On the centrality of RIETS in YU: the interpretation by R. Jacob Joseph of Polonnoye on – so too, all aspects of the University are important: medicine, law, social work, science... But all of it is a mere mad and senseless gyration if the heart of the whole operation is missing – the concept of ...

Last night, at a reception in my suite for Natan Shcharansky before he began his series of four lectures at Yeshiva, I was asked to greet him before a distinguished gathering of faculty, administration, Board members, and guests. I did so with an appropriate devar Torah. In his response, Shcharansky said that several months ago he came to the United States to help organize the great march on Washington for Soviet Jewry during the visit of USSR Gorbachev — a most successful demonstration. In preparing for it, he spoke in congregations throughout the country. It is remarkable, he said, that every time he was introduced, the rabbi presenting him would comment on how appropriate his visit was at that time because the Torah, in the weekly pareshat ha-Shavua, makes the following statement which can be applied to Soviet Jewry and Shcharansky... "I thought to myself," said Shcharansky, "How funny it is that every week a rabbi should discover that the Torah's words apply to me and my situation. On second thought," he ruminated, "that is a wonderful tribute to Torah and its expositors, that it indeed is relevant to every situation and such relevance can be demonstrated by one who is a true student of Torah."

The address should consist of a kind of manifesto of Yeshiva University's philosophy of the rabbinate. It should include the primacy of Torah; Torah U'Madda; the ideal of service to the community; the combination of commitment and open mindedness, loyalty to Orthodoxy and Outreach to the non-Orthodox community, dedication to our own religious growth and the spiritual and well-being of others. Included in this, should be a statement on the combination of a sense of responsibility to Torah (and, hence, the careful consultation with Roshei Yeshivah and older colleagues on important questions) together with the assumption of one's own professional, spiritual, and halakhic responsibility. Speak about Rav Chaim Volozhener's teaching of intellectual independence, and how he learned this from the Gaon, and how he even used it in refusing to go along with the Gaon's fulminations against Hasadism. In this connection, two of my greatest recollections of Rabbi Soloveitchik are: when he scolded me in class (see my Introduction to the two volume Soloveitchik Festschrift) and when I asked him about the Manhattan eruv, he told me to go figure it out myself and do what I think is right.

During my visit today with Chief Rabbi Shapira, he told me the following story to which he was a personal witness. When Rabbi Soloveitchik came to visit Israel – the one and only time during his life – in the 1930s, it was the final year of the life of Rabbi Kook, the Elder. Rabbi Soloveitchik spoke in several places – at Mercaz Harav, at the Harry Fischel Institute, and at several other yeshivot. At every lecture that he gave, Rabbi Kook’s son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, attended and listened attentively. When Rabbi Shapira asked the younger Rav Kook why he was doing so, he answered as follows: His father had received Rabbi Soloveitchik and they “talked in learning.” When Rabbi Soloveitchik left, the elder Rav Kook told his son that the experience of speaking with Rabbi Soloveitchik reminded him of his earliest years, when he was a student at the Yeshiva of Volozhin, during the time that Rabbi Soloveitchik’s grandfather, Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik, first began to give shiurim. I believe, the elder Rav Kook said, that the power of genius of the grandfather now resides with the grandson – and therefore, he said to his son, you should not miss a single shiur by Rabbi Soloveitchik.

The Talmud (Shab., chap. II) teaches us that הויין ליה בנין תלמידי חכמים. In other words, only teachers and the yeshiva environment have a key role in the development of their sons as ת״ח. But why did the Sages specify נר חנוכה, and not, for instance, tallit or tefillin? I suggest: because Hanukkah comprehends two complementary principles: (a) the spiritual. As Zechariah proclaims in the haftorah for Hanukkah, כי לא בחיל ולא בכח כי אם ברוחי אמר ה׳ צבאות. This ברוחי element is expressed in ת״ת. b) Leadership. The victory of the Hasmoneans over the Hellenists... The נם מלחמה (as in על הנסים ובהפסיקתא) and not only in the נם שמן (as in גמרא במה מדליקי ן).Your sons are getting both here—talmudic scholarship as budding ת״ח, and training as future leaders of the Jewish community. Thus, when parents understand and practice נ"ח, they are blessed with children who are ת״ח in the broadest sense—leaders as well as scholars.This requires parents to be role models, if possible—"learners" and "doers" or leaders; failing that, but equally effective in creating the environment for our future scholar-leaders, is the sense of values you implant in them: respecting and reverencing ת״ח, and admiring and following authentic leaders of the community.

The Three Fathers of our people are paradigmatic for their descendants forever after. Consider this: each of them emerged wounded from his life’s most significant encounter. Jacob limped after his wrestling with a stranger, the guardian angel of Esau. Isaac was blinded by his experience at the Akedah. Abraham too suffered a lasting deficit in his life. When the Almighty commanded to take this son to the Akedah, he referred to him as “your son, your only son, whom you love — Isaac.” When his hand was stayed, the Almighty praised him for not sparing “your son, your only son — Isaac.” There is no mention of “whom you love.” That paternal love was smothered when he had to assert his love of God over his love of family. That sacrifice, that emotional trauma, was probably worse than the blindness of Isaac or the lameness of Jacob.As rabbis, we have to struggle not with physical handicaps — that is an individual manner — but with a wound that is endemic and peculiar to our vocation: the titanic struggle in our minds and hearts between our love for Torah and our love for Israel, our passion for learning and our commitment to serving; our nostalgia for the days when we were totally immersed in Torah and the crush of responsibilities laid upon us to leading a kehillah.There are no easy solutions to this dilemma. Here: the story of Rabbi Hayyim Ozer (author of Achiezer)on a visit to Rabbi Meisels the Great Rabbi of Lodz. He asked the older rabbi: Why have you never published a sefer? The Lodzer Rav answered: “Look at my waiting room -- widows, orphans, people trouble by illness, men who have no prospects of supporting their families, women who are abandoned by their husbands — that is my sefer, and that is what will accompany me when I rise before the Bet Din in Heaven...

Let me speak to you about visions – good and bad. A rabbi must have a vision – for himself, his family, his community, and for all the House of Israel. But not all visions are the same. Some inspire and uplift; others mislead and harm. Today we witness two particularly dangerous visions: first, the belief that a rebbe is the messiah – an idea that begins with reverence but can devolve into spiritual confusion and disappointment; and second, the notion, found in some circles of religious Zionism, that we are living in messianic times and that the State of Israel is itself a messianic entity. Both beliefs have led good, sincere people into crises of faith when reality failed to match their hopes. The danger is not vision itself, but vision untested. We must seek vision, but also examine it – not every dream is holy. And yet, there are times when we long for vision and cannot find it, when we feel, in our own bones, that something is missing. As the priestly blessings remind us: chalom chalamti v’eini yode’a mah hu – I have dreamed a dream, but I do not know what it means. Even the yearning for vision needs divine guidance.

For charge to Musmakhim to appreciate the kind of culture most A–Js come from שמות רנה פרשת כי תשא פר, מג–ז: "אשר הוצאת מארץ מצרים". מה ראה להזכיר כאן יציאת מצרים? אלא אמר משה, רבון העולם, מהיכן הוצאת אותם? ממצרים, שהיו כולם עובדי טלאים. א״ר הונא בשם ר׳ יוחנן: משל לחכם שפתח לבנו חנות של בשמים בשוק של זונות. המבוי עשה שלו, והאומנות עשתה שלה, והנער כבחור עשה שלו. יצא לתרבות רעה. בא אביו ותפסו עם הזונות. התחיל האב צועק ואומר "הורגך אני!" היה שם אוהבו, אמר לו: "אתה איבדת את הנער ואתה צועק כנגדו?! הנחת כל האומניות ולא למדתו אלא בשם, והנחת כל המובאות ולא פתחת לו חנות אלא בשוק של זונות?!" כך אמר משה: "רבון העולם: הנחת כל העולם ולא שעבדת בניך אלא במצרים שהיו עובדין טלאים, ולמדו מהם בניך, ואף הם עשו העגל." לפיכך אמר "אשר הוצאת מארץ מצרים" – דע מהיכן הוצאת אותם! For charge to Musmakhim in either Chag Hasemikha – NY or Jerusalem יבמות דף ס״ב ע״א: והסכימה דעתו לדעת המקום דכתיב אשר שברת ואמר ריש לקיש אמר ליה הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה יישר כחך ששברת (שבת פ״ז ע״א: ומנא לן דהסכים הקדוש ברוך הוא על ידו? שנאמר, (שם לד) "אשר שברת", ואמר ריש לקיש, יישר כחך ששברת), צרור המור, כי תשא, עמ, 50: ״והנראה לי בזה שמשה שברם מדעתו, ... וכל זה בשביל תועלת ישראל וטובתם, שראה שעשו חטאה גדולה ... ונתחייבו בשטר ועדים – והם לוחות העדות בין ישראל לאביהם שבשמים ... ןלכן הורידם בידו לפי שהיה שטר חוב כתוב וחתום מעדים ... וכשראה העגל והמחולות , אמר: חייבי מיתה הם! מה עשה? נטל את הלוחות ושברם תחת ההר כמי שקורע את השטר, בענין שלא יהיה פתחון פה להקב״ה כנגדם..." מזה שמשה הורה לנו שמוטב לשבור את הלוחות מעשה אלקים מאשר לראות באבדן של עם ישראל! הרי משה היה יכול להביא את הלוחות ולהציל שבטו שבט לוי ולהפקיר את כם שאר בית ישראל, אבל לא כן עשה משה אוהב ישראל, ועל זה הודה לו ה׳ ואמר: יישר כחך ששברתם. Idea: O–c our main emphasis is on ת״ת–both f intrinsic reason and bee future Baalenbatim may he בני תורה א( מוסמכים... BUT not to cloister selves/them. Hence, the צרור המור – if Moshe can break all לוחות to save כלל ישראל, surely we can pout aside time & attention from our own personal development to seek out fellow ,Is who…

We often try without success to impress parents of young boys with the fact that the Bar Mitzvah ceremony is a religious occasion, and not an occasion for social advancement and unlimited spending. Now, however, we have a legal decision to lend weight to our words. Perhaps now some more parents of prospective Bar Mitzvah boys will cooperate in restoring the spiritual tone of the ceremony, and stamp as social exhibi-tionism the vulgar extravagance that has come to characterize this reli-gious ceremony. Parents who have always understood this, but have felt impelled to “go along” with the “others,” can now find support from this unexpected source:The November 6, 1957, official edi-tion of Law Reports and Session Laws, State of New York, carries on page 99 a decision handed down by Justice Samuel H. Hofstadter of the New York Supreme Court, involving the parents of a twelve year old boy who was being prepared for Bar Mitzvah. The parents made applica-tion to withdraw the entire proceeds of the boy’s funds resulting from a settlement of a personal injury action. A deposit of $100 had been paid to a Bronx caterer for a dinner-recep-tion, and the Court was petitioned for permission to deplete the child’s moneys in order to pay the balance.Justice Hofstadter permitted thewithdrawal of less than one-third of the amount requested, and accom-panied his decision with the following statement:“The Bar Mitzvah ceremony is a solemnization of a boy’s becoming a *son of commandment,’ and should encourage him in the path of right-eousness. It was never intended to be a vehicle for mere entertainment and display. It signalizes a boy’s religious coming of age as a ‘son of the Law’; the religious practices of his faith are now incumbent upon him. The spiritual values the occasion sym-bolizes may not be relegated to second place in favor of a gesture of con-spicuous consumption. It would be more fitting if the funds belonging to this boy were utilized to initiate, or to continue, his ed…

Code: (A) original sermons preached from the pulpit; (B) elsewhere. Also – wedding eulogies; (C) not preached; (D) original sermon ideas, underdeveloped; (E) Lookstein sermon ideas; (F) sermon ideas from others; (G–H) פרקי אבות, other lectures, etc.