Droshos - Becoming Truthful 2007

I have come to [this kollel] speak from the depth of my soul about something that bothers me deeply.

Baruch Hashem, this is a place where kolel avreichim are learning Torah with exertion.

But I will say something sharp.

It is possible to say that in our generation, a new world of Torah is being produced – but, it is a world of sheker, and it is not emes. There is a lot of sheker in the olam haTorah today! A lot.

I am not speaking about the tzibur as a whole, but of what’s going on deep inside the Torah world. Everyone knows it, and it is nothing new. It is hard to understand how it can be, but this is the painful reality.

Rav Elchonon Wasserman zt”l once went to the Chofetz Chaim about the yeshiva he opened in Baranovitch. The Chofetz Chaim asked him “Do they learn mussar in the yeshiva?” Rav Elchonon answered, “No”. The Chofetz Chaim said to him, “Then the yeshiva is not even worth a piece of tobacco.”

Everyone knows how great that yeshiva was. Why then did the Chofetz Chaim say it’s all worthless? A place where they learned Torah day and night, with exertion. How could the Chofetz Chaim tell Rav Elchonon one of the Gedolei HaDor who opened this yeshiva that the yeshiva is not even worth a piece of tobacco?! Just because they don’t learn mussar?

If the Chofetz Chaim would tell this to any Rosh Yeshiva today, the Rosh Yeshiva would probably answer “He’s saying it because he’s probably jealous of Rav Elchonon’s successful yeshiva.” But this is the Chofetz Chaim whom we are talking about. The Chofetz Chaim can’t be suspected of saying something out of jealousy. It’s not my own words, it’s what the Chofetz Chaim said. It’s printed in the sefarim, it’s not just a rumor. Why did the Chofetz Chaim say this? They were learning with exertion, and even if they learned shelo lishmah, they are still learning Torah. To say about a yeshivah that they’re not even worth a piece of tobacco? Isn’t that lashon hora? But it was the Chofetz Chaim who said this, and he was the one who wrote the sefer on lashon hora, he never spoke lashon hora. So it couldn’t be he was saying something he wasn’t supposed to. So what problem did he have with a yeshivah that doesn’t learn mussar?

Before we wonder what the explanation to the Chofetz Chaim’s words are, we must first wonder if perhaps chas v’shalom we are included in this category. The Chofetz Chaim wasn’t coming to fight. He was coming to teach us something with this, to fix something that’s wrong. What did he want? Did he want that everyone should learn mussar for a half hour every day…?

We must know that a person can learn Torah all day, he might even be a dayan, a posek, or a rav, yet he is not necessarily being a truthful person. There can be many factors of why he has this position. A person can also open a big chessed organization or a big yeshivah, but Hashem knows why he’s really opening it - if he’s doing it to spread Torah or if he’s looking to just spread his own name. Who does he recruit for his yeshivah? Usually, His friends, his relatives, and his Rav will endorse it. Why doesn’t he instead look for the most truthful people he can find, to come join his yeshivah? We all know what goes on when it comes to opening these places. It doesn’t go according to yashrus and emes. It’s all about having the right connections to the right people, to those who have money, so they can get accepted to the yeshivah.

This isn’t something that goes on at the other end of the world, but something that goes on in our own inner circles.

We think that everything is fine today, but this is what the Chofetz Chaim was saying that a yeshivah that doesn’t learn mussar is not even worth a piece of tobacco. Why? Because there is no emes in it.

The Torah is emes. If it is emes, then the way we act has to be emes. Today everything is the opposite of emes  (except for a few rare individuals), then this is not the kind of yeshiva Rav Chaim Volozhiner had in mind when he established a yeshiva. This is a new generation where yeshivas are opened with many factors that are very far from the way of the Torah.

We have to look well into what the meaning of what a ben Torah is. A ben Torah is a person who understands that besides for Torah, there is nothing else in his life. Yes, he has a wife and children too, he has a home with a family in it, but only to help them and influence them with the Torah that he learns and lives by.

I want to ask you, what does it say in the newspapers today? I’m not talking about the irreligious secular papers, I’m talking about the newspapers that are called “Chareidi.” What is the content of these papers? Does it say there that so-and-so finished Shas? No! It’s full of ads for vacations to Europe and to beaches in Tel Aviv, and all with a hechsher.

Thousands of bnei Torah are reading these papers every day. Is this emes or sheker?

Can we raise a generation of bnei Torah with newspapers in the house when they have seven different ads for vacations in Europe? That a ben Torah in Eretz Yisrael should go on a vacation to chutz l’aretz – was there ever such a thing 20 years ago? And to advertise it in the Chareidi papers, and to give a hechsher on it?

Even in the several Chareidi papers there are ads that come from all the secular influences that keep introducing new concepts to the world of Torah. One of my relatives told me because if you don’t advertise it then people won’t know about it. Is there a heter to leave chutz l’aretz to go on these vacations? And it’s being advertised for bnei Torah!

Everyone is quiet about this and everything just goes on as usual. It is painful that bnei Torah are being introduced constantly to concepts that used to be only for the irreligious. Then, those ideas were introduced and advertised for the Mizrachi crowd, and now for the bnei Torah  where these ideas come into the walls of Torah. Does anyone think that any of this is proper for a ben Torah? Avreichim who really want to grow are being introduced to these concepts and they begin to think it’s all “normal," the more since they get used to reading the papers and seeing these ads. And if not, he’s considered "out of the loop."  All these influences continue to enter more and more into our homes and, and it’s all considered “normal.”

Twenty years ago, a person who would see what’s going on today wouldn’t believe that this is how bnei Torah look today, and that these papers are being written by Torah-observant people. These papers are on the tables of kolel avreichim and in the homes on Shabbos Kodesh. The advertisements in it to go on these vacations are not for the purpose of going to Russia for kiruv rechokim. Those who go are just going to get the most out of enjoying the desires of the world. These are things that our Gedolim never fathomed would happen.

Why is this so painful? Because if you take the average person with even a little Jewish feeling, he will say, “I know that this is not good," but deep down he has quietly accepted it. He feels it’s fine because this is what everyone’s doing. Everyone is just being like sheep following the flock, and “everything’s fine," everything just continues as it is and no one says anything about it. Who knows what this will lead to? No one can know for sure.

Two weeks ago there was an ad of “A Trip For Women Only," to take trips to Europe. Where did these ideas come from?! Does anyone really think that this is normal and acceptable?

Now there are ads for yeshiva bochurim, with a hechsher from Rabbonim – from which Rabbonim? Maybe from Reform Rabbonim - ads today for bochurim today to go to Elat. What are they going there for - to do chessed there and do kiruv? How can they just take an entire tzibur of bnei Torah there? The excuses are “There’s anyways nothing to do bein hazmanim," “the wife is roaming around bored in the house," “people are stressed” – all kinds of excuses to justify it. They want the bnei Torah to act like the irreligious, but all with a hechsher.

I won’t go into the kashrus issues there - let’s assume the kashrus there is really okay by all these places. There’s not even a minyan in these places. Is the mashgiach there one of the thirty-six  hidden tzaddikim? Yet everyone eats the food there as long as it has a random hechsher.

Yes, besides for our neshamah, we also have a body and we need to eat and drink. Does that mean we need all of this food? All the taavos today have a hechsher on it. The Pesach hotels offer a tremendous amount of food. Can we be certain that all the keilim weren’t used for chametz? These places are very questionable when it comes to chametz. Everyone knows this is the truth, and you all know it, you probably know about this better than me.

Does anyone think that true bnei Torah can come from this? If a person takes his little child to these places during bein hazmanim, what things does the child see on the way? Is his shemiras einayim so perfect like the Brisker Rov’s that he can guard his eyes from all that he sees? Then the child comes back from where his father took him bein hazmanim, and he comes back in Elul to yeshivah, can he concentrate on his learning after all that he saw?  Can a person learn true Torah like this? Everyone knows that not one of the Gedolei Yisrael can come out of such a life. None of our Gedolim ever went to chutz l’aretz for vacations. If they ever went to chutz l’aretz, it was only for the purposes of spreading Torah and to make Hashem more known to the world.

I wish the problems ended with just vacations to chutz l’aretz, but you know that there’s a lot more than this. I wish I could be wrong and mistaken about all this. But you all know what’s going on.

Clothing today is not clothing. Take a Jewish girl from 20 years ago and put her in today’s generation - if she would see the clothing of today, she would quickly throw it away. But everyone got used to all the clothing styles. We slowly get used to it. What was once known as totally forbidden has now become known as “modern," and then later it becomes turned into “normal." 

I want to ask you: Do you think that all of this is not true? So why is everyone so quiet about it? Why can’t anyone stop the papers from printing all these things? If you don’t buy the papers, then you are praiseworthy, and you’ve made me very happy.

I have more to say. Let’s continue with some more simple examples.

A new building opens – a new yeshiva or a new shul. People come to be honored – are these people who represent the Torah?

The Ponovozher Rav had to go to Parliament with the Gedolei HaDor. He knew that in order to influence, you have to bring people who have yiras shomayim, people who learn Torah all day with a love for Torah. But today, those getting honored and who are of influence are those with money.

If a person values Torah, if he learns Torah and he loves Torah, then he is someone to be honored. But what happens today? You all know. The people opening yeshivos today, even if the person learned in yeshivah, but if only he could even remember what Torah is. He opens the yeshivah, but not only that, he also gets special honors, all under the banner of kavod haTorah. If he is just an askan and he doesn’t learn Torah, thenhe isn’t deserving of kavod haTorah. Yet it is the askanim today who are getting all these accolades. Are these the people that we should be honoring out of honor for the Torah? Why should he be honored to come speak and give a drasha? If he learns Torah all day, he can speak about Torah, but if he doesn’t, he cannot speak of the Torah. This is not called kavod haTorah to honor him and have him speak to bnei Torah. This goes on every day. Only bnei Torah who understand what Torah is should be brought in to speak to bnei Torah.

Today’s there’s a new hashkafah. As soon as someone does teshuvah, he is invited to speak. Has he come out of all the tumah yet from his past? What does he have, to sell? A little bit of light has entered him, but that doesn’t make him fitting to speak to bnei Torah. Just because he has been through things in his past? A baal teshuvah – though he’s very admirable and I have much admiration for baalei teshuvah – how can he guide bnei Torah to avodas Hashem when he just did teshuvah a few years ago. Only people with Torah infused in them are fit to guide a tzibur. Yet this is all being run through well-known organizations that are bringing in these people to speak to bnei Torah.

Are we really bnei Torah? We must decide. If what we value is Torah, then only have bnei Torah speak in your place, and don’t give that honor to anyone else. I’m not asking you to be on the level of Baba Sali. Certainly we should aspire for that, but I’m speaking here of just the bare minimum of the minimum.

We are zocheh to be in the world of Torah. Why bring in all the garbage of the street into our homes? Everything from the outside is coming in.

If we think that it ends here – if only! Who knows what will happen from all this, and where it’s all leading to. This entire situation should make us simply cry. If only this would be where it ends. If only! Who knows what will be in two or three weeks from now. A goy invited to speak as long as they pay him a bit of money to come to speak…

It’s very painful that no one speaks about this, and that everyone just continues on as usual. From day to night, people are screaming about all the politics that go on, on the signs and loud speakers, but what about saving our own selves? Why is everything so calm and relaxed as if nothing’s going on?

Who knows what our children will be facing as they are growing up in this generation? If a person is zocheh to have children Baruch Hashem, does he ever wonder what his child might look like when he’s 15 and what he’s facing in our world today?

Seminary girls getting up at 4 A.M. to go on a bus and go to certain places for trips at the sea? Is this for a bas Yisrael? Who introduced this?

All the trips for bochurim during bein hazmanim that take place, to go to water retreats in the North - does everyone follow the halachos of tzniyus there? Are they all going with the intentions of Baba Sali? Who told them they can do this? It’s all parutz and it’s not normal. And who are they meeting there at these places? And it’s yeshivos that are taking them to these places. But the justification for this is, “There’s no other way around it. It is the reality today. This is what it is.”

The concept of living a life of ruchniyus is going lost. They are taking a person’s entire state of ruchniyus and totally destroying it.

I don’t really have what to say. I have come here to talk to you from a deep pain in my neshamah.

Whatever I can do is also upon all of you, without exception, to do.

I, too, am on my own, and I, too, don’t have the energy. I don’t have any group or political party or any askanim on my side. I just have a neshamah that Hashem has given me, and that’s all that I have.

Everyone here as well, must decide – do you want sheker (falsity) or emes (truth)? Do you want to be a true ben Torah? Are we going to go with the flow of the tzibbur with the accepted lifestyle of today? Do we think that if we go along with it, we won’t be affected?

Of course, we can’t live on a high level, we can’t become angels, and we can’t lock ourselves in a room and close even the windows like the Kotzker Rebbe did, to separate himself from the world. But Chazal said “All that is in your power, do."

The Ohr HaChaim said that in the end of this Galus, which is our generation, we are in the “50^th gate of the kelipah," where all tumah is broken loose and it’s everywhere. What does that mean? Jews who live in chutz l’aretz amongst the goyim are aware that there’s a difference between a goy and a Jew, but in Eretz Yisrael, the Galus is that we are ruled by a wicked government and it’s hard to see that we are in Galus, it’s hard to see where the border is between the Torah world and the world of falsity.

When people vote for politicians, they feel connected with them, and certainly when the prime minister wins, they say proudly “I voted for him.” More and more influences enter and become accepted, and slowly people stop seeing where the border is between the world of Torah and the world of falsity.

We all know that the Knesset is part of the Medinah that is entirely opposed to the Torah. Just because a wealthy philanthropist closes his store on Shabbos, he can become a leading Rav for Eretz Yisrael and make decisions for the entire Torah world? What makes him a Chareidi? The entire Medinah and Knesset is against the Torah. It is all an open denial of Hashem from beginning till the end, and anyone who enters into the Knesset is like someone sent into a war, who returns dead. There’s a spirit here where everything follows the wishes of the Medinah, which is something that we have to be disgusted with, including everything connected with it. The Brisker Rov said that if we send a representative to the Knesset, by the time he comes back, he is no longer one of us.

I am not getting into that topic, because it was a big machlokes between our Gedolim, between the Chazon Ish and the Brisker Rov and the Satmar Rov about these matters, and everyone has to go according to their Rav.

But we must know what the emes is, that we have a holy Torah which we received from generation to generation starting from Moshe Rabbeinu. The holy Torah remains as it is, and we don’t need anyone to recognize it and give us any benefits for it. Yet people will put in so much effort and money for this. People are spending so much money to get certain Rabbonim to have connections with the Medinah. They should really be interested in a Rav who is for Hashem, not a Rav who has what to do with the Medinah. It’s not a secret, it’s all so that these Rabbonim should get into Knesset. What kind of Rabbonim are these? Just because there were Gedolim who sent Rabbonim there doesn’t mean that this can become turned into what we value. It should not become a ideology, a halachah. What are our values?

I will tell you a story. I once entered a store, I didn’t check the sign, and there was a man there with a kippa, so I assumed it was a kosher store. I was looking to buy something to eat, but I didn’t see a hechsher. I asked him where’s the hechsher. He said to me “Here nothing is kosher.” How then a religious Jew can work in such a store, selling non-kosher food where Jews come shop there? It is because he has to make parnassah, and his Torah is one thing to him while parnassah is another thing, so when he’s making parnassah, there’s no Torah for him now, there’s just parnassah.

I didn’t come here to speak about the wars and fights that go on today, just the emes.

Today there are so many baalei teshuvah, who used to be completely irreligious and then returned to teshuvah. But who is going to bring the Torah-observant people to do teshuvah? Can Mashiach come the way the Torah observant world is today? Even if there would be no secular Jews in the world and everyone would be Torah observant, does anyone here think that Mashiach can come the way it is now? Who will get them to do teshuvah? A maggid? Will they be able to do teshuvah like the baalei teshuvah did? Everyone’s donating money to Yad L’Achim for kiruv rechokim, but what about the Torah-observant world, who’s going to get them to do teshuvah?? At the very least, a person should do teshuvah with himself, and then influence others with his own teshuvah.

Anyone with a bit of a natural feeling can relate to all this. Certainly there are stubborn people who don’t want to hear any of this, and it’s not them who I am coming to speak to. Certainly there are people who don’t want to hear this. But there are those who are willing to hear the truth, and they want to become more truthful people, and it’s to them that I am speaking to. They are aware of the falsity of today.

It’s hard to speak any more. I just want you to understand one thing. The day will come when we will leave this world and return our soul to Hashem, and we will have to give an accounting before the heavenly court. We will be asked, “You lived in this generation. Did you know that it was all false? Or did you think that this was all truth? What did you do to become more truthful? And what did you do to help others become more truthful?”

Everyone should sit and reflect, between him and his Creator, and think, “What does Hashem really want from me? What can I do so that falsity will end, and that Mashiach will emerge from us?”

May he come speedily in our days, to redeem us. Amen v’Amen.

דרשות_026_שקר בתוך עולם התורה.תשסז