“RABBI’S MUSINGS (& AMUSINGS)”
Erev Shabbos Kodesh Parshas Yisro
16 Shevat 5785/ February 14, 2025
RE-REPEAT
This past week, the Super Bowl featured the Kansas City Chiefs against the Philadelphia Eagles. There was even more hype than the usual Super Bowl excitement because the Chiefs were looking to become the first team to win a 3-peat in the Super Bowl, after having won the last two years. Nine teams have won back-to-back Super Bowls. But none of those teams were able to win a third year in a row.
Alas, the dream did not materialize this year either, as the Chiefs were completely shut down during the first half and ultimately fell to the Eagles 40-22.
When a team wins a championship, they are dubbed as the defending champions for the following season. There is added pressure on the defending champions to maintain their lofty status. Those expectations can cause players to focus too much on the end game, and not enough on each individual game. That pressure is magnified exponentially for a two-time defending champion team.
Many players on the cusp of breaking a record take a long time until they are finally able to break the record. They may be trying too hard or unable to maintain focus because they become too distracted by all the hype and pressure.
My rebbe, Rabbi Berel Wein, has always taught that everything in life contains a life message if one is searching for it. In addition, Rabbi Avigdor Miller taught that evening in the physical world can be viewed as an analogy for the spiritual world.
Is there a spiritual message to be gleaned from the challenge of trying to achieve an elusive 3-peat?
The gemara (Sanhedrin 89a) states: “Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha said – One who learns Torah but doesn’t review it, is analogous to a person who plants but doesn’t harvest.” Without reviewing one’s learning, the knowledge will be fleeting.
The Steipler Gaon would say that until one has learned something four times, it is not even considered reviewing. Only from the fifth time onward is it considered chazara – reviewing.
In his sefer on Chumash, Birchas Peretz, (Parshas Miketz) the Steipler quotes a Medrash that says “There is no person who doesn’t suffer from yissurim (challenges/tribulations). Fortunate is the person whose yissurim stem from Torah.”
The Steipler explains that every individual undergoes yissurim. Sometimes the purpose of yissurim is to purge a person of his sins. In addition, serving Hashem despite yissurim elevates a person to a higher spiritual level. The Steipler adds that yissurim are given to a person in precise measure, tailored exactly for what his neshama needs. One does not suffer one iota more or less than what was preordained from heaven.
The Medrash refers to one who feels yissurim from Torah study. In other words, he learns Torah despite the fact that it is extremely challenging for him to do so. In the lingo, he learns even when he’s “not down”. That person is fortunate because he will not only receive the incredible reward and growth of his Torah study, but he will also not suffer yissurim he was ordained to have in other ways.
It is definitely far more exciting to learn something new than to review what one has already learned. But mastery and Torah scholarship can only be attained by one who is willing to put in the arduous effort to consistently review what he has learned.
A few years ago, I accompanied a young group of students on a trip to the Baltimore area. These students had a difficult time learning gemara and had worked very hard to do so.
The students were privileged to meet Rabbi Aharon Feldman, Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Yisroel, to receive a beracha and some chizuk. Rabbi Feldman told the boys that success in learning is the result of relentless chazara (review). Whatever they learned they should review repeatedly.
At times, someone will learn a great deal and “cover a lot of ground” but not feel accomplished or fulfilled. This can be especially true for aspiring students. Often, it’s the result of not sufficient review. When they see peers who are able to master tests without much study, they feel deflated. But long-term retention and ultimate scholarship are the result of repeated review.
In recent years there have been quite a few beautiful learning programs that incorporate chazara and emphasize chazara as part of the curriculum.
The Oraysa program began at the beginning of the previous Daf Yomi cycle. Every day one new amud is learned and the previous day’s amud is reviewed. Friday and Shabbos are designated for a third chazara of the two and a half blatt gemara learned that week. Instead of completing Shas in seven years with Daf Yomi, the program finishes Shas in around 20 years but with two reviews built in.
In addition, Rabbi Dovid Newman, launched the wildly popular “V’harev Na” (“Please make it sweet”) Program. I know Rabbi Newman well from the years when he was in Kollel and then a rebbe in Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey during my years there. The program was initiated in Shaarei Torah and from there has spread to dozens of yeshivos. My own son Shalom gained tremendously from the program during his senior year in Shaarei Torah.
The mantra of the program is “chazara, chazara, chazara, and then again chazara”. A famous and now popular song sung by Rabbi Baruch Levine was produced to emphasize the vital importance of the program’s emphasis on chazara. Many teary-eyed yeshiva bochurim have shared that the masechta they learned, and reviewed tens of times, changed their life. Many admitted that they never enjoyed learning gemara until then and never imagined that they could sit and learn gemara for hours.
Since then, Rabbi Newman has extended the program to include a special program for bar mitzvah bochurim called “Bonai Chavivai” (“My Beloved Children”) and “Kinyan Masechta” (“Acquiring the Tractate”) for adults. I have friends and neighbors who have gained tremendously from the Kinyan Masechta program. They have shared that it gave them back a feeling of connection to gemara that they haven’t had since their yeshiva days.
It’s hard to repeat victories and it’s hard to review what one has previously learned. But then no one said achieving true greatness was going to be easy, and the returns are well worth the effort.
Shabbat Shalom & Good Shabbos,
R’ Dani and Chani Staum
Strivinghigher.com