Q:
What is the biggest lesson we should learn from the burning of sifrei Torah?
A:
What’s the lesson we should learn from the burning of sifrei Torah? Now don’t laugh at me. The biggest lesson is you should lock up the beis hamedrash securely. That’s a big lesson.
And don’t think it’s a joke. People ask, it happened that a man who was teaching his little boy to light the Chanukah candles – a big mitzvah he was doing, that everybody in the house has their own Chanukah candles. And so the boy was standing and lighting his Chanukah candles. And the father walked out of the room and the boy was burned up. The boy was burned up! His only son was burned up.
“What’s the biggest lesson?” he asks.
The big lesson is you’re a shofech damim! You shed blood. You can’t leave a child alone when there’s a burning light. That’s the big lesson.
No, you’re going to look for other lessons. Big lessons you’re going to look for! No, that’s the lesson! Carelessness is a cheit. It’s a very big sin.
Now, I don’t want to blame the people but there’s no question that had they made more security it wouldn’t have happened. I don’t know exactly how it was but if it was a lack of security then they are to blame.
And everything of that sort.
What is the big lesson? Here is a man, a fine man, a talmid chacham. He learned Torah all his days, and he died young. First ask, why did he die? He died of lung cancer. Do you know why he died of lung cancer? Because he was a big cigarette smoker.
Oh, this was not mentioned at his levayah. All the praises that were said about him, nobody mentioned to blame him. He is to blame! When you pick up a pack of cigarettes and you read what it says there, so this man thinks that a certain fool, a shoteh, a lunatic wrote ‘smoking might cause lung cancer.’ He doesn’t know what he’s talking about; he’s a nobody, the surgeon general. A meshugeneh you are! Smoking might cause lung cancer, emphysema, some other good things. That’s what it says on the package. So he looks at it. He can read English. He ignores it and he puffs away. So he’s a lunatic. He’s a criminal! There is a warning black on white!
So you say what are the lessons we can learn when this tzaddik passed away? The lesson is read the instructions. That’s the lesson. Read the instructions! That’s what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants you to do. ונשמרתם מאד לנפשותיכם – take care of yourselves (Devarim 4:15).
So here, he is in the yeshivah. He’s puffing away. One of the boys, puffing. A real lamdan. Puffing away. Puffing his life away. And you tell him, “What about this? He says “Well, כיון דדש דש and שומר פתאים ה׳. Hashem guards the fools. Once it becomes public practice there’s nothing to worry about.” All shtus. Many years ago before there was a surgeon general you could persuade yourself but now that they have instructions black on white, now there’s no excuse to fool yourself anymore.
And therefore when people look for reasons why Hakadosh Baruch Hu punishes them, Hashem says, “Why blame Me?! איוולת אדם תסלף דרכו – A man’s foolishness makes crooked his way in life. But he doesn’t blame himself. ועל ה’ יזעף לבו – Instead he’s angry at Hashem (Mishlei 19:3).
If he’s frum he says, “Hashem, I’m sorry I did sins.”
So Hashem says, “You didn’t do any ‘sins’. You did one big sin. You committed suicide by smoking. That’s the sin you did. Don’t blame Me.”
And therefore the first thing is to look at the instructions.
(September 1988)
