As part of my research for a biography of the late Rav Moshe Hauer, zt"l, the executive director of the Orthodox Union at the time of his passing, I have been listening to a series of talks he gave at Sinai Retreats, a summer kiruv program in upstate New York. Even after taking over leadership of the Orthodox Union, he seized upon as many opportunities to teach Torah as possible, and no such opportunities were dearer to him than those to teach Jews with little prior exposure to Torah.
The particular talk that I listened to last week was entitled "Individuality," and the audience was largely made up of yeshiva students serving as tutors in the program, which is run by Rabbi Zvi Teitelbaum of the Yeshiva of Greater Washington.
Individuality refers to a person's essential self, that which distinguishes him or her from every other person who has ever lived or will ever live. As HaGaon Rav Moshe Shapira, zt"l, pointed out, there is no plural of "ani – I." Each individual is unique, though they differ from one another in their awareness of their individuality and its cultivation.
"Ani," Rav Moshe noted in that same shiur is also one of the names of Hashem. When Hillel Hazaken proclaimed, "Im Ani kan hakol kan – If Ani is here, everything is here," he was referring to Hashem, Who is absolutely unique, and cannot be compared to any being.
The awareness of one's individuality is essential in many areas of life – in the choice of career, and even more so, in the choice of one's spouse. The better we understand what is unique about us and what makes feel truly alive, the better we will be able to choose wisely with regard to our life partner.
While Rav Hauer touched on these areas in the shiur to which I listened, his primary focus was on how individuality relates to our Torah learning. Chazal tell us, "Ein adam lomeid Torah ela b'makom sh'libo chafetz – A person can only learn that which his heart desires (Avodah Zara 19a). From this, we learn that there are different areas in Torah learning, and it is not only permissible, but expected that different people will be drawn to different aspects of Torah learning.
Each of us was created with inherent connection to different aspects of the Torah, as we say in the Yom Tov davening, "Sein chelkeinu b'Torasecha – Grant us our portion in Your Torah." Our task is to find those areas or topics into which we really want to dig our teeth, as it were.
Once, writes the Alshich, prophets could help us discover that area of Torah. Today, we must do so ourselves. The one cardinal rule in doing so is: One cannot look to anyone else for the answer, for each of us in unique in this respect.
True, there is basic knowledge of Torah that each person must seek to acquire, and that alone is the work of a lifetime. We each have to know the do's and don'ts of a Torah life, for instance. Rav Hauer was himself deeply conversant in almost all areas of Torah – Talmud, Chumash, and machshava, and taught both a daf yomi and an amud yomi shiur for decades, among a vast array of regular shiurim.
That aspect of Torah learning might be compared to yiras Hashem, a feeling of awe in the presence of the Ribbono shel Olam and of the imperative to obey His commandments. Yira is the foundation stone of our avodas Hashem.
But one cannot live in a state of obedience alone. One also requires a sense of overflow and expansiveness as well, of a close connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. That is ahavas Hashem, and it expressed, inter alia, by the passionate involvement in some particular area of Torah.
A beginning student at Sinai Retreats once told Rav Hauer that he did not feel Hashem speaking back to him when he davened. Rav Hauer replied that Hashem speaks to us when we learn His Torah. The more deeply involved we are in our Torah learning the more likely we are to hear Hashem speaking through the Torah.
Passion was a frequent topic of Rav Hauer's. Though soft-spoken and almost preternaturally calm, the passion and seriousness with which he approached every aspect of his life was unmistakable. In a hesped he gave for his beloved Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Yaakov Weinberg, zt"l, he stressed Rav Weinberg's passionate nature and how he threw himself into everything that he did completely. And he prayed that he and the Rosh Yeshiva's other talmidim would remember not only his words of Torah, but the excitement with which he taught them.
MANY YEARS AGO, in a talk delivered at Neilus HaChag of Shavuos, Rav Ariev Ozer, Rosh Yeshivas ITRI, elucidated a Gemara (Shabbos 88a). The Gemara relates that a Sadducee once saw Rava learning Torah with such intensity that he did not even notice that he was sitting on his hands, which were dripping blood. The Sadducee charged Rava with being a member of an am pezizah – a heedless, uncalculating people – just like his ancestors who said na'aseh ve'nishma and thereby accepted Hashem's commandments without first knowing what they were.
Rava acknowledged the charge. That heedless passion, he said, reflected a love and trust in Hashem: "We went with Him with pure hearts like those who act out of love, relying on the fact that He would not demand from us anything that was beyond our capabilities" (Rashi).
Rav Ozer is himself surely one of the generation's exemplars of learning with heedless passion. Every Chol HaMoed, he draws hundreds to his shiurim in halacha and machshava. This past Pesach, he spoke for almost 11 straight hours, with only a break for Maariv between the shiur in halacha and that in machshava. And even at 5:00 a.m., those still present reported that he stopped mostly out of consideration for them, as his excitement only mounted.
Both such gadlus in Torah and the passion that make it possible are beyond my comprehension. It's probably been more than thirty years, since my youngest son's bris, that I last sat down with seforim stacked on the table preparing a chaburah of no more than twenty minutes.
Nevertheless, I relate to Rav Hauer's message of the necessity of connecting to the Torah with excitement. The highlight of my week is when I have a couple of hours before the onset of Shabbos or wake up early on Shabbos morning, and can sit in my private corner of the living room reviewing my favorite seforim on the parashah. Inevitably, I come across an insight that makes me want to kick up my heels in delight, and fills me with the feeling that I can apply this insight to my life in some meaningful way. And that is an experience we all need on a regular basis to connect us to the Torah and its Author.
Chag Sameach.