A compelling conversation with Rav Shlomo Yehudah, a gift to the generation

Photos: Shlomi Treichter, Ezra Trabelsi

We’re outside, waiting for the Yanuka.

It’s silent in the deserted courtyard of the little shul, for even though coronavirus restrictions have been eased and the streets have again come to life, most people are in bed at this hour. But we’re waiting — and then we see him. Soon we’re face to face with this bashful young man who’s taken the Torah world by storm — self-effacing, unremarkable in appearance, but so remarkable in the impact he’s had on the lives of the thousands who flock to him, hanging on his every word.

He’s really just a young avreich, yet his shiurim are an attraction for the masses, from all ages and stages: elderly chassidim and litvish talmidei chachamim and everything in between. When he sits on the dais of packed halls, expounding on all parts of Torah by heart, the brim of his hat is just about covering his eyes, and at the same time that he’s electrifying the crowd with his depth and breadth, he seems to be melting into himself, erasing his very yeishus. After all, he’s just a vessel, a kli — it’s not about him at all. And then, when the shiur is over, the spellbound audience already knows what to expect: A Roland keyboard is brought out and this shy genius — the Yanuka, as he’s been known since his teenage years (a reference in the Zohar to souls who already from childhood are exceptional in their Torah knowledge) — will begin to play a medley of stirring songs sure to awaken slumbering souls.

His name is Rav Shlomo Yehudah Beeri (to most people, he’s simply known as Rav Shlomo Yehudah), and although he’s not really a yanuka anymore — he’s 32 years old — he’s still decades younger than many of his followers. Aside from the fact that he commands such respect despite his young age, his popularity has skyrocketed even though he doesn’t peddle yeshuos, kameios, or mystical deals. His merchandise is pure Torah — all of it, on the tip of his tongue.

The shul where we meet has just been reopened for the public, but even during weeks of closure, the ezras nashim was still his private learning space. This is like his second home, and as he invites us in and flicks on a small light, we take our seats in the shadows.

“There are times when we need to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu with mochin dekatnus (a state of constricted consciousness),” Rav Shlomo Yehudah says, explaining to himself as much as to us why the shul has been empty, bereft of its beloved worshippers. “Sometimes this is decreed on a person, on a family, a city, village, and sometimes it is an entire generation. In our generation, it has apparently been decreed that people must pay attention to the tachlis, to the main point. To stop everything and reflect. It’s like HaKadosh Baruch Hu is telling the world, ‘Enough,’ after people started to think that everything is permitted. They had their money, were confident in their way of life. When you live like that, you might consider yourself a ma’amin, but how much do you really unconditionally trust in Hashem?”

The problem in our day, says Rav Shlomo Yehudah, is that when we daven, it’s not out of desperation, it’s not with a sense of absolute dependence on HaKadosh Baruch Hu. “Once, a person would go out to the market and ask Hashem to send him parnassah or to bring rain to water his field or to bring fish to come to where he’s fishing. Today people have emunah because it says you’re supposed to have emunah, but they don’t really live it on an experiential level in their lives.”

The Rav doesn’t sound upset or bitter though — he’s just stating a point, going with the flow of things as they’ve been decreed to be. In fact, that’s how he’s always lived his life, from the time he was a poverty-stricken child moving from place to place through Eretz Yisrael, Europe, and back with his parents. “People think they know Who HaKadosh Baruch Hu is and what Torah is, and then, Hashem suddenly does something that no one can process, shaking up the order of Creation,” Rav Shlomo Yehudah explains. “Once we understand that we have no grasp of the Creator and really begin to serve Him with temimus and with awe, no longer being so sure we have all the answers and instead looking with respect at everyone simply because they have a tzelem Elokim, then perhaps the this pandemic will be annulled, b’ezras Hashem.”

He believes that the violation of the tzelem Elokim — through lashon hara and sinas chinam — is even hinted to in the current lockdown rules. “The isolation period for those who’ve come in contact with coronavirus is 14 days, like the isolation for the metzorah who speaks lashon hara,” the Yanuka clarifies. “The metzorah had to sit alone outside the camp, the quintessential social distancing. So our work now is to draw closer to the soul of the other, to feel with the other and be aware of his needs. And that,” says Rav Shlomo Yehudah, “is the way forward, as it appears to me.”