On Tuesday evening, September 3, Chazaq’s Tuesday Torah Talks featured Rabbi Simcha Weisz, a member of Kollel Bnei Torah in Lakewood, speaking virtually about learning halachah. He shared why learning halachah on a daily basis is so important.
The Chofetz Chaim taught that if a person only has a little time to learn, it is proper for him to learn halachah. The source is the Gemara in B’rachos. Hashem loves the gates of Yerushalayim more than all other places.
He said that if a person learns halachah, he has the Sh’chinah with him. When the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed, the Sh’chinah was misplaced, so it goes to the place where people are learning halachah.
“Everything we do is guided by halachah.”
Halachah surrounds us the entire day. If a person doesn’t learn all the rules of Shabbos really well with clarity, then he can make a mistake and desecrate Shabbos.
We possess 248 limbs, and these correspond to the 248 positive mitzvos. Rav Chaim Vital taught that every limb receives sustenance from a specific mitzvah. There are different types of limbs and different types of mitzvos.
Certain mitzvos are the core or essence of Judaism, like emunah. In the same way, the heart or mind is the essence of a person. A person can’t live without his heart or mind.
A person will perform mitzvos and live by them. Rav Chaim Vital taught that a person’s future body is sustained by the mitzvos he performed when he was alive. At the end of life, everyone will know how careful everyone else was with mitzvos.
Rabbi Weisz taught that a person needs to fear Hashem. The whole person needs to do all the mitzvos the entire day. He said you can learn the basic framework and that is a good feeling.
He recommends learning the Mishnah B’rurah.
When someone called a rabbi and asked how he could be like him, the rabbi said that he should go learn in kollel. The point is consistency, and small nuggets over time add up to a lot.
Rabbi Weisz said that his final message is that you shouldn’t think that it’s too much for you to learn halachah and give up. Every Jew has the same inheritance of Torah. If he spends 20 minutes a day on learning halachah, after a year or two he will feel successful.
By Susie Garber
