“And Yaakov ripped his clothes, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days.” (Bereishis 37:34)

RASHI: MANY DAYS — twenty-two years (Genesis Rabbah 84:20) — from the time he left him until Jacob went down to Egypt…These correspond to the 22 years during which Jacob had not practiced the duty of honoring his parents

As we stand before Chanukah and contemplate the great tragedy of assimilation which was averted because of the heroism of the Maccabees, it is incumbent upon us to also contemplate how we can ensure that our community is insular enough to be protected from the external forces which are always trying, intentionally or not, to tear down our beautiful Torah life.

In the second half of the twentieth century, just after WWII, the population of many Jewish communities in the USA mushroomed. However, the only communities which continued this growth years later (even though they were in environments which were not well-suited for Jews) were the ones which had institutions for learning Torah. I visited many cities throughout Pennsylvania and saw old shuls and mikvehs which had fallen into disuse when the Jewish population assimilated or moved out. Aside from the importance of limud hatorah itself, history has shown time and time again that Torah study is the most effective guarantee for the resilience of Jewish life.

(Nowadays, we no longer rely on just the home and the community. Instead, we send our boys and girls to special schools whose goal is to ensure that they become proper servants of Hashem. It is only in this type of Torah environment that we can come closest to guaranteeing that the things we hold dear will be passed over to the next generation. In fact, the Igros Moshe says that even though girls are not obligated to learn Torah, tuition for a girls’ school may not be deducted from Maaser. The reason he gives is that one has an obligation to ensure that one’s children stay frum and the way to do that is by sending them to Beis Yaakov.)

When I was in Yeshiva, I had a close friend, who just was not a learner. He bumped up and down through the system, yet today he is a strong, religious orthodox Jew. Was the Yeshiva successful with this student? I am sure that there are those who would say no. However, I will share with you a conversation that I had with him before he left the yeshiva. I asked him, “Do you consider yourself a talmid of this yeshiva?” and he answered, “Absolutely! All of the ideas and ideals and the way that I am supposed to live my life, I absorbed during my years in this Yeshiva. I just didn’t do so well with the learning part.” (Today this man sets aside a fixed amount of time every day for Torah learning. Perhaps even those who thought the yeshiva was not successful would admit today that they actually were.)

The Chasam Sofer asks, “Why was it necessary for Yaakov to go to the Yeshiva of Shem V’Ever? Would it not suffice for him to stay home and learn with his father, Yitzchak Avinu?” He answers that there are aspects of yeshiva life that being at home cannot offer, and sometimes on the contrary, the comforts of home detract from the way Torah is supposed to be learned.

I would like to suggest another aspect of the same answer. When someone is in an institution of Torah learning, from the moment he wakes up until the moment he falls asleep, he lives in place where the Torah is the center of his life. Therefore, this aspect of being in a Torah environment is what transforms a person into a Ben Torah. We see this when Rashi only counts 22 years as the time that Yaakov did not perform kivud av v’aim – Rashi does not include the time Yaakov spent in the yeshiva of Shem v’Ever because Yaakov would not be Yaakov if he had not gone through that process. This was a necessity and like all other necessities that one has to do, one is exempt from kibud av v’em.

With Chanukah almost upon us, the meforshim impress upon us that this is an especially propitious time for learning Torah. I would add that part of what we should be gaining from the days of Chanukah and our learning is to make our Torah learning impact our entire day.