So we're up to the Seder (order) today. Last session, we learned about learning at night. Now we're learning the Kavanot (intentions) of Kavanah (intention) and the Seder of Tefillat Hashachar. This is Vekodem sheyatchil lilmod (before beginning to learn). I think we did this over here. Yes, Fidei. We did this over here. This is Kavanat tzitzit (intention of the strings). Correct. We're up to Kavanat tzitzit, tefillah. Look at that, we're learning. You're actually getting a lot of it.
Kavanat tzitzit u'tefillin (intention of the strings and phylacteries), beseder hanachatam (in the order of putting them on). V'yitatef b'tzitzit b'or ke'or haboker (wrap in tzitzit in the morning light). So the first thing in the morning: pharaon yit'alet. V'tzarich la'ayin b'tzitzit im sheleimim hem (one must inspect whether the tzitzit are complete). Okay, Abbas, you have to check the strings. Kodem sheyit'atef v'yivarech b'rachal batalachas v'shalom (before wrapping and making the blessing). Ve'inyan mitzvat tzitzit mitzvah gedolah ad me'od (the mitzvah of tzitzit is a very great commandment). B'khlaleh ha-ufrateh (in general and in all its details). Ve'en kan makom leharikh (this is not the place to elaborate). That's Hashem. Just take my word for it. Be careful with it.
V'lo yelech arba amot belo tzitzit (one should not walk four cubits without tzitzit). Don't move four steps without tzitzit. Im hu al begadav, tov v'na'im sheyaskir oto tamid b'chol et u'v'chol sha'a (if he is wearing them on his clothes, it is good and proper for him to remember them at all times). If he's wearing them on his clothes, he should remember them from time to time, especially during Kriat Shema or tefillah. Sheyikrav ve'it pelik shum me'otaf. You should have them on while praying. U'mi she'eino me'otaf on shorav (and one who is not wearing them on his clothes), especially during Kriat Shema or tefillah, sheyikrav ve'it pelik shum me'otaf. If he's wearing them on his clothes, he should remember them from time to time. When you're praying, for sure you should have them on.
For good reason. The rule is, the more difficult it is, the more reward you get. The easier it is, the more punishment you get if you didn't do it. It works the opposite way as well. If you're going to get reward for doing something difficult, somebody else is going to tell you, “This was easy; you didn't do it,” so they have no excuse. What does it cost a guy to throw a tallit (prayer shawl) over his head, or put a tallit on his body? And the strings are easy, the cheapest strings. And ol malchut shamayim (the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven) kira'i means— that's part of ol malchut shamayim. So you're compromising ol malchut shamayim for no reason.
Let's say he puts it on in the morning, but it's not the time to bless it. I guess that's when he put it on early, let's say. That's talking about the people who make the beracha (blessing) al tallit katan. Let's say you put it on before dawn. You can make the beracha, but you have to wait until the morning comes. You take out the tzitziyot and kiss them, and you make the beracha, like we do. We do the atifah (wrapping) for a couple of seconds, then we take it off and put it on the body. Okay, we talked about this a few weeks ago.
See, it should be nice and clean. The tallit or the strings shouldn't be dirty. You're wearing this for God. It should be pretty. Don't worry; God will pay you back double and quadruple for what you spent on the tallit. So you shouldn't worry about the costs involved in getting a new tallit.
And that's fine. I'm going to pray a little bit. You know, when you're on a small bus, when you're going to pray a little bit, even if you pray before you go, that's okay; you pray a little bit. You can pray in any way. There's no point. As I said, when you get up, you're going to get up and pray.
To focus when you pray, you have two ways to do it. When you pray, you have two ways. When you get up, we pray with our hands, and we pray with our heads. It's two different mitzvot (commandments). Each bayit (tefillin compartment) has four parashiyot. Each bayit has four parashiyot. Each bayit has four parashiyot. All of the parashiyot have yichud Hashem (the unity of God). And the phrase about the hand and arm. And accepting upon yourself the mitzvot that are in all the parashiyot. And accepting upon yourself the mitzvot. And accepting upon yourself the mitzvot.
The heart and brain: fear is in the heart, and thought is in the brain. You have to subjugate your heart, which means your desires, to God, and your ideas and thoughts, to the service of Hashem, blessed be He. Ve'lo taturu acharei levavchem ve'acharei eineichem (and do not follow your hearts and your eyes), and not go after our heart's desires.
Now, when it says to put it between the eyes, it is talking about the eyes of your brain. You know, people who have vision—these guys are visionary. It doesn't mean he has good eyesight. Visionary means he has good thought. He's able to project. That's why, when you put the tefillin on, you put it on the brain, where the brain of the baby is, the cranium. That's why you put it on those spots. When you put it on, you think of these things: Yitziat Mitzrayim, ahavat Hashem (love of God), yirat Hashem (fear of God), hirhurim ra'im (bad thoughts), ta'avot (desires), v'ya'aseh ha-mitzvot k'tikunam, v'lo k'mitzvot anashim melumadah. Not routine. He just put tefillin on without thinking.
V'yim yot shesodot gedol b'tefillin. Listen, I'm not getting into the sodot (secrets); he says there's a lot of secrets in tefillin. Kol echad yechapes ad makom sheyado magia (each person should seek as far as his hand can reach). Listen, everybody should study as far as his hand can reach. V'sarik—which means, I give you the basic Kavanot, but of course go learn the rest. When a person has tefillin, they have to be nice. Tefillin have to be proud. Tefillin are called Pe'er; that's our glory.
When it comes to tefillin, you get the best tefillin, and you have to go to people who are trustworthy and people who actually have—you know, because you're buying a blind item. You're getting a closed box. It's not like you're buying a ring. I go to the jeweler, I take the ring, and I say, “Let me show it to a professional.” He looks at it. He's selling you a sketch ring; it's galuy. I'm buying a closed box, but I'm not going to open the box. I buy it to have it closed.
One time, one of my kids needed tefillin. A Yiddish guy, another guy from Israel, came to me. He sells tefillin, and he's a good guy, comes recommended, and so on and so forth. So I bought one of my kids these tefillin. I think it was Judah. I got him tefillin, fine. And he gives you the list, you know: he checks off everything. The guy went to the mikveh (ritual bath), the guy went here, the guy did this, the guy did that. Fine.
A couple of years later, Judah wasn't happy with the square boxes; they were a little warped. Okay, maybe—he takes them to someone to inspect, and the person opens them up and sees tefillin made in such a cheap way, with glue, in a very primitive way. The boxes aren't made professionally, like the professionals make them. What kind of boxes are these? I said, “It's funny, but I paid a lot of money.” So I called the guy. I said, “Rabbi, you asked me for a price. I gave it to you without even questioning it, under the assumption that you're giving me the best item.” I said, “The boxes you gave me—the person who checked them said this is primitive work.” He said, “Oh, I didn't know.”
It turns out I learned a lesson. The sofer (scribe) himself was pressed for money. He was pressed. So what ended up happening? I gave him 1,500 raf for the tefillin. He was pressed, so he didn't give me $1,500 tefillin. He gave me $800 tefillin and took the $700 and put it in his pocket to make a bigger profit. So he failed in his seiyun. That's a problem. For two years he was wearing kasher (ritually valid) tefillin. They were kasher; they were still primitive. You don't want to have tefillin like that. You're buying a blind item until somebody opens it up. It happened to me. The parashot were written properly; they were okay.
Right after that, I said, “You know something? You have to go to somebody who's obsessive about this item.” I saw Rabbi Busu. He's obsessive about this; this is his item. How do I know? Forget about that he's the grandson of the Baba Sali, he's a tzaddik (righteous person), and you can trust him. Forget about that. You see with your own eyes: the guy's reading a Sefer Torah and he sees a hairline issue, so he takes out a new Sefer Torah. Nobody sees what you see. He says, “I'm a fanatic when it comes to these things.” He reads the Shnayim Mikra in Lawrence with the Sefer. He's reading Shnayim Mikra in Lawrence with the Sefer. There's a problem with the Sefer. “Give me a pen. Let me change it.” That means his eyes are very good at catching things that a regular amateur, or even a professional eye, might not catch.
So, with the tefillin he makes, he says, “Listen, I'm a fanatic when it comes to tefillin.” So I put—I don't know what he said, 50 or 60 chumrot (religious stringencies). How many? 80. Eighty chumrot. This one says do it this way, this one says do it that way. I take every chumra and throw it into the tefillin. So you're getting tefillin that have every chumra you can find in the book. They're not cheap. But once already I got burned by this other guy.
So I called up the rabbi. I said, “How many pairs did I get? Two, four, six, seven pairs. I wear two, so I need a shel Rashi and a Rabbeinu Tam.” I got Yosef the shel Rashi and the Rabbeinu Tam. Now he's married, Judah. I got the shel Rashi and the Rabbeinu Tam—just the Rabbeinu Tam already. I don't want to let him know this guy is still in business. By the time he gets married, God willing, he'll get married soon. And then Jacob—I got his tefillin for his bar mitzvah.
At the time I was so excited. Okay, so then Shapo called me back: “Okay, you owe me $25,000.” Oh, go, go, go, go. And I didn't even ask the price. I didn't ask the price. Twenty-five. I said, “Okay, okay, okay.” You know what? I figure, let's go slow, slow, slow. We do—we do. Don't do anything. Don't do anything. I got psyched. I got 200 per tefillin. So now, so now, so now: $30,000. And a little bit of tongue? Yeah, you see. You know what? Let's go slow. Just Judah needs a pair now. Judah's tefillin are all gassed up. Give me one Rashi. I went from getting 80 pairs to “Give me one pair of Rashi.” So he understood it was because of the expensive price. One by one, it's okay. I don't want to take time. Give me one now, pay for one now, and then, you know, Allah, Allah.
So the rabbi is a tzaddik. He understood that I got it over my head. He said, “No, no, no, no, no. You take it if you need.” He didn't say, “Pay me today, pay me tomorrow.” He said, “You pay me over 100 years, as you pay me.” At the time, I had, let's say, money for two pence. The 3,600, I guess, for whatever it was. I don't know if it was 25, maybe it was 20, whatever the number was. I had enough to pay him for two. This is three years ago. Now every time he comes, I give him for one tefillin, one tefillin, one tefillin. Maybe I only have enough for one or two more. But at least he let me take the tefillin and pay over time. “I see you're excited about it. Take the tefillin, and you give me…” But that's— But they're still available, these tefillin. No, he's still in business. He's still available.
So at least you know you're getting them from your yireh shamayim (God-fearing person). And he's telling you, and you know the guy's nature is like that. He checked each item. He goes through each process. The best mark, the best.
So, you remember when we were young? You'd see the old-timers, remember the tefillin they used to wear? The tiny tefillin, with the shiny black thing, with the cap, the cardboard. You'd cap it up, the red cap, and fold it up over there. They were flimsy tefillin. That's what we had in those days. That was Hashem. And the rabbi said, which really got me excited, that when you wear solid tefillin, it influences the guy. It influences you. You'll feel it. I don't feel it. You'll feel it. When you put on tefillin that are— it makes a roshim on the guy.
So there is value in spending money in life. Forget about tefillin. There are certain things they tell you that you don't—you don't skimp on. Undershirts, underwear. You wear them every day, 25 hours a day. So you're going to go—they have over 100% cotton. It's $2 a pair. Here there's 50% polyester. You get it for 50 cents. It was the same thing. “Give me the 50% polyester.” Now the guy's itching the whole day; he's all life. You get the pairs for $2. This is an item you wear every single second of your life. You don't skimp on something else. On a tie, your body doesn't feel the tie, so you've got to get a cheap tie.
Sandra's in the mattress business, so beds are the same thing. You sleep on the bed eight hours a day, one-third of your life. So you're going to get a cheap bed with a bad box spring? You break up eight hours a day doing that. Anything that you do on a constant basis, those items—you don't skimp. Glasses? Well, obviously no, but it's not so, because the lenses are the main thing. The frames, you can change the things, but okay, you're right, I guess. Everybody in this industry thinks he's indispensable, therefore—of course you sell the inferior product.
So now tefillin are the same thing. Tefillin are an item you're wearing every single day for an hour, let's say, when we pray. How many things do you do every single day that you get in contact with? It's a garment that you wear for an hour every single day from when you're 13 years old to, God bless you, until you're 120 years old. It's an item that you're going to have thousands of hours of use from. And I don't like that you don't—you don't look for the—you know, you advertise it over the years, you know, you just go, “A dollar a day for the tefillin,” over the course of—less than a dollar a day over the course of 100 years, if you get a solid pair of tefillin.
So when it comes to children especially, you don't just buy tefillin by going to the local religious article store and saying, “Get me a pair of tefillin.” “Oh, it looks good. Get it to me.” That's not the way you do it. You have to go to a really— I learned that lesson. The guy I got them from was a good guy. But I figured it out: he was really pressed, chas v'shalom. He was very pressed for money. So he was charging a premium price but giving an inferior product. When he got called on it, I told him, “Listen, I'm very upset. You know I am. I gave you the money without even questioning it. If you told me double, I was going to give you double. I wasn't questioning the price if you needed it. But at least give me the quality.” The guy told me the boxes were primitive. I remember the words: “primitive boxes.” Wow. What kind of situation is that? You can imagine, Judah was very upset. When I bought them, I brought him to the sofer. I don't know—I brought it to the sofer. I showed him. Okay, you live and learn.
Hey, listen. I don't have to tell you the story of the sofer. The guy's Sefer Torah was beautiful. Beautiful Sefer Torah. You couldn't get a better Sefer Torah than this. A shul bought a Sefer Torah from him. They bought tefillin from him. They were saying, “You don't buy from anybody. This is the guy. This is the guy.” They looked at his work, and the guy is a nice, humble guy. Everybody indeed also—I think in Lawrence they bought a Sefer Torah from him. I never had anything to do with the guy, although I saw him on Lawrence one summer. I don't know too much about the guy. Anyway, the whole community is buying Sefer Torah from him.
Now they find out what the guy's doing. You know, sometimes you say, “The Sefer Torah is too good to be true.” If it's too good to be true, probably it's not true. What happened was, he was using a stencil. He had a guy make a stencil, like writing, but he's writing—you're filling in the blanks of the letters. It's like a form of the letters, and you fill them in. So all the letters are exactly the same. All the letters are exactly the same because it's a—
He asked someone what he thought about such a thing. He didn't ask him as a halacha (Jewish law) question. They were talking, like we're talking and learning. “What do you think?” “Yeah, could be, you know, maybe, or writing, you know, maybe.” So whatever. He took that as a heter (permission), because he wanted the heter, and he started writing his sifrei Torah like this.
By the way, in the beginning he didn't do this. In the beginning he was writing properly. But what happens? The demand became so strong because he's great, so he couldn't keep up with the demand. He had to figure out how to produce. So he's producing now. Normally it takes a year to write a Sefer Torah; now he needs to produce three or four in a year. So he figured out this method he made, this easy writing with the stencil, and he was producing. Nobody knew the difference because he was great anyway, and the writing is perfect.
It turns out they caught him somehow. They caught him because they realized he was producing too much. How was it? Somebody was helping him. Somebody was helping him, because now he could hire other people. Right, somebody was helping him, and the word got out. So now he comes to America. Now they want to catch him. They tell the guy—he's from Israel, he comes to America. So he said, “No, maybe I did it once. I didn't do it. It's nothing.” Meaning, “I know, I didn't once think it was okay. I asked the rabbi. I thought it was kasher, but nothing that I sold here was done like that; everything was…” Whatever, he started to talk.
So the rabbi wanted to catch him. So Hacham Asher brings him to the house. I said, “You know what? He hasn't written now. If he's been using this method, he hasn't written properly in years. So right away he could tell.” So he takes out a cloth. He says, “Write.” He starts to write. The letters are all not like his writing. The rabbi is very patient. He tells him, “Listen, you just got off the plane. You didn't drink a coffee yet. It was a mistake to bring you right away here to start writing. You need to come back in three days.” He was very patient with the guy. He came back in three days. His hand wasn't writing properly. He says, “You write—you wrote a Sefer Torah last year. This is sloppy. It doesn't look anything like this anymore.”
They found out he had been using a stencil. Not in the beginning. The beginning was good, but then he got caught up with the money. So now go— The problem is now, we'll figure out which ones. Now, when you have a Sefer Torah in there, at the end it doesn't sign—it doesn't sign his name Picasso at the end of the— Once it's in the Hechal, I don't know who wrote it; now it's there. We went to do the religious before. The guys who know say, “Oh yeah, we use that sofer.” Who knows whose tefillin are from him, which set is from him, which set is from that? You forget where he went to these things from over there.
I don't know exactly what they did, how they passed on that she'elah. Because it's a very bad pesud (disqualification). No, that's it. They're posting that that's pesud. Yeah, the practice was clearly invalid, what he was doing. Whatever he was doing was pesud. Yes, whatever he was doing was pesud.
So now go figure out what— I told the Hacham Asher at the time, “I have a new hiddur (enhancement) in Sefer Torah.” Exactly. My new hiddur is, it's got to look like it's written by a human being. If it looks like it's written by a computer, don't say, “Oh, what a sefer!” I'm suspicious now already if it's so perfect. I want to see the guy go out of the line once. To me, that's a hiddur, because you know there's a human element to the Sefer Torah.
You know Rabbi Ben Zikli, may he live and be well? We used his writing yesterday. It's clean, gorgeous writing. But when he put in the writing, the key item over there is the Kavanot that he writes for this. It takes some years. He only wrote two sefarim like that in his life, and he said if he had to do it now, he can't do it anymore. It's too taxing on you. He didn't want to write better, he said, “I can't do it.” Preston, please, one more. I told Ben about Ralph Towles. He wrote Ralph Towles. He had a dream; things happened. There's a story about it. It was a tremendous Kiddushah (holiness).
I'm just saying that whenever you buy these items, the truth of the matter is, I know what I'm saying. Even if I tell you to go to a trustworthy guy, they went to a trustworthy guy and got sketched. So you just have to pray that you don't get—because these guys who bought the Sefer Torah from this guy didn't make a mistake. He's a yireh shamayim guy. As long as they walk around with jeans and a T-shirt, he's a really yireh shamayim guy. Let the money make you.
Now, in Tel Aviv, they sent me a video last year where they sell Sefer Torah. The guy created a program. Today it's easy: a calligraphy program, where you just stick the cloth in the machine and it just— I saw a video. So that's like an autograph. They put them all in line; in two hours you can print the whole thing. You go in, “I like a Sefer Torah.” “Okay, we have this font, big, small.” It's our writing, but you can get the picture. Who wants it, though? Tourists? People who are Hedoni and want to get a Sefer Torah for their conservative temple or their reformed temple. And they tell me, “You got to have it so bad. This is prettier.” They print it. No mistakes. When he's a dealer buyer, then he sells it to you. You know when he got this far.
That's the problem with it. The problem is, once these sefarim get out in the market, you have no idea whether this was lithographed or printed. So now you see a Sefer Torah. You really have to look at the end to see the people filling in the letters. Right, the people filling in the letters. Oh, but you can make the program look— They don't make it look good. Or they could say, “Listen, we didn't do a Sefer Torah on occasion, zero, nothing. We just gave it to the ritual.” Once you have these fakers, they infiltrate the market. And now, like you said, you go to a certain place and they say, “The goyim (non-Jews) are selling it. We found the Sefer Torah.” Oh, mitzvah, they're recovering the Sefer Torah. It's in the goyim's hands. You buy it for $2,000. He paid $15 for it. And now you're thinking—it runs the problem.
The last story I'll tell you, a funny story. You know when you have a Sefer Torah dedication? You bring people to fill in letters. So Benno Ishmero did a Sefer Torah. Could be it was this one over here, or maybe it was the other one. I think it was this one. He made a big party in his house in Deal. He asked me, “Bring me a sofer who can fill in the letters, you know, up to the day.” I brought Rabbi Aaron Saruyev, my friend from Magen David. He's Rabbi Saban's brother-in-law. He's a good guy. He's a sofer. He's a Shabbat guy. “You don't like the guy? Bring him.”
Now you see Benno talking to the guy. He tells him, “Listen, I don't know who's coming here to fill in letters. I don't want any Mechallel Shabbat (one who desecrates Shabbat) filling letters in. I want it to be, you know, Mehudar (made especially beautiful).” So maybe it wasn't his; maybe it was a different one. So now he tells him, “Listen, here's the plan. Anytime a guy comes in, if I come along and say, ‘Rabbi, this is my good friend over here. Please let him write,’ give me the signal and make sure you hold his hand. I know who the people are.”
Now you see S.Y. come in with his shirt open, walking in with no kippah on. “Oh, he's here. Rabbi is here. My good friend, please, please, he must write a letter. Stop everything.” He comes. The rabbi says, “Hold my hand.” He doesn't let him move. He has no circulation. The rabbi is holding his hand. The guy's hand is blue. He doesn't let him move. “Exactly, hold my hand.” He did everything himself. Then the next guy walks in, a different kind of guy. Nothing. Doesn't tell him anything. It's a very funny, smart way of doing it.
So the guy says, “Oh, look at that, see that? This is a good guy. He doesn't judge, he's non-judgmental, he's a tolerant guy. He lets everybody do it. You know something? That's why we like him.” Meanwhile, that's the code word that he's a tipesh, rasha, hamor, hamar. He says, “This is my friend. Please stop everything. Right away, let him inside.” “Rabbi, don't let this story out.” “No, no, no, no, no, no.” Now you're looking at the video. Now you're looking at the video. Now you go back. No, we don't remember. I'm going to find it. Let's just finish the paragraph and we'll talk. That's very funny.
Anyway, we're saying it's nice to feed him because it's called Pe'er. It's a glory. That's what he said. That's the key takeaway from the choice ones that you could take. Where in ter she's saying it's not so expensive. Okay, if you can't buy a new pair, revamp them. You know, fix the boxes, paint them again. Basically, they're saying maintenance. And we do that with everything, by the way. Don't you maintain everything in your car? You change your oil every 3,000 miles. You fix your— You change your light bulbs from time to time. Well, he said if you can change them because of wear and tear, then do that. And if not, you know, Maten Macher. Somebody put a quote from Rabbi Masha'a that says, “not hashutu,” just change tefillin if they're good and they're kasher and you use them. You're probably right. He's talking about when they got one out. Yeah, they got one out, they got one out. Okay, I think I'm bezeyon. Maybe they say, “Kasher, what are you doing?”
I changed my tefillin once, and my grandma—I went through it, and, you know, she's good. And I got these with the tefillin. I decided I started using them. Those tefillin started to get all warped. But the first one? The second one. The second one. As long as they're working on it, it's got to be slow. But as you have tefillin, okay, now you put on your tefillin. So finish the paragraph about that. I have 20 kids over there. Inside? Yeah, waiting. Okay, we're going now.
Now you have to sit in your seat with humility and all that. Ke'ilu Shechinah shruyah al rosho (as if the Divine Presence rests upon his head). Recite the zemirot (hymns) word by word, slowly. Each one will go according to your custom. Im kivar kala parashat haAkedah, b'kumom ba'layla (if he has already recited the passage of the Akedah at night), because that was part of the regimen that he said to read at night.
There is a passage about reciting this all the time. Ve'omar Kriat Shema pasuk lishonot Baruch Shem (and he says the verse of Kriat Shema, repeating Baruch Shem). It's good to focus before he recites Kriat Shema after netz hachamah (sunrise). That's better to me: focus before he recites Kriat Shema after netz hachamah, which means you should try to read Kriat Shema before sunrise, and then read Kriat Shema after sunrise.
Ve'yikra parashat tamid, le kol b'anot mila be mila (and he should read the passage of the daily offering, word by word). Then the parashah of the Ketoret, and then the Ketoret. So that's giving you the— Yes, which I don't do, only because of time. I don't do it because of time. That would mean I would have to end it here at 6:40.
It's interesting, the rabbi, the kollel guy at the Nes minyan, puts tefillin on first. He reads a passage first, and then he starts. That's for sure the right way, but again, only because of time constraints. Sometimes, yes. Sometimes he used to sit and read the Korbanot. It's correct, and read the Korbanot. He was the only one that read the Korbanot. He read Sion also. Yeah, he would sit and read it, but they did say Korbanot. He did, but I'm saying— Yeah, that's why I saw it. You don't know the perfect. I don't know the reason I said it.