Rabbi Dor Biton - New Zealand - Part 3

00:20 Speaker 1 Dor, we heard your interesting story about how you gradually came closer to Torah and mitzvos, specifically through a Chabad rabbi, Rabbi Rafael Busi. And now, for some reason, Rabbi Busi is pressing you to go study in a yeshiva. I want to understand why in a moment. You don’t see eye to eye with him, and you say, “I’ll make a deal with Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” We heard about the deal—an interesting one. Let’s hear what came of it.

00:46 Speaker 2 Okay. First of all, as for Rabbi Busi pressing me, he probably saw potential. I’d become more connected to the shul, more active, coming on Shabbos too, and even helping with the running of the shul. I was really one of the most active people there, and he probably wanted... Again, he has a lot of merit to his credit. He’s sent many, many young men to yeshiva.

01:16 Speaker 1 Yes. I’m asking a simple question: Can’t a Jew keep Torah and mitzvos without studying in a yeshiva? Especially when he’s already finished his army service, he’s earning a living, and maybe he’ll be getting married soon. So why is now the time for yeshiva? What does it give him?

01:34 Speaker 2 Look, of course you can keep Torah and mitzvos without yeshiva, but it’s a different reality. It’s a different world. You enter the world of Torah; you feel it. It means making Torah and mitzvos a central part of your life. After all, we didn’t grow up learning Torah and mitzvos from childhood, and a lot of things we do every day are missing that connection because we don’t relate them to Torah and mitzvos. In yeshiva you learn that every detail of life, everything from getting up in the morning to going to work, sleeping, and eating—everything, everything—has its halachos, and everything is connected to Torah and mitzvos.

02:21 Speaker 1 In other words, yeshiva teaches you how a Jew should live Torah.

02:24 Speaker 2 Right.

02:25 Speaker 1 Of course you can do without it, but then life has less meaning in terms of Torah and mitzvos.

02:29 Speaker 2 Right.

02:30 Speaker 1 Okay, all right.

02:32 Speaker 2 So, the deal. I made that deal with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and again, I didn’t believe those things could—

02:42 Speaker 1 Work out.

02:43 Speaker 2 Work out. That’s why it was a deal. I made a deal that I thought I knew I’d win from the outset. But exactly two weeks after making it, in a way I can’t explain, my mother suddenly came back to herself. You could see she was someone you could talk to. On her own, she started taking care of the children, cooking, really functioning. She went from someone who hardly did anything—someone who’d suffered some kind of trauma or depression, I don’t know, and could barely do anything, who needed medication and needed people to look after her and feed her—to someone functioning completely normally, including raising the children, preparing food, and looking after the home. During those same two weeks, my mother also found a job. That, too, had been out of the question—how could she possibly go to work in that condition? But she found a job. And in those same two weeks, not only did we get approval from Amidar, but my mother actually received the key to the Amidar apartment. It was simply a wonder.

03:53 Speaker 1 The whole thing completely astonished you.

03:54 Speaker 2 Very, very much. And the fourth thing, which again I don’t remember, happened too. I came to Rabbi Busi so amazed, and I said to him, “Listen, Rabbi, Hakadosh Boruch Hu won. I don’t know what to tell you. Here I am, I—”

04:08 Speaker 1 He won four–nil.

04:10 Speaker 2 I was so amazed that I told him, “I lost.” I could have kept it to myself, but I said, “There you go, I lost. I’m ready to fulfill my commitment.” This was in the month of Elul, about a week and a half before Rosh Hashanah. I told him, “Okay, I’ll fulfill my commitment, but I’ll do it after the holidays. I’ll spend the holidays with my parents, with my mother and father.” He said, “No, no, no, no. Your word is your word. You committed yourself. Get ready. You have a whole week to get to yeshiva, two or three days before Rosh Hashanah.” I told him, “Rabbi, I can’t. I have my father and mother. They won’t accept my going to yeshiva for a whole month. It’s not as though I’m going for two or three days.” He wanted me there for the whole month; I’d said a week.

05:00 Speaker 1 The deal with Hakadosh Boruch Hu was for a week. Yes. Go on.

05:03 Speaker 2 In short, he said to me, “Okay, let’s write to the Rebbe.” I said, “Okay, explain to me what it means to write to the Rebbe through Igros Kodesh.” He explained it to me. We took paper and a pen, I washed my hands, gave tzedakah, we learned something first, and I sat down and wrote to the Rebbe about everything I’d been through, everything I’d experienced, the miracle Hakadosh Boruch Hu had done, and that I was keeping my deal to enter yeshiva. I was only asking for a blessing to enter after the holidays. I received a letter—I don’t even know how to describe it—but the Rebbe writes to a young man who’s about to enter yeshiva. As I remember it, it was someone who had probably reached bar mitzvah age or something like that, and the Rebbe writes, “Mazal tov, mazal tov on entering the new yeshiva.” The Rebbe gives him several blessings about it, and then writes, “Regarding your question of whether to enter yeshiva before the holidays or after the holidays, he should certainly enter before the holidays, and he will have nachas from his parents, his teachers, and himself.” It was just something—

06:16 Speaker 1 In other words, the Rebbe understood he needed to cover every angle.

06:19 Speaker 2 Exactly. Yes. If it hadn’t been that clear-cut, I wouldn’t have been able to face my parents and tell them plainly that I was going to yeshiva. Well, after such a revelation—again, such a revelation of G-dliness—I spent a week getting ready. I told work I was taking a whole week off, packed a bag and everything, and went to the yeshiva in Ramat Aviv, Rabbi Yossi Ginzburg’s yeshiva. I was there for Rosh Hashanah—

06:52 Speaker 1 On Tagore Street, right?

06:53 Speaker 2 On Tagore Street, right. 32 Tagore Street in Ramat Aviv.

06:55 Speaker 1 Rabbi Yossi Ginzburg’s well-known yeshiva. Yes, absolutely.

07:00 Speaker 2 I was there for Rosh Hashanah, and I stayed through Yom Kippur. And I thought, well—

07:07 Speaker 1 What was that experience like?

07:10 Speaker 2 Look, it was the holidays. Now, as you know, yeshiva students travel to the Rebbe for the Tishrei holidays. But Ramat Aviv is a yeshiva with many people who are newly observant, so many of them don’t travel because they’re only at the beginning of their journey. On the other hand, they can’t really spend the holidays with their parents, because of kashrus, the laws of the holidays, and all those things. So the yeshiva was quite full. It really was quite full, and there was an atmosphere—

07:40 Speaker 1 Tell me more plainly—what was it like? Was it—

07:42 Speaker 2 It was a very, very special experience, because young men from the Ramat Aviv community came too. It was a really good, very special experience. Especially because, again, there were a lot of young men like me, who were just starting out. Not everyone was dressed in black and white and glued to a sefer. I had really good conversations with the guys and enjoyed it very much. It was a very good week, and I extended that week. In the end, I stayed for Sukkos and Simchas Torah too.

08:15 Speaker 1 What did you do about work? I’m asking in the meantime.

08:18 Speaker 2 Honestly, after that first week I told work I’d probably be quitting. I wasn’t sure, but for the time being I’d take a little more time off. And after a month I came home and—

08:33 Speaker 1 After a month—so you were actually in yeshiva for a whole month.

08:35 Speaker 2 Yes, a whole month.

08:36 Speaker 1 Just as the Rebbe had written in the letter.

08:40 Speaker 2 Exactly. I came home, and that was it. And I understood. I understood that I wanted to continue.

08:50 Speaker 1 Meanwhile, your beard had grown. How exactly did that work?

08:52 Speaker 2 Ah, no, not yet. I hadn’t grown a beard. That was only the beginning of the process. But I was wearing a kippah, yes, and tzitzis tucked in, and keeping Shabbos. I spent a whole year growing closer, but without a beard. I came home, and I remember sitting with my father and explaining everything to him. On the one hand, it was hard for him to accept. On the other hand, I saw a very, very great blessing from the Rebbe: my father said to me, “Listen, if it’s good for you, go for it.” I was sure he would fight me on it, because I was leaving my job to go to—what about getting ahead in life? What about studies, earning a living? I wasn’t a youngster who hadn’t started his life yet. I was already twenty-three or twenty-four, an age when you need to move forward. He tried talking to me a little, but he saw I’d made up my mind, and he wished me success. I also told him that my plan was to stay for six months and then get married. That was what I thought. And my mother immediately gave me her blessing, even though it was very hard for her, because suddenly I was leaving and wouldn’t be earning a living anymore.

10:02 Speaker 1 You were disappearing from her horizon, as they say.

10:03 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. On the one hand, it was very, very hard for her. On the other, she was very, very happy and blessed me to go. So that’s how I entered yeshiva. After six months, I realized that I needed another six months before getting married.

10:18 Speaker 1 What do you mean? Explain—what did you realize?

10:21 Speaker 2 When you begin learning Torah and going through the process, the closer you get, the more you realize how much there is. The more you get into it, the more you’re exposed to Torah, to halachos, to Chassidus, and you realize: listen, how can I build a home like this? I still have so much to learn, so much preparation to do before I can build a home. I need another six months. And after another six months, I said, all right, I need to go to the Rebbe for the year of kvutza. How can I build a Chabad home without—

10:53 Speaker 1 What is kvutza at the Rebbe’s?

10:54 Speaker 2 Kvutza is a full year. Basically, the yeshiva track is three years in yeshiva ketana, three years in yeshiva gedola, and then you go to the Rebbe for a year, to 770. You spend a full year there, experiencing all the holidays. Of course, there’s a yeshiva and you learn, and you experience being at the Rebbe’s. There’s also more freedom. The yeshiva isn’t watching over you as closely; you’re more independent, and you learn to manage on your own. In short, just from what people told me about that year, I said I couldn’t miss it. I wanted to go, but the yeshiva in Ramat Aviv wanted me to leave from there. Since most of the guys in the kvutza that was going were from Tzfas, I wanted to go to Tzfas two months before the end of the year, get to know people and make friends there if I was going to spend a whole year with them. I think only one other person and I were going from Ramat Aviv.

11:57 Speaker 1 Ah.

11:57 Speaker 2 But they wouldn’t let me, and then my mashpia—

12:00 Speaker 1 Who wouldn’t let you? Ramat Aviv, or—

12:02 Speaker 2 Ramat Aviv, Ramat Aviv. They told me, “No, you need to finish the year and leave from this yeshiva.” I spoke with my mashpia, Rabbi Weisselrod[?] at the time. He told me, “Okay, no problem. Finish the year, go to Tzfas for another year, study there for a year, and only then go for kvutza.”

12:23 Speaker 1 So another year.

12:24 Speaker 2 Yes. At first I was shocked, but I said, okay, that’s what needs to be done, and I went to Tzfas for a year. I studied there in shiur gimmel and shiur daled. Shiur gimmel also has baalei teshuvah, but over there it’s a whole operation of—

12:41 Speaker 1 That’s where Rabbi Yossi Daniel is in charge of all the—

12:44 Speaker 2 Yes, right.

12:45 Speaker 1 Young guys.

12:46 Speaker 2 Exactly.

12:47 Speaker 1 Yes.

12:47 Speaker 2 So it’s a whole operation there, with more than three hundred students. After a year in Tzfas, I flew to the Rebbe for a full year of kvutza. It was an experience I can’t describe. I really loved every moment, and that was that.

13:07 Speaker 1 Did you try to study there?

13:08 Speaker 2 Of course, I tried to study as much as I could. On the other hand, I also needed a little money to live on. I imagine that in a Chabad family, the parents know their son doesn’t have any money, so they help out. In my case, if I’d asked my father, he certainly would have given me money. But he was paying for that whole year there, which was several hundred dollars a month, and he helped me with many, many other things. So I tried to ask him for less. Through hashgacha pratis, I got a job as a mashkim, waking the students in the morning, and I was paid somewhere around a hundred and something—almost two hundred—dollars a month.

13:45 Speaker 1 Ah, nice.

13:45 Speaker 2 Yes, it gave me a little pocket money. It also helped me get up in the morning, and gave me some pocket money. There, toward the end of the year—okay, that was the process of becoming more observant, when I realized, that’s it, I’m already a Chabad chossid, I’ve already begun—

14:05 Speaker 1 At what point did you decide to grow a beard?

14:08 Speaker 2 A little more than six months into my time in Ramat Aviv, I asked my mashpia about growing a beard and starting to wear a suit, black and white. He told me, “Grow a beard, but don’t put on a suit yet. Wear your regular clothes.” Only nine months into my time in Ramat Aviv did he say, “Okay, now you can wear a suit. We’ll wait with the hat.” It really was a very slow process, because at first, going out like that all of a sudden was a bit much. I had a reunion with my army team, so showing up in a hat and suit—

14:43 Speaker 1 A reunion of your team from the Givati Brigade, the Givati reconnaissance unit.

14:46 Speaker 2 Exactly, my team.

14:49 Speaker 1 And suddenly having them see you with a hat and beard would have been a bit too much.

14:52 Speaker 2 He told me, “Don’t wear a hat; go in a suit.” In other words, he took me through the process gradually, until it became something internal, something I accepted as part of me, rather than just making an abrupt break. And that was the main part of my process of becoming more observant. Of course, I stayed in touch with my family while I was at 770. Then, toward the end of kvutza, the end of that year, people start getting ready for the month of Tishrei. And there—well, I think that’s already a different story—

15:29 Speaker 1 Well, I—

15:30 Speaker 2 The whole process of getting married and everything.

15:32 Speaker 1 Wonderful. Wonderful to hear. With Hashem’s help, we’ll hear more.