16/3/99

Torah, Torah, Torah

    It was like a trance party, Jerusalem style: an all-night, enthraling, exhilarating, freakout, nonstop, go-till-you-drop turn-on... of Torah lectures.
     That's how we blow our minds here in the Holy City.
    For 26 1/2 hours, from 8:30 Thursday morning to 11 a.m. Friday,  the only break from Torah was at prayer times. By the end of the marathon at the Israel Center, the few who made it all the way looked seriously drugged.
    Tzvi Honickman said he has a lot of catching up to do. "I'm a latecomer to Torah, so now I'm making up for lost time." The 66-year-old circulation manager of the Jerusalem Report went from start to finish for the sixth or seventh year in a row. "Fantastic experience! Inspirational!"
    The veteran Torathoner generally hits the wall at about 2 or 3 a.m., when his eyes start drooping. His other major concerns are "good zitzfleish" (literally, ג€œsitting fleshג€) and parking.
    It's one thing to experience the other-worldly, but tachles, you also have to figure out what you're going to do with your car for a day-plus in downtown Jerusalem.
    The parade of lecturers -- 22 rabbis, two laymen and two women -- spoke largely about Pessah, but Rabbi Stewart Weiss of Ra'anana (6:35-7:30 p.m.) chose to be a bit controversial. "I will say some things that people will not like," he promised in an aside before he took over the mike. "But that's why I was put on this earth."
    The 45-year-old director of Jewish Outreach Center in Ra'anana didn't exactly rest up before his appearance. "I climbed Masada -- up and down."
    As he arrived, a couple from his town were just leaving. He couldn't convince them to stay a little longer. "We'll hear you back in Ra'anana," the woman said, and they were out the door.
    Weiss's talk, titled "Do we worship Hashem or halacha?" might have riled some listeners, but he lulled them early on with anecdotal levity that had 'em chuckling.
    Like the one about the woman who asked a rabbi if a certain product contains hametz (unsuitable for Passover). He raised an eyebrow, or maybe both, and said, "but this product is strictly tref!" I know, said she, but that's OK, I don't keep kosher; however, on Pessah I don't eat hametz. A true story, Weiss said.
    Phil Chernofsky, associate director of the Orthodox Union-affiliated Israel Center, created the Torathon nine years ago. When he starts rounding up the lecturers, he doesn't easily take no for an answer.
    "I never run into anyone who says no. It's very hard for someone to say I'm busy that day. Busy when? At 3 a.m.? Oh, you have a wedding that night? What about after the wedding?"
    He has to hang in there 'round the clock, but it's a cinch. During the five days leading up to the event, he put in three all-nighters organizing the event, assembling a 60-page journal, and authoring his weekly newsletter, Torah Tidbits. "I stay awake. I just do. Some people can't; some come with grand plans and immediately doze through the first lecture, and sleep through the rest. But you know, through osmosis they get something out of it."
    It's one thing to listen for 26 1/2 hours straight; Chernofsky climbed the Everest of Torah study. "The first year, I taught mishnayot for 24 hours. it was a satisfying experience, I did it, but I'm not anxious to do it ever again. At 3 a.m. I caught myself, stopped, and said, 'I just spoke gibberish didn't I?' I felt a disconnection in my brain, but I kept talking, and people looked at me strange. I left to wash my face, and carried on."
    Several hundred people came and went during the marathon, with perhaps a dozen going the distance. There was an even mix of men and women (sitting together), largely middle-aged to elderly.
    And they did take it seriously. Many sat with pens and notepads, snaring strings of words wafting through the hall. One couple apparently depended on osmosis: they were more intent on reading The Jerusalem Post than listening to Rabbi Meyer Fendel ("Halacha and Hashkafa of Magid," 5:30-6:20 p.m.)
    Katy Tornheim, 79, sat through 14 lectures in 13 hours. "It's one of the highlights of my year," she enthused. "I learn so much from everyone." Like many, she had her favorites -- Rabbi Zev Leff and Rabbi Sholom Gold -- and caught them both. She went home after Gold's "The Limit of Intellect: Shulamit Aloni vs Aryeh Deri" (prime time, 8:30-9:30 p.m.)
    Leff, from Moshav Matityahu, spoke at 4:30 -- and again at 4:30. In the p.m., he droshed on "Lessons From the Egyptian Experience," and came back 12 hours later, when parking was no problem, to wax on the goals and aspirations of the counting of the Omer.
    At 6:20 a.m. everyone was wide awake -- not for a marquee rabbi, but for Bonkers Bagels, which assaulted the senses with an aromatic breakfast. But the learning didn't stop even then, as Gedaliah Gower delivered a dvar Torah.
    At 11 on Friday morning, Rabbi Emanuel Quint ended his talk on "Dina D'Malchuta Dina," and that was it. 
    Chernofsky, who barely slept all week, kicked off the Torathon 26 1/2 hours earlier, gave a short shpiel before each of the 26 lectures, and heard virtually every word of the program, took the microphone.
    "Veherub zlimge pum tikijimijigum!" he said. "Humbud dummah huch, zzzzzz."