What is Hakhel? | Rabbi Shais Taub in 770

Kindle look keep your eyes on that clock when it's 7 57 wave at me okay there's a famous interaction with the rabbit in the Reba's house on President Street in Thompson after the rabbits passing and people came to the rabbit Rabbi gave dollars in his home one of the people who came to visit was a Jew from Bexley Ohio named Gordon Zach's Oliver shalom so he comes in and what's famous about the interaction is that within a couple of seconds that ABBA picks up a conversation with him that they left off 19 years previously and they hadn't seen each other or been in contact for those 19 years and so Gordon's acts is shocked and he's taken aback and he says you're amazing you're amazing keep saying that Eva is amazing it's 19 years we haven't spoken and you picked up the conversation right where we left off and the background to the story what was the conversation 19 years previously is that this Gordon's acts had given a speech to the United Jewish appeal about starting a 100 million dollar Endowment for Jewish Education and after that speech yeah and in this was prevailing upon Mr Zacks to spend the money you should raise the money that he set out to to raise but then he should spend it in the right way meaning there are various different definitions of Jewish Education so he said he wants to raise 100 million dollars for Jewish Education but he didn't necessarily Define Jewish Education the way that the rabbit would Define proper Jewish Education so the rebel was trying to Prevail upon him to spend the money properly and he was arguing a little bit about the fact that American Jewelry aren't ready for for Orthodoxy and so we have to give them other forms of Jewish Education and at one point in the rabbis says to him do you remember what Zorba the Greek said to the college student now you're going to say talb you're coming into 770 and quoting Zorba the Greek which is a novel the Reba spoke about Zorba the Greek in 770. not down here but in in the Rebel's room so no I never read the book but it's a book and apparently that Evan knew his customers he knew he was speaking to and he understood that for Gordon's acts reference to Zorba the Greek would be effective what's the proof that decades later he was telling the stories we remembered it so he says the rabbit said to me told me do you remember what Zorba the Greek says to the college student he says what good are all your fancy books if you don't even know how to live life so Gordon the sack says that ever said to him what good is all your intellect all your knowledge and you don't know how to live then the rabbit said to him you're trying to think your way to God and it's not possible you can't think your way to the infinite it's something that has to be experienced it's something that has to be lived stop trying to think your way there and and live it and then the Reba said and I'll help you with that I will give you somebody I'll send you one of my system to go home with you and to live with you for a year so that you can live a Jewish life for a year instead of trying to think your way there you'll live your way there and that's the only way to do it will you take me up on my offer and you know what Gordon's acts told that ever I'll think about it I'll think about it right whoever says you can't think your way to the infinite you gotta live it and what do you say to that I'll think about it okay Martin Taylor from an educational perspective was not a very well organized class it wasn't a very good Torah class it should have been divided for different levels of intellect for different levels of background and have different teachers you wouldn't take all the kids in a whole school and put them all in one class and the reality is that Martin Toyota was not a Torah class it wasn't for teaching Torah it was for having a lived experience of Torah after which you can go and learn Torah in other words the point of Martin Toyota was not to teach Torah but to give people a real experience thunder and lightning a real lived empirical undeniable sensorial experience after which you can go open the book and find out what Torah has to teach you so the basis of our entire yiddishkite is an experience something we all lived and because of that it transcends all the different categories you normally have when you're studying when you're studying so you group the students according to different classes according to different skill levels you teach them different subjects different levels of depth because that's how a class works but when you have an experience then everybody has the same experience it transcends all the different categories and all the levels toward the very end of his life my sharabena was concerned about a new generation of Jews who were not at the mountain Toyota and although they could learn Torah they never had the experience they know they never lived through that event so may should have been who created something called hakkel and the purpose of hackel was not to teach Torah but to give people a Torah experience that's why if you look in the rambam in a very interesting way you have the king reading from the Torah and yet there's no uh there's no microphone there's no PA system they don't have speakers and not everybody can hear the rabba mentions the people who can't hear they should just try to imagine that they're standing at harsinai but they can't even hear that album also mentions people who can hear but they can't understand he says there are people there who are newly converted and they don't know kadish and they can't understand the the kriya saturated that's fine they should also just have in mind that it's like they're at Mountain Tire and then there's another group for whom is not limited these are people are shyth to much deeper learning for they should stand there and listen to to homish but again it's not a Torah class so you have for whom this reading is way beneath their level of study you have newly converted Jews for whom this level of study is actually too advanced and then you have people who push it by gashlands physically cannot hear foreign brought me here [Applause] come on out can you come out you're gonna have a lived experience come here come now all right [Applause] so the point is that hakkil is an experience like the rabbit told Gordon's acts you can't think your way to this thing you have to live it you have to live it Once Upon a Time not so long ago in recent history there was a hackel In This Very spot on a regular basis and you could bring any Jew to this place I mean it's terrifying actually I just realized how closely I'm standing to the actual spot the rebel with fabrang from this spot and people from the greatest to people who couldn't understand a word that the devil was saying because they didn't speak Yiddish would all stand in this mocking and experience elicus not listen to a share from arasha Shiva it wasn't a class it was gilia lucus like by Martin Taylor Mountain Toyota was not a share from arasha Shiva Martin Toyota was seeing and hearing and feeling and living and that's what happened here I'm going to say something and it's only on Maya khrayas and then I won't be invited to speak in 770 again [Music] took care of the idea there should be a hak hill and he set it up for us the rabbit took care of the idea that when there would not be fabrangians there would not be a place to bring every single Jew to experience the revelation of godliness and a palpable empirical bodily sensorial way the rabbit gave us the keys he turned over the secret to us and charged us with being the hakil Malik and creating lived experiences real lived sensorial Judaism and that we will continue with these marching orders until the world will be transformed and what will happen when mashiach comes no one will ever have to learn about God from a book Thank You Kendall luck I'm wrapping up in five seconds no one will ever again have to learn about God from a book they will look at the world and they will see that nothing but Hashem is real [Applause]