I hope that this does not get me banned from the Yated, but now that the geshichta is over, I guess, I can tell the story.
It was last Thursday night, and I was coming out of a chasunah in Brooklyn. An acquaintance of mine, back from the “olden days,” came over to me saying, “You have to daven! The team is down by thirty points with only 15 minutes to play.”
I will admit that the spark of interest that I once had as a kid in the 1960s never completely extinguished itself. To be sure, it has long since been replaced by more worthwhile pursuits, and I am not exactly rearranging my schedule around sporting events. Nevertheless, when one grows up in New York during a certain era, some memories remain tucked away in the recesses of the mind.
I can’t say that I was totally uninterested, but I don’t make miracles, and if my tefillos were worthy of them, I would not waste them on five guys running around while trying to get a big orange ball into a hoop.
But as I am involved in an elementary school on Long Island, and a rebbi cannot afford to be entirely disconnected from the world inhabited by his talmidim, I figured that I would have to be menachem a couple of kids the next morning in school.
Knowing that it was basically over, I did not even have a yeitzer hora to sneak in an audible of the sports news on the way, and thus it was a pure Reb Sruly Reid Bite-filled drive back from Brooklyn.
When we arrived home, I finished several things that needed attention and eventually prepared for bed. At approximately 11:30, I got a text message.
The message was cryptic. It may have been from the fellow who asked me to daven. The message said: “Uber tzu a blatt Gemara…kumt es nit.”
Despite our long acquaintance, I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. I therefore responded with the most appropriate answer available under the circumstances: a question mark.
A few moments later, another message appeared.
“Just preparing you for what the rabbeim should tell the kids tomorrow.”
At that point, my confusion only increased, so I called him.
He answered immediately and explained that the New York Knicks had just completed what some were calling the greatest comeback in the history of professional basketball. The details were apparently remarkable. A game that had seemed hopelessly lost was somehow transformed into a stunning victory.
Then, as much as he originally seemed interested, he reiterated the truth that he knew from his rabbeim at a time when we were both kids.
“Uber tzu a blatt Gemara…kumt es nit.”
I am not interested in drawing mussar lessons from a comeback, especially from a basketball one. I leave that for the other storytellers who make podcasts. Klal Yisroel possesses a treasury of wisdom and authentic Jewish history that provides us with far greater examples of perseverance, resilience, and redemption than any sporting event could ever offer. Yet, his observation touched upon something important.
All the euphoria of that game, all the joy expressed in the subsequent clinch, gets headlines and bylines. Thousands dancing in the streets for nothing. Indeed, “Uber tzu a blatt Gemara…kumt es nit.”
We relate to all types of superlatives. The richest. The most delicious. The most joyous. We have to know that the truest superlatives are only reserved for Torah. Its joy. Its value. Its sweetness.
Dovid Hamelech tells us that the words of Torah are more desirable than gold, even abundant quantities of refined gold. Shlomo Hamelech tells us that wisdom is more precious than pearls and that all desirable things cannot compare to it. Throughout Tanach, whenever the greatest value known to mankind is invoked as a point of comparison, the conclusion is always the same. Torah is greater.
Most of us read those pesukim so often that we cease to appreciate the magnitude of what they are saying. Gold is not merely valuable. Precious stones are not merely attractive. Throughout history, entire kingdoms have been built, defended, expanded, and destroyed in pursuit of wealth. Human beings have crossed oceans, climbed mountains, fought wars, and sacrificed their lives in order to obtain treasures that glitter for a few decades before being inherited by someone else.
Yet, Torah surpasses all of it. “Uber tzu a blatt Gemara…kumt es nit.”
This idea is expressed with remarkable clarity in a Mishnah in Avos. Rav Yosi ben Kisma relates that he was approached by a wealthy individual who wished to persuade him to relocate. The man offered him extraordinary compensation. The Mishnah does not describe a modest proposal. It describes a truly unimaginable offer. Rav Yosi ben Kisma’s response was equally extraordinary. “Even if you were to give me all the silver, all the gold, all the precious stones, and all the pearls in the world,” he said, “I would dwell only in a place of Torah.”
It is not powerful because Rav Yosi ben Kisma was indifferent to reality. He understood wealth. He understood comfort. He understood opportunity. Yet, he also understood that there are certain things that money can never purchase. Torah belongs to that category.
Several years ago, I had an experience that gave me a new appreciation for those words.
During a visit to Russia, I was afforded the opportunity to tour the Hermitage inside the Kremlin walls. It houses the jewels and treasures accumulated by the czars and confiscated by the Bolsheviks. The experience was unforgettable. We passed through layers of security and entered a dimly lit chamber that contained some of the most spectacular displays of wealth that I have ever seen. There were diamonds of unimaginable size, magnificent sapphires, coronation crowns, vast quantities of gold and silver, and treasures that had belonged to rulers whose power once extended across enormous portions of the world.
The brilliance was overwhelming. The gems reflected light with such intensity that I almost had to shield my eyes.
As I stood there, I suddenly understood something that had never fully registered before. When Dovid Hamelech spoke of gold and when Shlomo Hamelech spoke of jewels, they were not referring to a diamond ring in a jewelry store window. They were speaking about the treasures of kings. They were referring to wealth so immense that ordinary people can scarcely comprehend it. And even that, they taught us, pales in comparison to Torah. They knew real wealth. And they each said what that fellow texted me. “Uber tzu a blatt Gemara…kumt es nit.”
The irony was impossible to ignore. Those jewels survived the czars. They survived revolutions. They survived Lenin, Stalin, communism, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Governments rose and fell around them. Entire political systems disappeared. Yet, those treasures remained locked behind glass. At the same time, countless bletter of Gemara learned by anonymous Jews in obscure corners of the world achieved a permanence and significance that those jewels could never attain.
That realization returned to me as I thought about the excitement surrounding that basketball game and the subsequent ones. I’ll ignore the violence and focus on the thousands of people in jubilation all across the tri-state. Fans dancing in Manhattan, jumping in Jersey, and frolicking through the Five Towns. Uber to simchas haTorah? Es kumt nit!
The story resonated Erev Shabbos, when the news came out of Wall Street. Mazel tov! The first trillionaire (whatever that means)! We have become accustomed to hearing about fortunes that previous generations could not have imagined. Not millionaires. Not even billionaires. Individuals worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Experts now revel in the newest mogul-keit the world’s first trillionaire. The achievement dominated headlines. People marveled at the number. Economists analyzed it and historians will record it.
And Rav Yosi ben Kisma still shrugged. “Tzu a makom Torah…kumt es nit.”
Take all the silver. Take all the gold. Take all the jewels. Take all the wealth that human beings can accumulate. Gather it together into one gigantic pile. Then place it on one side of the scale and place a single blatt Gemara on the other. The Torah perspective is clear.
It’s not an expression. It’s real. Uber tzu a blatt Gemara…kumt es nit.
Just Saying.