Chazal teach that Yosef and Binyamin wept over the Sanctuaries that would be built in their respective portions of Eretz Yisrael and later destroyed. The two Batei Mikdash were in Binyamin’s territory, and the Mishkan Shiloh in Yosef’s (Efraim’s) territory. After years of separation, the love the two brothers had for one another was superseded by their sadness over the future destructions. While the Avos, Patriarchs, and their children were all human beings, the Torah and everything spiritual were uppermost in their minds. Their connection to one another was via the Torah.
Horav Yaakov Neiman, zl, relates the well-known incident that occurred concerning the Gaon, zl, of Vilna, to underscore the concept of thinking only Torah. An agunah, a woman who did not know the whereabouts of her husband (or one whose recaltricent husband had refused to give her a get, divorce), a “chained” wife, came before the Gaon with an incredible story. One day, a man whom she did not recognize appeared, claiming that he was her long-lost husband. It had been a while and appearances change. The woman was not sure whether he was or was not her husband. On the other hand, he was able to answer correctly a number of specific questions of which only her husband would be aware. He even knew what was on the menu at their wedding, what they wore, and where they went after the wedding. So why was she at the home of the Gaon? She just did not feel right. Something was amiss, but she could not put her finger on it.
The Gaon instructed the woman’s father to accompany his “son-in-law” to shul. When they arrived, he was to tell the fellow to go to his seat. He would meet him in a few moments. Understandably, the charlatan did not know where to go. When the people were lauding the Gaon’s brilliance, he said that it was nothing. Reshaim, wicked people, neither know about – nor take into consideration – the spiritual dimension. This man had spent time with her husband and, in the duration, had learned all about him. The one thing he had never thought about was questioning where he sat in shul, because when one is divorced from kedushah, holiness, it becomes the last thing he will think about. The man never thought to question the spiritual activities in which her husband had been involved.
A person’s affinity for kedushah defines his perspective on the world around him. He looks at everything through a different lens. An esteemed Rav, a talmid chacham, Torah scholar, who literally spent every waking minute of his day immersed in Torah, merited to raise a generation of talmidei chachamim who follow in their venerable father’s footsteps. This Rav once commented to a contemporary, “The ‘world’ thinks that righteous Jews are concerned only with Olam Habba, the World- to-Come, the world of the spirit. There are those who think that I loathe this world with its emphasis on materialism and physical dimension. This is absolutely false. I, too, care about olam hazeh, this world. I also want to derive pleasure and satisfaction. The difference is how one defines olam hazeh. The halachah states that if one has sons who are scholars, he must stand up for them (out of respect for the Torah which they embody) – even though they are his sons. I am sitting here by my desk, and in walks my son. I must arise as a tribute to the Torah that he has mastered. Now, let me ask you. Is there any greater olam hazeh than that?”
We should ask ourselves if we have achieved such a plateau, whereby paying homage to our son’s erudition and success in Torah surpasses the pleasures of this world.
