תפקידו האמיתי של דיין בישראל

00:00 Speaker 1 Is from exactly 50 years ago, and now we're closer to exactly 50 years ago. We went forward in time since last year. It is, uh, it is 29 Cheshvan in this letter. So what's it today? Today is, uh, Yud Zion. Is today the 17th, Soral?

00:13 Speaker 2 Today is Yud Zion, yes. All day.

00:15 Speaker 1 We're only off by about 10 days from, uh, from exactly 50 years ago. But we have this letter that was written on 29 Cheshvan, and it's written to Moreinu HaRav Groonem, Co-- Groonem, Shiyechi Hacohen, whose last name I cannot pronounce. If you look at the bottom, it's Liz- Lizbenk, Lizbenick, Lizbenick? I don't know. An important rabbi wrote a Sefer. Okay. Shalom Ubracha, the Rebbe says. Shalom Ubracha. «Hinni bazeh ha'shekabalt hassefer Sanhedri Gedola, krach heya shezacha vehitzal lehorot b'tesef hasmalel.» So this, uh, this rabbi had sent the Rebbe a Sefer that he wrote called Sanhedri Gedola. It was volume five, and, uh, he compiled it and he put it out. That's important. The, the phrasing here is important because of what exactly this is. I had, I had to go looking to find the Sefer. This is not a well-known Sefer. Uh, even Peretz, who teaches a Sanhedrin shiur, probably doesn't use the Sefer Sanhedri Gedola. It is a six-part series, a six-volume set of these less known Rishonim. Rishonim that people just weren't aware of on Masecha Sanhedrin. So, uh, if you go through it, it's got a lot of very interesting things. K- kisve yad of Rishonim that aren't normally quoted. This Rav Groonem Hacohen, he only wrote the fifth volume. The other, the other five volumes were written by other people. So he sent the volume he wrote to the Rebbe. It's, uh, it's really a peirush and a peirush on something called the Talmid HaRamban. The Talmid HaRamban, not the Talmidei HaRamban.

01:36 Speaker 1 It's not by the Ramban's students, it's by some Talmid of the Ramban. They have the ketav yad, they had his handwritten version of it, and, uh, they didn't know who he was. All they could do is they could read it, and they could figure out from reading it, he wrote on several Masechtas. And from reading it, they figured out that he was clearly a student of the Ramban, that his name wasn't anywhere in the piece, and that he liked, he liked, uh, riffing off the riff, for lack of a better phrase, and, uh, and wasn't always fond of Rashis peirush on Mishnayos. There's a whole introduction to the Sefer where he writes sort of the, uh, the, the patterns and, uh, habits of this Talmid HaRamban. I was skimming it earlier, but it would take far too long for me to read, so I, I didn't get into it yet. Maybe later. In any case, he published this, he published this from Kisve Yad. So he publicized a Rishon that was basically not known prior to his public-- uh, prior to his publicity of that Rishon. That was probably a pretty monumental work. So when he says that, , I think what the Rebbe's talking about is, first of all, is that he brought out something from a ketav yad, and second of all, there's . There's a lot of extra stuff. There's this long introduction that describes the personality. The only thing we really know about him is that he's a student of the

02:36 Speaker 1 Ramban and that he lived around the year 1270. That's in the, that's in the introduction. Okay. Going back to the letter. the Rebbe says, that the Torah of the Rishonim, it's like the T-- it's like Malachim. The Rishonim is like Malachim. The Rishonim, they're like angels. That we live by their light down to daily practice. What the Rebbe's talking about here very simply is that we do daily-- our daily practice of Halakha is based on Rishonim, as I think many of us know. Now, Shulchan Aruch, or really the Tur. The Tur is based on three big Rishonim. It's based on the Rash, the Rif, and the Rambam, with a more or less majority rules with a slight favoritism toward the Rash. And the Shulchan Aruch, the Mechaber at least, it does the same thing with slight favoritism toward the Rambam, whereas the Rama usually leans in a bit of a Rash direction. But the, the Rishonim, they very much build the Halakha that we have nowadays. This phrase, , however, is a strange one because it's not referring to the Rishonim. It's a Gemara. It's a Gemara Masecha Shabbos one-twelve-B, which is not talking about Rishonim. They lived after the Gemara. It's a, it's a, uh, it's a Gemara that talks about, um, somebody, I forget who. Let me see. I think I wrote it down here. I didn't write it down. Some-- One of the Tannaim was, uh, was-- said, said something very intelligent. I think Rabbi Ne-- Yochanan said something very intelligent. And,

03:47 Speaker 1 "Karya lei," they called him, "Lo es din baenish." You're not human. You said something so smart, it makes you-- you're, you're not a human. A human wouldn't say something this. And, "Igdam lei ki gaen din baenash." That you are the ideal human. So there's two versions of this story, but one is that he was not human. And then Rabbi Zeira says in the name of Rava bar Zimuna, "Im rishonim bnei malachim, anu bnei anashim." If the Rishonim, which are the earlier kind, I guess the, the Tannaim, the early Tannaim, are like the children of Malachim, "Anu bnei anashim," then we are like children of man. "Vi im rishonim bnei anashim," and if you're gonna tell me that those Tannaim were like Bnei Anashim, they were like mortals, "Anu kachamerin," we're like donkeys. "Ve'lei kachamerin shela Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa ve shela Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair ela k'shar chamerin." And not just any donkeys. There were some special donkeys in Shas. Pinchas ben Yair had a donkey that wouldn't eat non-meizid fruit, um, or non-meizid grain, I guess. Uh, if we are-- if they-- if, if you're gonna tell me the Tannaim were just humans, then we're like bad donkeys. Donkeys inferior even to the special donkeys. So that's the Gemara that the Rebbe is quoting, is that, "Rishonim kimalachim." The Rebbe is applying this to Rishonim Kepsutai, the word that describes people in the medieval commentaries, which is very interesting. The Rebbe has a sicha in volume fifteen, Likutei Sichos, page two eighty-one, where he

04:54 Speaker 1 says that although the Rishonim were like Malachim, uh, chasidus wasn't given to them. It was davka given to Acharonim. It was davka given to people living in the latter generations. The Rebbe gives two reasons there that are brought in many sichas. One reason is that there's more heshed nowadays. It's darker. We need chasidus, and they didn't need it. And the second is that we're closer to Mashiach, and it's eating of Timma Shabbos to Erev Shabbos, eating a little bit of Erev Shabbos food on Shabbos. Going back into the letter. "Veyafi piskam chachmen usal shma miltsahu." This is a big inyan for the Rebbe. Um, I fell down a rabbit hole looking for this. There's a, there's an idea of shma miltsahu and shma lav miltsahu, whether a name matters or not. This goes all the way back to a Gemara in Masecha Yoma eighty-three B. It's a cool story. Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Yehuda, and Rabbi Yosi hava ka azi be'archah. They were one time traveling together. "Rebbe Meir hava dayaq b'shma." Rebbe Meir held that shma miltsahu. Rebbe Meir held that when you hear someone's name or something's name, you can tell what that person is from their name. You can be dayaq in a name. "Rebbe Yehuda, Rebbe Yosi lo hava dayaq b'shma." But Rebbe Yeh- Rebbe Yehuda and Rebbe Yosi, they, they thought names mean nothing, so they didn't take it very seriously. "Ki matailu lehu doch," they got to the place they were going. "Bo ish bizman," they got to an inn.

05:57 Speaker 1 "Yaavlu," and they came in. "V'amru lei ma sh'mach?" And the innkeeper said to-- and they said to the innkeeper, "What's your name?" "Amru lahu," and he said, "My name is Kidur. My name is Kidur." Kidur Amashma Adam Rasha. So Rabbi Meir said, "This is the name of an Adam Rasha. I can tell he's a wicked person." Shemmer Kidur Tapuchei Seima, 'cause it says that this is a flipped over generation that's in Hazinu. A flipped over generation. His name was Kidur, and that is from the word Kidur is like Kidur. It's like a generation that's all flipped over. And so he knew this was a wicked guy. Rabbi Yodi, Rabbi Yosi, they gave their purses over to him to watch. Rabbi Yodi, Rabbi Yosi gave the innkeeper their belongings to watch. Rabbi Meir and he didn't give over his. Uh, later on, uh, the next day, the innkeeper comes to them or they come to the innkeeper and say, "Can we have our bags back?" And the innkeeper says, "You never gave me anything." So Rabbi Meir says to these two others, he says to them, "Well, I, I knew he was wicked. He had a bad name." And they say back, "Why didn't you tell us?" And he says back, "Names don't make a person a Rasha. I couldn't have been sure. I just-- I had a suspicion." So in, in Igros volume one, page two eighty-nine, the Rebbe has an essay on whether names matter or not, or whether we can be Midak in

07:05 Speaker 1 names. It was long before the Neseus, and it is in volume one. And the Rebbe, th-this goes on for pages and pages and pages. The Rebbe proves that our Shita is that names matter, and the Gemara that I just quoted is one of his proofs. But he does stress there that names don't, uh, that names might rule someone's nature, but they don't force an action. We're all stuck with the natures that our names give us, but we're not forced to act that way, and that's what Rabbi Meir meant. In any case, going back to the letter, the Rebbe says, based on the well-known fact that the Rebbe has established through years of writing letters and through Sikhas as well, that we do hold Shema Milsehu, that we hold that we can be Midak in a name. So based-- I'm gonna be Midak, the Rebbe says, in the name of your safer. I'm gonna be Midak in the name Sanhedrin Gedola, the name of your book. It should be God's will that anyone who is capable of having a Hashpa in his surroundings with speech or or by spreading Torah teachings, he should use that-- he should use this ability to its greatest extent. as it says in the Torah, teach your t-teach your laws to Yakov your Torah to Yisro, that the Torah should be taught. I had never heard of this safer before now. It's a Midrash Rabba on Tana Dvei Eliyahu, right? So Tana Dvei Eliyahu Rabba regarding the Sanhedrin Gedola says there

08:38 Speaker 1 . This is referring to a, clearly a Tana Dvei Eliyahu Rabba. I went and looked it up. It says exactly what the Rebbe quotes here. It says that the Sanhedrin Gedola, what they should have been doing, what they should have been spending all their time doing, the, the Sanhedrin, the big Sanhedrin that was sitting in the Lishkas Hagazis. Should they have been sitting in the Lishkas Hagazis? And this Midrash says no, they shouldn't have been there. That was part of the problem. They didn't belong up there. They should have taken cords of iron and used it to bind their li-- bind their dresses, I guess. You know, people used to gird their loins. Girding your loins act-- You've heard the phrase, "Gird your loins." What it means is that they used to wear like longer dressy things, and you had to roll them up and tie them around your hips if you were gonna do any running. So they should have girded their loins with iron cords, and they should have run out all the way up to their knees, and then they should have run out to all of the cities of the Jewish people and taught Torah. The Rebbe has a Sikha where he says, "This is a little bit surprising." The Sanhedrin, as we know, is not effective when it leaves the Lishkas, Lishkas Hagazis. When the Sanhedrin leaves the Lishkas Hagazis, they can't do Dinim Nefashis anymore. That's considered a Golis by the Sanhedrin. But the Rebbe says, "Nonetheless, what this

09:38 Speaker 1 Midrash is telling us that their main job was really to roll up their sleeves or roll up their pants," but roll up the sleeves is the English expression, "and go out and teach Torah to the masses, not to sit in the ivory towers of the Beis Hamikdash." Even though that's where they're most effective, even though that's where they belong, their main job was actually to spread Torah. So the Rebbe's saying to this individual is that, I think, he doesn't really drive the point home, but I think what the point is, is that we have here someone who wrote a safer that, that un- that unveils Rishon and we were unaware of before, and he's doing a lot of very important academic work. And the Rebbe's saying, "You're n- you're not, you're not unlike the Sanhedrin itself that did very important academic work." Nonetheless, even the Sanhedrin that did the most important academic work, the most important theoretical work in the Lishkas Hagazis, their main responsibility was to go out to the street corners and spread Torah. So I expect you too, despite the fact that your main interests are academic, to get out there and, uh, and spread Torah to the masses, not just in the form that you're doing up until now, but with a greater Chafetz. That's how, that's how I interpret that last paragraph. Obviously, this is a for everybody, and particularly those who are intellectually inclined, which is very much our Chevre. We're, uh, we're, we're all a bunch of intellectuals.

10:40 Speaker 1 We are. We have books all over our houses. That's a-- You know, compared to the rest of the world, we're more-- I'm seeing Cyrille's face with his eyebrow going up. The truth is, compared to the rest of the world, we definitely are the intellectuals. And, uh, and, uh, the Rebbe's saying is that it's, it's really not enough to, uh, to, to work on Sefarim and to be involved in, uh, to be involved in spreading the works of Rishon, even though that's very important. The main job of even the Sanhedrin Gedola was to step outside Lishkas Hagazis and to teach Torah in public. And we also, we also have to find ways to teach Torah in public 'cause certainly if the Sanhedrin was expected to stop what they were doing to teach Torah-

11:12 Speaker 3 Michaal

11:13 Speaker 1 ... we have to stop what we're doing.

11:14 Speaker 3 Your assumption is, uh, Bas or Shame?

11:16 Speaker 1 Huh?

11:18 Speaker 3 Your assumption over there is Bas or Shame?

11:21 Speaker 1 Yeah. But Bas or Shame of the safer.

11:24 Speaker 3 Oh, I'm saying of the intellectuals over here.

11:27 Speaker 1 What? Are we, are we called that?

11:28 Speaker 3 No, I'm joking.

11:29 Speaker 1 'Cause we're Chabad?

11:29 Speaker 3 I'm saying we call that, but it doesn't mean that we actually act that way.

11:33 Speaker 1 Hey, we're called Chabad. It's Bas or Shame, right? If we're-

11:36 Speaker 3 I guess

11:36 Speaker 1 ... intellectual. That's right. So anyway, final, final take-home message, I think, is that, uh, is that if the Sanhedrin was responsible for spreading Torah and they had a very busy job and they were expected to stop doing that to spread Torah, however busy we are, we need to take a little bit of time to spread Torah as well. That's it.

11:54 Speaker 3 Okay. Go ahead.

11:55 Speaker 2 One, one, one thing I wanted to just ask, though, 'cause it hap- it actually came up recently and I for- I forgot who, who mentioned it to me recently, the concept of names. And someone asked me if the Rebbe ever got involved in, in naming children. Like what-

12:07 Speaker 1 No

12:07 Speaker 2 ... names to give. So I, I-- my assumption, what I told them was no, the Rebbe didn't, 'cause the only time, there were times where Where, where a person would, uh... Oh, hello, Moshe Shmuel. Uh, there were times when, when, when people had a suffix on what a certain name was like, let's say in, in, you know, "My name's Peter," or, "My name's this. What should my name be?" Or, "What Yiddish name I should take?"

12:27 Speaker 3 Right.

12:27 Speaker 2 I understand the Rebbe did give advice, or if it was a machloket between parents as to what to name a child because of their machloket, he would maybe give them advice as to how to resolve the machloket, but not necessarily give advice and say, "Oh, name this person this or name this person..." My son was telling me-

12:40 Speaker 3 Right

12:41 Speaker 2 ...he wanted to know if the Rebbe got involved in giving people names. So I-- Just 'cause you mentioned the name part of there and the significance of the names, just, uh, I was just double-checking with this, uh, group over here if my, uh, response was correct.

12:52 Speaker 1 As far as the-

12:53 Speaker 3 There were-

12:53 Speaker 1 Yeah. As far as I know-

12:54 Speaker 3 There were times where the Rebbe had a lot of nachas when people said they gave names after-

12:59 Speaker 2 Right

12:59 Speaker 3 ...this person.

13:00 Speaker 2 After, after their mother, after Reb Stechйн. Wishke, the Rebbe gave people a thank you for and stuff like that.

13:03 Speaker 1 The Rebbe was strong approval for certain names, and we also see the Rebbe clarifying that some names shouldn't be used. The Rebbe in a couple of letters, uh, knocks down names and says, "Don't use that name."

13:11 Speaker 2 Interesting.

13:12 Speaker 1 One of the, one of the-

13:13 Speaker 2 Reb Chaim, Reb Chaim Kanievsky used to be very into that.

13:16 Speaker 1 Reb, Reb Chaim, um, actually knocked down almost all modern Israeli names. He said Shira, for example-

13:21 Speaker 2 Yeah. I was gonna use that example as well.

13:22 Speaker 1 Yeah.

13:23 Speaker 3 What did he say about Shira?

13:24 Speaker 1 That it's not a proper name. And, and na-names need to be names that are Miyuchas names, names that we had in the Jewish tradition up until now, and new Hebrew names-

13:30 Speaker 3 Really?

13:31 Speaker 1 ...were wrong. Um, yeah. The Reb-

13:32 Speaker 2 It's, it's, it's funny, I have a friend, I have a friend, a Litvak, who has a, who has a, a daughter named Shira, and he's having a lot of, a lot of trouble with this, with his daughter. And he, like, he says this sometimes back, "I should've gone to Reb Chaim before I named her."

13:46 Speaker 1 So the, the Rebbe did knock down certain names. He very famously knocked down, multiple times, people who wanted to mix the Rebbe's names with regular names of their parents, who wanted to name somebody like, um, who wanted to name after the Rebbe plus a parent. Um-

13:59 Speaker 2 Ah, interesting.

14:00 Speaker 1 The, the Rebbe would use the lesson of don't mix kodesh and chol.

14:03 Speaker 3 But I think-

14:03 Speaker 2 Really?

14:04 Speaker 3 But was, was that as, as... Was that as in general speaking about names or specific heiros to people? I think the Rebbe was very much focused on it's a nevua, that it's specific to the person.

14:13 Speaker 1 I believe this rule that you don't mix a Rebbe's name, not, not that-

14:15 Speaker 3 Right

14:15 Speaker 1 ...you don't mix a Rebbe's name with a parent's name because the name's off limits. You can name it-- The, the Rebbe's names are not off limits, but to say, "I'm naming for both."

14:22 Speaker 3 Right.

14:22 Speaker 1 That I'm naming half a name for the Rebbe and half a name for a parent, he was very much against. He-- That, that doesn't mean, by the way, that he's against the other version of it. Um, for example, it's not like the word Dovid Ber is off limits forever. You can name a Dovid Ber. Just 'cause other Rebbeim had Dovid Ber