4 Inches, 4 Feet – From the Rebbe Files

First come four inches of snow.

Then there’s four feet of it.

And the week after that, spring begins.

This is how Yehudah*, a man in his 30s who I’ve been zocheh to learn Torah with lately, has described the winter season almost every day, as we spend about eight minutes walking from his home to the shul in which we learn.

Whenever it’s rumored to snow, Yehudah says it’ll either be four inches, if it’s a light covering, or four feet, if it’s a blizzard.

But spring always comes right afterwards.

Yehudah is one of the happiest, most optimistic people I’ve ever met. As we walk, lately at a slow pace due to ice on the ground, he talks openly about his life, how he was saved from robbers as an infant, or how he feels when people have yelled at him. He also knows the birthday of every member of his large family and shares this with me frequently.

He’s always smiling, and fulfills wholeheartedly the dictum of Chazal to receive everyone with a סבר פנים יפות, a cheerful countenance.

The “everyone” part of the Mishnah applies in particular to Yehudah, as he is quite the local celebrity. Children, grown men; they all greet Yehudah warmly – but only if they beat him to it.

The Rabbis in the shul, which is an active Makom Torah at night, all shower Yehudah with praise and listen attentively when he talks to them about what we’re learning – Sefer Shmuel and Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. And Yehudah always has something valuable to say.

Yehudah has learned Shmuel already, but that doesn’t detract – on the contrary, I believe it adds – to his excitement over reading the self-sacrifice of Chanah, Shmuel Hanavi growing into his greatness under the devoted tutelage of Eli HaKohen, the righteous Shaul who hid from being appointed King, the piety and intrepid heroism of Dovid Hamelech, and Shaul’s perplexing turns of heart.

When we’re in the middle of a story, Yehudah is glued to the page. I wish some of my other talmidim had even a fraction of his enthusiasm, attention span, and enjoyment in their learning. Yehudah doesn’t own a smartphone, nor does he want one.

Plus, our learning time is at night, after Yehudah has already put in a full day at a local Yeshiva.

It’s sometimes easy for me to forget what Yehudah has had to overcome in his life, and what continue to be constant challenges for him.

This week, we started learning a few pesukim from Megilas Esther every night, ahead of Yehudah’s favorite Yom Tov, which came to me as no surprise.

Since we started learning about two months ago, Purim has always been just around the corner. In December, Yehudah said it was two weeks away, and now, it’s coming next week, right when spring starts and the there won’t be any more snow, neither four inches nor four feet.

He has his sights set on us finishing Tanach together.

Yehudah comes from a family deeply rooted in Torah, which I’m sure is the source of his attitude towards learning.

It’s been a journey for me too, as a typical Yeshiva man who has rarely made a set time to learn, let alone teach Nach. I sometimes have questions that I’ll look into on my own time, such as how Shmuel could have mistaken Hashem’s call to him as his Rebbe’s voice – the Rambam describes Nevuah as a state in which the body and soul are held apart, where prophets sometimes almost died from the enormity of the sublimely spiritual experience. The voice, so to speak, of Hashem, could not be mistaken for a person, even someone as intensely holy and lofty as Eli.

I eventually realized that it must be that this was the way Shmuel always related to Eli, as the Mishnah says (Avos 4:12) that the fear a person should have for his Rebbe should be similar to one’s fear of Hashem. Shmuel must have tzitered, trembled with Yiras Hakavod from his Rebbe.

From this episode, I realized how easy it was to misunderstand Tanach when one doesn’t thoroughly apply his mesorah to the text, even when learning it with Rashi and the basic Meforshim; my question was not discussed, probably due to its simplicity. But there was a very real possibility that a well-meaning person who did not receive a proper hashkofa education would come away with the notion that a Navi hears the voice of Hashem as one hears a person speaking to him.

On Thursday nights we learn a portion of the weekly parshah, in addition to our other subjects. Yehudah has shared with me many Medrashim that he’s learned over the years, some of which I’ve not been familiar with.

But more than anything, I’ve learned from Yehudah how to be happy even when buried under four feet of snow.

*Name has been changed to protect his privacy.