Top Ten Historical Treasures the Chida Records in Sheim HaGedolim

progress okay good evening everyone we have an amazing topic tonight so I'm very glad everybody joined us this evening we're going to continue to speak about and we're going to speak about one of his most important works and one of the most important Works ever written uh let's begin these sh are dedicated by the Z family by Dr for whole family we thank the Israeli family for dedicating the of so we still have a little bit more of theed Mayor B whose yard was and yesu whose was tonight's year is sponsored by my dear friend as for bringing him with much to his 60th birthday actually I think his 40th birthday right no that's his 60th birthday and on this occasion everyone's gonna stand up and sing happy birthday you can't hear it on the zoom but they're doing it okay uh tonight sh is also sponsor anonymously as a protection and success of the soldiers and immediate safe return of all hostages and all of okay we're continuing to speak about perfect we're continuing to speak about David and his very fascinating life we know the made two travels throughout Europe and in his second voyage he comes to Italy to learno in 1774 and when he gets there he has to stay in Lazaretto Lazaretto is quarantine okay so they always had you know different that they were concerned about so they he was in quarantine and without computer and without any on him he composed one of the most astounding Works ever written it would be astounding if someone had a computer but it's supernatural to be able to write it without a computer the shame everyone should have a shame haam tomorrow you should go immediately to your local farm store and purchase the shame every Jewish home has have it is an encyclopedia of all the saw that lived before the time of the and has two parts the names of all the and the names of all their where does he start from he starts from um tan even he he doesn't have all the tan unless there's a specific reason where does he start from he even has an entry for gamar or SRA but there's no official start date it's it's and but he does have some entries that are earlier than that and you know before I begin he now moreover he wrote it in the course of 40 days so from memory without any sparm he was able to write every single godal who ever lived before him Ru how many rids are there three different rids how many a are there how many Rit are there dozens and dozens and he wrote them all in alphabetical order and you know there's a discipline there's a science called bibliography one of the fathers of modern day uh bibliography is named Morris Stein Schneider but even he acknowledges that the was like the father of a the discipline of bibliography being able to uh record and annotate information in sort of a scientific way and the shd is really a supernatural feat and the fact that he wrote it in 40 days if somebody wrote it in 40 years you would be shocked and he wrote it in 40 days without a computer without any books he wrote it from memory it's not a it's not a human feet it's really not a human feet okay so I want to share with you first what is the toas of uh this work in other words is it just had nothing to do on the boat so he just in alphabetical order he said you know he was playing Jewish geography naming all the who live before him and all the sparm that were ever written what exactly is the to of this one of the ideas we mentioned last week and we'll begin with that in the Mal's to the shd that was published in the edition of Kine where the malum gives the following analogy the malum tells a story of a who's uh journeying and he's famished and he's hungry and he's thirsty and he's tired and he's walking through an uninhabited area and finally he encounters an orchard and the orchard has Lush fruit and shade and water and it's comfortable and he relaxes there and he recuperates there and after he's finished relaxing he asks around you know who set up this Orchard for me in the middle of nowhere and they said I don't know he said what do you mean you don't know people just stay here did anyone ever ask who built this Orchard no nobody ever asked we don't we don't ask those questions so it would be uh very disheartening it would be very disappointing if you can't get information you know who built the orchard who's the benefactor says the great dedicated their lives to contribute toward uh of cl to contribute to expanding the T and the most basic question we need to ask is who are they when do they live why they write them so that's the one of the toas of the sh so that CL could have some recognition and appreciation for the but I want to share with you two other very important dimensions of the value of sh let's begin at number one there's a in the says you will listen and you will observe the it will be good for you you'll increase like hasem the god of your forefathers spoke regarding you a land flowing with milk and honey so I just translated the PK word by word but actually if think about it the PK makes no sense what okay say over what the PK says let's go David what does the PK say listen Israel the Sha and you'll watch over or you'll adhere toos to do to do whatever is good for yourself that will be many for you or you know a lot for you like your guard of your for is said so I just have one question what did you just say right what what do you want from me what are you telling me what's this all about is there a is there a clear message in this book what's this P saying right so has a wondrous explanation of this he says if you look in say for almost every PK has the following words is is is why does keep on saying the words is talking about the Holy Land why say has a power and a school on the FL that by saying the name of the land it produces kadus in those who hear it hearing the word er is elevates you that's that's why the nations of the world Hashem doesn't even want them to have that benefit so they call Palestine why no you're you're drinking your own poison you won't have the right to be elevated by hearing the words there so no don't call it that you make up a name you make up that that the land that God gave to the Jewish people that we've been living on for 3,300 years you say that it's the land of you know a group of Bandits on the west coast come on why because we're not even going to give you the courtesy we're not even give you the benefit of hearing the words if you hear the two words you will not be the same than you were before you heard the words is to be in the heart of the one who hears it just like we say by in other words if you need to meet somewhere someone somewhere you're not to say you know meet me on the corner of that let's say Church you're not how to say that you're not to say uh where's theel oh it's right across the street from you know the no you can't use a church as a as a landmark why cuz you can't say those words just saying the name of a Bas tifus of a house of worship of another religion it affects you it it contaminates you just like the says in Milla Ra was so attractive that anyone who said her name twice would immediately become tame immediately be aroused how come she converted and just like when it comes to T saying a name which is T causes impurity in a person the opposite in kadus by saying is it's Kad person say do you know the did anyone ever hear the name of the there was a there was a great R by the name of RAB bass RAB bass wrote a commentary on Rashi one of the most well-known commentaries on Rashi if I were to ask you what's the most basic commentary on Rashi besides art scr is the most uh basic commentary on Rashi many many perim but the most basic one is he wrote a saer called you know what it is it's an encyclopedia of all the rabbis who live before him and all the that were ever written sort of what the did okay but the lived in a different era and was ofic origin and the lived in and so forth wrote a very similar work says what is the value of this work of the answer is by having a list of the names of all the just saying the names of aad is when you say when you say when you say the name of a tadic it elevates you so that's why rabas wrote this saer so is telling you will be on such a high level that what that when we hear the word it will Elevate you that because of that you will you will observe the T and you say really just saying the word is Will Elevate you that because that you'll keep the T yes just like hasem always says andm is always saying which is also elevating to a person so too CL will be on a very high level that just saying Israel Jewish people Jewish people will Elevate us is that's an analogy like this Hashem saying you will be elevated to such a level that when you hear the words you will observe the just like Hashem is always saying to be k now so that's the second benefit of sh I want to share with you another benefit again that's what the did he listed the names of all theim and all the ever written I want to showare with you a third benefit and then we're going to come to the uh main content of this year this is the last on the sheet Rashi says as follows I don't know comes and he makes a list of all the times in Rashi says I don't know so they asked why exactly iser making a list of all the times Rashi says I don't know well he's trying to show how much Rashi doesn't know well like why does why is he collecting H you want to see my collection I have a collection of all the time all the things Rashi doesn't know and if he's trying to collect why did he leave out so many he didn't even get all of them kki later came and he filled in all the missing ID don't knows that Rashi says that raber didn't collect so if raber is trying to collect all the ID don't NOS then why didn't he do why didn't he do a full job says kki there's a beauty and a when you learn Tyra if you could be be and make a mark oh this is found here also who does that so you're learning a gamar and that gamar appears in three other places so the M America on the side of the gamar you know this is found in yamus in in naer and Inus why does he tell you where else it's found it's a certain uh adornment to the T to be able to note where similar things are found to collect similar types of ideas it's a way of beautifying the T so therefore raber in his attempt to show Grandeur and to show Beauty for the tah and Rashi says I don't know rer made a list of all the I don't knows it's not we're not trying to show how much Rashi didn't know it's a way of beautifying the Tyra I so why didn't he say all of them cuz is just writing notes that as he's learning so these are the ones that popped into his head that second he he wasn't trying to collect every single one he doesn't need to spend his time getting every last I don't know that Rashi ever said it's just a way of beautifying the T like it like the says in shab they make flowers they make designs for the T or because they count the letters of the T counting things listing things Gathering things is a way of showing honor and Beauty to the Tyra so by gathering I believe all the that were ever written and all the that ever lived it's also a way of showing Beauty to the T adornment to the T and the so these are three benefits of the work of the so without any further ado ad do I want to share with you 10 epic historical tidbits Bombshells of information that is found in the sh that many people don't know maybe uh maybe over the years we've said a number of them over very interesting Y and that everyone should know that are found in the sh of number one you ready you think you can handle this cuz some of them might be you know major um Bubble bursters like there going to be certain things you thought your whole life and you're going to find out you were conned by your kindergarten teacher okay look they needed to support their family and they what they needed to say things in the class so they told you certain things but it doesn't mean it had any bearing on reality okay so let's let's begin tysus tyus who wrote tysus so really each M had a different main editor and sometimes you can't ask a between one tus and another because they're different ballet tus who is the author of t the author of The brings was none other than the rebi of the rash theam rotenberg he wrote rotenberg was the godar in Germany he was kidnapped he was held hostage they demanded an exorbitant Ransom and theber yes he did not allow the community to redeem him and the rush disagreed with his re and the rush said the of does not apply to the so the rush collected the requisite sum but then mber died in jail and they didn't allow his remains to be released and then the rush had to redeem his remains and then the rush had a skad and he had to leave Germany himself lest they come after him the author of t now anyone who learned Yuma knows on the side of the page there's another some do but is is most prominent in who wrote this is not on the sheet but it is in the wrote the he a of the okay that's number one that's number one the author of number two raise your hand if you have a at home I'm sure everyone has a m and you have under the page you have Rashi baso ran sometimes on the page sometimes not on the page top left hand side what do you have tum y Ben so who wrote everybody knows of course and everybody goes to his and they pray for and I'm not here to go after that right now but I am going to discuss who so it looks like you've attended the classes long enough the says you know I saw the mar says thatum on was written by was written byas says and what happened before unas says what happened before there was no tum on the T either because it was it was simple who doesn't know how to translate or for whatever reason nobody wrote T the until y son came until came and he translated the T and Y translated the and says when I was a child I didn't know what the is talking about the wrote a commentary on the every M has I never understood what the is talking about and many and then I came back back to the mar and I realize clearly the mar holds y never wrote and many years later I found from in the that our son was written by someone but his name was not yel it has nothing to do with yel what is it Tumi so but we have Tumi exactly so to distinguish t a they called t b t because the printer said oh y wrote on so some very brilliant printer came up with a scam to call it has absolutely nothing to do with Yan y was a tana and when he learned and birds flew overhead they got burnt by fire and he was he could revive the Dead the only thing is he happened not to have written but open up any any Nai and on the side of the page it says tum it doesn't say tuman that's tum yanis so this is a a general principle called false advertising if somebody doesn't say it's them maybe it's them but when they say it's them it's unlikely it's them okay it's a general rule change what why we change it yeah we're stuck you know why don't we change it I don't know by the the is not the only one who says he quotes many sources also says it was not written by and yeah I do want to say okay that's the second Y and the says that some support this notion that did not write by saying that if you look at the language of it's different than I'm not sure but one thing we are sure about is that he didn't write it okay that's y number two y number three let's talk about Rashi you ready this is a good one you should know this by now Rashi onas do you ever notice you have Rashi sometimes and then says and sometimes that's not what Rashi says you ever see that you have Rashi and then to quotes Rashi and Rashi doesn't say that or sometimes you have Rashi and then you have a to that's like 20 lines 19 of it he's just quoting Rashi to I see Rashi on the left hand side of the page thank you very much why are you copying over the whole big Rashi there is a very important idea Rashi rewrote his commentary on Shas many times he wrote three editions our Edition is the Third Edition tus didn't always have the Third Edition tus sometimes is working with an earlier Edition so sometimes tus will quote a Rashi it was an earlier edition of Rashi but we have the final Edition and sometimes tus will Cote Rashi because he doesn't know if we have the full addition of Rashi so when Doos quotes him is it different from the Rashi it could be it could be it could be now next Rashi wrot says he heard from a r mu who had a tradition from his rebi that Rashi fasted 613 fasts before he rode his Parish ones moreover his grandson said what my grandfather did on CH I could do something comparable what he did Onish I can't copy moreover the Rano brings that he heard from uh Mel that this Mel went to the Kev of Rashi which is good to know because right now we don't know exactly where he's buried and he made all kinds of seim until Rashi would reveal to him the cabalistic meaning of his commentary from which we learn that even though Rashi says words and it has a simple meaning it also has a cabalistic meaning rashi's parish is also written Al cabala next Rashi onim is rashi rashi on says theit is not Rashi rash is not Rashi rash is not rashi rashi on Nadar is not Rashi so rash is not rash rash is not rash rash R is not Rashi rash is not Rashi and we'll add a fifth the doesn't say here Rashi on the Riff is not Rashi RAB Ryman said that he was inel asked the between rash on the Riff and Rashi and everyone's breaking their head to try to answer s he said okay nice try but the answer to the S is Rashi on the rof is not Rashi and said how do you know because Rashi onas what does it say on top nothing so it's rashi rashi on the roof what does it say on top Rashi so it's not Rashi what does it say on top of the medish Raba Rashi it's not him what does it say on now disagrees the says it is Rashi he says says it's Rashi says it's Rashi says it's Rashi and others say it's rash butash it says rash only not rashash Raba says Rashi it ain't him Rashi on the Riff the question is but it doesn't say Rashi and the says na is also not Rashi yeah but the St says it is okay so so this is a very interesting y not every pish that says rash I mean look if you wrote a pish on something you would also want to call it rash you know I mean that's what could be better but not every not every commentary reported to be Rashi is Rashi okay now we're going to talk about gatri look at number seven this is y number four the were very interested in gatri in sh we find gatri by no it says from which we learned there many uh in has manyas has many look at number seven second paragraph gamas do not waste time trying to figure out gatas don't sit there with if you have a calculator out with a whole spreadsheet pal move move over you know do you know do you know Shas yet do not spend time on on gachas if it hits you easily then no problem next y does anybody know how many par there are in the 52 54 54 yes 53 Paras okay we have a tradition the Z writes many places g g the question is ask maharam Zak say who's Maham zakut ra Zak we're going to be visiting him in about 10 days Zak in Italy we still have a few spots left you could now you should know every time the went to Italy he always went to the cover of ra Zak he went numer he went more than once so the this is the question of raak how could the Z keep on saying they're 53 par they're 54 par answer number one says are usually together answer number two abav we're only counting the par that we read on shabas we never read on chabas we read on so doesn't count or [Music] um or another answer is says we know doesn't have's name it could be are considered like one para we don't want to have that he has a whole para without his name so we reckon as one even though they're never together so that you know we don't forget about okay next Y what was the greatest work ever written very hard question to answer I mean the r the maybe the brings down listen to this number nine I have a tradition from a great person of wisdom and fear who had a tradition from a great Rabbi it was revealed in the generation of the you know who live them the Rak the AR all the holy Jews that the reason the sh came out in that generation is the Jewish people needed a book that gathered all the and its sources and in that time there were three qualified individuals who could have written the they were ta who by the way had a m who came to learn with him and Mahar and the B each one was worthy to write the he's not he's not on the list he didn't make the list the reason why gave it to because he was the most humble he wasn't smarter he wasn't a bigger masm he wasn't a bigger y he was more humble how did his humility display itself that he doesn't disparage those who he disagrees with next next you ready for this one says I heard from old ranam in who heard from zakim that there are two of reim that come from a cabalistic realm did anyone ever hear of R it's a wellknown what about theer also it's a well-known name of these two come from a world called The Hidden realm the hidden realm and anyone who writes a commentary on these two will either Die Young or their commentary will be lost and then traces the history of different who wrote commentaries on either the and they either died young or their commentary was lost he quotes died at Mahar he wrote a commentary or and was lost sh and he was nft and a young age and so on and so forth and there was one R Mahon says look how holy he was he wrote a little bit of a commentary and he lived to a ripe old age he had to be really super holy to overcome this like curse of anyone who writes a number of years ago in our times a young by the name of ran had an opportunity to republish so he went to R and he says should I write a pis and republish it ra said yes what about don't worry he started writing it and strange things started to happen to his children to him health things he goes toad he says you sure I should do this he says are you scared um if the rebi tells me not to be scared I won't be scared are you afraid if if the rebbi says not to be afraid I shouldn't be afraid I won't be afraid on my shoulders say what do you mean the says that you'll either die younger will be lost no says didn't say that he said he heard from old Rim who heard from zakim him were wrong they were wrong on my shoulders and he went back at it and he finished it took it upon himself to uh to be any concern by the way radya had very very big shoulders when it came to these type of things this is one of my all-time favorite stories and most people really don't like it maybe that's why I like it so much but but um rabu was once coming to the South and he had never met personally the babaali so the babaali heard he was coming and they want to meet so the babaali hears R is coming he tells RAB that R you have the of one of the then he said everyone has to leave the room and everyone left the room except for YF as a little boy and the babaali said when was there ever such occasion that two people like us we should meet together let's wash it will be Su mashia MH will come right now looks at his watch he says I have to go give she babaali says if you don't wash now messiah's not going to come and I don't know how much longer it will be said okay is more important than mhia coming it's more important to learn than for to come didn't wash he said and he gave the share anyway that's the story what must have been a great share so sometimes people say I couldn't go to the shear I had to do something very important pal they haven't yet invented something more important yet they haven't come up with that yet even B bik is not more important okay next next is like uh one of the juiciest stories I've ever seen and it's about the raami Pano the Rami Pano lived in Italy he was a big student from afar of Ramos the Riano began as a talmid of R from his R wrote a a massive commentary on the Z on the r on the on the sa talking about a massive compilation Rao passed away you should know that the raami poo in Italy was very involved in printing the B sent the Rano the folios of B to Italy that the Rano should print should publish for him because there no there're no printing presses in AR is they're all in Italy so the B trusted the Rami Pano to publish the now the Rami Pano needs to get a hold of the writings of Rao but ra is no longer alive they're in the hands of the am so it says the I found documents inas and I F later found the receipts in Italy that the Rak had to pay off the Alman of I'm sorry the ramano had to pay off the Alman of the Rak to get his manuscripts so we have I said says the I have a document I saw it in SAS he says um and also I saw he says I saw in the bibliography in also in Modina and that says as follows that's that last paragraph okay we're number 11 okay let let me say it accurately The Rao the the says he saw in a bibliography in Modina in Italy that the ramano who in this in this um record is called Emmanuel mipo because Emmanuel is the English name of manim had to pay the Rak Widow 1 th000 golden coins to get a hold of this manuscript but moreover he also had to pay off the rabbis and SAS to convince her to release the document so says the aside from what I saw in Italy that he paid off the RX Widow a th000 golden coins when I was in SAS I have I saw a Rec a record that Rami had to send 20 golden coins to the author of Theo 20 golden coins TOA and another 20 to the ALS that they should all together go to the Widow of the Rak and and convince her to release the uh document so I don't know I always find this very interesting that the records the like behind the scenes uh Financial Arrangement that was required to pay her off she didn't want to release it she's not going to you know to send her husband's prize possession to a far away country it it required convincing so about 200 years no the raami Pano no Rao was student of or the um yeah yeah about about yeah but the the ra this is about 20 years after the passing of the Rak okay let's move on to another very interesting idea and that is what writes about the AR you know there's a big whether the was asazi Ori and it actually makes a very big difference whether the Aral was asazi Ori we know his name is GL and the brings he from the family of the mar on the other hand he or so you know the question is can someone who is in Ashi is that permitted so those who are staunch ashm say it is prohibited for someone who asazi but say that you could switch from ashaz to and the proof is that ARA himself who was ashkanazi and he and he became AI so there's a big discussion about what was the Aral the seems to say that even though he came from the family of the maral and uh that's why his name was Laura but his father died so his father died and his mother takes him to live in uh Egypt and he goes to his uncle in Egypt who is a tax collector and his name was morai Francis now does that sound like an ashkanazi to you or aardi to you most Francis that I know are ashkanazi but it's not really that relevant because it's his mother's family not his father's family and um name was asazi well the father's last name is father so the I I'll leave it to you to uh I'll leave it to you to to investigate the origin of the ARA we actually have a sheer on it but that's not what I'm I'm here to share with you the then brings down a story with the the was known that even though Alaba you're not supposed to sleep too much during the day because didn't sleep Nish that re slept on shabas afternoon 3 hours now I know a lot of people that they don't do a lot of things like the but this is the one thing that they do the minari minari they're Mak on this Min Aral every single day no but especially on chabas so one time somebody was uh walking by the Aran chabas during his nap and he saw that the arisa's lips were moving and ARA woke up and he says I'm sorry I just woke up they're revealing to me great secrets I just want to let you know it would take me many many years to say over now what what they just revealed to me says the don't wonder about that because we know tell us that one night it was revealed to him what a student cannot learn in a 100 years so we see that in a person's sleep that's why many people they go to sleep during she cuz they say well what this guy's going to tell me okay it's a it's 20 minutes 30 minutes but if I go to sleep I could get a hundred years worth right now so many people have that so not only they on the to sleep three hours on chabas but um they make sure to sleep during Shar as well okay but that's why you know ranam don't always have a chance to do to people but if some somebody's tired and you could put them to sleep so okay one last thing there's an amazing saer it's called ezas the was written by m did anybody ever hear of called is one of the classic it was written by he also wrote a and he also wrote a she and in the back of ezas that he wrote to his daughter's son rakov Ki did anybody ever hear rakov K rakov Ki is the author of why did ROV Ki write the anybody who ever you know I grew up I remember as a kid they had a shelf in the sh of like I don't know 50 of all the May in English translated by Arya Kaplan mayam is a massive work so you would think not knowing any better who wrote the mayam Lo it must have been someone who I don't know what level of learning he was on but he knew a lot of midashim he knew a lot of interesting stories the was written by one of the all-time greatest ldim what was his name ROV Ki say how do we know he was such a great lambden we know he was a great lambden he was the one who organized the safer of his grandfather get P not only that he was a talmid of rabih Huda rosess and rabud rosinus is the author of the mission is one of the most important per ever written on the rambam but when it was written it was written without editing and it was impossible to decipher anything in the Miss and ROV K came along and he edited and he organized the Mish on the ram of his re rabud rosan then he took one of his re one of the great of course you heard the of theim was not able to be understood and organized the so these are two alltime great of L written by his re Ros but they were not understandable and ROV edited them organized them says he gathered all the various the was papers and and he put it together and he was that was say there it was all and he made a beautiful order out of it not only that he organized the stum of his grandfather the get as he was he says so why did he write you know mid for in a simple for for the multitude for the says for one reason you order for women H for for for the multitude he gave up of his own learning to bring Z to theor he could have been involved in much higher level learning but he went down to says something I don't think he says about any other of the hundreds of G that he talks about as fortunate is he and fortunate is in because here this book is about hundreds of gum that wrote Such eminent works such elevated works such works of sophistication but the sadic that gets the appalation as is the one who wrote so these are 10 that I enjoy very much from the and there's more where that came from because if you look at the saer it's literally thousands and thousands of these uh types of and we could say about the also have a great night everyone there