The Fire on the Roof
A neighbor saw flames over the Rav's house and ran for help, and was told she had seen the fire of Torah.
A story ofRav Shlomo Eliezer Alfandariהרב שלמה אליעזר בן יעקב אלפנדריProfile ›
The elders of Tzfas used to tell of a summer day when the heat drove a woman who lived near the Saba Kadisha up to her roof porch to catch a breeze, as many neighbors did. Looking toward the Rav's house, she saw fire blazing on its roof and in its rooms. Terrified, she ran for help.
As she came near, the commotion reached Rav Aharon Ben Shimon, who was inside learning with the Rav. He stepped outside and calmed her. There was no danger at all, he explained. The flames she had seen were an aish kodesh, a holy fire, the burning intensity of the Torah the two of them were learning together, and she had been privileged to see it.
Tzfas was the city of the Arizal and his circle, where learning had long been spoken of as a flame. Rav Ben Shimon asked the woman to tell no one what she had seen, and she kept her word. She revealed it only once the Saba Kadisha had passed from the world.
Source: Toras Aharon, p. 17
Learning does not need to be long to be alive. Choose one passage today, a halacha, a verse or a few lines of Mishnah, and give it your full attention for ten minutes, with your phone in another room. Read it slowly, ask what it is really saying, and say it aloud if you can. The point is not to impress anyone but to let a little warmth reach you. Keep it private, as the Rav and his talmid did.