Inside the Mind of the Great Commentators: Sfas Emes #1

The Sfas Emes, Rebbe Yehudah Leib Alter 15 April 1847 – 11 January 1905 was the 2nd Rebbe of the Gerer Chassidim and the grandson of the Chiddushei HaRim. He was orphaned at the age of one and raised by his grandfather.
He was a child prodigy and studied without interruption for eighteen hours at a time. When he was nineteen, his grandfather, the Chiddushei HaRim passed away and pressure was exerted on Reb Yehudah Leib to assume the mantle of leadership of the Gerer Chassidim. He felt unworthy however, and instead went to Alexander to study under Rebbe Chanoch Henoch.
After only four years, Rebbe Chanoch Henoch passed away, and then Reb Yehudah Leib was left with no choice but to comply with the wishes of the Chassidim to become the leader of the Ger. Under his guidance and leadership Ger became the largest Chassidic group in Poland. The Sfas Emes, named after his magnum opus, was a proponent of expanding the Chassidic community in Israel, and greatly supported activities to that end. His son, the Emrei Emes, escaped the Nazis, came to Israel and rebuilt Ger, restoring it to its former glory.
His output was prodigious, and his works (all entitled Sfas Emes) deal with the Talmud, the ethics of the Midrash, and mysticism of the Zohar.
His Torah homilies as delivered to his hasidim, and arranged according to the weekly parashah and the festivals, were the first to be published posthumously under the name Sfas Emes. The title was taken from the closing words of the final piece he wrote (Sfas Emes, Vayechi 5665). His chiddushim (original Torah thoughts) on many Talmudic tractates, and on Yoreh De'ah, have been published under the same name.
The Sochatchover Rebbe, Rabbi Avrohom Bornsztain (known as the Avnei Nezer), a leading Torah scholar and posek in his own right, is said to have maintained two bookcases — one for Rishonim (earlier commentators) and another for Acharonim (later commentators). The volumes of the Sfas Emes, written in the late 1800s, were to be found in his bookcase containing the Rishonim. To study some portions of the Talmud without the Sfas Emes is unthinkable to the modern-day scholar.[4]
A Heritage of Torah Learning
The Sefas Emes followed in the path set by his grandfather, the Chidushei HaRim, and passed this approach onto his chassidim. Even as a leader of thousands he never stopped learning. "How can one answer a man if he does not remember all four parts of the Shulchan Oruch by heart?" he once asked. "Otherwise I would be liable to give an answer inconsistent with the halochoh, chas vesholom!"
One year on Shavuos Night he said at his table, "`Hu yiftach libeinu besoroso,' means through His Torah. The key to opening the heart to Torah lies hidden in the Torah itself." His words inspired thousands that night.
(See Shlach 13:2)
Two brothers came to him saying they had started a factory in partnership. "A partnership in business is also a partnership in ruchniyus," he told them. "Both of you must learn a daf of gemora together every day. Then your partnership will be sustainable.
He would often say he envied businessmen. "I am jealous of the daf of gemora merchants learn on Shabbos. Throughout the week the businessman is busy with his affairs and cannot find time to learn. But on Shabbos Kodesh, when he opens up the gemora, he invariably learns with great enthusiasm."
When chassidim parted from him before their return trip home he would say, "Learn gemora and everything will go well." One chossid complained that he felt lonely because he was the only chossid in his town. "He who is absorbed in his daf of gemora is never alone no matter where he may be in the world."
The Final Years
The Sefas Emes' final years were difficult. On 18 Elul 5661 (1901) his wife, Yocheved Rivkoh, passed away. He then married Raizel, the daughter of HaRav Boruch of Gorlitz, the son of HaRav Chaim of Tzanz. He fathered a total of ten children. Four passed away in childhood and the surviving children were: his eldest son the author of the Imrei Emes, HaRav Moshe Betzalel of Gur, HaRav Nechemia of Lodz, and HaRav Menachem Mendel of Pavinezh. His two sons-in-law were HaRav Yaakov Meir Biderman, who served as a dayan in Warsaw, and HaRav Tzvi Chanoch HaKohen Levine, the rov of Bandin.
In 5662 (1902) the beis medrash and most of the houses in Gur—including the Sefas Emes' home—were destroyed in a fire. Later, his pure heart was anguished over yet another tragedy: his sister and brother-in-law were murdered by Jewish thieves. After the murderers were caught, their family members had the chutzpah to come to Gur to hold a sit-down strike outside his home to pressure him to secure their release.
When the beis medrash was rebuilt the Sefas Emes' son- in-law, HaRav Levine, ordered a sign reading, "Beis Medrash LeTorah Uletefiloh Ulechassidus," but his father-in-law told him to remove the word, "Ulechassidus," saying that if it were left up people might permit themselves to chat away in the beis medrash thinking they are engaged in "Chassidus."
Toward the end of his lifetime the Russo-Japanese war broke out. During this period there was fierce competition between the two countries to gain control over parts of Northeast Asia. The battlefront was in Manchuria, today a part of China and once an independent kingdom that struck fear in all of its neighbors. The Manchurian front was the dread of thousands of Jews who had been drafted into the Russian army against their will. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Gur Chassidim were drafted and sent to the front.
"When news of the Admor's petirah (passing away) spread, so many people rushed to Ger yesterday morning that although the railway dispatched extra trains there was hardly any space in the cars and thousands of people were still left without means to travel...
"One (tram) car with seating for 44 people held over 200, not even leaving any standing room, and in another car some people fainted as a result of the overcrowded conditions...
"When the time for tefillas Mincha arrived, all of the funeral-goers, 20,000 in number, stood in a field and davened Minchah together...
Admor" is an acronym for "Adonainu, Morainu, VeRabbeinu," a phrase meaning "Our Master, Our Teacher, and Our Rabbi."
Major Idea
One of the greatest religious problems is that people fear having a relationship with God and consequently distance themselves from Him. Just as angels serve God without fear despite their lower status in comparison to God, so too human beings should take their model (walk amongst them) and not be afraid of developing a relationship with God and serving Him. This represents a wholeness that we as human beings are capable of only if we think of ourselves as walking amongst angels.

Roots of Chasidism from the Baal Shem Tov
The Baal Shem Tov was very fond of light, and said, "Or (light) is the numerical equivalent of raz ('secret'). Whoever knows the 'secret' in every thing can bring illumination."
Every single thing that a person sees or hears, is an instruction to him in his conduct in the service of G‑d.
Everything is by Divine Providence. If a leaf is turned over by a breeze, it is only because this has been specifically ordained by G‑d to serve a particular function within the purpose of creation.

To the casual observer, religion fosters some of the deepest divisions in society. Some of the most significant conflicts playing out on the world stage find their roots in religion to varying degrees. Killing in the name of God is a weekly event. Every major religion professes “to love your neighbor” as a principle value and yet violence and xenophobia in the name of God towards those of other faiths are common occurrences. In an effort to engage this issue, some thinkers have gone so far as to suggest that religious discourse should begin to put God second and emphasize the dignity of man as the primary religious ethic.
We can learn from Parshas Korach that the answer to this awful trend is just the opposite. We need to emphasize God and His presence in the world even more. Korach waged a rebellion against Moshe and Aharon because of their “chosen-ness”. The entire community is holy and so why should they enjoy any special status. This is a sound religious argument.
We can learn from an insight of the Sfas Emes, Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter of Gur, what Korach misunderstood. The Sfas Emes explains why the three negative traits, jealousy or envy, honor-seeking, and lust, “remove a person from the world” according to Pirkei Avot. They are so addictive and they alter the human experience so significantly that there is no need for punishment, they simply remove a person from the world all on their own. The person can be consumed and effectively destroyed by these negative traits.
When it comes to jealousy, one is consumed by looking at divisions in the world between individuals or groups. The Sfas Emes argues that to overcome jealousy one must recognize that there is an elemental chiyus, a Divinely imbued vitality, that animates every single person and binds us all together. The existence of the Jewish people, a chosen people, serves to highlight the existence of this chiyus. Our message to humanity is that the presence of God in this world mandates that we see in each other that common element that binds all people together – the Divine chiyus.
This is the message underlying one of Hillel’s most famous teachings. The Talmud relates how someone wanted to convert standing on one foot. Shammai, very much the perfectionist, rejected him. Hillel, more conciliatorily, instructs him not to do unto others what is intolerable to you. Here we have a person wanting to convert, to take upon himself the yoke of Torah. Didn’t Hillel shortchange him? Isn’t religion made up of mitzvos that include responsibilities to both man and God? The Sfas Emes explains that Hillel is sensing that one of the keys to understanding religion is to recognize that we all possess this chiyus and so we’re part of greater a whole that is rooted in God.
Korach failed to see that what truly makes “everyone holy”, that it isn’t some superficial notion of equality but rather this animating force that comes from God. And the only way to perceive a person’s worth isn’t through jobs, roles, or political positions – but rather through the Godliness inherent in all.
This is why Moshe, in response to Korach, wanted face to face confrontations with him and other groups. He wanted to give everyone the opportunity to stop, look each other in the eye, and sense the chiyus in each other.
The only way to achieve a shared sense of humanity is by recognizing the chiyus inherent in all people. Only by emphasizing God more and the Godliness in all people can we hope to save contemporary religion from the divisions that are fostered in its name.
Some divisions are exacerbated by the internet. I think most of a sense how telecommunication technology and social media can connect people more closely on the one hand but can also distance others and dehumanize interactions on the other hand. In other words, the perception of the Divine chiyus can easily get lost in these connections. Only when we engage each other in the most direct way, can we have a chance to see the tzelem Elokim in each face and be reminded of the Divine chiyus that animates us all.