Siyum of Daf Yomi 5765, Kfar Chabad

00:00 Speaker 1 The meaning of “when you lie down and when you rise up” is what it says in Yehoshua: “You shall meditate on it day and night.” No, not the plain meaning of “when you lie down and when you rise up,” that night comes before day, but “You shall meditate on it day and night,” that—

00:14 Speaker 2 Can you hear? Can you hear?

00:17 Speaker 1 And when he was there, he arrived in Hadera. I wrote to him—

00:21 Speaker 2 Then it doesn’t sound good.

00:22 Speaker 1 And one of his generals says to him, “Your Majesty, I think we’ve found ourselves…” I’d like to hear what that’s about. What is it?

00:39 Speaker 2 Do you want to turn it down further?

00:41 Speaker 1 Hmm?

00:41 Speaker 2 Do you want to turn it down further?

00:42 Speaker 1 Only if we turn on the sound—

01:14 Speaker 2 They did it out of boredom. I took it and—

01:51 Speaker 1 Because, listen, we would once go by what is written in the Yerushalmi, in Berachos: even Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who was in the cave and did not engage in the mitzvos, nevertheless recited Shema. He recited the morning Shema. So he asked about the meaning of “when you lie down and when you rise up,” and he found a verse in Yehoshua that says, “You shall meditate on it day and night.” What does that mean? Rabbah taught us a halachah here about the order of Torah study. This is what we explained earlier. If you learned it from “when you lie down and when you rise up,” that would mean Torah study begins at night: “when you lie down and when you rise up”—night first, and then day. Not that he should recite the verse in the morning Shema. Rabbah said that Yehoshua came and taught [unclear]. Not as you might always think: if Shabbos begins with night and then comes day, Torah study also begins at night and ends during the day. No. Rabbah had a tradition that the meaning of “when you lie down and when you rise up” in Shema is what it says in Yehoshua: “You shall meditate on it day and night.” Not according to the plain meaning of “when you lie down and when you rise up,” where night comes before day, but “You shall meditate on it day and night”—day first, and then night. And why are the words written that way? This explanation is not stated there, but the matter appears in the discussion of Rabbi Nehorai in Berachos, page 11. From there he says the following. There, too, in that part of the discussion, the Yerushalmi says, “Those who borrow…” We are talking, after all, about Jews who set fixed times for Torah study, who learn every day, twice a day. “Those who borrow during the day and repay at night.” A person has fixed times for Torah study, a set time to learn, and something happened so that on a particular day he could not study Torah. He was occupied with travel, or, of course, with earning a living, a trade or some work, something that took his strength. So the Yerushalmi says—

04:02 Speaker 1 “Those who borrow during the day and repay at night.” He can borrow that time he was supposed to learn during the day and make it up at night. And the later halachic authorities established this on the basis of the Rosh: the Yerushalmi says, “Those who borrow during the day and repay at night.” But imagine someone who had a fixed time to learn at night and did not learn that night. He cannot make it up the following day. This is a special halachah: if he had a fixed time to learn during the day, he can make it up at night. Which night? The night that follows. But if his fixed time was at night, he cannot make it up the next day. That is why it is written that the sages say that if he had a regular fixed time at night and did not learn, he cannot make it up the following day—just as he cannot make up a night when he did not recite Shema. If something happened and a person did not recite Shema, the Levush says this. But in any event, as Rabbi Shalom Scharf [?] put it, he cannot make up the Shema he failed to recite at night by reciting it the next day. The same applies to Torah study, but Torah study has an advantage here: if he did not learn during the day, he can make it up at night. What is this? Why? Listen: the conclusion is that Torah study is an exception. As it says in the Yerushalmi, for Torah study, night follows day, unlike all the mitzvos of the Torah, where day follows night. For Torah study, night follows day. So that is the meaning of the words. Why, in fact, did Rabbi [unclear] connect even one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening to the verse “You shall meditate on it day and night”? Because from there we learned that Torah study differs from all the mitzvos of the Torah. It says there, “You shall meditate on it day and night”—night follows day. So now the connection becomes clear—

06:04 Speaker 1 between the Gemara’s discussion of a niddah and a zav, and whether night follows day in those cases, and its subsequent discussion of this halachah in Chullin: one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening. We begin after Shabbos, and we hear “in the morning and in the evening.” After Shabbos, we would say “in the evening,” because day follows night. But in the question in Chullin, night follows day. There is something very, very interesting here. It is simply the meaning of a passage in the siddur that we read every day. We say it in the siddur, and this itself reflects what we said: night follows day. There is something very interesting here. The Alter Rebbe introduced a new distinction—one we have already mentioned—concerning the mitzvah of Torah study. There are two mitzvos: the mitzvah of “You shall meditate on it day and night,” and the mitzvah of knowing the Torah. A person is obligated to know the entire Torah. That is not tied to day and night; over the course of his life he must come to know the entire Torah. And even a person who has already come to know the entire Torah must still learn at least one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening, to fulfill “You shall meditate on it day and night.” Someone who has no other occupation is obligated to learn all day and all night, even if he already knows the entire Torah. That is the mitzvah of “You shall meditate on it day and night.” Some books say that, yes, we have reconsidered it and it cannot be refuted, but until the Alter Rebbe, nobody knew about it. Suddenly the Alter Rebbe came along. The Vilna Gaon did not know about it; others did not know about it. I recently saw several books making that claim. Before the Alter Rebbe, they say, people did not know about it, and suddenly he introduced the idea that there are two mitzvos in Torah study. Do I have a siddur here a moment? We looked for a number of sources.

08:02 Speaker 1 Even before the Alter Rebbe. But the plain meaning of the siddur—and, as I said, the words we recite… There is a passage in Tanya. The Alter Rebbe says in a chapter of Tanya, in connection with [unclear], that the mitzvah of studying Torah in depth is greater even than the mitzvah of Torah study through speech. That is what the Alter Rebbe says there. What does “the mitzvah of Torah study through speech” mean? Where is there such a mitzvah? I spent some time studying the Alter Rebbe’s Hilchos Talmud Torah, and I did not find anything like that there. The mitzvah of Torah study through speech. Torah study must be spoken aloud, but “the mitzvah of Torah study through speech” sounds as though there is a separate mitzvah to speak words of Torah. What mitzvah? Where is such a mitzvah? Then, in the Rebbe’s Reshimos, I saw a note on that passage in Tanya explaining what “the mitzvah of Torah study through speech” means. The Rebbe says, “See Hilchos Talmud Torah…” There the Alter Rebbe distinguishes between two mitzvos in Torah study: the mitzvah of knowing the Torah and the mitzvah of “You shall meditate.” “The mitzvah of Torah study through speech” here means “You shall meditate on it day and night.” In other words, knowing the Torah means understanding it. But even after a person has come to know the Torah, he is obligated to speak words of Torah. Where do we find these two mitzvos? Where do we find a basis for this? It is very interesting. We recite Shema twice a day, and before Shema, twice a day, we say the blessing of Ahavas Olam. But in Ahavas Olam in the morning, what do we say? Perhaps someone remembers it by heart? Some of us—everyone knows it—but what do we ask for each morning before Shema? “Place understanding in our hearts to understand and to discern, to listen, to learn and to teach,” and “Illuminate our eyes with Your Torah, and attach our hearts—

10:18 Speaker 1 to Your mitzvos.” Why do we ask for understanding? To learn and to teach, to understand and to discern. “Illuminate our eyes with Your Torah”—that we should understand what we learn. What do we say in the evening? Ahavas Olam—

10:34 Speaker 3 “We will speak of Your statutes and rejoice.”

10:36 Speaker 1 I didn’t daven in the evening—I don’t remember—but what do we say in the evening? “With an everlasting love You loved the House of Israel, Your people. You taught us Torah and mitzvos, statutes and judgments. Therefore, Hashem our G-d, when we lie down and when we rise, we will speak of Your statutes and rejoice in the words of Your Torah.” So why do we need study? We don’t ask for understanding; we don’t ask, “Enlighten our eyes with Your Torah.” We ask, “We will speak of Your statutes.” What does “we will speak” mean? That we should speak words of Torah, speak words of Torah. So how do I know? How do I know that interpretation is right? We ask to speak. And afterward: “We will speak of Your statutes and rejoice in the words of Your Torah all day and night, for they are our life and the length of our days, and we will meditate on them day and night.” In other words, our Sages instituted two blessings over the mitzvah of Torah study. The blessing of Ahavas Olam in the morning is about understanding: “Enlighten our eyes with Your Torah,” “Place understanding in our hearts to understand and comprehend.” They did not mention a single word about speaking words of Torah. In the evening, by contrast, in Ahavas Olam, they do not mention study, they do not mention understanding, they do not mention “Enlighten our eyes with Your Torah.” It says, “We will speak of Your statutes”—that we should speak words of Torah—and concludes, “We will meditate on them day and night.” The Men of the Great Assembly instituted this. They—soon you’ll understand—divided the mitzvah of Torah study into two: knowledge of Torah, and “we will meditate on them day and night,” the matter of speaking words of Torah. What do we see here? The very principle we spoke about earlier. Someone will come and ask: “Rabbi, why should it really be this way? All right, let’s ask to understand at night and ask to speak during the day.” No. In the morning we ask to understand, and at night we ask to speak. After all, the Rambam says, “A person acquires most of his wisdom only at night.” Nighttime is the time especially suited to understanding Torah. Yet no: in the morning we ask for knowledge of Torah, and at night for speaking words of Torah. Rather, this makes more sense in light of what we explained earlier. Right? If Torah study were like all the other mitzvos, where the day follows the night, what would the order be? First one would have to study and understand. As the Alter Rebbe says, after one has

13:01 Speaker 1 already understood, then one must speak words of Torah—even at night. If Torah study really followed the pattern of all the other mitzvos, where night comes first and day afterward, and we now began our Torah study at night, then surely at night we would have to ask, “Enlighten our eyes with Your Torah, and place understanding in our hearts to understand and comprehend.” Then, during the day, would come the continuation: “We will speak of Your statutes.” No! They reversed it. Why? Because in Torah study, the order is that night follows day, so it begins in the morning. In the morning we first ask for understanding of Torah, knowledge of Torah: “Enlighten our eyes with Your Torah.” At night—night is not the beginning. Night is the continuation. The continuation is “we will meditate on them day and night,” this matter of, of—

13:54 Speaker 4 Speech, speech.

13:54 Speaker 1 Speaking words of Torah, which is the idea of “you shall meditate.” So we see just how precise the Alter Rebbe’s words are—not only precise. At least once you look at it, it seems so simple. And we have this wording that we don’t even think about. But the wording is the same among all Jews: Litvaks, chassidim, Misnagdim—everyone. There are slight variations in what is said at night, but at night we ask about Torah study, and during the day we ask about knowledge of Torah. Why? Because in Torah study, as we said in the Yerushalmi, night follows day. So now we understand the connection with the conclusion of Tractate Niddah, [unclear]. And as the Rashbatz said, the halachah is in chapter eleven, chapter fourteen, but there night follows day, while with the Shema, day follows night. So we see something very interesting. It’s very interesting. The Rebbe began with the order of teaching young children. When educating a child to learn, the Rebbe says, we have two verses. Yes. This is what the Rambam writes: “From the time he begins to speak, his father teaches him ‘The Torah that Moshe commanded us’ and the Shema.” What does that mean? The baraisa says “and Shema.” What does “Shema” mean? In the Gemara in Sukkah, it says: “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.” I remember when I was a little boy in kindergarten. We didn’t yet have all these siddurim. I remember that in kindergarten they taught us “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction.” That was the Litvak version. Later, the Rebbe’s siddur became known, and a new approach opened up: not “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,” but as the Rambam writes. This is how the Alter Rebbe writes in Hilchos Talmud Torah: “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One.” Two verses: “The Torah that Moshe commanded us” and “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One.” What, really,

16:19 Speaker 1 is the Torah here? Why were these two verses, specifically, chosen out of the entire Torah, out of all the worlds, out of all of Tanach? These two verses out of the whole Torah, the Five Books of the Torah: “The Torah that Moshe commanded us” and “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One.” When you think about it, you see how precise it all is—and there’s more. Where does it say, “The Torah that Moshe commanded us”? In Devarim. Where does it say, “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One”? In Va’eschanan. Which comes first in the Torah? “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One,” and afterward, “The Torah that Moshe commanded us.” They reversed the order. That’s the order in which children are taught: first “The Torah that Moshe commanded us,” and then “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One.” What’s the order here? Why did they switch them? Why? Why, in fact, do we teach these two verses? It says [unclear]. These two verses are the foundation of the Torah of the Jewish people, the foundation of the Jewish people’s faith. In the Pardes, the Ramak explains this further as well. But why? Why, in fact, did they reverse the verses? Let’s consider what these two verses mean. “The Torah that Moshe commanded us”—Moshe taught us the Torah. Yes, knowledge of Torah. “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One”—what is that? In that same Gemara in Tractate Menachos, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says that even if one only recites the Shema morning and evening, one has fulfilled “It shall not depart.” Initially, one should study one chapter in the morning. But if, as the Sages said, he is busy with other matters and occupied in some other way to the point that he cannot study even one chapter, he should at least recite the Shema. If he recited the Shema morning and evening, he has fulfilled “It shall not depart.” In other words, “The Torah that Moshe commanded us” is knowledge of Torah. “Hear, O Israel” is “It shall not depart.” The rosh yeshivah said: first knowledge of

18:08 Speaker 1 Torah, and afterward “It shall not depart.” You take the child from his earliest years. The task is to begin to know the—this is instilled in his mind. Know that Torah study accompanies a person. A person accompanies the Torah, and the Torah accompanies the person until the end of his life. And afterward it [unclear] him, as it says in Pirkei Avos. And what is the order? First “The Torah that Moshe commanded us”—knowledge of Torah—and afterward you arrive at “It shall not depart,” day and night. In any case, as for the question they asked me about Rabbi Shparan [?] and this study of Daf Yomi: it isn’t necessary. There is no shortage of ways to study Torah. One thing I can say is that anyone who looks in Hilchos Talmud Torah, chapter 2, section 10, will see that the Alter Rebbe says something new there, based on what is written in Pri Eitz Chaim. Others question him: Pri Eitz Chaim doesn’t say such a thing. I’ve already seen it in Pri Eitz Chaim, but he writes—citing Pri Eitz Chaim—that a person is obligated, during his lifetime, to go through at least the entire Talmud. He lists the Babylonian Talmud, the Yerushalmi and the Midrashim, and sets out the order of what a Jew is obligated to study at a minimum. And even if he forgets—although the Alter Rebbe is so stringent about forgetting what one has learned—even if he forgets, in the time to come he will be reminded of everything he learned, everything he forgot through ordinary forgetfulness. In other words, whether to study it through Daf Yomi or perhaps in reverse order, beginning with Niddah and finishing with Berachos, then beginning with Berachos and finishing with Niddah—that I won’t get into. But going through the entire Shas and going through the whole—the essential body of the Oral Torah—is practical halachah. In the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch, he says something there about how a soul may sometimes have to undergo reincarnations to complete this mitzvah. May it be Hashem’s will that we have finished with all the reincarnations, all the work of refinement and purification, and that we truly merit to see Hashem’s Geulah, speedily, in our days, now.

19:50 Speaker 1 Amen.

20:01 Speaker 5 …

20:08 Speaker 1 That was the shiur by Rabbi ... about the main things in general: Torah study, Shabbos, Yom Tov. I don’t know what that is. Rabbi Elyakim Weinberg [unclear], Yitzchak Golomb [unclear]—at least each of them should read for about five minutes. And you, too, have a blessing. The people who put their minds, hearts, and souls into making this evening happen. [unclear] the Morenu family. May they be blessed. The family of Eliyahu Machshvili [unclear]—may they be blessed. The family of Aharon Yosef—may they receive a good blessing. The family of Nachum Rami [unclear]—may they be blessed. The Chodesh family [unclear]—may they be blessed. The Kadosh family—a blessing.