Tents Like Streams: The Holiness of the Beis Midrash

1“How goodly are your tents, O Yaakov, your dwelling places, O Yisrael! Like streams stretched out, like gardens by a river, like aloes that Hashem has planted …”¹ We must explain why the verse's wording shifts. It opens with the word “tent” and with the name “Yaakov,” which, as is well known, stands for the lower level of Israel.² It closes with mishkan, “dwelling place,” and with the name “Yisrael,” which stands for the higher level.

2On the words “Like streams stretched out,” Chazal teach: “‘Like streams stretched out’: why are tents placed next to streams? To tell you: just as streams raise a person from impurity to purity, so synagogues and study halls raise a person from the scale of guilt to the scale of merit.”³ My holy father and teacher, zy"a, took up the question of why they are compared to a stream in particular. He explained: as is well known, when a person immerses in a stream or a mikveh, there may be no chatzitzah, nothing at all between him and the water, not even on a single hair. His whole body must go in and be covered by the water. Synagogues and study halls are compared to streams because the same is true of them. When a person comes into the beis midrash, he must be inside it so completely that his whole body is in the beis midrash, wholly within the Torah and the prayer. That is the gist of his words. And certainly one may not, Heaven forbid, speak idle words there, or indulge in laughter, jesting and the like, which are very serious wrongs.

3aThe opening of the verse, “How goodly are your tents, O Yaakov,” points to this image of the beis midrash as a purifying stream. As we saw at the start, “Yaakov” stands for Jews on a lower level. The verse is saying that those who come to the beis midrash may be on the level of Yaakov. The beis midrash itself, too, is by nature a tent, a temporary dwelling: we are still waiting for the Beis HaMikdash to be built, where the main holiness and the resting of the Shechinah will be. Even so, “How goodly are your tents, O Yaakov” can come true. Our synagogues can deserve the words “how goodly” when people guard their holiness, refrain from mundane talk in them, and increase Torah and prayer there. Through this we will soon be privileged to reach “your dwelling places, O Yisrael”: Hashem will rest His Shechinah upon us permanently with the building of the Beis HaMikdash, speedily in our days, and so we will rise to the lofty levels of “Yisrael.”

3bFor in the days of Moshiach the prophet's words will be fulfilled: “Not a hunger for bread nor a thirst for water, but to hear the word of Hashem.”⁴ The verse in Koheles hints at the same: “The end of the matter, when all has been heard: fear God …”⁵ meaning that in the days of Moshiach nothing will be heard but God alone. This will happen, however, once the words that follow in our verse are fulfilled: “Like streams stretched out.” The tents and study halls will be like streams to a person: his whole head and body will be in the beis midrash with nothing in between, as when one purifies oneself in a mikveh.

4aThis lets us explain a passage in the Gemara.⁶ R' Yose said: “Once I was walking on the road, and I went into a ruin to pray. … Eliyahu came and said to me, ‘My son, what sound did you hear in this ruin?’ I said to him, ‘I heard a heavenly voice cooing like a dove and saying: Woe to the children, for because of their sins I destroyed My House, burned My palace and exiled them among the nations.’ He said to me, ‘By your life and by the life of your head! Not only at this moment does it say so; every day, three times a day, it says so …’” Why did R' Yose hear the heavenly voice precisely at the time of prayer? The Gemara there implies that he heard it only while he was praying. Along the same lines we must ask about the words “every day, three times a day, it says so”: why does the voice speak this way at the times when Israel prays, more than when it performs other mitzvos and good deeds?

4bEliyahu also said there, at the end of his words: “And not only this, but when Israel enters the synagogues and study halls and responds, ‘May His great Name be blessed,’ the Holy One, blessed be He, shakes His head and says: Fortunate is the King Who is praised this way in His house! What is there for a father who has exiled his children? And woe to the children who have been exiled from their father's table!” Here too we must ask why this memory rises before Him precisely when Jews answer amen, when they do so many other mitzvos and good deeds as well.

5aThe explanation is this. We know that during the decrees of Tach and Tat, the massacres of 1648–49, the Tosafos Yom Tov, the great commentator on the Mishnah, asked Heaven in a dream why this destruction had come. After all, there was so much Torah among the Jews at that time. The answer came from Heaven that it was all because people talked in the beis midrash during prayer, and as is well known, many synagogues were destroyed then because of it. My holy father often mentioned this. If so, since “the measure of good is greater” than the measure of punishment,⁷ think what happens when we are privileged to guard the holiness of our synagogues. They are the “small sanctuary” of the verse “I have been for them a small sanctuary,” which the Gemara explains: “These are the synagogues and study halls.”⁸ When we fulfill in them “You shall revere My Mikdash,”⁹ the mercy of the Holy One, blessed be He, is stirred, and His great longing, as it were, for His children. He says: The time has now come for Me to build the Beis HaMikdash. Since they guard the small sanctuaries, they are worthy that I establish My Mikdash in their midst.

5bThis is why R' Yose heard Hashem weeping, as it were, over the destruction precisely when he prayed with kavanah, with inner focus. The same is true of what Eliyahu said there: “When Israel enters the synagogues and study halls and responds, ‘May His great Name be blessed’ …” When Jews guard the holiness of the synagogue as they should, Hashem's mercy stirs for His people, and the memory of the Beis HaMikdash rises before Him, to weep over its destruction. For guarding the synagogue's holiness repairs [the sin that brought the destruction] and brings the building of the Beis HaMikdash closer.

6aWith this we can also explain a passage in the Gemara in Berachos.¹⁰ “Rav Yehudah said: They sought to include the portion of Balak in the reading of the Shema. And why did they not include it? Because it would burden the congregation. What was the reason? … Because this verse is written in it: ‘He crouched, he lay down like a lion, and like a lioness, who will rouse him?’”¹¹ Rashi explains: “‘He crouched, he lay down’ resembles ‘when you lie down and when you rise up’: the Holy One, blessed be He, guards us when we lie down and when we rise, so that we lie down tranquil and at peace like a lion and a lioness.”¹² This fits the words of the Midrash on this parshah: “There is no nation in the world like them. They rise from their sleep, go to the synagogues, recite the Shema and proclaim Hashem King.”¹³ What great quality did Chazal see in this verse that made them want to include it in the Shema? And what does this verse have to do with the Shema at all?

6bThe answer is that this verse continues the passage we have been discussing, “How goodly are your tents … Like streams stretched out,” all of which is expounded as referring to synagogues, as we saw with Chazal's teaching on the streams. Entering wholly into the synagogue's holiness is what lets it purify a person and raise him up. There he proclaims Hashem's great Name King, which is what the Shema is: the acceptance of the kingship of Heaven. Through this we are privileged to reach the complete redemption and the raising of Israel's might that these verses describe. This is the connection, and it is why Chazal expounded the nearby verse, “He crouched, he lay down,” as referring to the Shema and the acceptance of the yoke of the kingship of Heaven. And that is why they said they sought to include this portion in the Shema: so that it would become fixed in our hearts to see and understand what the holiness of the synagogue and the beis midrash accomplishes.

7We should also remember what my holy father always used to say in the name of my holy great-grandfather of Biala, zt"l,¹⁴ about the words of Chazal: “… rising early to the beis midrash morning and evening, and hospitality to guests.”¹⁵ He explained the connection between rising early to the beis midrash and hospitality to guests with a parable. A man was walking in the wilderness with no water and nothing at all to eat. At last, in the middle of the forest, he found a house. The owner welcomed him in joyfully and gave him food and drink, and he ate with pleasure and was revived. He did not know how to thank his host. So too the soul that has come down into this world wanders lost, searching for food among the stormy waves of the sea of exile. When a person enters the beis midrash, which is food for the soul, how greatly he must value it and thank Hashem for it! This is the meaning of “rising early to the beis midrash … and hospitality to guests”: a person must be grateful to the beis midrash, for to his soul it is like being taken in as a guest in a parched and desolate land.

8Especially in these days of Bein HaMetzarim, the Three Weeks between the seventeenth of Tammuz and Tishah B'Av, we pray and plead more than ever to be privileged to see the Beis HaMikdash, the everlasting building, standing firm on its site. And it depends on us. How carefully we must guard the holiness of our synagogues! In this merit may we soon be privileged to see the eternal House rebuilt. Amen.