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The Story of Reb Avner

One Door Never Closes

30 min

5Comment
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Class Summary:

There is an ancient Jewish tradition that every man, every woman, every event, everything that ever was or will be, can be found in the tiny Torah Portion of Haazinu. This claim seems preposterous, but it is true, and documented in the name of one of the greatest of all Medival Sages, Nachmanides. (Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, born in Gerona, Spain, 1194, and died in the Land of Israel, 1270.)" This class will analyze an episode concerning one of Nachmanide’s students who became a terrible apostate upon hearing this teaching. Yet Nachmindes refuted him, and we will also find this students name in Haazinu and see how the words that spell his name also prophesized his end. We will discover the limits of repentance, and answer the question: ‘Can one go just too far?’

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Anonymous -3 years ago
The common denominator between R' Avner and R' Elazar ben Durdayo is that they did Teshuva and died. They didn't have to confront life with their Taavos anymore. How is this story relevant to regualr human beings who have to carry on living after making Teshuva and still fight their Yetzer Horah?
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RYJ
Rabbi YY Jacobson -8 years ago
Someone sent me this beautiful comment:
I always enjoy your shiurim. You are engaging, thoughtful, funny and provide real content. Thank you so much.
I recently heard your shiur about “Reb” Avner with the he’ara from the Lubavitcher Rebbe that the Torah believed in his ability to do teshuva which is why the word before Avner hinted at a ר which stood for Reb.
I think that there is another allusion here. When the Ramban looked for the name Avner in Parshas Ha’azinu, he noticed the ר. The Ramban believed in his talmid even in his current state. He looked at his talmid as “Reb” Avner which is why he noticed the ר before his name.
This, I believe, is a fundamental yesod of the rebbe. He needs to believe in his talmidim. He needs to see them as great and appreciate them for their ma’alos.
It is interesting that the word emunah is used in Tanach to mean raise. “וַיְהִי אֹמֵן אֶת-הֲדַסָּה” and he brought up Haddassah (אסתר ב:ז). “כַּאֲשֶׁר הָיְתָה בְאָמְנָה אִתּוֹ” like as when she was brought up with him (אסתר ב:כ). As parents and teachers, we have to believe in the children and when they see that others believe in them they will follow suit.
The gemara (Bava Metzia 85a) tells the fascinating tale of Rebbi Yossi the son of Elazar (the son of the great Tanna Rebbi Shimon bar Yochai). Rebbi came to the city of Rebbi Elazar the son of Rebbi Shimon. He asked if Rebbi Elazar had a son. The people of the town said yes. This young man was what we would consider off the derech. The woman who would charge two coins instead of one for their services (because they were more beautiful), would pay Yossi eight coins for his services! Rebbi found Yossi, gave him semicha (called him Rebbi Yossi) and gave him Rebbi Shimon ben Issi ben Lekunia as a chavrusa. “Rebbi” Yossi eventually became a talmid chacham and sat in the academy of Rebbi.
Why did Rebbi first give him semicha and then find him a chavrusa? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to let him learn, become a scholar and then call him rebbi? The answer is that in order for Yossi to succeed, Rebbi had to show him that he could do it. Ordaining Yossi was a way of showing him that he believed in the young man. Rebbi was telling Yossi, “I believe in you.” That’s why he gave him semicha first. As a teacher, he saw where Yossi’s success would lead him that’s why Yossi ultimately got there.
A rebbi in a certain yeshiva high school told me a wonderful story. His yeshiva, which was in its first year, finished a perek in their night bekius seder. The principal made a grand celebration inviting Rav Herschel Shachter (Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University) and Benny Friedman (famous Jewish singer). Why the big event? One perek of bekius and you bring a world renowned rosh yeshiva and one of the most popular singers?! This rebbi told me what he said at the siyum. He quoted this gemara in Bava Metzia and told the students; this siyum is not so much about what you guys already accomplished. We are showing you what we believe you can and will accomplish. The siyum which was fit for a siyum on a massechta, seder or the entire shas was just that. But not for what was learned. What they believed would eventually be accomplished. What a valuable lesson in chinuch!
In “The Power of the Pencil” (aish.com) Rabbi Dovid Rosman shares a story about his daughter (who happens to be my niece:). “Last week I experienced the work of a genius educator. When I arrived home from work, my ten-year-old daughter excitedly brought me her report card for the first half of the school year. The grades were basically all perfect except for the category called “organization” – how well the student does in bringing the appropriate books to class and keeping her homework and notes organized. In that category, my daughter received an A- (shocking, but true).
But there was something different about the minus sign. “Look abba, my teacher wrote the minus in pencil. She told me that she knows that really I can be much neater and that if I improve over the next half of the year she’ll erase the minus.” (This story had a good ending. She got the A!)
The gemara in Rosh Hashanah (23b) talks about questions that were asked when the witnesses came to declare the new moon. One of the questions was which way the moon faced, towards the sun or away from it. The gemara says that the answer to this question is that the sun never saw the pegima of the Levana. The Baal ShemTov (quoted in Nesivei Chinuch from the Nesivos Shalom) interprets this gemara to mean that the sun is the mashpia and the moon is the mooshpa. The mashpia can never see the shortcomings of the mooshpa.
Ramban was many things. One of them was certainly a master mechanech. He lived the yesod of always seeing the good in his students and believing in their abilities. That is how he saw the “Reb’ in Reb Avner.
Have a wonderful Yom Tov,
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MZ
Mendel Zilberberg -9 years ago
We generally understand that repentance involves facing the same obstacles (at least at some level) and in this case, the repentance involved total retreat. Is that because from a practical point of view the wrongs that R Avner had committed could not be undone, or because they're certain cases repentance does not require undoing the wrong. Interestingly, in the second story, it seems readily apparent that "the toothpaste could not be put back in the tube"
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Z
zalman -14 years ago
today
Which exile are we in today? it seems to me, a fusion of all four of the above. is that correct?
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RH
ruth housman -14 years ago
as the dreidel turns
We know the history of oppression and that history is filled with people, with cruelty, with ideas that were less than, humane. Within all that there was learning going on, and I have to ask, since yes to all the history, there is no arguing with the brutality of what happened, and how this did also change us, meaning the Jews.

It does seem to me, that as sand is rubbed in that oyster shell, through repeated roughness, eventually it does become a pearl. We do draw from Nature deep and ongoing metaphoric connects that apply to all of our lives. Call this another kind of profound mirroring.

It does seem to me, that as one goes out in the cosmos, as all this is definitely as you say, mirroring, a part of Kabbalist teaching, then this mirroring is created by a Divine "radiant" Source, for our edification.

We are being polished. And I am saying, on this plane we do see and act in one way, but on a cosmic plane, G_d wrote the entire story, meaning ALL of it, NOT some of it. And the sum of awe and all, will lead us all, back to the Garden.

This story ultimately turns on love, and the SHIN, the Hebrew letter, the word for it, is contained by our SHINE in English. I am saying none of it is random and we are all of us being moved into a new state of consciousness.

This story is about LOVE.
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Rabbi YY Jacobson

September 5, 2010
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26 Elul 5770
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6799 views

Dedicated by David and Eda Schottenstein in the loving memory of Alta Shula Swerdlov Rabbi Gavriel Noach and Rivki Holtzberg and all of the Mumbai Kedoshim