This is not meant to rule practical halachah; rather it’s to show the sweetness of learning.
Based on Rav Yitzchok Silberstein’s seforim
Who To Ask?
Of course to Rav Yitzchok Silberstein shlita.
Who makes Torah Learning so sweet and geshmak?
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Snoring In Shiur
Yitzchok was the nicest person you could meet, and made sure to go learn every night. He had a few jobs to support his family, and when he came to the shiur at night, his eyes were already half closed and always fell asleep. What Yitzchok didn’t realize was that his sleep was disturbing the whole shiur. Every few minutes he would start snoring not just a quiet snore, it was the kind of snoring you couldn’t miss. Everyone was very annoyed, because they couldn’t learn this way. Even the maggid shiur was wondering what to do.
They weren’t sure what to do. Should they let him continue coming? Or ask him nicely to stop coming, since he wasn’t really learning anyway and was just disturbing the shiur? One should NOT tell him to stop coming.
- If a person involves himself in learning and because he was very tired, falls asleep and drops of saliva, spit, falls from his mouth; Hashem Himself comes and takes those drops to His treasure house and keeps them until the day comes when Hashem will revive the dead (techiyas ha-meisim) and use them for this very person. (Rabbeinu Yecheil of Paris, one of the Baalei Tosfos)
- Although the people next to him are probably disgusted by the saliva, as Chazal say (See Chagigah 9a). But we see that Hashem considers it holy and important.
- The same is here, this person who, after a long day, still pushes himself to go learn and then falls asleep snoring. In heaven, this snoring will be used to revive him at techiyas ha-meisim.
- (If it were a special or very rich person from their shul, they would not tell him anything, so we see it is possible to ignore and concentrate if one wants to.)
2) Also, it is a mitzvah just to be in a Bais Medrash even if he doesn't understand what he is learning or falls asleep. (Mishnah Berurah 151:6)
3) There is also the point of chinuch. The man is showing his kids, even though he is very tired and exhausted, but he still pushes himself to go learn Hashem’s Torah.
4) The other people in shiur and maggid shiur should try their best to ignore it and concentrate on their learning.
