02 Apr SHMINI: WHY DID 1 MILLION SHOW UP TO THE FUNERAL OF A MAN WITHOUT AN OFFICIAL POSITION? DON’T CELEBRATE IGNORANCE: THE VALUE OF LIFE-LONG INQUIRY AND STUDY

A great deal of
intelligence can be
invested in ignorance.
— Saul Bellow
Light travels faster
than sound. That’s
why most people seem
bright until you hear them speak. —
Author Unknown
Only two things are infinite, the universe
and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about
the former.” – Albert Einstein.
“Inquire He Inquired”
An interesting comment is inserted into the
printed editions of the Chumash in this
week’s parsha (Shmini). In between the
words “inquire he inquired” (“darosh” and
“derash” in the original Hebrew) it is written:
“Half of the words of the Torah.”
What this means is that these words—
“inquire he inquired”—mark the halfway
point of a word count of the Torah. The first
“inquire” completes the first half of the
Chamisha Chumshei Torah; the second
“inquire” begins the second half of the Torah.
What is the symbolism behind this? Why do
these words mark the halfway point of
Torah? One beautiful explanation is that
the Torah is attempting to teach us that the
entire Torah—both halves of it—
revolve around inquiry, the quest and search
(darosh darash) to learn, understand and
internalize the truths and perspectives of the
Torah. To be Jewish is to forever remain a
student of Torah wisdom. So the end of the
first half and the beginning of the second half
of Torah — and the mid-center of it — are all
about the quest for truth and wisdom.
“Inquire did he [Moshe] inquire”—this is
the center point of the entire Torah, because
Moshe himself, the greatest scholar and
prophet, never ceased to inquire and search.
Moshe knew that the most essential
component necessary to absorb Torah is our
never-ending yearning and readiness to
continuously explore and seek truth. Moshe
realized that after all of his discoveries, he
had only reached the middle of the Torah, and
there was much more ahead that he had not
yet learned.
What is more, the written text of the Torah
was given together with the oral tradition of
the Torah transmitted and expounded by the
Chachamim in a continuous process of
inquiry and study; together they constitute
two halves of one whole. The Torah thus
intimates that the written Torah itself without
the expositions (“darosh darash”) of the
Chachamim in the oral tradition is only one
half of Torah tradition. In its absence, you are
missing its full resonance and meaning; you
are missing the second half of the picture.
Ignorant Spokesmen?
The message is vital for Jews today.
Some time ago I was invited to attend a
symposium sponsored by the UJA Federation
about Jewish continuity. One of the presenters

suggested that we introduce a reformation in
Jewish observance in order to make the
religion more appealing to the youth.
When it came to my turn to address the
audience, I begged to differ from the above
presenter. His argument, I suggested, was
refuted by the undisputed fact that the only
ones who managed to maintain their Jewish
numbers and even increase them dramatically
were those who opposed reformation in
Jewish observance. Perhaps our youth is
searching not for reformation but for the
Judaism taught and practiced by Rabbi
Akiva, Rashi, Rambam, and the Baal Shem
Tov? Perhaps what was necessary was not a
diluted form of Judaism, but rather a more
intense presentation of a Judaism saturated
with spiritual passion, authentic idealism,
profound scholarship, personal relevance,
and emotional connection?
Later, in private conversation, I asked the
presenter if he could name the 54 parshiyos
of the Chamisha Chumshei Torah and the
titles of the 63 Masechtos of the Mishna, the
most basic body of Jewish law and literature.
From memory, he could only name 10 of the
parshiyos and not one of the masechtos.
“Imagine,” I said to him, “we would be
attending a symposium on Shakespeare, and
one of the lectures on how Shakespeare ought
to be taught to youths today would be
presented by an individual ignorant of the
titles of Shakespeare’s 38 plays? Or imagine
a symposium on the future of philosophy,
where one of the speakers was not well
versed in The Republic, the Critique of Pure
Reason or Beyond Good and Evil? Wouldn’t
that be embarrassing to the subject they are
discussing?”
He said to me that in his opinion one did not
need to be well versed in Torah in order to
present an argument on the future of Judaism.
Why is Judaism seen as such an inferior
discipline, that it does not demand rigorous
mastery? Why is it that in the fields of
biology, science, art, or history nobody would
dare present strong opinions about their
futures without intensely studying these
subjects for years? Why do so many Jews
think that Judaism—a tradition taught and
developed over three millennia, consisting of
tens of thousands of volumes, many of them
written by some of the greatest human
minds—is a set of archaic laws and cute
rituals?
Perhaps the saddest commentary about
Jewish life in America is that so many leaders
of mainstream Jewish organizations and
institutions did not send their own children to
Jewish schools, depriving them of serious
Jewish education. They see themselves as
Jewish leaders and activists; yet they don’t
even entertain the thought that Jewish
tradition has anything truly valuable to teach
them and their children about life, death, and
everything in between. The greatest obstacle
to discovery, a wise man once said, is not
ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.

The Torah, the most profound blueprint for
life ever articulated in the history of humanity,
belongs to every single Jew. It is about time,
that every member of our people gives
himself or herself the gift of discovering its
beauty and wisdom.
This is the reason we created TheYeshiva.
net, where various ongoing courses on Torah
study are offered for free, both for advanced
students as well as beginners. I hope you will
seize the opportunity to challenge your mind
and broaden your horizons. We stop living
when we stop inquiring.
The late Rabbi Jonothan Sacks put it
beautifully:
Imagine the following scene. The Lord
Chief Justice, together with his senior judges,
decide that law is a wonderful thing. They
resolve to set aside a day each year to
celebrate it. They write poems and compose
songs in its honor. When the day comes, they
each take a weighty tome — Halsbury’s
Statutes would do nicely — and dance
around the House of Lords, singing the songs
and reciting the poems.
Whacky? Undoubtedly. Impossible?
Probably. Yet this, more or less, is what Jews
do on the Yom Tov called Simchat Torah,
literally “rejoicing in the law.” We take the
scrolls of the Torah (the Law) from the Aron
Hakodesh and dance around the shul, singing
love songs to G-d for His gift, His holy
words. If you want to see the majesty and
dignity of the law, go to an English court. But
if you want to see the joy and exuberance of
the law, go to a shul on Simchat Torah.
A Torah scroll is the nearest thing Judaism
has to a holy object. Still written today as it
was thousands of years ago — on parchment,
using a quill, by a master-scribe — it is our
most cherished possession. We stand in its
presence as if it were a king. We dance with it
as if it were a bride. We kiss it as if it were a
friend. If G-d forbid, one is damaged beyond
repair, we mourn it as if it were a member of
the family.
The Koran calls Jews a “people of the
book”, but this is an understatement. We are a
people only because of the book. It is our
constitution as a holy nation under the
sovereignty of G-d. It is G-d’s love letter to
Bnei Yisrael. We study it incessantly. We read
it in the shul each week, completing it in a
year. During the long centuries of Jewish
exile, it was our ancestors’ memory of the
past and hope for the future. It was, said the
German poet Heinrich Heine, the “portable
homeland” of the Jew.
“Let my people know,” this was the motto
of the late Rabbi Adin Even Yisroel
(Steinsaltz), the first translator of the Mishna
into Hebrew and other languages, and author
of 60 books on Judaism. He once
lamented that many Jews manage to study
science, physics, business, medicine, math,
or philosophy on a post-graduate level, yet
their Jewish knowledge often remains on a
second-grade level. So many of our people

are unaware of the endless intellectual and
spiritual richness of their heritage and the
profound emotional healing it can bring.
Reb Chaim
Sunday, 17 Adar II, 5782, March 20, 2022,
close to one million Jews attended the funeral
of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky (1928-2022),
who passed away at the age of 94, in the city
of Bnei Brak, Israel. This was the largest
funeral in the history of Israel and it reflected
the unique Jewish approach to learning. For
Reb Chaim sat for 85 years and studied Torah
some 18 hours a day, becoming one of the
greatest Torah scholars of the generation.
Rain or shine, on Shabbos or on holidays,
during good or challenging times, he did not
cease his studies, in a tiny, humble abode on
23 Rashbam Street in Bnei Brak. Here was a
man whose love of learning the Torah was
boundless. Each year he would complete all
the major works of Judaism: The Tanach, the
Mishnah, Tosefta, the Jerusalem and
Babylonian Talmuds, Rambam, Codes of
Jewish law, the Midrashim, and the
Zohar. Rabbi Israel Meir Lau called him “a
walking Torah scroll” since, in his 94 years,
he reached rare levels of Torah mastery and
devotion.
At the funeral, his son, Rabbi Shlomo
Kanievsky touched the crowd with stories of
childhood games played with his father, the
mastermind, and shared a little bit about the
relationship with his deceased wife, Batsheva.
For years, the two of them would get up
much before sunrise and recite the morning
blessings that open the day together. He
would say one blessing after the next and she
would answer amen to each. And then she
would recite the blessings and, after each
one, he would answer amen.
His son also related how when his father
came home in the afternoon, he would never
eat lunch without his wife by his side. If she
was not home and sitting at the table, he
would never begin eating. And if she was
delayed, even by a few minutes, he would of
course open a book and learn until she
arrived. They never vacationed in a guest
house and never went to a coffee shop, but
this was their special quality time together.
Close to one million Jews showed up to bid
farewell to a man who had no official
position, no title, no political power, and no
material affluence; but embodied with every
fiber of his being the infinite passion of a
people to study, internalize and live daily the
truths and wisdom of Torah, G-d’s blueprint
for humanity.