Rabbi Wein - Parshas Shlach

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Jerusalem Post June 24, 2005 www.rabbiwein.com/jpost-index.html VOLOZHIN http://rabbiwein.com/column-931.html The name of this small Lithuanian hamlet ? Volozhin ? has been immortalized because of the great Yeshiva ? Etz Chayim ? that flourished there in the nineteenth century. That yeshiva came to be known as the ?mother of the yeshivot? of nineteenth and twentieth century Lithuania. In a certain sense it still remains the ?mother? of all of the yeshivot in the world even today. The rabbi of Volozhin at the beginning of the nineteenth was the famed Rabbi Chayim Itzkowitz, the disciple of the Gaon of Vilna. In 1803 he circulated a letter to all of the rabbis of Lithuania announcing his opening of a yeshiva in Volozhin in order to address the religious problems of the time. Among other things he stated in his letter: ?There are those who wish to study and have no financial means to do so, and those who wish to study and are financially able to do so but have no teacher to guide them in the true path of analytical Torah study?. and they are all like sheep without a shepherd ? and even though I am unworthy of a crown that does not fit me?. Nevertheless [I see] a time not far distant when the Jewish people will be without leaders and the doors of the house of study will be locked. Therefore do I call upon my beloved brethren to hear the truth?to repair the breach in our wall and to support God?s Torah [through the establishment of this yeshiva] with all our might, whether by supplying proper students, or whether by providing the necessary financial support.?

The description of the situation in Lithuania at that time is provided to us by another letter, this one authored in 1864 by Rabbi Moshe Joseph, the rabbi of Krinak, Lithuania and one of the first students of the yeshiva in Volozhin. He wrote: ?I am seventy-eight years old today and when the holy rabbi [Chayim of Volozhin] founded the yeshiva I was fifteen or sixteen years old. I was an intelligent youth and very observing of the world around me. Before the house of God [the yeshiva] was founded by him, the world of {Lithuanian Jewry] was desolate, empty, formless, for no one then even knew of the name ?yeshiva ? and what was its purpose and way of life. No longer was there any fame of scholars or popularity for Talmudic scholarship, for the world was devoid of intensive Torah study. Even the holy books, such as copies of the Talmud were nowhere to be found except in possession of certain exceptional people who were wealthy. Even in the synagogues of large communities there was not a complete set of the Talmud to be found, nor did the populace find such books necessary, because [in any event] they were not used.? The establishment of the yeshiva of Volozhin reversed this dangerous trend in Lithuanian Jewish life and eventually served as a model for all of Eastern European Jewry.

The yeshiva in Volozhin was closed by the Russian government in 1892. Though it later reopened once again, it never reclaimed its former prominence and glory. The greatest people of the Jewish world studied in its halls and were influenced by its worldview and attitudes. After the death of Rabbi Chayim, the yeshiva was headed by his son, Rabbi Yitzchak, known affectionately as Rabbi Itzele Volozhiner. Upon his death, his younger son-in-law, Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (Netziv) headed the yeshiva until its closing. Among the great teachers at the yeshiva were Rabbi Yosef Dov Ber Soloveitchik (Beis Halevi), later rabbi of Slutzk and Brisk and his son Rabbi Chayim Soloveitchik, the grandson-in-law of Netziv and his father?s successor as Rabbi of Brisk. Almost all of the great roshei yeshiva of the last part of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth century were alumni of Volozhin, as were the great community rabbis. The sons of the Netziv, Rabbi Chayim Berlin and Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan played influential roles, each in his own way, in the establishment of the religious and chardei communities here in Israel. The Soloveitchik family continues to be one of the leading families dedicated to Torah education and leadership here in Israel and in the Diaspora. Even many of the leading secular Zionists, such as Biyalik and Berditchevsky studied in Volozhin yeshiva in their youth. They suffered from the pangs of guilty nostalgia for the rest of their lives. The benign shadow of Volozhin continues to provide comfort, direction and protection to the Jewish world even two centuries after its founding.  Parsha June 24, 2005 http://www.rabbiwein.com/parsha-index.html SHLACH http://rabbiwein.com/column-932.html

 It is difficult to comprehend how much could go wrong in such a short period of time with superior people being the main destroyers. After all, Moshe sent the best representatives he could find to become the spies and he certainly was blindsided by their unexpected and unjustified report. So, what really went wrong? The question has been examined for thousands of years by all of the great commentators to Torah. What emerges from all of this scholarly opinion is that there were two basic underlying, subconscious, inherently unrecognizable motivations that created this debacle. In a certain sense, these two motives were not unique to the spies, the leaders of Israel, but were deeply embedded in the hearts of the Jews of that generation. That is why the Jews were so willing to accept the words of the ten spies and ignore the truth that Yehoshua and Calev related to them. The first motivation was a personal one. The leaders in the desert realized that new leaders would take their places once the Jewish people settled in the Promised Land, so they subconsciously chose to scuttle the idea of going to the Land of Israel in favor of remaining in office in the desert. When the rabbis said ?One should not trust one?s self? they meant that one?s judgment is always clouded by self-interest. One has to examine one?s own prejudices, experiences, ego and desires before passing judgment on important issues. The prophet stated: ?The heart is perverse, who can truly know it??

The other motivation, the one that the general public of Israel in the desert also feared was the necessity of assuming responsibilities that having a Jewish state in the Land of Israel entailed. That generation came from being slaves in Egypt. Being a slave is no joy but a slave after all has no independence, no decisions to make, no responsibilities to shoulder. After Egypt, they came to a desert where all of their material needs were miraculously met. Manna from heaven, water from the rock and from Miriam?s traveling well, dry cleaners from clouds and perfect weather were taken for granted. Then, when they would become independent state builders upon coming into the Land of Israel all of those support systems would disappear. They would have to become masters of their own destiny and they shirked from this task. The slave mentality had not been eradicated from their subconscious. They preferred to return to Egypt rather than to advance to the Land of Israel and have to deal with all of the problems of independent nationhood. Our generation is still witness to the difficulties of uprooting the psyche of dependency from Jews and getting them to face the responsibilities of nationhood and homeland. Shirking national responsibilities leads to disastrous consequences for such a generation. Decisions of policy and state founded upon weakness of will and distorted vision always come back to haunt us. Yehoshua and Calev may have been the minority opinion but history has proven them to be the authors of the correct opinion.

Shabat shalom. Rabbi Berel Wein

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