Rav Elazar Menachem Mann Shach once arrived at the Ponovezh Yeshivah to deliver a shiur, then turned and left the yeshivah before the shiur was about to begin. His students asked him to explain his bizarre behavior, and Rav Shach explained that a doubt had arisen in his mind regarding what he was going to say in the shiur.
“But Rebbi,” the talmidim protested, “it’s a shiur in lomdus, not a shiur in halacha! What difference does it make if it’s not true?”
Rav Shach responded immediately, “Everything in the Torah must be 100 percent true — and if it isn’t, then it’s not Torah!”
The Torah is the tool that we were given to shape our minds and our lives so that they will reflect the yashrus of Hashem. If we learn it properly, even the nations of the world, who are also endowed with the innate human drive for virtue, will be drawn to the beauty and truth of the Torah, and the world will be filled with knowledge of Hashem, as the navi (Yeshayah 11:9) predicts: “ki malah ha’aretz de’ah es Hashem, kamayim layam mechasim—The earth will be filled with knowledge of G-d, as waters cover the sea.”
Reproduced from Living Kiddush Hashem by Rabbi Shraga Freedman with permission of the copyright holders, ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications, Ltd.
