Mir yeshiva

My grandfather used to relate the following story.

That when he was in the Mir Yeshiva, now the height of the day, like the most important part of Yom Kippur is praying Musaf prayer in synagogue.

The soul-stirring tunes, the focus, the connection that you feel on Musaf is like the pinnacle.

So what happens? My grandfather is right before Musaf.

It's being there, existing for someone else.

To go beyond yourself, to go beyond your comfort zone, beyond what you enjoy doing, beyond what you think is meaningful, to go visit a sick person.

My grandfather, I remember him saying to a bleib malen, you're talking about one of the greatest students that ever left the Mir Yeshiva.

One of the most brilliant minds.

And then finally, you have post-World War II migration.

Uh, the famous story of the Mir Yeshiva that spent, uh, a, an incredible, um, season in Japan on their flight from the Nazis.

Really, Japan is like an unusual refuge for so many Jewish populations over the millennia.

And there are Jews, of course, in Japan today, primarily in Kobe and Osaka, um, you know, a small number in Tokyo, and so on.

[chuckles] Yeah.

You know, the, "Who is this guy, and why does he talk so bad Hebrew," right? 'Cause, 'cause they couldn't understand it, but they were really blown away, and that's when he becomes, like, really famous among the Jews.

A few years later, he's back in Kobe, and he finds out that the Mir Yeshiva are on their way.

The Jews of Kobe have reached out to him.

There were many avenues of his escape.

His father told him he should go along with the Mir Yeshiva.

He said, that will be your escape, and you should go.

Rav Nachum followed the Mir.

We've talked about so much.

The Mir Yeshiva in Mir, the flagship Haredi Yeshiva, maybe, you know, I'm going to get a lot of Ponovidges coming at me right in the emails, but Mir is considered one of the Harvard of the Haredi, one of the Harvards of the Haredi world.

at its height, in actual Mir, in Belarus today, was 500 students.

In Jerusalem today, the Mir Yeshiva

is 3,000.

Haredi Judaism has rebuilt.

It's dealing with warim shebek dusha.

I don't know whether you were in Mir Yeshiva once, and there's a person there in Mir Yeshiva called Chatzkel Cohen, a good friend of mine.

You know? So Hassel Cohen is a person where you can ask him wherever you want to ask and he can go through Shas in five minutes or two minutes and that's the way he does it.

You know? The person is a Talmud Chocham, a massive.

So just there's this total decimation.

Now, with the exception of the majority of Mir Yeshiva, who ended up escaping to Shanghai, did a 10-part series on that if you wanna hear about that.

Every single yesh-- Lithuanian yeshiva as an institution with its students and teachers and leaders were murdered by the Germans and their local collabor- collaborators, very often Lithuanian collabor- collaborators.

So the entire Lithuanian yeshiva world is ex-- again, with the exception of the majority of Mir Yeshiva, there were a handful of other students who survived the Holocaust.

Others escaped in its early stages, meaning a similar route to the Mir, to Japan, Shanghai, United States.

Still others, again, yeshiva students, were deported by the Soviets to Siberia in the early stages of the war and survived through that route.

And he was extremely charismatic.

His students were extremely devoted to him and his legacy.

The meaning today is that usually the Baal Keri does do it, but there's an element of standing up for the Torah.

This morning, I went to the Kuppat Cholim and had to pick up some medicine, and there was a big line there, and there was a very, very hush of an old yiddid of mine from the big Talmidei Chachomim from the Mir Yeshiva, Reblazer Silver, Habgoyen Reblazer Silver.

He was a contemporary of Nos and Svifing, but they both came from Chicago.

Reb Lezer, a tremendous Talmud Chochem and a Talmud Muvik of Reb Chaim Sholevitz and Reb Nochem Pertzowitz.

It's very, at least to me, it's very meaningful.

Rebuchem Levavitz says, who was the Mashkiach of the Mir, who was the spiritual guide of the Mir Yeshiva before World War II.

He would say woe to a person who doesn't know their faults.

He doesn't know where they're lacking and their deficiencies.

I think so.

Okay? He-- Someone who's learning in the Mir Yeshiva.

He brings the Rash, who says that yiya is only an asmachta.

The Rambam in the Sefer HaMitzvos also says, "Stam nazirus lamah yom kabbalah." But is mechul l'Gematria fine.