Learning Like a Child: Humility and the Chanukah Lights

137In the Gemara's passage, Abaye did not accept R' Yirmiyah's reason for Rav's ruling when the Rabbis said it in R' Yirmiyah's name, accepted it when they said it in R' Yochanan's name, and then said, “Had I been worthy, I would have learned this teaching from the start,” though he had learned it, so the Gemara says the difference is for “the learning of one's youth.”¹ Rashi explains “he did not accept it”: “he did not think his words worth relying on.” And “Had I been worthy”: “had I been worthy of learning it, I would have studied it when I first heard it.”²

138aLet us explain Chazal's words, and what “the learning of one's youth” means, by the way of life and of avodas Hashem, the service of Hashem. The holy sefarim write that Chanukah is the same word as chinuch, dedicating something anew, as one trains (mechanech) a boy in mitzvos so that he becomes a vessel fit to receive purity. So the verse says, “Chanoch, train, a youth according to his way”:³ that is Chanukah. And Chazal say, “In Arabia they call a youth patya” [like the pesi, the simple one who “believes every word”].⁴ Just as a child who learns with his teacher learns with faith, believing that this is an alef and that this is the letter beis, so must every person be. He should always think only of his own account, that he knows nothing at all. The verse umosar ha'adam min habehemah ayin means that man has no advantage over the beast, but here it is read “man's advantage over the beast is ayin, nothing”:⁵ his advantage over the beast is that he can be as nothing in his own eyes.

138bHe should not take account of someone else. For it may be that at the very moment someone speaks, Heaven grants him true knowledge, as the verse says, “For Hashem gives wisdom; from His mouth …”:⁶ the speaker is only like a shofar, the words passing through his mouth, as the verse says, “Like a shofar raise your voice.”⁷ And accept the truth from whoever says it.⁸ If he turns his ear away from hearing Torah, he causes a loss to the speaker too. So R' Elimelech of Lizhensk, zt"l, said on Chazal's saying “Words that come from the heart enter the heart”: they enter back into the heart of the one who gave them forth.⁹ It is like an arrow shot at a target. If the archer “slings a stone at a hair and does not miss,”¹⁰ the arrow comes back to him too; if not, it falls to the ground. So it is with words of Torah: if they enter the inner chambers of the listener, they come back, by the power of Israel's holiness, to the one who spoke them.

139aThis is as I heard in the name of the holy tzaddik R' Yechezkel of Kuzmir, zt"l,¹¹ on Chazal's saying: “Why is the Torah likened to a breast? As with a breast, as long as the infant handles it he finds milk, so with words of Torah: as long as a person meditates on them, he finds flavor in them.”¹² He explained the likeness this way. Among infants, one takes the breast into his mouth and nurses, one takes it into his mouth and does not nurse, and one takes it into his mouth and bites it. So too in the ways of learning: one submits himself, handles the Torah and learns; one handles it and does not learn; and there is one who even bites the Torah. We know that as long as the infant nurses, he makes the mother's milk flow, and if he does not nurse, he stops the flow. So it is with the holy Torah, which is likened to a mother, as the verse says, “Do not forsake the Torah of your mother,”¹³ and, in the mystical image, “like a mother brooding over her young.”¹⁴ As Chazal said, “More than the calf wants to suck, the cow wants to suckle.”¹⁵ A person must take to heart whom he is biting and whom he is hurting: the Torah of Hashem! By this he brings about “the river is dried up and parched.”¹⁶

139bNow Abaye “did not think his words worth relying on”: at first he did not think R' Yirmiyah worth relying on, and he did not submit himself to him. This may seem to speak without respect for Abaye, but these words follow the Yerushalmi: “All chatter is bad, but the chatter of Torah is good.”¹⁷ If one can take from it a way to serve Hashem, the Sages are content to have it said of them, even when it is less than their honor. In truth this is not the way, for what business does a person have weighing his fellow's worth? Afterward, when Abaye was worthy of true submission, he accepted the teaching and said, “Had I been worthy,” that is, worthy of submission and of a true account of myself, “I would have learned this teaching from the start.” The difference is for “the learning of one's youth,” as we saw with “Train a youth.” For a small child can surely be guided and bent in any direction, since he believes in his teacher, just as one can bend a young, tender sapling as one wishes. But when he is grown and old, it is very hard indeed. Of this Shlomo HaMelech said, “Even when he grows old, he will not turn from it.”¹⁸

140aThis explains what the holy sefarim write: on Chanukah a person can repair what he blemished through the four forbidden unions called nashgaz.¹⁹ We know the words of the Kabbalists, that the sefiros Netzach and Hod, two of the Divine attributes, are called evyonim, the poor, and are the limudei Hashem of “all your children shall be taught of Hashem,”²⁰ “the two halves of the body.”²¹ The poor and needy man who stands outside at the doors of the generous and asks for alms surely does not stop to consider who the giver is; he simply takes the gift, so that he can keep his wretched soul alive [and so should one who receives Torah].

140bWe know that the bitter blemish takes away the light of a person's eyes.²² But through Chanukah, which is Hod, as the Tikkunei Zohar writes, “the eighth, in thanksgiving (hoda'ah),”²³ he earns healing. As the holy Arizal writes in his siddur, the sefirah of Hod corresponds to “Who creates healings,”²⁴ healing of the soul and healing of the body, as we saw with the light of the eyes. So the verse says, “Though I sit in darkness, Hashem is a light to me”:²⁵ through the Chanukah lights the harsh judgments are lit up. That is, the light removes and cancels whatever holds him back and hinders him from avodas Hashem. This is what we say, “These lights are holy”:²⁶ through the Chanukah lights a person comes to be separate and set apart from the desires of this world and from all that holds him back and hinders him. “And we have no permission to make use of them”: take to heart what you should want to take from the Chanukah lights, “only (bilvad) to look at them,” to repair the sense of sight and to see the light of the face of the King of life,²⁷ for He is levado, alone. “In order to give thanks”: all my intention is only that I may open my mouth and speak words before the King on high. “Open my eyes, that I may behold wonders from Your Torah”:²⁸ this is the heart of my prayer and my request.