The Daily Chizzuk of our Rebbe, the Gaon and Tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit”a – “Today there are kollels and donors – anyone can learn Torah”
Thursday 17 Sivan 5782
These are his holy words:
One needs to learn Torah day and night, twenty-four hours, but if you have a wise son, then the son goes to learn.
Because once there were no kollels, so everyone had to support their home. Not like today, when there are kollels and there are donators who contribute.
Once there was nobody to donate. Everyone worked for himself. Rabbi Akiva had to draw water. Rabbi Akiva would buy every day a bundle of wood, light it, and the smoke would enter the neighbors’ [homes]. The neighbors would come and scream – why does he smoke up their entire house. The entire house was smoke.
Rabbi Akiva answered, “I’m warming up, I cook on this, this makes for me a little light – then I can learn the Gemara.”
Once, everyone had to take care of himself. There weren’t kollels. If the father went to learn, there was no one to support the home. Or the father went to learn, and one of the children went to grind with the millstone. Today there are lawyers, doctors. Once there weren’t lawyers, so [people] went to work on the millstone to grind wheat.
Once, [people] needed to support the home alone. So the father either went to learn Torah, or the son. If the father was sharp, then he learned Torah. If the son was sharp, then the son learned Torah.
The Gemara (Kidushin 29b-30b) says, “’You shall teach your sons’ (Devarim 11:19) – and not your daughters.”
[Our Rabbis taught: He learns and his son learns – he comes before his son. R’ Yehuda says: If his son is fast and sharp, and his learning remains with him – his son comes before him.]
So, “if his son is fast and sharp” – there is a son who is fast, a sharp son. He can learn eight hours. He doesn’t fall asleep – then he goes to learn Torah.
