Vayishlach 5785:  Influences of Universities

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Shiurim given in 5783 and 5771

• Part 1: Influences of Universities
• Part 2: Developing a Taste For Olam Haba

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Influences of Universities

Yaakov Avinu’s Message to Eisav

In this week’s parshah, Yaakov Avinu is encountering his brother Eisav. And Eisav was quite upset with Yaakov. Eisav came to kill him. And the emes is, you know, that Chazal (Medrash Rabbah 78:11; Rashi 33:8) tell us what really happened. The malachim that Yaakov sent to greet Eisav – to soften him up – had to teach Eisav a lesson that he wouldn’t forget. It says they began to beat him up. He was a hard-nosed customer. He was a thug. Eisav wasn’t used to getting pushed around, and they pashut beat him up and he was pleading with them to stop and to have rachmanus. He said, “I’m the son of this person. I’m the grandson of this person. I’m the great-grandson of this person.” They said: Bam! Bam! They kept on smashing him. “I did this when I was younger.” Smash! Finally, he said, “I’m a brother of Yaakov Avinu.” Ah! Now, we’re going to let you go. You taka remember you’re a brother of Yaakov Avinu? Now, we’re going to stop. Bezechus Yaakov. Bezechus your brother, we’re going to stop beating you up.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to get beaten up by malachim. Previously, we described to you their size, and how tall they were. They are not someone you want to meet. To meet even one of these angels in an alley would be frightening. To meet a whole bunch of them, all the malachim of Yaakov Avinu must have made quite an impression on Eisav. This is mind-boggling. I’m sure they left some black and blue marks on Eisav. And you realize he couldn’t call his army,  his four hundred men, to help him out with these guys, because these are malachim. You can’t fight with malachim.

Yaakov sends him a message: עם לבן גרתי ואחר עד עתה (Bereishis 32:5). I lived with Lavan and lingered until now. What was he telling him? Rashi explains Yaakov was telling Eisav: I never became a sar or a chashuv person. I’m a ger. I’m a stranger. It’s not worth it for you to be upset with me and hate me for the brachos because they weren’t fulfilled in me. Don’t think I got the upper hand over you. Ich bin a pashute,simple Yid. I’m still יעקב איש תם יושב אוהלים. I didn’t become like the Zeida Avraham, nasi Elokim, the president of the world. No.

Then Rashi says another peshat.  He was telling him: “When I lived with Lavan all these years, I didn’t learn from his bad ma’asim.” Nu? So the Rebbi (Rav Meir Halevi Soloveichik) klered, what is Yaakov trying to tell him? He said, I understand the first message he sent him. Yaakov was trying to appease Eisav because he was angry that Yaakov took the brachos, so he was telling him, “Look, I didn’t gain anything by taking the brachos. You’re upset I took the brachos. I didn’t end up with anything.” When he’ll hear that Yaakov didn’t gain anything, he won’t hate him. But according to the second pshat – that Yaakov was telling him: “I lived with Lavan and I didn’t learn from his bad ways” – what does Eisav give a hoot if Yaakov learned from Lavan’s bad ways or not? Does Eisav care if his brother became “modern”? Does Lavan care if his brother decided to modernize a little bit after growing up? Why would he tell him that message? Why would Yaakov tell Eisav that message that he’s still frum? What does Eisav care about that?

Keeping The Torah With All His Strength

The Rebbi explained that the emes is Yaakov Avinu was telling Eisav the opposite. He said, “In case you’re going to say that the brachos are now yours, I’m telling you, that’s not the case. So, it’s not the time to fight with me now.” The medrash says the only reason why Yaakov was zocheh to the brachos was because he was osek baTorah.Yaakov was telling Eisav: “Since I was zocheh to the brachos because I was osek baTorah, you should know for all the years I was by Lavan’s house I continued to be oseik baTorah.”

Yitzchak had told Eisav, “When your brother will have a downfall, when he has a yeridah, then you’ll be able to throw off the yoke of your brother from your neck.” Rashi says, what does that mean? When Yaakov will transgress the Torah, then you’ll be able to have a complaint: Why does he deserve the brachos if he’s throwing off the yoke of Torah? And then you’ll be right and then you’ll be able to throw off the yoke of your brother from you.

Chazal tell us that Yitzchak told him הקול קול יעקב והידיים ידי עשו. Chazal tell us that as long as the kol Yaakov is found in the batei kenessios and the batei medrashos, the yadayim of Eisav cannot be sholet on him.

Now Eisav was certain that after all these years of Yaakov living together with Lavan and his family and with the people of Charan, a bunch of reshaim, Yaakov definitely had to have gone down from his madreigah, and he definitely learned from their behavior – like the Rambam says, the nature of a human being is that he learns from the company he keeps. The company that a person keeps makes an impression on him, and he follows their thoughts, he follows their actions and he behaves like them. Therefore a person has to attach himself to tzaddikim, and he should go far away from reshaim who walk in darkness – so you don’t learn from their ma’asim, their actions. The natural state of being is that when you hang around with bad people, you are influenced and become bad. Eisav figured that if Yaakov lived with Lavan for so many years, now is the time for him to go pay his brother back because it’s a matzav of ופרקת עולו, he definitely threw off the yoke of Hashem from his shoulders. And that’s why Yaakov Avinu sent him a message. “I want you to know I was in Lavan’s house, but I lived in a supernatural way. I lived above nature.”

How I Kept My Zechus for The Brachos

You should know, Yaakov Avinu was very afraid of living in the house of Lavan and that he was going to be mushpa, influenced negatively. He said, “אם יהיה אלקים עמדי, if Hashem will be with me and He will protect me בדרך הזה אשר אנכי הולך” (Bereishis 28:20). What was he concerned about? You could say he was concerned about matters of physical health? No (that wasn’t Yaakov’s tefillah). He was concerned about lechem, food, garments? No (that also wasn’t Yaakov’s tefillah). Chazal tell us, he davened to Hashem that he should not stumble on the three aveiros. When he said ושמרני בדרך הזה אשר אנכי הולך, you know what he was davening for? Shamrani from what? מעבודה זרה מגילוי עריות ומשפיכות דמים – and from lashon hara. You hear that? Rashi explains when he davened ושבתי בשלום אל בית אבי, “I should come back to the house of my father in peace,” Rashi says שלום מן החטא, complete from cheit. שלא אלמד, I should not learn from the derachim of Lavan. And when Hashem promised him that, “I’m going to watch you בכל אשר תלך” Yaakov Avinu was zocheh to this promise, that he’s going to have a shemirah in matters of ruchniyus. And that’s why Yaakov sent this message to Eisav that, “I didn’t learn from him. So I didn’t lose my zechus for the brachos.”

So according to the first pshat in Rashi, Yaakov sent him a message, “You have no reason to hate me. The brachos weren’t neskayem.” And according to the second pshat he was telling him that, “The brachos are still mine because I remained with my righteousness.” Ad kan from my Rebbi.

How Much Those Around Us Influence Us

Now, one of the most important things in a person’s life is to know that the way you grow and the way you’re going to be oleh, is by living among the right people. You have to know that if you don’t live among the right people, it’s a geferleche matzav. And a person has to learn from all the people that are around him. You have somebody that’s not Jewish, and he’s your neighbor, and you want to know, what is there to learn from him?

There was once a big gadol hador that related that a lot of his growth in righteousness he got from his neighbor. The people who heard that wanted to go see who his neighbor was. So they went to his block, and they looked at his neighbor. Both neighbors on the sides were goyim. They wanted to see who this groise tzaddik is. There was a businessman, a goyishe businessman. They came back to this gadol, and his talmidim asked him, “Bezechus your neighbor – the goyishe businessman – you grew in Torah so much?” He said, “Yes. It was all his zechus.” “Can you tell me how?” He said, “I’ll tell you.”

“In the beginning, I moved into my house and I used to wake up every morning at 8 o’clock in the morning. And every day when I walked out of my house, I noticed that my goyishe neighbor had already gone to work. His car wasn’t in its place. Nu. I questioned and I found out he used to leave at a quarter to eight. I said to myself, ‘If for his business he has the respect that he leaves at a quarter to eight in the morning, do you think that when I go to shul it should be later than that? No. If anything, it should be earlier.’ So the next day, I started getting up at 7:30. Nu. I’m going by his house for a couple of days, and then one day, I come out at 7:30, and I see my neighbor’s car is gone. What happened was, the goy said, “I see the Jew getting up at 7:30.” So he started getting up at 7:15. Nu, so the gadol decided he has to get up at 7 o’clock. So he started getting up at 7 o’clock. Another few weeks go by, and finally, he notices at 7 o’clock that his neighbor, the goy, is also out at 7 o’clock. And everybody was competing with each other,” he says. “It finally came to the matzav, I was getting up at alos hashachar. Afterward, I said a shiur. מצוה גוררת מצוה and I started shteiging, davening every morning vasikin, and I became somebody. So it’s all bezchus my goyishe neighbor that I became somebody.”

None Of My Gadlus Was From Reshaim

You have to learn from everybody. מכל מלמדי השכלתי. But Yaakov Avinu said to Eisav, “I want you to know something. I lived with Lavan, and I kept taryag mitzvos.”And then he added, ולא למדתי ממעשיו הרעים, “And I didn’t learn anything. None of the good that I have came because I was trying to show Lavan that I’m better than him. You hear? I didn’t come to my shemiras hamitzvos through learning and studying Lavan’s ma’asim and doing fakhert. No. I had it completely on my own.”

It says in Tehillim אשרי האיש אשר לא הלך בעצת רשעים – so what’s the pashute pshat? Fortunate is the person who doesn’t follow the bad advice of reshaim. I mean it’s simple. Mai kemashma lan. The teretz. No, it’s not as simple as one may think. אשרי האיש that the good derech of his life did not come from the eitzah of reshaim. He didn’t look at the reshaim and say, “I’m going to do the opposite.” ובדרך חטאים לא עמד, he didn’t see and study the ways of chataim in order to become better. But rather והיה כעץ שתול על פלגי מים, he grew straight from the source of the water.

Yaakov Avinu knew that if he would learn from a rasha even a davar tov, for somebody on his madreigah it wouldn’t be a good idea. So, he pointed out ולא למדתי anything ממעשיו הרעים.

Universities Are Inspired By Evil

My Zeida used to speak about this nonstop. He said we’re living in America, and we’re surrounded by people who have no Torah minds. No Torah ideals. The only thing that inspires them is wickedness, and the only thing they’re interested in is wickedness. Now you can see it clearly since what happened in Eretz Yisrael in the best of the universities and the best of the colleges. The colleges and the universities that are mamash the halls of justice, of learning, intellectualism, and intelligentsia. My Zeida used to say in his lifetime, they’re all dens of wickedness. There’s nothing good that’s taught in these universities, in these colleges. They’re a place for the lowest of the low. And if a person goes there or he sends his children there, he’s out of his mind.

Back in the 1930s, Rav Elchonon Wasserman came to America. A Yid came to him. In the 1930s, going to college for a Jewish boy was not even a shaylah (i.e. people sent their kids to college without any second thought). I remember even when I was a boy, it was way after the 1930s, but college was still like kadosh kadosh kadosh. You had to give an excuse, like why don’t you go to college? You’re not going to college? You’re not going to university? You had to give a good teretz for not doing that.

I remember meeting a doctor and his very highly intellectual wife. They came to speak to me. The doctor was a fancy fellow. They were modern people. He said to me, “So may I ask you, what is your education? I said, “Sure. Yeshivah Chaim Berlin; Yeshiva Eastern Parkway;Yeshivah of Montreal; Yeshivah Gedolah of Passaic; Brisk Yeshivah, Rav Meir Soloveitchik; Lakewood Yeshivah; Telzer Yeshivah.” He said, “No, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking the real education.” I said, “No. That’s the real education.” He said, “No, what’s your secular education? We’re here to get your chachmos.” I said, “Baruch Hashem, Yeshivah of Eastern Parkway, in ninth grade, I quit.” He said, “What do you mean? You didn’t go to high school?” I said, “No. Baruch Hashem, I dropped out.” So he said, “You don’t have a formal education? You came very highly recommended.” I said, “Tell me your education.” I said, “Look. How come I’m not coming to speak to you, and you’re coming to speak to me? The answer is because you have what you think is an edumacation (emphasis). You’re twisted. Your whole thinking is twisted. You wallowed in the halls of your universities.” And this was a very chashuve doctor. His wife was very chashuv in the university. I told him, “You wallowed in the garbage. Just because they told you that you’re a chashuve person and they charged you through the nose to get your money to pay for this education, that’s nothing. There is no seichel in those people. Every one of those professors is strange. They’re twisted. You don’t know what a twisted mind is! You can’t imagine how twisted their minds are. And if a guy has a yarmulke on his head, it doesn’t make a difference. He’s also twisted. A nebach. What do you think you pick up in a garbage can? Pearls of wisdom? No. There’s no wisdom that’s taught there.”

Patur From Teaching A University-Taught Trade

So, a fellow came to Rav Elchonon Wasserman, and  said to him, “Rav Elchonon, I don’t understand. I have a son. I want him to go to college. He doesn’t want to go to college. ללמדו אומנות, there’s a mitzvah to teach your kid a craft. It’s a mitzvah to go to college, no?” So Rav Elchonon told him, “Yes, it’s a mitzvah to teach him a trade, but… Bris milah is that a mitzvah?” “Yeah, yeah.” Rav Elchonon said, “Do you know how big of a mitzvah bris milah is? Do you know it says thirteen brisos were made over bris milah. Bris milah is one of the only positive mitzvos for which you incur kareis for. If a child is born and he doesn’t live until his bris,they give him a bris before they bury him. You know how important bris is?” “Yeah, yeah. I’m maskim.” “Do you know what the halachah is if you have a family where two of the brothers died from a bris milah? You don’t do the bris milah on the third brother. Not only you don’t do it, you’re not allowed to do it. It’s an aveirah to do it. You know why? It’s pikuach nefesh. So learning a trade,” he says, “is taka a mitzvah. But university? Do you know how many Jews, Jewish brothers, we have already lost in the halls of these universities? It’s a מתו אחיו מחמת מילה. Not onlyare you patur – it’s asur!”

The father didn’t listen, and he sent his kid to university. And Hashem arranged that in the first year of university, that child’s life was taken from him, and he taka died. And at the hespedim, the father said, “I killed my son. I killed my son.” People wondered, “You killed your son. What does that mean?” And he said this story. He said, “Rav Elchonon said it’s a מתו אחיו מחמת מילה, and I didn’t listen. And that’s why my son died.”

Rav Chatzkel Levenstein writes in a letter to a young man. He says, “You know, I don’t exaggerate, and I don’t say untruths. I want you to know that during your father’s lifetime, he pushed you a lot to get a secular education.” He said, “I want you to know your father came to me,” his father had died, “and he beseeched me to go to you and to tell you that he changed his mind. You hear what he said? Your father beseeched me. He changed his mind.” They printed the letter in the letters of Rav Chatzkel. You know what that is?

ולא למדתי ממעשיו הרעים. And know, you see how sick and how crazy these people are. They could pashut become hotbeds where they’re protesting against the Jewish people, and assaulting of the women and the captives. Mamash gornisht. It’s like – nothing. A mitzvah gedolah,they say. Baruch Hashem we have no shaychus to these places.

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Shabbos: Developing a Taste For Olam Haba (5771)

Shabbos Is An Opportunity To Prepare For The Future

The gemara tells us that Shabbos is מעין עולם הבא. What percentage of Olam Haba is there on Shabbos? The gemara in Brachos (57b)says, Shabbos is אחד מששים – one sixtieth of Olam Haba. How many people say – I even remember myself as a child, looking at that, and saying, “If that’s Olam Haba, wow, it’s not that great!” You have cholent, it’s  fine. You have kugel. But then I realized that I really never tasted that אחד מששים. And that’s what we tell you: in Olam Haba your experience will be built upon what you tasted in this world. People think that even if they don’t appreciate Olam Haba –  or learn to enjoy Olam Haba – in this world, somehow when they’ll come to the Next World, they are going to enjoy Olam Haba. People think that if there will be things they enjoy in this world – steaks, good wine, good beer, nice cars, nice homes – somehow, when they come to the Next World, they’re going to enjoy Olam Haba.However, the truth is that Olam Haba is something that requires you to train yourself. You need to become a ben Olam Haba. Shabbos is that training ground.

Olam Haba, What’s That?

The Midrash says that at the time of Matan Torah, Hakadosh Baruch Hu called Klal Yisrael and said to them, בני מקח טוב יש לי בעולם – “You should know I have a מקח טוב. And I’m going to give it to you forever if you’re going to be mekabel My Torah and be shomer My mitzvos.” So Klal Yisrael said, “Ribbono Shel Olam, what is the good thing You’re going to give us if we observe your Torah?” Hakadosh Baruch Hu responds and answers, “I’m talking about Olam Haba.” So Klal Yisrael said, “Ribbono Shel Olam, can you show us a dugmah, an example?” So He said, “Yes. Shabbos.”

Now, when I saw this Midrash for the first time, it made me greatly impressed, because my thought process always was that when it came to kabalas haTorah, Klal Yisrael just said, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.” Now, after this Midrash, it tells me a gevaldige insight, that Klal Yisrael was asking a lot of questions. When Hashem promised them great reward, they said, “What exactly do You have in mind, Hashem?” And Hashem said, “Olam Haba.” They didn’t say, “Okay.” They said, “Nu, could You give us a little taste? Could You show us?” He said, “Yes.”

Incapable of Full Appreciation

Now, in order to understand what Olam Haba is about, we need to turn to the Ramchal in Derech Hashem where he explains something about Olam Haba. He says like this: Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the Master of all tov in the world. He has all the tov. Not only that, He has an interest to give and share that tov with others. If Hashem would only give a little tov, it wouldn’t be satisfactory to Hashem. Hashem wants to give the people the maximum tov possible. I’ll give you a little example. Imagine a father who loves his child. His child gives him great pleasure, his child is well-behaved and he lets him sleep for a few nights. He says, “Kid, today I’m going to give you kol tuv.” He sits the kid in the chair and he starts to make some gevaldige onion bread for him. Then, he makes a big plate of salad for this kid. And then he makes a big fat steak. By the time the salad comes, the kid has thrown everything on the floor. And by the time the steak comes – the steak ain’t going to make it anyway, and not the mashed potatoes, and for sure not the desert. The father says, ‘Kid, I wanted to give you kol tuv. I wanted to give you a good time.” The kid can’t even handle that. Let’s say a father would take a kid on a vacation. After five minutes, the kid will get crabby; he doesn’t find that enjoyable, he wants to go to sleep. Give him a pretzel, and he’ll be happy.

A person has to understand that this is the situation that we are in with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants to be meitiv with us, tremendous hetavah. But we are like infants, and the tov that we’re able to handle is mamash pretzels. That’s all we can handle – very little. Let’s say a father had a thirty-year-old imbecile, nebach, a child who’snot developed, and the most he can eat is apple sauce. A father would feel very unpleasant – “I can’t give you anything of joy – I can’t give you a home, I can’t give you a car, I can’t give you money. You don’t know what to do with it.” If a father goes to a kid and says, “Here’s a lot of fifties, go and have a blast.” The money means nothing to the kid. He can’t be meitiv to him with that. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu finds Himself in a matzev where He wants to give us tov and He can’t. We’re not even bnei kabbalah of this tremendous gift. We’re mamash like imbeciles as far as appreciating what Hashem wants to give us.

Settling for Less is Not an Option

Now we can be maaminim. It’s not so hard for me to understand and believe that Hashem has much more tov than I can accept. But you know what I say to Hashem, “Oh, I’m very happy with the tov that I have. Give me a cigarette. Give me a beer. Hashem, I’m happy. Give me a nice car, I’ll be ecstatic.” So I don’t want more tov. But that’s silly. You know why? Just like a kid doesn’t want more tov, and you know that kid is missing out that he’s not getting what he should have. It’s a nebach that a thirty-year-old or sixty-year-old kid wants the same thing as a two-year-old kid.

You meet a seventy-year-old person. You say, “I want to give you the best thing.” He says, “So give me prunes! Give me a bowl of compote, epes some gekochte prunes!” “You want a piece of chicken?” You make him a piece of barbecued chicken – you put the kebab spices on it, you can taste the barbecue charcoal in the chicken, you could already salivate – and you put it in front of the guy. The guy looks at you and he says, “I don’t have any teeth.” He says, “So what do you want?” He says, “Put a piece of chicken in a pan,  fill it with water and cook it up until it’s azey, it’s tzugangen in the water, white like a piece of paper, a piece of cotton, and then bring it here, I’ll enjoy it.” He’s enjoying it. Ehr hott gohrnisht.

So we understand, it’s not hard for me to believe that Hashem has more tov than I have. Every stage in life is like that. So really, the ultimate tov is not shayech to be found, except by Hashem, because Hashem is so much more mature and developed than us, we can’t even relate to that tov. So what does Hakadosh Baruch Hu do? Hakadosh Baruch Hu said, “I’m going to give you a place, I’m going to create a makom,where a person could learn to mature and develop a relationship with Hashem and be able to access that tov.”

Becoming Able To Accept More

Once Hakadosh Baruch Hu creates azah makom, and Hashem develops you and you build up your maturity – your spiritual maturity – now, it’s possible for you to relate to the tov that Hakadosh Baruch Hu has. And the more a person develops himself in this world, the more a person is able to relate to that tov. Take a thirteen year old child – I remember the first time my mother served us steak – oh, it was mamash yom tov hayah b’Yisrael! I don’t remember exactly how it came about, but I remember being aware – steak was adult food. Kids got hot dogs. And then, when you get the first steak, you eat a few slices, you have to chew on it, and chew on it. You take it out of your mouth because you mamash can’t chew anymore. But you get used to it and eventually take a 32-ounce steak, a 48-ounce steak. You can eat a whole beheimah. Because you get accustomed to eating kol tuv.That’s what you do. You need a shtickel hachanos to enjoy the steak, so you go through all the stages of your life from one year old – you had some chopped meat, then you had some hot dogs, until you get to the steaks and the whole hasovah over here.

The Ramchal says that’s what Hakodosh Baruch Hu is doing for us – Hakadosh Baruch Hu is preparing us to enjoy the kol tuv. And when a person says stupidly, “Oh, I don’t care. I’m happy right now where I am,” the answer is, “You could be right.” But you know what is going to happen? Just like the child who, let’s say he becomes mature one day and realizes at thirty that he’s not able to enjoy any of the food everyone else has, he will be disappointed. Let’s say you have a thirty-year-old who all of a sudden becomes sick. The doctor says to him, “The only thing you can eat is mushy applesauce and bananas that your mother chopped up and mashed with spoons and forks. That’s the only thing you can eat.” How are you going to feel? You’ll feel terrible. So, you’re going to come upstairs, you’re going to come to Olam Haba, the Next World, and you’re going to see kol tuv, and you’re going to discover that everything you enjoyed was mamash ‘applesauce.’ The things you enjoyed weren’t even applesauce, nothing, it was gohrnisht. You’re going to look around at people and say, “They’re having a good time.” So in this world, the yetzer hara tries to convince you, “You are not missing out.” So in this world you don’t feel disappointed. You feel, “Oh – so big deal.” But you’ll come to the Next World, and you’re going to find out. And it’s going to be very sad.

No Limits to Spiritual Pleasure

A person has to know, he says, מה רב טובך אשר צפנת ליראיך. The Rambam says: אותה הטובה – that great tovah that awaits us, גדולה עד אין חקר, ואין לה ערך ולא דמיון. Do you know what that means אין לה ערך ולא דמיון? In Olam Haba it’s not like this world. Here, a guy eats a steak, and when he’s finished someone says, “Do you want a second steak?” “I don’t think.” You hope that you can still stick a little ice cream in there, maybe ices, maybe something, something for desert even though you are satiated.

In Olam Haba the joy never diminishes. Every second it gets better and better and better and better and better and better. It’s a tremendous joy. It’s unimaginable joy. We can have a yediyah about the joy, but we can’t have a hargashah of the joy. So what does Hashem say to you? Hashem says like this: “I’m going to give you Shabbos. On Shabbos, I’m going to let you exercise, to develop, to give you a taste of Olam Haba, to give you a shtickel shaychus.” אמר ליה הקב”ה מתנה טובה יש לי בבית גנזי – a matanah tovoh I have. Do you know what it’s called? שבת שמה – it’s called Shabbos. And if a person understands that it’s me’ein Olam Haba, how foolish is a person that all he says is – “You know what? I’m happy on Shabbos just sleeping.” You know what a shoteh you are? Look what an imbecile you are?! It’s like a guy who  says, “I’m happy with less.” Meshugene you are. The guy is happy with the fish. That’s where you’re stopping? That’s the sof?

You have to hear these people who are talking about cholent. You see mature people, adults,  talking about cholent, like keigel, cholent is Olam Haba. No one minds a good cholent, but that’s not where it ends. That’s the haschalah. That’s not where it ends, it’s far from where it is.

This is the yesod of Olam Haba b’Shabbos. We have to understand it’s not going to happen on one Shabbos. It’s not going to happen in two Shabbasos. It won’t happen in fifty Shabbasos. But if you don’t get started, it won’t happen over thousands of Shabbasos. Many people, when they’re bachurim and they have a choice, they get started, but they choose to start to enjoy themselves in this world. What happens is, they say, “Not now. Later.” We’re talking about joy, we’re talking about physical joy. And then, they get married, and it’s too late. They’re too tired, they work all week, they have no time to learn by the time the seudas Shabbos has finished. Rachmana Litzlan. They never developed.

Now (as bachurim) is the time of your life that you could begin to develop some relationship with Olam Haba so that when you come to the Next World, you won’t be completely disappointed. The first thing you have to remember is – don’t turn your Shabbos into Gehenom. Like I told somebody – it’s bad enough you’re not training yourself and making your Shabbos into Olam Haba. But could you imagine a man makes his Shabbos into his Gehenom? Ooh, that’s going to be toast. That’s going to be toast in Gehenom. A person should not do that. A person has to work. It’s only going to come through avodah because naturally you’re not a ben Olam Haba. Naturally, we’re bnei Olam Hazeh and our guf is like ‘a baby’ and all its mischashek for is simple physical pleasures, or complex physical pleasures. That’s why they have recipe books. People spend their lives trying to figure out what to mix with something else so they can make a better ice cream! And that’s the ganse Shabbos. A person has to understand and think about this. He has to say, “I want to get Olam Haba out of my Shabbos. I don’t want to get more Olam Hazeh out of my Shabbos.”

Now what does that mean that you don’t want Olam Hazeh out of your Shabbos? Rabbosi, many of you believe in the gemara that says עשה שבתך חול – to make your Shabbos chol. And there is a gemara like that. Do you know what the gemara says: עשה שבתך חול ואל תצטרך לבריאות. That means that if a person is very, very poor and he can’t make a Shabbos, he should diminish, minimize his Shabbos. So don’t make your Shabbos chol, even if you can’t make your Shabbos kodesh, but make your Shabbos not-chol.

How To Make Your Shabbos Kodesh

Now the way to do it, Rabbosi, is as follows. Every one of you has to have a program. You have to know a Shabbos seudah has to have a program for what you do. It doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy it. You enjoy it. But what you do is, you add an aspect of the kedushah of Shabbos to what you enjoy.

Let’s say a guy eats a piece of salmon, so he’ll say, “It’s a good salmon.” People say, “Ah, this is good fish!” Most people end right there – ‘good fish,’ that’s it. No? If they’re regular bnei adam, they think, “Oh, it’s a good fish,” and they start to think of having a second piece. If they’re a shtickel menschen, they say, “This is good fish,” and they turn to their hostess, and they say, “Hostess, this is good fish.” They say, “You are a master cook.” They feel they got brownie points; they’re tzaddikim, they made her feel good, and she’s going to want them to come back next week. And through the compliment, they are already investing for the next week!

And then, you have a guy that says to himself, “You know, this fish comes from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Do you know what it took Hashem to put a piece of salmon on a table in Wickliffe. In the town of Wickliffe there is no salmon. Even in the big Lake Erie, there is no salmon. Salmon comes from far away. The salmon that most people eat comes from thousands of miles away. Do you know what Hakadosh Baruch Hu had to do to make that salmon tasty? Unbelievable. How much spices were used to cook it? A lot of the spices grow nowhere near America. You have to bring the spices here.” He says, “Hakadosh Baruch Hu, He did that all for me – for Shabbos.” And then you eat soup, and if you don’t like the soup or you do like the soup. You think about the dips. Think what it takes to have a little techinah on your plate. Think how Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives you, is meitiv with you, and gives you such wonderful things. That’s all it is. But don’t make your Shabbos chol. Take care of what you say and control yourself.

On your Shabbos table haltzich ein – keep your mouth closed and control yourself. It says in halachah you have to open your pants up – in the beginning to relax, it’s brought down in sefarim, I saw it myself. On Shabbos, you unhook your belt, a lot of people do it, some have that avodah. And let’s say you start the seudah, but this is it, it’s supposed to end right there so they open just the button, and then they eat – that should be the beginning. A  person has to behave like a mensch. Don’t make your Shabbos chol…. And then you’ll have a Shabbos of מעין עולם הבא.