that's a holy idea but when I study technicalities what does that have to do with anything but mystically if the will of God is the same as the essence of God you're connecting to God if you're connecting to God you are being infused with Holiness so as I say to explain this to somebody who comes to Yeshiva for the first day is not going to be so easy it's almost we have to kind of say take it on faith the hope is and I and I hope that to a greater or lesser degree all of you experience this at least sometimes we don't always have it all the time that when you're engrossed and even the most technical sugya there's a certain spiritual elevation that you can experience that hopefully has a carryover into the rest of your life as well but going back to shame Behavior in the Yeshiva of Shame Behavior it was more openly spiritual meaning there wasn't a lot of talmudic discussion to go over so it was a school of spirituality meditation what we would call Kabbalah I mean obviously they weren't learning the Aries there was no Aria but but the teachings of how God interacts with the universe but now we're still back to the fundamental question why did yaakov need 14 years in that Yeshiva before he go to before he could go to Chiran and get a wife I mean after all yaakov spent 63 years of his life engrossed in the study of Torah which meant the same thing the Torah that he learned was the same type of Torah again it wasn't Gamora it wasn't those things so there's a beautiful powerful thoughts uh from I I remember it from a footner someone someone told me that they think it's Rebecca kominsky so I'm not a thousand percent sure of the source reveal Kaminski for sure says it and I believe rev footner says it as well that's the Yeshiva of avram and Yitzhak is unparalleled the other succination are phenomenally great but there's one thing that you could only get from shame behavior that you couldn't get from and that is the following it's true that avram came from nothing meaning avram came from a place of abodeazara and avram discovered Hashem on his own all of that is true but eventually avram created a tremendous following avram was Makari people avram thoughts all of the Canaanites in Heritage all about God there are some in Russian that actually say he converted not to Judaism but he converted to belief in Hashem seventy percent of the people of Canaan although you know we don't have that number in the Torah itself and by the time yitzrook was born avram was no longer an isolated person avram had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds thousands of people who were serving Hashem based on avram's teaching it was a community it was like I wouldn't describe it as one big Yeshiva it wasn't the Yeshiva per se but a community of monotheists a community of people who believed in so when yaakov was born into the family of the others yaakov was born into a community of Believers yaakov was surrounded by thousands of and although ASA was rebellious but yaakov grew up in a community of many many many people who were living by the ideals of avram and yet through the influence of Abra but now Jacob is going to face a new challenge for 63 years yaakov grew up in a community of rochnius of Torah whatever whatever that precisely meant a saviva but now he's going to a place current over there voters are idolatry immorality he's going as a single person right he'll get a wife there but but even when he has children they're going to be babies then and even with all of his family so it has he'll have 11 boys whatever it is he's surrounded by thousands of people who don't believe in God who are pagans who are liars who engage in fraud and immorality and yaakov is very afraid yeah Baruch Hashem I served God when I was surrounded by thousands of Disciples of avram who were walking in that same path but what will give me the strength to serve God when I go into an environment that's bereft of spirituality and doesn't even have this of being an Erich Israel which itself is a special circus yaakov is frightened Yakov is afraid he's going to be destroyed so this is the Yeshiva of Shame Behavior the Yeshiva of yitzrak is the Torah of aretz Israel when you're surrounded by holiness shame and Aver is the Torah that yaakov needs to be prepared for the diaspora when he's not going to be surrounded by good influences why is Shane V ever so suited to this well let's look at the founder the founder of the Yeshiva of Shame behavior is shame although shame is not alive at this point shame grew up at a time Before the Flood where the whole world was evil and corrupt the whole world was going to be destroyed because of their sins that actually means nobody was worth saving it's quite amazing the only one Noah and his family can you imagine to go back to a few parts years ago the inner strength of Noah can you imagine the idea that the whole world not just your your block you know people in Arizona's concerned oh on my block there's one guy that doesn't keep Shabbos oh eBay I can't live there the influences will be too bad you're living in a world there's not a single other person Noah taught his children that no matter what the environment is we got to be strong we have to have faith we have to do the right thing and shame eventually founded a Yeshiva that was premised I'm conveying those truths what's the secret of being able to persevere when the whole environment around you is no good and yaakov needed those 14 years a long time before he could go into that environment he didn't get that from the environment of Yitzhak Because by the time yet was teaching him he had hundreds and hundreds thousands of people who are faithful to akadeshbarah so this is what the the uniqueness of the Yeshiva of Hashem Behavior how to persevere when your environment is not an environment of holiness but very much the opposite this is something actually that's very very relevant to the situation of many of you Hashem Uranus Yeshiva great Yeshiva you're in yusualayim an environment of holiness of Torah learning you have the wonderful opportunity that I hope you all take advantage of of having so many hours in the day to be able to learn Torah that as we just talked about that fills your nashamma with godliness but at some point unless you plan to stay here forever which isn't you know not a bad idea I'm not discouraging that either but you know most of most people are not going to stay forever they're going to go back to different environments the environments might be the challenges of college or even the challenges of the working place or difficulties tensions with family many many different forms that this can take and it's going to be tough to hold on to things you know you hold on to things when you're here because Yeshiva tries to make it relatively easy so to speak I mean it's hard work it's hard work to learn of course it's hard work to learn but you know in terms of an environment it's an environment that makes it much easier to stay connected much right I mean you know it's almost I shouldn't say it's you know it's almost hard to be Mahalo Shabbos here I mean you can do people who found out found ways unfortunately uh but you know it's like hard you know it's like just say in your slime it would be hard to find tray food here you could you know you could find it you can find it but you know it's not so easy right almost by default at least over at least be rubber nut kosher you know everything will have some type of catchers so Hashem that's a bracha because that kind of takes away some of the choices you could make that wouldn't be so good but the big challenge is what's going to happen when I re-enter that other world and that other environment am I going to lose everything that I worked hard to try to achieve and remember that even yaakovino himself Jaco vavino the great great Sadiq was worried that he felt confident in his ability to serve Hashem when he had many many people that were of day Hashem but he was afraid when he would be entering an environment where he wouldn't have all of the old dashem so the Practical lesson is that when you go back into the environment in a way you're better off than yaakov because Yakov was going to a place where there were no good influences for almost everybody even if you're going into a largely non-religious environment there usually will be good influences Yeshiva scholes in other words in a way your dilemma is not as bad as Jacob's dilemma ayako was going to a place where there was nobody Hashem most of the time you'll be going to a place where there's somebody and your Aquarius your responsibility is to seek out the somebody's that can allow you to hold on and of course in the electronic age that could even be by zoom and you know email you know even long distance you can have for sure but again it's also it's also better to have somebody on site so to speak some a local person that you can connect to and I'm just using this yaakov thought to show you that even yaakovino himself was concerned and worried about this says a remarkable teaching says that divrey Torah are as difficult to acquire as gold and silver vessels and it is as easy to lose as glass vessels now gold and silver costs a lot of money I mean if you want to buy a gold or a silver thing it costs a lot of money so to acquire Torah there's work and there's effort now glass may be relatively cheap the problem with glass is Glass is very fragile if I if I drop a gold vase you know it's going to be okay I drop a glass vase it's going to be smashed into smithereens so the Taurus so the orange says Tori is compared to gold and it's compared to glass compared to gold very hard to acquire compared to Glass very easy to lose and one one would be amazed in a very disheartening sense one would be amazed at how quickly if you're not in in that in the right environment and you don't make the right connections how quickly one could lose all of the progress they made in Yeshiva things that might have taken you three months six months ten months a year you can lose in two weeks amazing so I'm not sure if anyone is planning on this is more of a general message to to keep in mind that it's very very important that when you're not in Yeshiva anymore you still maintain strong strong connections to people that will help you in your spiritual journey and I'm referring by the way not only to rabbis and teachers I'm also referring to friends even the friends that you hang around with they can be even more powerful influences than rabbis and teachers we learn from our friends right we and don't try to find friends that kind of want to go on the same Journey want to take the same trip share the same values together and then each of you can give to each other in your times of challenge in your times of difficulty because you're there for each other the wisest of all people said and go hell is a very famous verse two are better than one for if one Falls who will pick him up but if two people if you have two people and one person falls one will pick up the other now is not only talking about ice although that's true too if you slip on the ice it's hard to get up right so I had to get it when you slip on the ice because you don't have a footing if there's no uh uh nothing built on to right but if someone else is there they can pick you up he's not only talking about ice but he's talking about life in life we have moments of challenge we have moments of weakness we have moments of insecurity both religiously and even and matters that are not directly connected to religion but if you have a friend then in your moments of weakness they can give you strength and in their moments of weakness you can be there for them by the way that's one of the meanings it says you should buy a friend you should acquire from that often refers to buy a friend what does it mean to buy a friend buy a friend I mean like I say hey be my friend and I'll give you 10 bucks I mean you know what what's what does it mean to buy a friend so the answer is friendship has a cost this is very interesting the cost of having a friend is being a friend it's very interesting sometimes people say I want somebody that whenever I have a problem I can talk to them about it and they'll listen and they'll advise me I want that but then the guy at the problem he wants to talk about with you he said sorry I don't have time you know so you want someone to be your friends then you have to be their friend you have to be willing to give them the same thing that you want from them and that's the meaning of by a friend acquire a friend the the purchase price of friendship is the willingness to help that person when they're in need and that shalom's beautiful when one Falls there's someone to pick you up and that's a wonderful thing in life and because you should find it in your friends and God willing you should find it in your future spouse yeah uh well Pierce says which means well I can't I can't tell you my exact words but my point is that the purchase price of friendship is that if you want a friend you have to be a friend you have to be willing to give to your friend all of the things that you want your friend to give to you you want somebody to listen to you you want somebody to be open to you you want someone to be sympathetic to you and give you advice that's a wonderful thing but that's going to be that's going to cost you and what it costs you is you have to be there for them and you have to be willing to listen to them as well and only then that's what it means buy a friend you buy a friend by being the friend that's giving to that person that's the the idea and that's the currency right that is the currency of friendship and by the way that's the currency of marriage children because again a husband and wife are called beloved friends the chever breakfast calls the relationship of men and women Ray IM which means beloved friends and that same reciprocity has to exist in a marriage okay be well and have they