Why You Should Say Torah Out Loud, Not Just Think It
Why You Should Say Torah Out Loud, Not Just Think It
Part of Women's Issues · 25:17
Introduces Bruriah and her school of thought on retaining what's learned, Shmuel's advice to vocalize Torah study, and Torah learning as protection on a journey and in illness.
Audio Transcript
Bruria. Who is Bruria again? Rabbi Meir's wife. Bruria. Yeah. The daughter of, that's also a common name. Who is she the daughter of? Yeah. Who is she the daughter of? Chanina ben Teradyon. Chanina ben Teradyon. You know there is a school, a high school for girls named Bruria. Yeah. Bruriahs. Bruriahs. They have a school called Bruria there. ברוריה אשכחתיה לההוא תלמידא, Bruria saw this תלמיד דהוה קא גריס בלחישא was learning quietly. בעטה ביה, she gave him a kick! ואמרה ליה, and she said to him, לאו הכי כתיב, doesn't it say in פסוק ערוכה בכל ושמורה. ערוכה בכל means it's put into all everything then it's watched. אם ערוכה ברמ״ח איברים של אדם, if the Torah is, how do you taytsh ערוכה, נערך, אראנגעשטעלט? Arranged, no? אראנגעשטעלט. Arranged. Yeah. אראנגעשטעלט is good. It's not arranged? Arranged, yeah. It's put into the all the parts of the body, then שמורה בלבו, then it will be kept in your heart. You're not going to forget what you learned. She was a real חברה-מאן. She gave a kick. But what was she doing in yeshivah anyway? She likes to learn. Would came to hear a shiur or something. She was a big talmid chacham. Yeah. They bench outside. Yeah, so she's She can go where she wants. Yeah, she was some lady. She was upset when Rabbi Meir said to her נשים דעתן קלות. Yeah. Ooh, that's going, that's is that in this sugya? No, no. Zogt di
Gemara: תנא, we learned: תלמיד אחד היה לו לרבי אלעזר. Rabbi Elazar had a תלמיד שהיה שונה בלחש, and he learned quietly. לאחר שלש שנים שכח תלמודו, after three years he forgot his whole learning. If you don't say it out loud, you don't, it doesn't stay. תנא, we learned from a baraita: תלמיד אחד היה לו לרבי אלעזר, Rabbi Elazar, there was a talmid that Rabbi Elazar had, שנתחייב שריפה למקום, means he was deserved to be burned. Which means he forgot he forgot his learning basically, and it says if you forget your learning it says כל השוכח דבר ממשנתו מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו מתחייב בנפשו, it says in Pirkei Avot if you forget something, Why is that for שריפה? So it's because Torah, I guess, I don't know, has to do with fire. But that's what it means. אמרו, but they said, who who did they say, I guess in shamayim or maybe down here, הניחו לו, leave him, even though he's did something wrong, because אדם גדול שימש, he was meshamesh, he he served a great person. ובכלל we know the כלל גדול שימושה יותר מלימודה. Serving a talmid chacham is even greater than learning from him. Doesn't say who. If he was the talmid, if it's גדול, I don't know. Yeah, Rabbi Elazar. Yeah, he was he was the one that with this talmid. I don't know if he's the one that he meant meshamesh. Looks like it, but yeah, I don't know, it looks like it. Zogt di
Gemara vayter: אמר ליה שמואל לרב יהודה, שמואל said to רב יהודה: שננא, שננא is like a title also, like a smart person. שננא comes from the word שנון, שנון means sharp, sharp person, that's what it's a title. פתח פומך קרי, when you learn מקרא, when you learn חומש, open your mouth. Say it with your mouth, say it out loud. פתח פומך תני, when you come to learn משנה, תני, לשון תניא, תנן, open your mouth, speak. כי היכי דתוריך חיים, your life should be long, ותתקיים בידך, and the תורה will stay with you. שנאמר, it says: כי חיים הם למוצאיהם, they are life to those that give them out, ולכל בשרו מרפא, and it's a cure for your whole flesh. אל תקרי למוצאיהם אלא למוציאיהם בפה. So למוצאיהם means what gives out, but he טייטשט: חיים הם, their life, למוציאיהם בפה, to those that give it out through your mouth, that's what he says. So in this pasuk we see that if you give it out from your mouth, you'll have life. And then, like we said before, and then stay with you, because if you speak quiet say learn quietly, it's not going to stay with you. It says a refuah, for also for refuah? Yeah, ולכל בשרו מרפא. What the refuah there? Learning, and learning loud. Out loud.
אמר ליה שמואל לרב יהודה, שמואל said to רב יהודה: שננא, same thing, שננא, חטוף ואכול חטוף ואשתי, khap arayn! Khap and eat, khap and drink, כי האי עלמא דאזלינן מיניה, because this world that we're going from, that means that עולם הזה, דמי להילולא, it's like a chatunah. Come to a chatunah, you know, you khap the food, khap here, you stand, yeah, yeah, and like a smorgasbord, you know, chap there and chap in. It means how fast it goes. Yeah, so he says in the world also this, if you have food or you have money to buy things, don't wait. You never know if you'll ever get to it, chap arayn whatever you chap arayn chap arayn. He's talking about learning Torah though, right? No, פשוטו כמשמעו it's talking about food, about eating, about גשמיות. It's a המשך, it's talking No, but it's not a המשך. Pshat a המשך is because No, but the פשוטו כמשמעו, the המשך is because it is the same two people. It's talking about גשמיות? Talking about גשמיות. That's pshat. אין חסידות there is א סך פשטים in them. It doesn't mean גשמיות, it means רוחניות. The Rashab in a letter brings this. He says nowadays there's no like סדר, he calls it סדר הבירורים. Like this is a סדר הבירורים that everyone could do this proper בירורים. This היינטיגע צייטן nothing to wait, so late, so close to Moshiach, you can't say wait. Chap arayn any בירור you could do, any good thing you could do. And that's why the לשון is: Enjoy life? No, that's what I'm saying, any בירור, בירורים means to to do this mitzvah, chap arayn this mitzvah, any mitzvah that comes to your hand, don't Sometimes you get trapped in \"This is not my line. My mitzvah is tzedakah, but not to teach Torah. This guy is Torah, another...\" Chap any mitzvah you could get, you chap arayn. And that's why he said the לשון to this עלמא דאזלינן מיניה, the world that's going from. Because only in this world you could go. To be a מהלך, to go, to travel in higher מדרגות, only can be in this world. In the world to come, it says that the נשמות there, they're עומדים. It says, חי ה׳ אלקי ישראל אשר עמדתי לפניו. Omed, standing in one place. What do you mean standing in one place? Doesn't it say תלמידי חכמים אין להם מנוחה לא בעולם הזה ולא בעולם הבא? Talmidei chachamim don't have menuchah. It's a different type, we're not talking about menuchah. They are traveling, they always go higher, ילכו מחיל אל חיל, go higher. But
there's two types of going. There is going that one madregah is בערך to the other. Then you could go a thousand madregot, really you never went anywhere. Because if the first is still connected to the second, and the third to the second, I mean the second to the first, and the third to the second, and the fourth to the third, so if you come to a hundred מדרגות, סוף כל סוף you're still connected to the first. You never left the first. But real הליכה is jumping. When you jump, there's a gap in between, that's when you went away from one madregah completely to the next. So in Olam Hazeh, where you have פשוט מצוות, תורה ומצוות, through Torah u'mitzvot you could go. אם בחוקותי תלכו, you could go. In Olam Haba, too late, you can't go. I mean you go higher with learning, whatever they do there, but it's not דאזלינן מיניה. Here you could go. So chap arayn, he said, anything that you could be mevarer, any mitzvah that you could do. Achilah u'shetiyah, eating and drinking, that all means ברוחניות. Because it's like a chatunah. It says by a tzaddik a hillula when he passes, not by not by being in this world. And when he passes, it's a hillula. Here we're saying it's a hillula That's because we're celebrating the fact that he had this aliyah. We're celebrating the fact that he came to the point where he had the highest aliyah. You have to keep sheva berachot. You said sheva, seven berachot! Like a chatunah, he thought he got That's something else. That's like the Maggid of Mezeritch's question. Someone asked him, the Maggid of Mezeritch a kashyah, why don't you make Shehecheyanu by the chatunah? A mitzvah only comes once in your life, why didn't you make Shehecheyanu? So all he answered him was: Instead of you asking me why we make don't make Shehecheyanu, you should ask why don't we make Baruch Dayan HaEmet? That's what he says: עד שאתה שואלני למה אין מברכין שהחיינו, היה לך לשאול למה אין מברכין ברוך דיין האמת? Did he really mean by that? Huh? Did he really mean as a joke? What do you mean did he mean? How can it be that he meant that you should make Baruch Dayan HaEmet? But he meant, this was the answer to the question. Shehecheyanu you make when something has שמחת לבב, and here it's such a hard you're getting into such a hard life, it's such a hard thing. Yeah. So m'meilah, so to
make שהחיינו על זה? So therefore like, why don't you make Shehecheyanu by a brit? It's also צערא דינוקא! צערא דינוקא! So here is the צער of one person, by chatunah is a צער of two people! But why by a birth of a child you do say it's for Yeah, Chabad we don't, yeah, some people do. That's the birth of a child, come to the else. But by the under a chatunah we don't. By a brit we don't. Sefardim do, sei by a brit, sei by a chatunah. Because their life is better life! Like we get, but we don't make a Shehecheyanu. What else? Say why by chatunah you have four sticks, by an ארון, by a מת, you have two, how come here you have four? So the yetzer hara gets four men to shoot it. All these jokes that people make. No, but this it says there: עד שאתה שואלני למה אין מברכין שהחיינו, מברכין ברוך דיין האמת. אמר ליה רב לרב המנונא, רב said to רב המנונא, בני, my son, יש לך, if you have, היטב לך, if you have, use whatever you have. Don't put it away for future, for later, כי אין בשאול תענוג.
When you going to have you're going to use it to have ta'anug later when you go to the grave? It ain't going to be any good. ואין למות התמהמה. The death doesn't wait. You never know. I mean chas v'shalom, you know, maybe you can't say, \"Well, I still got 50 years to live, so I can keep my money and I'll use it up in 25 years from now.\" ואם תאמר, you might say, אניח לבני, I'll leave it to my children. He says חוק בשאול מי יגיד לך. Who's going to tell you? You're not going to get you're not even going to know what they're going to do with the money or not. Who's going to know what they get. And he says, בני אדם דמו לעשבי השדה. People are like the grass of the field. שיטה that they don't, that's Gan Eden, they don't know what's going on down here. The whole sugya in Shabbos, you know. Certainly not if the מתים יודעים, the whole sugya whatever. All right, they do know, they don't know, lema'aseh that's not the peshat. This is all in nigleh. לפי קבלה, I mean, tzadikim certainly know. People are like עשבי השדה, like the grass of the fields. הללו נוצצים והללו נובלים. Some grass sprouts, grows, and some wither away. So, in other words, he's saying people are born... you're going to die, and you're not going to get anything from the money. Bottom line is, but he's, in our shprach he would say, you ain't taking the money along. So, that's it. It's talking about the kids there, no? That's part of the kids. They sprout, but you die. Yeah, but he said, what has to do with you? I mean, you're not going to gain from it. You're not going to know about it. In other words, you're going to wither away, and they're going to they're going to be born. They may wither your money away. No, also he's saying that they're going to get their own money. They grow. They're going to grow, they're going to have their parnasah. In other words, it's not... Don't keep it just because you want them to have. That's not a reason to keep it, because they're going to have their... They grow, and... Tell them to spend it on On right things, obviously. On good things. But what he says... Well, obviously it doesn't mean on bad things. What do you say, if you say, yeah, some people leave even for even for yeshiva, for tzedakah, they leave it after 120, they leave a fund for tzedakah. Why do you have to do it that way? Why can't you give it before? Yeah, do it when you're alive, when you can see the peirot. Why do you have to do it then? That's what he's saying. They're afraid they won't have enough. That's what everybody is afraid. Yeah, that's the problem. פן יחסר לחמו. That's one of the things, the היפך הבטחון, if you're afraid פן יחסר לחמו, and you might not have enough bread or more food. That's the nature of people. That's what he's saying, you got to work on it. הלכה תובע אנשי ביתך קודמים? אנשי, yeah, now. קודמים. Yeah, yeah, sure. If you give money, give Yeah, give your family, give this, you have to use your sechel. זאגט די Gemara ווייטער:
אמר רבי יהושע בן לוי, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said, המהלך בדרך, if someone is under, walking on a road, ואין לו לויה, doesn't have any escort, and he's walking all by himself, what's your protection? יעסוק בתורה, learn Torah. שנאמר, it says, כי לוית חן. It means that the Torah is לוית חן, is graceful for your לויה, that's it, for a for escort. חש בראשו, יעסוק בתורה. If you have a headache, your head hurts you, you should learn Torah. Now the word חש doesn't really mean hurts. חש means you feel your head. Which the emet is, what's pshat hurting? What's pshat that your head hurts? You feel your head. That's the peshuto shel pshat. When you start feeling your head, that's hurting. You shouldn't feel your head. No one feels they have a head, no one feels, you start feeling it, that that's hurting. חש זה כאב. Yeah, I know. מיחוש is כאב. But the word, the literal translation is feeling. But that's the pshat. Just feeling your אבר. Feeling, if a person has a cut on his hand and it hurts him, what's the pshat? He feels that that place, that's what it is. That's feeling. Burn, a cut, or it's feeling. The moment you feel a certain part of the... because the body be'emet is בטל to the life, and you shouldn't feel it's a מציאות. The moment you feel it's a מציאות... Remember the Rebbe was מגיה once a sichah, and the sichah had this sevara. So the Rebbe wrote, וכמו שכתוב, brought the story with the ben haShunamis, the story with Elisha that he was מחיה מתים, the the boy that died. But what did he say? He was in the field, and he said, ראשי ראשי, \"Oi, my head, my head.\" Doesn't say he said, \"Oi, my head hurts.\" Said, \"My head!\" He just realized, \"I feel a head!\" Oh, that's already a problem. That's that's a headache. So it says, חש בראשו, if you feel your head, it means it hurts, then יעסוק בתורה. But there's a story from the Rabbi Rashab, somebody asked him he has his head hurts, so what should he do? Says, what should you do? Gei shlof! Go to sleep. So he says, but the Gemara says, חש בראשו, יעסוק בתורה? Says, that's חש בראשו, that means אז מען האט עפעס אין קאָפּ. In other words, no, he meant to say אז ס'איז דא ספיקות באמונה, if you have a meichush in your head, a חשד, if it's chas veshalom, then יעסוק בתורה. If you have a headache, Gei shlof! There's a famous maaseh with the Chafetz Chaim that when he was uh 17 or 18, he learned too much too hard, and he had some kind of breakdown, and he couldn't learn for a year. And the people were always uh people were always when he was already a big a big talmid chacham, so people were learning with him. They'd learn two, he was always, all of a sudden he'd say, \"Now I have to stop.\" Because it hurt him? Because he didn't want to... He knew that he once had that condition. And he couldn't go so long. Oh, yeah, the Chafetz Chaim. I hope you have this problem. You have a problem, you could learn all day. I never experienced this problem. שנאמר, what do we see,
חוש בראשו יעסוק בתורה, שנאמר, it says, and then, כי לוית חן הם לראשך, it's good for your head. חוש בגרונו, if your throat hurts, יעסוק בתורה, שנאמר, and it continues, וענקים לגרגרותיך. ענקים, ענק is like a like what's in English? A necklace. So, a necklace is on your throat, לגרגרותיך, so this is like a necklace that protects you on your neck. חוש במעיו, if you feel trouble with your stomach, יעסוק בתורה, שנאמר רפאות תהי לשרך. שרך means the belly button, the stomach. חוש בעצמותיו, if your bones hurt you, יעסוק בתורה, learn תורה, שנאמר ושקוי לעצמותיך. חוש בכל גופו, if any part of your body, יעסוק בתורה, שנאמר, it says, look, it's all one פסוק, ולכל בשרו מרפא. A chassidish taytsh is a little different, because be'emes there's a big kashya. I know some people who had throat hurt and they learned Torah, it didn't help. Some people had a headache and they learned Torah, it didn't help. Ask people, I have experience. Didn't learn enough, what do you say? Now what does it say, lots? So it says there's חלקים in Torah which is כנגד your head, חלקים in תורה כנגד your If you טרעף צו to that part of Torah, then it works. That's, how do we know which is which? That's our problem, we don't know. Sefer HaCharedim. Mitzvot, it doesn't talk about Torah. Sefer HaCharedim tells you every מצוה כנגד which גוף part, body it is, but that's mitzvot, here we're talking about learning Torah. Yeah, but נוגע to to Torah? כנגד that Charedim has it, but I don't know if the Rambam wrote.
There was a Sefer HaRefuot, but I don't know if it was mitzvot. That was Chizkiyahu HaMelech. Chizkiyahu HaMelech, yeah. They hid it, חכמים גנזו. Yeah, yeah, but there it was also not רוחניות. Sefer HaRefuot, פשוט it told you what to do in every in every מחלה. We don't know, because we don't have it. It was hidden. But he had a ספר of all the medicines of the whole, of every sickness that's possible. So why didn't he use it on himself when he got sick? Because it was hidden, so he forgot. I'm sure it has to do with רוחניות also, but the ספר the way פשוט פשט, said No, so he says, I don't remember that, I remember just a Sefer HaRefuot, it could be that. I would imagine Chizkiyahu HaMelech probably wrote good mitzvot also, but I I He knew all the medicines, but yeah, but it was medicine for every every sickness. If a person got sick, they had no word to be talking to the Eibershter, because he knew he was, and therefore they had to hide it. You know Tuvia HaRofeh, there's a book Tuvia HaRofeh. Yeah. Yeah, but that's like a doctor would write, sometimes it works, not, and you have not everything, I mean it's a Chizkiyahu HaMelech. No, the Rambam wrote the Sefer HaRefuot, which we don't have, but some things we have, not everything. It's all because you're allowed to go to a doctor, like not like some people feel you're not allowed to go to a doctor. Some held like that. Not allowed to go because you're mixing into the Eibershter's business. Yeah, they don't go to doctors. Not not because of Eibershter? Because of Eibershter. Every 15 or 20 years one of them gets to go to court, they put them in jail, man. But this, this reminds me of this of the joke with the ship, no? There was a guy who was drowning, and he was a believer in God, so he said, \"Eibershter, help me.\" So a ship passes by, and he said, \"I don't want to go, I want the Eibershter to help me, I trust the Eibershter.\" Second ship went by, same thing. A third time, finally he drowned. Came למעלה, he said to the Eibershter, \"I trusted you so much, why didn't you help me?\" So the Eibershter says, \"I sent you three ships, what did you expect me to do?\" Dos iz a vort. But you have to, something for, always told the story that I heard from Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky, from Chafetz Chaim like this, a story from the Chafetz Chaim. Someone that came in Radin, who was a frummer guy, he didn't go to doctors, בשום אופן. Once he got very sick, and his family didn't know what to do, he didn't want to go to doctors. So they came to the Chafetz Chaim, what should we do? So the Chafetz Chaim said, \"גייט זאגט דעם משוגענעם, אז איך האב געזאגט ער זאל גיין צו א דאקטאר.\" He says, imagine the Chafetz Chaim calling somebody, with שמירת הלשון, he should call, that shows how much he was upset, such a thing. \"גייט זאגט דעם משוגענעם, אז איך האב געזאגט.\" Go tell the meshugener that I said he should go to the doctor. Anyway, but the Torah here doesn't say that, here it says that the Torah is the best refuah. מגן ומציל כל שכן שלא יבא, מלאך המות. Okay. He never went? What does it say in Gemara? טוב שברופאים לגיהנם. But but then it
says שותפו של עמלק. טוב שב. How does it say טוב שב טוב שברופאים לגיהנם. Yeah, but then it says something What does it say, שותפו של עמלק? Also that he's שותפו של עמלק. And it says the reason. No? Ah, witches, yeah, the same the same Gemara, yeah. Okay, that doesn't mean just like it doesn't mean most witches women are witch witches. Like among the witches more more women than men. So, more doctors are murderers than other than. The Latins call them medicus sanus, they kill the kill the healthy. That's also that, you know. Mmh? These people were healthful that's that's their shittah. With these people. Like health. No, that's not to do any not to take any medicine next you do everything health yeah, that's just Don't go to extremes. Oh, that's the word that's the real word. Scheme like this is no good extremes this is no good you got to do this Yeah, the Torah is okay. Yeah, the Torah is okay.
אמר רבי יהודה בריה דרבי חייא בוא וראה שלא כמדת בשר ודם, mita the הקדוש ברוך הוא mita is not like a person. מדת בשר ודם by a person, אדם נותן לחבירו סם יפה, סם, a person gets somebody a medicine, יפה לזה וקשה לזה, it's good for one thing, bad for another thing. הקדוש ברוך הוא נותן תורה לישראל, the Eibishter gave the תורה to Jews, סם חיים, it's a good medicine, לכל גופן, for everything, שנאמר ולכל בשר מר בשרו מרפא, it's the best for everything. Nothing, no חסרון in Torah, every Torah is cure. Yeah, אמר רב אמי, Rav Ami said מאי דכתיב, there's a pasuk that says this goes back about using the Torah, כי נעים, נעים is geshmak, it's pleasurable, כי תשמרם בבטנך, if you keep him in your stomach, יכונו יחדיו על שפתיך and together they will be there on your lips. What does that mean? אימתי דברי תורה נעימים, when is the תורה געשמאק for you, כי תשמרם בבטנך, when you keep it in your stomach. That means that you don't forget it. But when don't ואימתי תשמרם בבטנך, when do you keep it, when don't you forget it, בשעה שיכונו יחדיו על שפתיך, when they come on your lips, you like to put it inside the stomach. When do you enjoy the Torah? When it stays inside you. That means when you don't forget it, you enjoy it.
What makes you not forget it? Say it. When you learn Torah, say it out loud, say it with your lips. What about if someone sits by a shiur and listens, doesn't say it? Repeat it over Maybe maybe it says שומע כעונה. Because if you hear it like you said From here it's talking about you learning by yourself. But if you're learning with somebody, and the other person says it, But to remember, did they repeat it over? Well, you think better, but if you hear it with somebody it's also better than just looking and reading yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To say it yourself is done even better, yeah. וזה Rema, and there's a different pasuk, it says שמחה לאיש במענה פיו, a simcha to a person with the saying of his mouth, ודבר בעתו מה טוב, and any everything in its time is good. אימתי שמחה לאיש בשעה שמענה בפיו, when is the person happy with his Torah? When he says it in his mouth. לישנא אחרינא another pshat is, אימתי שמחה לאיש במענה פיו, when is a person happy with his saying? בזמן שדבר בעתו מה טוב if it goes on time. In other words, if a person follows the rules and יום פסח you learn about Pesach and on Shavuot, so then you're doing דבר בעתו, things in its time, and you say it with your mouth, that's when you're really happy, that's when it gives you enjoyment.
It's clear. What about Rabbi Eliezer? He's about to be judged. He was going to be burned because he He forgot his learning. He forgot his learning. So, the minister said, did not believe in in their religion. And then he said, so he gave them broke. So then he forgot his learning, he said, because it was because of shimush. What does it say, shimush here? Doesn't. But, it says not to let him off the hook. He said, I know you saw this video in saying so the time when they give him a chance to do teshuvah. And once and then it says once Oh, that would be, that's their shita. Yeah. And there's one man, unless you'd be burning, they say she'd be burning. Okay. Are they gonna daven now? Are they gonna daven Mincha? They're gonna daven...