Welcome to the Daily Holy Story.
About 800 years ago, in the country of France, there was a Jewish man who became a non-Jew. He was known as Nicholas, and he hated the Jews. So he decided to spread a rumor about them. He sent a message to the king and the pope saying that the Jewish people learned Torah, studied the Talmud, and learned how to go against the Goyim (non-Jews). When the king and the pope saw that, they were very upset. They decided to hold a meeting between the priests and the rabbis, and they would argue with each other about religion. Whoever won would determine the outcome: if the Goyim won, they were going to burn the books of the Jews. If the Jews won, then they would not burn their books.
One of the rabbis sent to argue with the Goyim was Rabbi Yechiel from Paris, in France. He was one of the Tosafot, one of the expatriates, one of the explanations of the Gemara. Of course, the Goyim wanted to make sure that the Goyim won the argument. Even though the Jewish people were very strong and argued well, the judges said that the Goyim won and the Jews lost. Because of that, they decided to collect all the Talmud books from all the Yeshivot and all the shuls—all the books in all the shuls and all the Yeshivot—and bring them to the square of Paris to burn them. They brought 20 wagons of books and burnt all the books of the Jews in France. They had no more Talmud. They could not learn.
But Rabbi Yechiel from Paris was very smart. He knew that it was going to happen. So what did he do? He took every student he had and told each student to learn and memorize an entire Masechet (tractate) of Gemara by heart. There were 36 Masechetot, and 36 students knew 36 Masechetot by heart. That way, even though they had no books, each student was able to teach the other students the Masechet he knew by heart. For 18 years, they learned Torah that way. Nobody opened a book; there were no books, and they had no Talmud. But then Rabbi Yechiel saw that there was no interest. So he decided to take all his students and his family to the land of Israel, to Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel). They ended up in the city of Akko, which is the first city right off the water. They got off the boat and ended up in Akko. Rabbi Yechiel from Paris opened a Yeshiva there and taught his students in Akko.
Even though all the books were burnt in France, there was one thing that was never burnt: the writings of the Tosafot. They were handwritten, and they hid them. Because of that, we have the Tosafot today. Otherwise, there would be no Tosafot on the Gemara. We would have lost it. But since they hid them, that is why we have them. And because we have books today, we are supposed to study from the books we have in the Yeshivot.
Have a wonderful, wonderful day. Thank you. Good night, and Shavua Tov. What do we learn from the story? Eizehu chacham? Ha-ro'eh et ha-nolad. You have to see the future. Shavua Tov.