I am getting more and more convinced about the idea of making a מקום תורה [place of Torah] and place of Torah in every city. The idea of learning Torah at home just does not seem practical.  I think there might be different reasons why the idea of making a place of Torah does not usually work. Yeshivas as we know are rarely places of Torah, and shuls never. But the reason for that is because they don't want to be. Kollels are just ways of making money by pretending to be a benefit to some community.

None of these things have anything to do with Torah. Not because it is hard to make a makom Torah--[place of Torah] but because people don't want to learn.
 If people would want to learn Torah for its own sake [not for pay] then it would be the simplest thing in the world to make a makom Torah.

A nice picture I found on the internet

Islam does not want to be reformed

The most serious sin in regard to Torah is to attempt to redefine Torah according to one's preference.
It matters if one keeps Torah also. But even if one does not keep all or any of the commandments, the worst sin to to try to change Torah according to ones tastes. This was the reason that Gra  signed the  excommunication.
This also makes clear what is so wrong with the the insane religious world  today which consists of many groups that have subverted the Torah to their own whims and have now tried to represent themselves as traditional.

Since it is hard to get a good idea of what Torah is about nowadays I recommend going into what is called "Rishonim." Rishonim  are people that lived in a period before all the falsification of Torah began and spent their time and efforts in trying to verify and clarify what the actual approach of Torah is.

You could start also with the Geonim.

But in any case what I suggest to begin is what is called Musar. That is a generic term for medieval books of classical Jewish ethics. What makes them interesting is not the time period they were written in but the fact that their efforts were to understand what the ethics of the Written and Oral Law is without trying to falsify the subject to make it conform to their own tastes.

Where Rav Elazar Menachem Shach and Rav Isaac Zev Soloveitchik disagree about the seventh year in Israel seems to be in this: Rav Soloveitchik  holds land that was conquered by Jews coming out of Egypt but left by Jews coming back from Babylonia is obligated in all obligations of the land of Israel. And when it says They did not sanctify the land that means so the poor could have the fruits and vegetables that grow by themselves on the seventh year. Rav Shach does not like this. To him those lands are obligated also in tithes to the poor --not just ספיחים things that grow wild.

The way he gets to this  like this: We have a Halacha to Moshe from Mount Sinai that Amon and Moav have to give tithes to the poor on the seventh year. This Rav Shach understands to be relevant to a time that those lands will be part of Israel from the Torah. That means to say that even in the future when that land will be part of Israel  and obligated in all obligations that Israel is obligated in Trumah and Maasar etc still they will be required to give tithes to the poor in the seventh year. And also when such land is not part of Israel, still they have to give tithes to the poor because of a decree. From this we can understand the Gemara in Yevamot 16a. עמון ומואב מעשרים מעשר עני   בשביעית דאמר מר הרבה כרכים כבשו עולי מצרים ולא כבשו עולי בבל דקדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה לא קדשה לעתיד לבא והניחום כדי שיסמכו עליהם עניים בשביעית

Amon and Moav gives tithes to the poor on the seventh year because many cities were conquered by those coming up from Egypt, but not by those coming up from Babylonia, and they left them so the poor would be able to depend on them in the seventh year.

That is the areas of עולי מצרים are  required to give tithes to the poor on the seventh year. That is a proof that Amon and Moav also do so.




I wanted to point out that according to this way of understanding the Rambam Trumah I:5 you don't need the land to be obligated from the Torah. And we know that that is good because if we would need that that would conflict with what the Rambam says in the end of the  chapter. This way we have the basic step of a halacha le'Moshe MiSinai and then a decree כעין התורה like the Torah that just like Amon and Moav would be liable in all obligation but added to that would be tithes to the poor so land of Israel proper but not conquered by עולי בבל  has the same law because of a decree.




The main point that Rav Soloveitchik has I think is the fact that in מתנות עניים  we doing find that the land of עולי מצרים is obligated in tithes to the poor. He only mentions Amon and Moav. On the other hand there are a few points that bring support to Rav Shach. One is the Gemara itself in Yevamot 16a. If we read it like Rav Soloveitchik it is a bit strained: "Amon and Moav give the tithe of the poor. How do we know this? Because the Jews coming up from Babylonia did not sanctify many cities so the poor would have support from them on the seventh year." According to Rav Soloveitchik what support do the poor have on the seventh year? Only the ספיחים what grows by itself. And when they returned there was no decree on the ספיחים anyway!
The wording of the Rambam is ולא פטרום.  The idea in itself seems to be relevant to the next Halacha in the Rambam where we have that Beit Sh'an and Ashkelon were פטרed- left to be not obligated. So here the Rambam is saying in opposition to that that the area of עולי מצרים  they did  not פטר.

mp3 music folder

It is hard to create a place of Torah. I have gained a certain amount of respect for people that were able to make authentic yeshivas after seeing how the whole concept of a yeshiva is so easily derailed and most of them are cults. I can see also why Rav Chaim Solveitchik  was against the Musar Movement after seeing how easily Musar itself can be sidetracked into all kinds of lunacies.
 I certainly can't create a place of Torah where I am. But I think if there are people that can get together to make something real like this it is  good idea to do so.


What is a place of Torah? Mainly it looks like Brisk.  That is you are learning the Babylonian Talmud in the morning from around 10 A.M. until 1:30 P.M. in depth. Then from 4 P.M. until 8 P.M. fast.

There was a considerable debate whether to introduce Musar [Jewish Ethics] into this. Reb Chaim said not to. But others did so. Today most Lithuanian yeshivas have introduced a very small amount of Musar into the program. But one way of the other, the day is spent on the Talmud.

Something so simple should be relatively simple to make. Why it is hard? It is that people prefer to make money of the back of the Torah. Their major effort is to look as if they are learning Torah and use that image to scam and defraud secular Jews into giving money. The amount of scammers makes doing the real thing very difficult.

In order to be able to tell the difference between the frauds and the real thing you almost have to be a Torah scholar yourself.

What you mainly need to start with is someone who has learned how to learn by spending the proper amount of time in Ponovitch, Brisk, or the three great NY yeshivas Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah Vedaath. That is the foundation stone.  And it is in this first step that most yeshivas fail. The rosh yeshiva is usually a charismatic Am Haartz [ignorant fraud] who simply know how to act the part of the real thing.