Parshas Bereishis: The Book of the Straight

A New Year of Learning

Since we are starting Bereishis, and since we are hoping that these calls are something that continues for a very long time, and the Torah content on the calls, gaining lessons and learning together, is something we value tremendously, Rabbi Adi proposed an attempt for this year: to focus on one particular author, one particular rabbi, and every week give at least one idea that comes from his teachings, along with anything else that comes up to help us all learn. The rabbi he chose to learn and go through is the one known as the Netziv: Rav Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin. So this week was an overview of who he was, where he came from, and the impact that he made, and then a dive into one of his most famous works, the introduction to all of Sefer Bereishis, which we read this Shabbos. Going forward, each week Rabbi Adi hopes to give an idea on the parsha from the Netziv's teachings in his chumash, the Ha'amek Davar, and then add in some of his own personal commentary and things he has learned along the way.

The Netziv of Volozhin

The Netziv was born in 1816 in Mir, in what is today Belarus. His father's name was Yaakov. Times were very different in 1816: people did not have a regular Jewish education, and the systems that exist today did not exist then. His father was a Torah scholar, but he was also a merchant; he worked very, very hard to provide for his family, and at the same time made sure that learning was something important for his son. He cared about it tremendously. The Netziv learned with him originally, and the stories are told that he was not the best of students. He was extremely intelligent, but he did not apply himself, and there are famous stories that his parents were going to potentially take him out of learning. But then, all of a sudden, he dedicated himself (there are a lot of stories about this that you can find), and ultimately he decided to take it more seriously. So as a teenager, his parents sent him to the famous yeshiva in Volozhin, officially known as Yeshivas Eitz Chaim, in the town of Volozhin, which is now also in Belarus.

Volozhin, founded in 1802, is probably one of the most important yeshivos ever established, because it was the prototype for what is considered the modern-day yeshiva, which everybody models itself after. Before Volozhin existed, there was a lot of Torah study in Eastern Europe, but it was very decentralized. You had very talented people who wanted to learn, and they would study in the local synagogues and sleep on the benches; and if somebody really wanted to spend time learning, families would adopt those individuals and host them for meals. It was a very foreign system to what we know today, but that was how it was done. When Volozhin was founded in 1802 by Rav Chaim Volozhin, who was a talmid, a disciple, of the Vilna Gaon, he wanted to institutionalize Torah study. He wanted to build an institution where the needs of anybody who came would be taken care of: they would have something to eat, they would have a place to sleep, and they would therefore be able to dedicate their time there to focus on learning. That was the prototype for all the yeshivos that exist today, whether somebody comes on a gap year to a yeshiva or a seminary, or comes for a higher level of institutional study, whether it is Rav Kook's yeshiva or whether it is the Mir: these are all institutions based on how Volozhin was started.

And Rav Chaim of Volozhin wanted to make sure there were two parts, in addition to making sure that everybody's needs were taken care of so they could focus on Torah study. Part number one was depth in learning and analysis of Torah, in the way of the Gra. But also, part number two: making sure that people were not just learning Torah but also working on themselves as human beings, the Musar movement, so to speak. People developing as better human beings, working on how they interact with others, how to talk better, how to work on their anger, how to work on all their different middos (character traits). That was something very important in Volozhin, and something that was continued.

Even though the yeshiva did not have an easy time raising money, and the students were definitely not living much above the poverty line, hundreds and hundreds of people would trek for hundreds of miles to try to get accepted to Volozhin. It was the most prestigious institution. It was led by Rav Chaim of Volozhin until about 1820 or 1821, and then his son took over; and after his son, in 1849, the leadership was split between two people who were co-appointed: Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, known as the Beis Halevi, of the famous Soloveitchik family of Brisk (his son, Rav Chaim of Brisk, later also taught at Volozhin and wrote tremendous works on the Rambam and the Talmud), and the Netziv, Rav Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin. And the students and alumni of the Volozhin Yeshiva went on to start all of the major institutions: Slabodka, Telz, Ponevezh, Rav Kook's yeshiva, and so on. So that is where the Netziv went to learn, and not just where he went to learn, but where he then became the leader of the institution.

Talmidim, Chibbas Tzion, and His Seforim

Some of his famous students: the Torah Temimah, Rabbi Baruch Epstein. Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook, who became the chief rabbi of Israel in 1920, was a student there for a while, a very close student of the Netziv. Rav Shimon Shkop, who wrote the very famous sefer called Sha'arei Yosher: if you learn deep analysis on Gemara, it talks about chazakos and sfeikos and rov and karov, very deep thoughts. Rav Meir Bar-Ilan, after whom Bar-Ilan University is named. And even the famous poet Chaim Nachman Bialik was a talmid of the Netziv. And they all loved him, because he was very warm, very personable, and loved not only teaching Torah but relating to all the students.

In addition to his unbelievable acumen for Torah and musar, the Netziv was a supporter of what was called Chibbas Tzion, the early movement for the settlement of Israel. He was one of the few Lithuanian rabbis who was very behind it and at the forefront of trying to get more people to move to Israel, because Israel was the national history and the destiny of the Jewish people, especially in the 1880s, when across Eastern Europe there were pogroms and the Russian Empire was making things more and more challenging. At the movement's famous conference, the Netziv was one of the three national leaders who were there. He also wrote a famous essay called Acharis K'reishis, meaning the end will be like the beginning: an essay that is not in any of his seforim but is published in different places (Rabbi Adi received it from a friend and has not yet gone through all of it himself). In it, he writes that it is a divine call for everybody to really get up and move to Israel and develop the land, and that it is extremely important. That was another thing the Netziv spoke about a lot. There were even, supposedly, secret societies happening at the Volozhin Yeshiva, called Nes Tziyonah and Netzach Yisrael, built for people who wanted to try to move to Israel from the yeshiva. And of course, the most famous one who came from the Netzach Yisrael movement in the Volozhin Yeshiva was Rav Kook, who moved and became the chief rabbi of Israel.

Ultimately, the yeshiva was forced to close down in the early 1890s by the Russian government. They wanted reforms of what the yeshiva had to do: they wanted to cut the hours, and they wanted to approve certain teachers. The Netziv resisted this change, which ultimately led to the yeshiva's closing, and he had to move to Warsaw, where, unfortunately, he died in 1893.

His main seforim, which is what we will be studying: the Ha'amek Davar, on all of the Torah and also on Shir HaShirim. The Meromei Sadeh is his book on the Talmud and everything about the Talmud. The Ha'amek She'elah is on a lot of different things, but ultimately a sefer on the She'iltos of Rav Achai Gaon. And he has a lot of other things that he wrote; he was a prolific writer across all aspects of Torah. If you have to boil it down to some of the overriding themes (there are tremendous amounts of them, and we will see a lot of what he talks about throughout the year): his writings were influenced by the time, a little bit of the Haskalah movement, where there was a big push for reforming what the yeshiva was, teaching less Torah, and moving away from the unity of the written and the oral law, as well as Jews not getting along with each other. So among the themes he writes about are the unity of Torah shebichsav and Torah shebaal peh; Ahavas Yisrael, love for all different types of Jews, and Jewish unity; Jewish history and how it unfolds, from Adam all the way until the end of the Torah, and with it, that Israel is an important part of the destiny of the Jewish people; and, continuously, how, if you read the pure text of the Torah, you will see how halachah comes into play. His writings are very profound and very prevalent in Israel, especially among the religious Zionist movement, which is learning more and more of the Ha'amek Davar.

Sefer HaYashar

For this first week, instead of just delving into different parts of Bereishis, Rabbi Adi sent out the text of the Netziv's introduction to all of Sefer Bereishis and read through it, because it is such an unbelievable piece. This sefer, the Netziv begins, the one called Sefer Bereishis, is called by the Nevi'im (the Prophets) Sefer HaYashar, the Book of the Straight. The Gemara in Maseches Avodah Zarah (25a) learns this from two pesukim, one in Sefer Yehoshua and one in Sefer Shmuel, where a Sefer HaYashar is mentioned:

הֲלֹא־הִיא כְתוּבָה עַל־סֵפֶר הַיָּשָׁר

Is it not written in the Book of the Yashar? (Yehoshua 10:13)

And Rabbi Yochanan explains: this is the sefer of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, who are called yesharim, straight ones, as it says in the words of Bilam:

תָּמֹת נַפְשִׁי מוֹת יְשָׁרִים וּתְהִי אַחֲרִיתִי כָּמֹהוּ

Let my soul die the death of the yesharim, and let my end be like his. (Bamidbar 23:10)

Later on in the Torah, Bilam says that he wants to die a death like the straight people, and he is referring to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. And here is the question the Netziv asks. When Bilam wants to give one single description of who Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov were, why does he call them yesharim? Why not call them tzaddikim, righteous ones, or chassidim, or anything else? And why is this sefer, of all the sefarim, called by this name, Sefer HaYashar?

Tzaddikim Who Were Not Yesharim

The answer, the Netziv writes, is explained in Shiras Ha'azinu, on the pasuk:

הַצּוּר תָּמִים פָּעֳלוֹ... צַדִּיק וְיָשָׁר הוּא

The Rock, His work is perfect… righteous and yashar is He. (Devarim 32:4)

The praise of yashar there, the Netziv explains, was said to justify Hashem's judgment in the destruction of the second Beis Hamikdash, a generation that is called there a dor ikesh u'fesaltol, a crooked and twisted generation. And here the Netziv writes one of his most famous lines about the people of that time:

שֶׁהָיוּ צַדִּיקִים וַחֲסִידִים וְעַמְלֵי תוֹרָה, אַךְ לֹא הָיוּ יְשָׁרִים בַּהֲלִיכוֹת עוֹלָמָם

They were tzaddikim and chassidim and toilers in Torah; but they were not yesharim in their conduct in the world. (Pesicha to Sefer Bereishis)

They were following the Torah, they were doing the mitzvos, but they were not acting straight with each other. Because of the sinas chinam, the baseless hatred, in their hearts, they suspected anyone they saw who did not act according to their own view of yiras Hashem (fear of Heaven) of being a Tzeduki and an apikores (a heretic). As Rabbi Adi put it: what they were saying about each other is, this person is not learning enough Torah; this person is not doing enough of this. They did not have the love that a Jew should have for another Jew. And through this, the Netziv writes, it came to bloodshed and to all the evils in the world, until the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed. That was the justification of the din: Hashem is yashar, and He does not tolerate tzaddikim like these, but only those who also walk in the straight path in their dealings with the world, and not with crookedness, even when it is l'shem Shamayim, for the sake of Heaven, because that causes the destruction of creation and the ruin of the settlement of the world. The only way, as Rabbi Adi explained it, that Hashem really loves a person is when they are righteous not only in how they connect to Hashem, but also in how they hold themselves in the same way when they are walking through the street and interacting with people.

The Praise of the Avos

And this was the praise of the Avos. Besides being tzaddikim and chassidim and lovers of Hashem in the greatest way possible, they were also yesharim: they conducted themselves with the nations of the world, even with idol worshippers of the ugliest kind, with love, and they were concerned for their welfare, because that is what sustains the creation. Rabbi Adi explained what that meant in the time of Avraham: people would potentially sacrifice their children; people would defecate on their idols; things we cannot fathom happening. Avraham was seeing this, and nevertheless he still treated people with respect and with love, because they are alive too; they are human beings, created by the same G-d that we have, and therefore you treat everybody with respect. We see how much Avraham Avinu prostrated himself to daven for Sdom, even though he hated them and their king completely for their wickedness, as is clear from his words to the king of Sdom; nevertheless, he still wanted them to have an existence and a good life, because they too were created by G-d. The Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah, Vayera 49) says about this that Hashem said to Avraham Avinu: you loved righteousness and hated wickedness; you loved to find merit in My creatures, and you hated to condemn them. He was mamash like the father of a multitude of nations: even when the son does not walk straight, the father still seeks his peace and his good.

And the Netziv gives another example: Yaakov Avinu, dealing with Lavan. Even though Lavan was trying to kill him and to destroy him, Yaakov still nevertheless talked to him nicely: carefully, but also nicely and appropriately. So, the Netziv goes on to say, this is why this sefer carries this name. Of course it is important for us to learn our history; as Rashi says, the whole point of receiving the Torah is to have the Torah and the mitzvos, but we have to know the history of how we got there. What the Netziv is saying is even more than that. In this sefer, when we are learning about Yosef and the brothers, about Adam and Chava, about Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, what we have to learn from them is how they interacted with all of society, and how they treated everybody with respect. Of course they were very, very principled, and they lived the highest and best lives; that is extremely important, and very worthwhile to highlight and focus on. But within the themes the Netziv is going to continue to talk about, he is saying that a love for everybody, and especially a love for all the Jews, is something that is so, so pivotal for us to have. That is why this is called Sefer HaYashar: to show the love and the concern even when there was disagreement. Even amid tremendous disagreements, Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Yosef, and a lot of other figures in Bereishis approached life with yashrus, with respect for others, and with honesty and all the other good middos. Not just serving Hashem all the time; the way you serve Hashem, in addition to doing all the mitzvos, is by treating everybody, especially all the Jewish people, but everybody in the entire world, with proper respect and proper care. And that is why it is called Sefer HaYashar, Sefer Bereishis.

Ki Tov: The Light

And one more thing, a specific piece on this week's parsha. In the account of creation it says:

וַיַּרְא אֱלֹקִים אֶת־הָאוֹר כִּי־טוֹב

And G-d saw the light, that it was good. (Bereishis 1:4)

Hashem saw the light, and He saw that the light was good. The question that is asked: why, specifically when it comes to the light, does it say ki tov? The Ha'amek Davar explains: what does tov, good, mean? Number one, good means that whenever there is a purpose for something and it fulfills its purpose, like we spoke about by Rosh Hashanah, that by definition is tov. But then there is another level. Some things, when they fulfill their purpose, we would not necessarily define as good for a human being. For example, if you have a rose and you get poked by the thorns, the thorns are doing the purpose they serve of protecting the rose, but you are getting hurt; it may be serving its purpose, but it is not good for you. But when it comes to light, light in the world is something that is purely good. It is not only serving its purpose; it is unadulterated good. And that is why, a lot of times, Torah is compared to light, and the Jewish people are compared to light.

Being a Yashar

So, hopefully, we look forward to learning a lot more from this great rabbi, the Netziv, this coming year, learning a lot of lessons. Starting with this lesson, from the introduction to this week's sefer: to be a good person is, ideally, to be a yashar. That is what we strive for: not only following the strict letter of the law and being close to Hashem by continuously trying to do Torah and mitzvos, but also giving respect to everybody and anybody that we interact with. First and foremost, the rest of the Jewish people, and everybody else that we come into contact with.

After the shiur, one of the participants asked: how is it possible that, with such an amazing philosophy, so well laid out and practiced for life, the Jewish people are so conflicted among themselves? It is just hard to understand. Rabbi Adi agreed that it is very disheartening, very complicated, and very hard to understand. It seems like we have everything that we need; we just need to practice it, and we all need to figure out the best ways to have unity. And then another voice on the call argued on behalf of the Jewish people: who is a people like us? Every one of us would try to save the life of another Jew. We would put ourselves in harm's way. When we are under attack, we come together. We know there are problems, but who is a people like the Jewish people? Rabbi Adi said he was so happy to hear that: it is something very important to focus on, and to remember all the time, that almost every single Jew around the world would give his life for another Jew. It is an amazing thing to always remember.

Rabbi Adi closed by dedicating the learning once again l'refuah shleimah for Neria Dov Chaim ben Chana: that he should have a complete refuah, and that the family should not have any more tzaar, especially with everything they continue to deal with. Amen.