Lubavitch I will live, in Lubavitch I will die, and in the Lubavitcher cemetery I will be buried. If that is his mindset, then even if he only is there for one day, it will last a lifetime!
The Pesukim and Chazal liken the experience of learning Torah to a relationship with a woman (see Rambam at the end of hilchos issurei biah). And we see that one can enter the relationship, - enroll in Yeshiva, and already be planning his divorce, or be preparing for what he’ll do afterward. This was what the Frierdige Rebbe was describing as the mindset that prevented the experience from being beneficial. And this was the type of divorce (that precedes the marriage) that the Rambam was referring to in the shiur of Friday.
This is not only applicable to someone who is beginning his career in Yeshiva, but is relevant every single day. You sit down to a shiur in gemoro or in a maamar. What is your approach? How often do you start off by making sure you know the exact ending time. I’m learning until 5:00 or 10:00, and I know in advance exactly what I have to get busy at that time. Perhaps you’re even counting down the minutes until you’ll be done (or the shiur will be over),
How much time does a bochur in Yeshiva spend calculating how much time is left until the next break (or meal)? How many times, during the time spent with a chavrusa or learning with your child, do you check and re-check your cell phone and your messages and your texts (kechol hasheimos shekoru loh chachomeinu zal . . )?
All these behaviours are ways in which we are imitating the foolish-sounding man in the Rambam, who writes the divorce even before the marriage, so we can understand what kind of a marriage it is to begin with!
What is meant to be? A marriage is meant to be forever. When you learn Torah or participate in a shiur, it needs to be with the mindset that this is forever, I am immersing myself in the Eibishters Torah entirely and eternally. With that mindset, even a few minutes of learning will remain with the person and have a lasting impact, and even when he – by necessity – does other things he will not be going away from the Torah.
The Month of Nissan and Eternal Connection
This is all especially timely for the month of Nissan (the shiur Rambam was after all Erev Shabbos mevorchim chodesh Nissan): Nissan is a very special month. The gemoro already teaches us about how the month of Nissan represents the miraculous, and Chassidus elaborates about how Nissan is connected with the level of G-dliness that is completely above nature. For us it is the month of the Yom huledes of the Rebbe, of Yud Aleph Nissan.
And besides all that it is the month of . . bein hazemanim (a.k.a. vacation).
It is the time when after months of being engrossed in the tent of Shem, in oholoi shel Torah, the bochur returns to his own daled amos (to והם לא ידעו דרכי . . )
And it is the time, therefore, to ensure that the divorce did not ch”v precede the marriage, to strengthen in ourselves the realization that our connection with Torah is forever. As they say in camp “learning never ends”, and with that mindset, even when one goes away from the place of the Yeshiva, he is not ch”v separating himself from Torah.
So when we learn in Rambam about strange ways some people may have of entering a marriage, let’s learn how not to be. Let us make our involvement with limud haTorah be a little more solid and a little more permanent, and this is the true way to reach a personal geula of ein lecho ben chorine elo mi she’oisek betalmud Torah!
L’chaim! May we strengthen our commitment to learning Torah both in kamus and in eichus (which was the one birthday present that the Rebbe asked of us in honour of Yud Aleph Nissan), and may the Eibishter bring the revelation of the Torah chadoshoh with the immediate hisgalus of Melech haMoshiach TUMYM!!!
Rabbi Akiva Wagner
