Korach: Netziv's Explanation for why Elazar was Chosen [Plus the Life & Times of the Netziv]

This Torah class is brought to you by Torah anytime.com. Okay, good morning Rabosai Parasak Perk Yudian. So after the epic encounter and battle between andu and with the and died together with his 250 men speak to the son of the he should raise up the shovels from among the fire the and throw away the flame for they have become holy. It's very interesting who was selected to take these mto and make them that he was commanded to bang them out. They should make them hammered out. Who should who has commanded Elazar? What in the world is Allah doing here? Allah has nothing to do with anything. He's not fighting Kyra. He had he was not brought in the whole para. The para until now was the battle between Misha Ain versus Ky. Why is Allahar being commanded? asks the kadesh and the kadesh answers that since this whole battle was against a and his opposition died, Hashem didn't want him to be the one to lift up the mak similar he's a balam similar to the gamar and brais that whenishua had a disagreement uh apparently did not treat with respect and they deposed rag guml now the shila is who's going to be the next They said it. Why? Cuz he's a So too here says says it's not appropriate that should be the one to take these uh and bang it into the lb. However, Muhammad offers a very interesting shot. What's his chat? What was the job of alazar in general? So if you look earlier in the beginning of midbariml okay in general we want to know what was Allah's what was gimmel. So the PK says that And where what do they do? So Kahass was in charge of the MS. We know that Gerine um and Mari was bi summer. Yeah. Gerine and Marari was Bad Is Summer and Kahas was Biad Elazar. Because if you look in it says um You see um Gshine there were three sons of Ley Gahin Kahass and Marari. Gishine was under the oposes of Isamar. Marari was under the oposes of Isamar and Kahass was under the oposes of Elazar. So of course that means Elazar's job basically was to take care of the MSK. Oh, says therefore when the wants somebody to pick up these fire pans and bang them into the mis the natural choice would be because Allazar's job was to be in charge of the and then then it says something very interesting which is printed in the his on the words Right. What do you mean? You don't take from between the fire. You take it from the fire. Says it. But the is like this. If these fire pans were near the mace, Allah couldn't go there. Why? Because he can't become. So he needed to distance. Therefore, They had to be near the ones who were burnt between the ones who were burnt but not by the ones who were burnt. So meaning Allah could not come into contact with something that a mess was touching. So you say but the mess already touched the and there's a rule of you know what the rule rule of is you would think if you take a sword I don't know if you ever did it if you take a sword and chop off someone's head may never have tried to do that but if you did the sword you would think the mess is and the sword is no there's a rule um the sword becomes like the dead body itself So that's the case. How could Allah touch these are the didn't actually kill the person? No, but they it was part of the process, but it wasn't didn't come in contact. I mean, you know, sliced off the guy's head. It's only it's not only it doesn't it's not only the article that killed him, but a metal that comes into contact with a mace. we apply the rule of the answer is even though that's true there's no on the of that the is only on but not on the that is the offers over here that's why the Pik says very specifically now once we're on the topic of The nits the nitiv was rashiva of the now there's a a very interesting and important story that occurred in the yeshiva that was the first yeshiva was the yeshiv who established none other than the vaginim himself now had a son who was son the next rash of and there was a young boy in the yeshiva by the name of Yehuda who was born in the year 1817 in the city of Mir and he came to learn in yeshiva I believe at 11 years old the niv came to at 11 years old and he parks himself in a corner and he doesn't move from there for 25 years at 13 years old the Rasha sees this young boy he sees his uh husmada now you could see a lot about a kid at 13 but it's very hard to predict his future at age 13 But Raisin took this child and he gave him his daughter when he was 13 years old. That was a typical typical age that somebody would get married and he was selected by the rashiva. Married at 13. He actually got married at 13. You know that what he said what? Well, I'm making a bar mitzvah now and that would actually save a lot of money. So um but one thing I guarantee you one thing I guarantee you even today in 2018 their bar mitzvah were probably much fancier than the weddings back then in 18 okay 1930s when my parents got married they got married in the apartment had some herring sponge cake that was it masletov yeah so uh is taken as the son-in-law of the rashiva He goes into a small. He does not move by some accounts 25 years and some accounts 20 years. The legend has it he would stay there and learn 20 hours a day. So they once said, "Do you learn there 20 hours a day?" He says she I only learn 16 hours a day. However, I do it Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday also 16 hours a day. Shabas also 16 hours a day. Yamiff also 16 hours a day and he did it 20 years or over here it says 25 years straight supposedly again I wasn't there he uh was having a difficult time in his learning when he was a young boy and the yeshiva decided to kick him out and he was going to learn a trade and he broke out crying and he was offered uh uh he said give me one more chance and the rest is history. Now the way I heard the story and I think this is the way they say over the story in the yeshiv is that uh the nitiv as a young boy overheard his parents talking. They came back from PTA and they said what's going to be with this kid? He ain't going to he ain't going to amount to anything. he's going to be a shoe maker and uh the when he published the first uh sheets of his safer of Sha which is his commentary to the he uh made a little and he said you know can you imagine after 120 years I would have come up to Shayim and I would have thought you know I'm a good Yed I know a few paces of And I dive in the bissl and I said something to him and they would have said no where's the said what's that where's the what's that where's your commentary to the saf and the what's the saf and the saf and I would have thought I would go upstairs um sh and I would have a lot of cover waiting for meashem I took advantage of my my second opportunity me. This is a famous story that they say in the Hayashivas. Rav Hutner had a a little bit of a different take on the story. Rev Hutner would say there was once a RV who went up to Shayim and the RV thought he'd be get a lot of reward. He taught a lot of Tyra. He wrote a lot of and turn to him, where are the shoes you should have made? You know, you weren't the right guy for that. Anyway, everybody has to do their tough get the beat as it may. But they must have thrown him out of the ship before he got married. Obviously, he wouldn't give him his daughter at 13 years old if he thought he was not going to amount to anything. This is just a legend that they say in the um in the very historical works on the Nativ. They don't bring down this story. So, okay. Anyway, it is what it is. So, he's supported by his father-in-law of and it's brought over here. So, one particular shabas so the is looking for the is looking for him. Where's the you know we got to make can't find the is in his room you know nothing happened the whole day ku wasn't yam kipper in fact he brings over here that on the day of his kupa they couldn't find him could not find him on the day of his wedding so his mother said oh taka he said he's just going down to the shaw for a few minutes and they found him in the shaw dressed up for his wedding but learning as if it would be any other Tuesday. Okay. In the year 1840. So we said he was born in 1813. In the year 1840 he began his um his first safer and he sent a copy of it to Rabd Lauria. Davia was a radal. Rdura was one of the great mafarim on the per and other mafarim. And when Rabbda saw saw the folios of the nitiv's commentary to the cphree um theory used an expression which was a very rare expression for the time. So there's like a new star that's emanating on the Jewish scene and he called him. Nowadays if you have a brisma you're haragy. Back then you know it actually meant something. So um so it's interesting it's interesting even of did not fully know the greatness of the he was an meaning he went about his business he learned his his and he didn't really uh make a big deal about it or look for any pump any fanfare he didn't yes I mean he was 27 he wrote his first year you think of his so you'll see you'll see you back then at this point in time of is Rashiva um and Rabin found correspondence between Laura and his son-in-law then he realized that his son-in-law was much greater than he even had thought well in the year tough ra so we're now in 1847 so the nitiv is 30 years old 2 years before his father-in-law passes away he's invited to give Shir yeshiva and then when his father-in-law passes away, his oldest brother-in-law takes over the helm and then after the petira of his oldest brother-in-law in lol tough that's 53. So the nitiv is how old? 40. He's 40 years old. The nitiv takes over as rashisha of the greatest in the world. He is in that post for 40 years. No, excuse me. Not not 40. 36. He was born tough in Zion 1917, right? 1817. So he's 36 years old. Here's the thing. Anybody know who was the great grandson of the Balevi? So now that the post of the rashiva ship is open in now you have family and basi was one of the geladar the balevi was uh vi for the position and they had to bring in four gdel is to settle the matter who were they so they brought in in the year of tough tess so this is uh 1849 9 was Rebelar Yeetszkar Yeitzk was the oldest brother of the Nativ and Tesiml in 53 passed away they appointed the but not so fast the Bvi wants the job so they called in oft grandson or he was married to the I think the great granddaughter great granddaughter of They brought in of Minsk. They brought in and they brought in and they issued a that is rashiva and he has full and final say on every detail of the yeshiva later on the bas was invited in to be a co-rashiva didn't work out he had to leave after 10 years okay then takes over as a rashiva and vagin becomes comes and grows to be the greatest yeshiva in the yeshiva world. Now was different than the other yeshivas. The main difference is that in the other yeshivas they learned nashimik like they do today in most yeshivas they learn nashimik. in valin they believed that I'll give you an example in certain yeshivas in the yeshiva that I went to they will hone in on details of a suga so for example every time rashi says the word collar that's a suga kimar means as if to say why does rashi is saying that the gammorra uses a word it's not really the right word what theor means to say is like this now whenever ever you say what this means to say means don't take it literally but rather as why can't you take it literally what was rashi bothered by in the literal interpretation so now it's a very important skill to know you something bothered rashi and rashi therefore had to say no alternative shhat in they didn't believe in doing this in they believed in just getting the full picture if you get the full picture the details will fall into place instead of you know they're they're different way they would say like this the difference between the is that it's if you learn the you'll know you'll know you'll know this meaning if only if you know the whole will you know this page know the whole picture and would say if you know d well you'll know the whole that's like a different way of looking at things but the took this approach even further because while in they learned all the makas from bra to then was writing perushim on theus of on the on the on these are things that on the bahag these are things that are generally not even learned in the yeshivas and now not only is learning them he's learning them and and writing on them so the expanded the even to another degree so if I Today I just want to share with you from the hakdama of the nitiv on berius the approach of the the and then we'll continue on a little bit more. The nitiv says that has two parts to it and right we say the is called is the word is one word but really the consists of two parts the d the dust is a bottom line wake up in the morning you wash your hands three times you put on your shirt you put your right hand in put on your pants you put your left foot in you tie your sho put on your shoes you put on the right shoe first you tie your shoes the left shoe First um you say this you say there's the bottom line. How do you get to the bottom line? There's this there's that cheetah. Why does this shittita hold this way? Why does that cheetah that way? There's a steer from another gamarra. So let's reconcile it. The ple and the shak of is the fire and the outcome and the conclusion is the dus is the bottom line. Then it's held that Torah has to be a fusion of the is the Shakaria and theos and the back and forth of the and the and the um pilp and but that must be fused with the bottom line. You see in many yeshivas today the focus is just on the is they don't learn most yeshivas don't learn they believe that you need to im imbue the young people with the fire of and that is that's something that will stick in their nam and stay in their for the rest of their lives. Other yeshivas just learned bottom line. So they may know what to do laa but it's not a very infused and meaningful Judaism. It's dry. Then it's you need to combine the two. That the dust has to be an outgrowth of the ish and the ish needs to be finalized in the dust. You can't have one without the other. And he gave he would give a few examples of that. There's khanim and the kahanim and yehud. What's the job of the was the job of the bottom line was raglov is a digger someone who would dig into the with the sitting on your feet the the rebi would sit on the chair and the were around on the floor he was able to restore the 300 that were forgotten during aosp So the kayak of Yehuda was pilra the kayak of the was the and that's why needs both and the approach of the of the was to fuse the two another example and you had the you had the you don't know what to do you have the they cut the den there no questions in Israel In Israel, it's light, right? Like in the US, in the US, it says come and see. See means see clearly. You don't need shakaria. You don't need to ask questions and hack around. And bottom line, the usi is light. However, bavi, huh? Boy, is it complicated. This Bryce says a Bryce says B. It's a steer uh when then a when b and uh and not always because they have this question. So the bi is the pill. In fact says he doesn't quote it here but there's another is considered darkness but the comes from the meaning through the through the debate and through the questioning you have an added dimension of light that in they never had. You see, if you just cut to the chase, then you know there it's a light but it's not that bright. But if you get lost in the darkness and then you come out of it, the light and the clarity is even more. That's why says when a guy from goes up to Isel, he's like two of them. Anyway, the approach of the was that of combining the the dust with the that's why he would learn the and combine it with the was like the bottom line the if you look in the writings of the go it's very brief writings it's just bottom line the are questions answers back and forth and this was the approach of The nitiv. Now the nitiv remember we said the basi wanted the job in ultimately these two the nativ and the balevi who the got the job who is the baley's son ended up marrying the nits's granddaughter. So they got back together again. And not only that, when the nits was uh leaving, he gave over to his son and his grandson-in-law Salvik. So while he while him and the Bhivvi didn't work out, he brought in the Bhvi's son to be Kashivas. Why they didn't work out? Is there any I'm not going to say. Okay. Um now in terms I ask you a question you said described earlier they cut to the chase. Yeah. But if they're presented with an an issue where it's not clear in the if they don't understand the derivation of how got to where it is because all they know is here's the end result. How do they figure out what what to do? You don't understand. They did understand. You know, they did understand, but because it was easier for them to understand, their level of understanding was not as deep as someone who had a harder time understanding it. This is also an analogy. It just basically said the bottom line and the oral law without the difficult process of and that's why the Torah would have been forgotten through utilized the principles of but ultimately that it stuck with okay um the would sign his name. This is how he would sign his name because think about it he is a tremendous masid an unusual masid and not only that he's learning satire which is unusual for rashiva he's writing on koi satyra not only that the nitiv many rash yes are not pim the nitiv was a tremendous mv he wrote the mvar so the nits and he's running the biggest resha in the world you know nobody had a harder job than nativ so nativ would sign his the one laden in service. He he was extremely um obligated to his learning his and the running of the yeshiva. Okay. Do you have actual people helping him to run the yeshiva? Because running that size yeshiva must have taken a lot of time and effort. Yeah. So this so they had to go around collecting money or then would say like this and would say that when he was a young man and he was learning basaki you know he was a sharp guy and he knew a lot when I became rasha and I didn't have time to learn so much then I became and then when I became old rashiva when I forgot basically my learning I was ra you know that's Uh that's what the nitiv would say. Um so the nitiv once asked an who came to he said no you want to learn. He said yeah I want to learn. So he say you want to be a masmid. So the bak say I want to be a masmid. But says the native do you know what a masmid is? So you know what are you going to answer when the niv asks you do you know what a mass is? So the niv would say you know what amas is an amass is somebody who eats when it's time to eat learns when it's time to learn and sleeps when it's time to sleep. A mass is not somebody oh it's bedtime okay now let me open up a safer you're not supposed to be learning now if you learn now because you want to then you're going to be tired during the sh tomorrow. So that's what the famously the nits would say. The radal as we mentioned before gave a to the even though the said he would never give a in his life. He said uh that the was given that the were open to him and he said that nobody ever said before in there was another interesting thing that occurred that did not take place in any other yeshiva and that is they learned and what yeshiva today they don't learn ksh you do it or you do it on your own time you do it on your own time saying in mid Russia. Not only did they learnish the Russa gave on gave on and in fact the hamd that we have today from came from his the he would give his in the of the shravski said over that heard from his rabbi shkap that shim was in but he didn't go to the shir as is very common in many yeshivas people are in yeshiva and the rashiva is rashisha And you know and they and unfortunately there are yeshivas. Rashiva comes in and tamid them walk out. You know people think they're ready until one time late at night then came into the base medish as he would sometimes do and was being mic in a rash and he couldn't understand this. So he turns to he says rebi could maybe you could help me find out figure out this rash says inv I already spent many many hours at ding I should understand this rashbah so that sort of one overkup to the the tremendous godlas of um could find over here he once told his talmet of ammon Meltzer the nativ told his talmed that any day that he didn't cry by he couldn't say he was only able to say if during that day he was able to cry by okay on Wednesday the fifth day of tough nun okay 1892 10 o'clock 10 at The government sent officials down to close the yeshiva of Elijah. Why? But not only that, why did they close? Because the the rule was that if you wanted to remain a public place of education, you needed to teach two hours a day of secular studies. And there's a big debate among the Israel. Should they allow two hours a day or is it better to close down the yeshiva entirely? And then in a yeshiva you can't have any mixture. It's better not to have any learning than to have learning with a mix. And then it's closed down. Now he tried to uh manipulate and he tried to uh leave at this point in time he decided um and even before he was going to go to Israel. In fact, when the movement uh began, the nitiv was one of the biggest followers of it's called, excuse me, the the joined the movement and he was um tremendous and you know who learned in you know one of his greatest was in Back when uh Rkook was injuk would learn 60 blot a day beon in valin most people do not learn 60 blood of in six years 60 blood of a day anyway that was that was valin that's three blood an hour I mean almost three an hour right it's not one blood in 20 minutes the eon the eon Anyway, writes the we learned from the decision. He said if they would have agreed to put two hours of limu in once the would have got in the door it would have started two hours and then it would have been two hours of limuesh and then the whole the whole concept of yeshiva would have been abolished in once they closed. So tora has ways of being and tora opened elsewhere says only tora could have come to this decision and understood that this is what needed to be done. Okay already the had wanted to give over to his son and then had in mind to move to Israel. However, as soon as the yeshiva closed, by the way, when they when the government came in to close down the yeshiva, then fainted. Literally fainted. He was the the lifeblood of the yeshiva and the yeshiva was his life. He decided he's going to go up to Israel. However, um he was very ill. He had no anymore and he was going to leave. He was headed to Israel. Then it said by the way because of the decree to close was chased out of the entire region of Ilna he was going to spend a short time in Minsk go to Warsaw and from there is however it um did not work out the became very ill in Warsaw and in Gimmel 1893 he passed away and he's buried 80 years old when he passed away 1893 so he was born in 187 and he passed away 93 76 right so he's born in 1817 passed away 9376 he's buried in Warsaw next to Salvich was after but there are two of them are buried together in Warso and he never made it to Israel interestingly in the letters of Berlin his son writes that there are many who are not to eulogize them but says iniv you know that my mahalik in life is always to follow kazal and we find in the garra that were to have a husb. So we see from here that it is of benefit to one's soul to be eulogized and therefore says I'm going to be smarter than the therefore yes I do want a hid but I know you you're a very uh eloquent speaker instead of speaking at length meaning give me a hid everybody needs apid but instead of being instead I would prefer if you learned a few black gamar extra instead of the hespid and that will be for me the greatest kyas in the world. So as we said that was 76 years old he taught Israel 46 years that's a very long career of Harbat's Torah and at his Berlin said a very poignant idea the Yalut says in that when the first base of migdash was destroyed the kahuna gathered together they went up to the top of the roof they took the keys and they said, "Revina Shalam, we have not been uh worthy guardians of your temple. You gave us the keys. Take them back. We haven't done our job." And they threw their keys up to the heavens. Likewise says, "When the yeshiva of was destroyed, its ku a hand came down from Shayim and took the keys away. But who was the key of Elijah? That was the nitiv. That's why the nitiv passed away upon the closing of the yeshiva of the was the key of he was the lifeblood of so but uh we learned a few ideas from the para why the wanted to do this and why the Torah says have a great day. You've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by tora anytime.com.