Today, Everyone Can Learn Torah

The daily chizuk from our teacher, the holy tzaddik, Rav Eliezer Berland shlit"a – "Today there are kollels and donors, everyone can study Gemara."

Thursday, 17 Sivan 5782 – "If his son is quick and sharp, and his learning is retained by him," these are his holy words:

One must study Torah day and night, twenty-four hours a day, but if you have a wise son, then the son goes to study.

Because in the past there were no kollels, so everyone had to provide for their home, not like today where there are kollels and there are generous people who donate.

In the past, there was no one to donate; everyone worked for themselves. Rabbi Akiva had to draw water. Rabbi Akiva would buy a bundle of wood every day, light it, and the smoke would enter the neighbors' homes. The neighbors would come to shout about why he was smoking out their whole house; the whole house was smoke.

Rabbi Akiva replied, "I am warming myself, I am cooking on it, it gives me a little light – I can study the Gemara."

In the past, everyone had to take care of themselves; there were no kollels. If a father went to study, there was no one to provide for the home, or the father would go to study and one of the children would go to grind at the mill. Today there are lawyers and doctors; in the past, there were no lawyers, so they went to work at the mill to grind wheat.

In the past, they had to provide for the home themselves, so either the father went to study Torah or the son. If the father was sharp, he studied Torah; if the son was sharp, then the son studied Torah.

The Gemara says (Kiddushin 29b-30a), "And you shall teach them to your children" (Deuteronomy 11:19) – and not your daughters.

[Our Rabbis taught: If he needs to learn and his son needs to learn, he takes precedence over his son. Rabbi Yehuda says: If his son is quick and sharp, and his learning is retained by him, his son takes precedence over him.]

So, "if his son is quick and sharp," there is a quick son, a sharp son, he can study for 8 hours, he does not fall asleep – then he goes to study Torah.