Now, I chose tonight a few examples from Bereishis at random, and truthfully I wish we could continue because there’s so much more. But what can I do? I don’t get paid for overtime and anyhow we have to daven Maariv. So we’ll conclude by reminding ourselves that these examples are intended only as samples of what it means to have a book, a sefer, that teaches you how to think, how to live successfully. And successfully means in both worlds; a person who knows that he has one book that teaches him everything, that person will live happily in this world and in the Next World forever and ever.
But it’s only on one condition. Sefer Echad! ָא ִים אֵין לוֹ חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַב ִסְפָרִ ים חִיצוֹנִי וֹרֵ א ב הַק – If you read seforim chitzoniyim, outside books, you have no share in the World To Come (Sanhedrin 100b). Now, exactly what’s meant by seforim chitzoniyim, there are different opinions; I’m not going to go into it, but the general rule is that anything outside of Torah seforim takes a man away from eligibility for Olam Haba.
And why is that? Because Olam Haba is a place where people go because of one thing – because of what’s in their neshamah; the kind of neshamah a man has decides whether he’s going to be in Olam Haba or not, or where he’s going to be in Olam Haba. And what enters the neshamah enters by means of passageways of the ears and the eyes; what you hear and what you see, that creates the content of the neshamah.
Looking Toward the Future
And therefore, if you get accustomed to looking in their books, the ideas enter your mind, and even though you’re frum you have the opposite of Torah in your head. Or a chulent you have; a chulent of ideas, some rotten, some good, and everything becomes spoiled. Today there are even some Orthodox Jews who believe in evolution. And so, these corrupted people, אֵ ין ָ א לָ הֶ ם חֵ לֶ ק לָ עוֹ לָ ם הַ ב – you can’t come to the next world with a neshamah full of the opposite of Torah.
That’s why we say one Book and that’s all. Even if you read a frum Jewish newspaper or a frum magazine it’s a big sakanah because who says the writers are telling you what the gedolei Yisroel, the Torah leaders, say? They’re frum young men who are writing, but who knows what kind of harm they might do to you by putting into your head things that will go with you to the Next World? People must know that the more ‘outside’ reading they do, the more they’re ruining their entire outlook on the world and they’re poisoning their minds for nitzchiyus. It’s only the Torah that teaches us to see the truth.
And so let’s go back, as much as possible, to the good old days when there was one sefer and we’ll see how to look at the world through the eyes of that one sefer. That’s a good thing to think about when you’re dancing on Simchas Torah. We’re dancing with only one sefer because there’s nobody else that can tell us anything. מֹשֶׁה אֱמֶת וְתוֹרָתוֹ אֱמֶת! This is the only truth! Outside of that one book, you’ll look through the eyes of writers and you’ll get a crippled picture of the universe. Just the Toras Hashem, that’s our one source of information. That’s the happiness of the day!
Have a Good Yom Tov and a Wonderful Shabbos Bereishis
This week’s booklet is based on tapes: 2 - The Refutation is at Hand | 431 - Your Words Make You 483 - Man Needs Three Blessings | 607 - Cultivating the Middos 660 - One Book, One People
