Kind Bookends
Now we’ll study this subject a little more because to speak just in generalities is not enough. The Torah won’t be precious in our eyes, just because we’ll eat milchigs on Shavuos. We have to understand how it is actually so; it requires thought and meditation.
And so we’ll study a small section of Gemara:ִ י שִׂ מּ ְ לָ אִ יָּ רַ שׁ רַ בּד – Rabbi Shimlai once said a drashah; ת חֲסָדִ יםְּמִילוּ גָּתָהְּחִלּוֹרָ ה תּת – The Torah begins with the story of kindliness that Hashem did. What does it say there? ָתְ נוֹתּוֹ כּלְאִשְׁ תּקִ ים לְאָ דָ ם וַֹעַ שׂ ה’ אֱ לּ וַיִ שׁ ֵ םַּ לְ בּע ו ֹ ר וַ י – Hashem gave clothing to Adam and his wife (Bereishis 3:21). To give clothing, to be malbish arumim, that’s certainly a gemilus chassadim. If you can help poor people buy clothing, it's certainly a fine thing to do. And that ideal is near the beginning of the Torah.
ת חֲסָדִיםְּמִילוּ גּוְסוֹפָה – And near the end of the Torah also there’s an act of kindliness: אוֹתוְֹּ רוִּ קְ בּ וַ יַ יְ אַּ גּב – Hashem buried Moshe Rabbeinu. To bury someone that passed away is absolutely a mitzvah, a great mitzvah. Somebody who didn't have money to buy a plot while he was alive, and people get together and buy him a place to be buried, that's a chessed shel emes, no question. A very great kindliness.
A Torah of Kindliness
Now, the question is why did Rav Shimlai tell us this? So some say it’s to teach us how important the practice of kindliness is. The Torah wants to emphasize the necessity of practicing deeds of chessed to our fellow man and so it emphasizes it in the beginning and the end. It’s not wrong but it’s not right either. That’s not the pshat.
I’ll explain what the pshat really is. Let’s say you walk into a sefarim store and you see a new sefer. You pick it up. You have no time to read the whole sefer so you look at the beginning. It looks interesting; it sounds good. You look at the end. Interesting; sounds good. So you decide that the middle must also be good. And you buy it.
The Torah begins with gemilus chassadim and ends with gemilus chassadim because the Giver of the Torah wants to demonstrate to us that the whole Torah is nothing but kindliness. He wants you to buy into that idea: The Torah is gemilus chassadim from beginning to end.
A Gift for This World
That’s a fundamental hashkafah of a Torah Jew and anyone who overlooks that is missing out on a very important Torah attitude: The Torah was given to us so that we should live more happily in this world!
מָ ה יָפָ ה יְרֻ שָׁתֵ נוּ means in this world! מָה נָעִים גּוֹרָ לֵנוּ means in this world!
Don’t be deceived by crabby people who don’t understand the world; people who never stopped to appreciate Torah living, or maybe they don’t live properly according to the dictates of the Torah and so they live unhappily. The truth is the frum Jew enjoys this world more than anybody else does!
A person who lives with the regimen of the Torah, he’s guaranteed to live a happier life, absolutely. Whatever anybody else has, he has too, and much more! דְּרָכֶיהָ דַּרְכֵי נֹעַם – The ways of the Torah are ways of sweetness, means it’s pleasant to keep the Torah in this world. In Brooklyn, in Australia, in Meah Shearim, in London – wherever frum Jews are they are the most happy ones.
The Happy Family
Everyone knows that the frum families are more prone to living longer and happier than others. You want to prove it? Take a bus and go through Williamsburg. You see Jews standing on the corner and laughing. It's a fact. Jews with beards standing on the corner and laughing.
There's a lot to laugh about. When you live al pi haTorah you have a wife who obeys you, not a wife who is a lib woman and is constantly rebelling against you. When you have a family – a Jewish family where you don’t have a drunken father and an immoral mother – that’s where children obey the parents, those children come home at night, and marry young and there’s nachas in the family. There’s no question that people who live a Torah life, a wholesome and moral life, live happily.
The Happy Home
Jewish children are a happiness! Their children are trained in Torah institutions; the girls are taught bedarkei Beis Yaakov, how to live in a Jewish house with tznius. Because of the Torah, children learn how to honor their parents and so they’re first of all going to make their parents happier and secondly they’re going to obey the instruction of parents, which is extremely important for a child. The youth must have some instruction to live successfully; children can’t do whatever they wish.
Otherwise, the girl who can put on shorts and go out at night and stay out until two o’clock, we understand she’ll get into all kinds of trouble. And therefore when a child has learned to honor their father and mother and obey, there’s no question that there’s a great deal more of good health and happiness and success in life. All together they're afraid of Hashem and the house is a little Beis Hamikdash and they serve Hakadosh Baruch Hu all their lives. A Jewish home is a place of joy, no question about it.
Broken Homes, Broken Lives
Outside of the Torah home there are always breakdowns and breakups. People come into conflicts that many times break down their health. There are breakups, sadness, recriminations, broken hearts, slayings, complications, diseases. When people live a settled married life according to the law of the Torah, they’ll certainly live more contentedly.
The Torah is always a wall against broken lives, broken families. וֹת עֶרְ וָה לְגַלּ א תִ קְרְ בוֹל – You shouldn’t even come close to immorality. Do you know how lucky we are that we have that warning! It’s a salvation for us! How many divorces and tragedies were passed over!
The Tragic Gentile
Those who don’t have the Torah are constantly victims of circumstances that are tragic; besides making them broken people morally, their lives are ruined. It happens all the time among them. He loses his wife, his family. His friends look down at him. He loses his job too.
But boruch Hashem the Am Yisroel is protected by the Torah. The Torah is our protection! No question about it! The Torah is a wall against trouble, a guarantee against many misfortunes.
When the Torah tells us לֹא תֵלֵךְ רָכִיל בְּעַמֶּיךָ, that you shouldn’t go gossiping among your people, it’s saving our lives in this world too. Because most of the troubles of the world today come through people talking words that the Torah forbids. People say things to other people. All kinds of rechilus, mesirus, hostilities, machlokes. You cause harm to people's business and you cause yourself enemies.
Chasunahs or Weddings
The Jew is guarded against that. Only by the Torah Jews, do people get together and celebrate happily, safely. Outside of Torah living, it’s always violence, always fighting and recriminations.
Somebody gave me a clipping today about a Puerto Rican wedding. So ambulances were racing back and forth taking people to the hospitals from the wedding. Now, a Puerto Rican wedding, that’s something. Usually they don’t bother but when they do it ends with violence. They come together, they drink, they begin arguing and the knives come out.
At a Jewish wedding maybe there’s some question who gets a brachah, some quarrel, but no ambulances are necessary. The Orthodox Jew doesn't carry any guns. Irishmen carry guns. Puerto Ricans, guns. Blacks, guns. Oh yes, they shoot.
Now I’m not blaming them. They didn’t stand at Har Sinai like we did. They never received that great gift of the Torah that gives us Olam Hazehdige life.
The Shabbos Party
It’s fun to keep Shabbos. It’s fun to bathe yourself erev Shabbos. It’s fun to put on bigdei Shabbos, to change into clean clothing. It’s fun to be together with your family and to eat special meals, good foods. It’s fun to sing songs together with your children. It’s fun to come together with your congregation, your community in your synagogues. It certainly is fun to sleep on Shabbos and to rest your body.
Can you compare a Jew who rests every Shabbos and Yom Tov, which is one sixth of his life, to the gentile? Do you realize what a great benefit that is for the body? You have time to recoup the energy that you lost during the week. A man who lives one sixth of his life in retirement while he’s still young, he’s surely going to live longer. And so there’s no question that Shabbos is a great benefit in Olam Hazeh.
Now, the truth is that we could sit here together and talk for hours only about Olam Hazeh. We could examine the entire gamut of life and see what a difference Torah makes in our lives. In marriage, in health, in getting along with others, in happiness, in nachas; in everything!
There’s no question that if you’ll study the general system of the laws of the Torah, you’ll see they’re all constructed for the purpose of reinforcing a man’s life, reinforcing society, giving him a wholesome lifestyle, making society capable of coexistence, shalom and also good health, parnassah and having sustenance for our needs.
Chiddushei Torah
I could give tens of examples, hundreds, but it’s a lifetime job of thinking. People come here and they want it to be spoonfed, it should be told to them. No, that’s the avodah, to think, to meditate on it, to come up with your own chiddushim about how good the Torah is for this world.
And as much as you’ll imagine it’s much much more because it’s certainly true that when people live by the Torah and fulfill its precepts, immediately they benefit thereby. When you study the gift of the Torah you’ll see that it’s planned for a man’s happiness and health and satisfaction and success in this world. And understanding that, keenly feeling that in our bones, is included in the obligation of the Torah being important in our eyes.
