Journey to Poland 2024: The 4 Lumimaries Polish Jewry Stands Upon

this Torah class is brought to you by Torah anytime.com welcome everyone good afternoon everyone thank you for joining our trip this year it's B it's going to be an amazing trip it's really a greatus to have the opportunity to travel through this country which is uh one of the foundations of the M of our T so many great G here and and of course it's also a country that is uh soaked in our blood but we're going to begin and uh the learning that we do today is dedicated Burger today is his yard site should be for his whole family for all his descendants for so when we talk about Poland it's hard for us to capture and identify what exactly is Poland because we know that it's a country that has been partitioned so many times throughout history and its first partition was in uh 1772 but we're going to speak about Poland today in its identity before its first partition and before its F first partition Poland included part of Russia Ukraine even Vila and Poland was an Empire and that's how we're going to refer to it as the first well-known T who made it made Poland his residence was Raa in the year 1415 to 1485 but let me Begin by telling you something that the Rama would say something he spoke about on his deathbed you know the Rama observes the fact that as Spanish jewelry was on the decline in the end of the 15th century in 1492 drama observed that that was when Poland was developing as the epicenter of Torah jury Poland was the crowning Jewel of Torah jewry but that only developed as the Spanish community in Spain in Portugal was on the decline and the Rama observed that the ranam always pays the way like Alon is and as one sadic passes even before that another one is being groomed as one Community wains Hashem is already developing another one the saw the development of Polish jewy as the way of hash allowing CLA to have continuity as Spanish jury declined that is when polish jury began to develop in fact thean is deathbed he made notice of the fact that he heard recently of the passing of the arizal and then the Rama himself was passing on and Rama had a student named of David Gans who he encouraged to learn astronomy and David Gans was in touch with one of the great astronomers of the time Tao Braha and they had just discovered a new star in the heavens the name of the star was Nova and theama hoped and he prayed that the the discovery of the new Star was Port was a portend that hasem was bringing new sikim to the world and new gim to the world at the same time that the Aral and himself were passing away now contrary to what many people think I don't want to thank mayor gladstein on the camera thank you mayor contrary to what many people think that polish jwy was always fraught with Mass M and and murder actually the Jews in Poland had a very good situation compared to a jewy everywhere else in the world uh we enjoyed relative prosperity and peace obviously their notable exceptions the xerus of tvat and then World War I and World War II now it's very interesting have you ever heard of the expression the V the V it's a it's a term that people throw around but if you actually stop someone and say you know what are the you will never find anybody who could identify what the AR are which which four countries so Poland constitut and and comprised the arba AR what were they originally only three regions belonged to the arba arates number one greater Poland which was pnan PNA that's where Reb ker lived number two lesser Poland CAU is called lesser Poland then you had red Russia that's Eastern Galia and originally it was called the vad then they joined vilna and Lithuania joined and even when Lithuania seceded nevertheless this term always remained the vad arba AR this was the a powerful Union we could call it of that the rim and the Asim and the rashal had because the those the government of Poland trusted them and intrusted them in running the various kilis now in Poland there were very notable yeshivas the greatest Yas in the world were in Lublin were in CAU and they continued to flourish until theer of tat 16 t 1648 1649 at that point in history that was the end of the Polish system of yeshivas from then and on you had great Scholars you had great but they did not learn in they would gather together in the local the r would teach buing but the the network of yes and the power the institution ofas in Poland ceased with before that you had again in luin and in CAU now this is very important to understand and that is Polish jewry was built on four pillars of G is Polish jeury was built on four pillars of G Isel so number one the number one pillar the first pillar the foundation of all polish jury is an individual who is somewhat unknown even to learn a Jews his name was rakov paa and that's why we made sure on our trip to bring M with us as in honor of the first y of Polish jury R Yakov poak was born in 1470 he was born in Poland he was the abzan and the Raa in Prague but a dispute arose there and he had to leave Prague and in 1492 he became the Riva of Cal I did not realize until this moment if you were to ask at in what year did Poland was Poland established as a tamic center 1492 that's when rakov Pak comes to crack out rakov Pak revolutionized Le revolutionize the learning of gamar he instituted a method I'm sure many of you know he instituted something called PP pull is not what they have like back in the day in Yeshiva every so often we had a pull Shear that's not what of pak's system of PPO was PPO was uh nothing less than intellectual acrobatics it was making it was by the way the in Poland was they would learn something called what's that was the in Poland would Master the the rashash would then come down come into the ISA The Tam would surround him ask the rashash all the questions they had on the the rash would respond then the rashash would tell theim his questions on the and his answers but what Pak did was he would take different garas and see if two random garas were consistent with each other he would make differentiations not not to get to the conclusion but to sharpen the minds of the students and this was a very controversial method of learning the Mah was vehemently opposed to what this method called P but it's surprising someone who advocated for this system was none other than the greatest Pake of ashaz jury the Rama himself was an advocate of the system of Poa so the first pillar of Polish jewy is rabak of Pak in his uh under his Reign krael becomes a uh a tremendously a learned City even simple people could not help but be influenced by the the greatness of of tamic knowledge in the city of Kow so now it's very interesting in ashkenaz if you were a sage there what were you called No in Poland you were in a in you hear the difference you see in ashaz it was a matter of knowing the material so you were not in Poland Poland they were sharp like attack in Poland you were you were a g it's a different that terminology captures the difference in the tamic process rakak passes away in 1530 ryak Pak which did he write rakab did not write any rakab did not write his in 1530 was shna theama comes to learn from by the way if you look in the's edition of In the when talk that who the wrote well Shak like that because he then gave theama his daughter to marry so you know anyway I'm going to tell you you know in our generation there's something called the sh crisis in Poland there was no sh crisis it was unheard of for any girl ever to reach 18 without being married it never happened it never happened there were no single girls in Poland for hundreds of years ever and they had a system and we're going to learn about that system whether we could adopt that system lots of luck okay now Shalom Shak was a a student of uh rakov Pak and all the G in Poland were students of R Shak again Shak is the second pillar of Polish jewry uh for example the mes bamin the Rama they're all students of and in the said I asked my why don't you write says look because of his great humility he felt that he doesn't want anybody to have to rely on his Sak I would imagine there was something more than that and that is you know in Poland they held and this is found in the writings of the brother maral of Prague who did not agree withar writing p in Poland they held that you can't ask someone a sh you know in America they have something called a hotline you know so if you don't if you have a sha you call up the hotline and you speak to some Rabbi you never met him you don't know him from Adam he doesn't know you from Adam or from Eve and and he gives you a in Poland in Hell there's no such thing as asking a sha you're are you Jewish is your mother Jewish you have a Jewish name so open up the gamarra learn the gamara learn the Rashi learn the tus learn the sugya you're the only one who knows the factors of your situation what do you such an that you can't figure out this was the opinion of the brother of mar and he had very big problem with codifying so I would imagine that did not codify because to be a vibrant Je you have to have independent knowledge of the in any event did not write any his was in CAU then you had rman of verisa who is marra for 42 years and the fourth pillar of Polish jewry was Raam Ramin was born in Mains he learned from his father and then he learned from rakov V these friends were the four pillars of Polish jewry number one rakov Pak number two R Shalom Shak father-in-law of the Rama number three rman of verisa who lived in laav and number four Min from these four G Poland became the epicenter of Torah jri in the entire world tamim from all over the world came to learn this and everything we're going to see in the next couple of days all the G that we're going to visit from Mora s kutna cow All Began because of the roots of these four G soon we're going to learn about the six pillars of ideology that polish jewry was built on thank you very much you've just experienced another Torah class brought 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