Mishpacha writers take a trip down memory lane to share the seforim that transport and transform

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Your mother's beloved siddur. The Lekach Tov that you spent hours poring over that taught you more than just the parshah. The Sdei Chemed with a special inscription from your rebbi.

Learning is in the DNA of the People of the Book, but these holy texts do more than increase knowledge — they open vistas, build connections, and even change the course of your life. Mishpacha writers take a trip down memory lane to share the seforim that transport and transform

Higher and Higher

Shmuel Botnick

Sefer: HaMesores Hashalem

Takes me back to: Pre-1A and our Chumash party

I’m a Yesodei kid. Not that this means anything to you, but in Toronto in 1998, it was a statement of identity as critical as “I’m a Jew” or maybe even “I’m a human.” Being a Yesodei kid meant you attended Yeshiva Yesodei Hatorah, as opposed to Toronto’s other boys’ elementary schools. It suggested a certain size and material yarmulke, a relatively longer set of peyos, and a lexicon that summarily replaced “actually” with “gradeh.” And perhaps of greatest relevance, under no circumstances could you join any organized sport leagues (read: hockey).

But being a Yesodei kid meant something else as well. Something far deeper, more meaningful, and forever enduring. It meant that for the most impressionable stage in your educational development, you lived in a conceptual Yerushalayim.

You see, the school’s primary patron was the legendary Reb Moshe Reichmann z”l. It was Reb Moshe’s view that Yerushalmis are the most effective teachers of the alef-beis, and he facilitated the hire of two Yerushalmi rebbeim, Rabbi Mordechai Paksher and Rabbi Ahron Cohen, to serve as the school’s Pre-1A rebbeim.

I was introduced for the very first time to the chein of Yerushalayim in Rabbi Paksher’s class. Ah, is there any word to describe that chein? Exaltedness? Sublimity? Holiness?

Sweet. That’s close. Yerushalayim is a sweet place, a zeese platz, and those born and raised within its sacred borders are sweet people, zeese menschen.

Our beloved rebbi sported a rekel the likes of which we had never seen, and had neat, tightly curled peyos pressed before his ears as he taught with a sweetness that was absorbed into our young hearts.

Understandably, the alef-beis textbook assigned to us was Yerushalmi as well. Compiled by one Rabbi Moshe Chaim Cheshin, a melamed in Yerushalayim’s famed Eitz Chaim yeshivah, its bright orange front cover is framed by nekudos lacing the border. In the center are two luchos with a tree on each side, and at the foot of each tree is a dove with a sefer Hamesores in its mouth. An explanation for this illustration sits in an arc shape at the bottom: “Knesses Yisrael l’yonah imsila — the Jewish People are analogous to a dove,” a quote from Sanhedrin. The cover also testifies that this is the product of shanim rabos [many years] of hard work, and while the sefer doesn’t have an initial publication date, letters of approbation extend back to 1956.

For the lion’s share of the school year, our class of five-year-old boys learned the sacred letters of the alef-beis from this sefer daily, in a distinctly Yerushalmi accent. Our tongues rolled back to eject the lamed and our chiriks came out with a very pronounced “ee.” When we would break for recess, we’d play soccer until the cry came, “Arrrein!” — the “r” rolling from the back of Rebbi’s throat. Then it was back to the classroom, back to the Mesores.

T

he Mesores was, for lack of a more professional term, delicious. There was no glossiness to the paper — it wrinkled if you turned the pages too quickly — so a dose of caution was in order.

The opening page displayed the alef-beis in order, each letter in its own orange box, but subsequent pages got trickier. The order became scrambled, hei inexplicably aligned with tes, beis with yud, and it got trickier yet as you faced shins and sins, tufs and sufs. Reishes and daleds looked awfully similar, samechs and ender mems nearly indistinguishable — and the onus was on you to tell the difference.

Each page had a different color scheme, often with an ornamented border. From time to time, there would be a notation (he’arah) at the bottom, in Hebrew of course, alerting us to the fact that there are various permutations of the shva, for example.

We celebrated our completion of the Mesores with a Chumash party, marking our transition from learning alef-beis to learning Chumash. Every Yesodei kid, no matter where life has taken him, remembers that Chumash party.

We practiced for weeks, learning Yiddish song after Yiddish song, and memorizing the staged conversation between the rebbeim and talmidim, also in Yiddish.

The event was held in the Bais Yaakov High School auditorium. Adorned in crowns of metallic bristol board with a sash of the same material inscribed, “Ben chamesh l’mikrah,” each child walked onto the stage independently, holding a candle, while the ancient Yiddish tune “Oyfn Pripetshik” played in the background.

Then, with Rabbis Cohen and Paksher conducting the presentation, we would sing and clap.

Tateh ich dankt dir

Tateh ich loib dir

Az ich bin a yid

Father, I thank you, Father, I praise you, for I am a Jew.

Rabbi Paksher would turn to us and, in a singsong, lead the dialogue.

“Yingerlach, yingerlach vuhs lernst du?” (Children, children, what are you learning?)

“Mir zenen nisht yingerlach! Mir zenen bochurim!” (We are not children! We are bochurim!)

“Bochurim, bochurim, vuhs lernst du?” (Bochurim, bochurim, what are you learning?)

“Chumash!”

“Chumash? Vuhs meint Chumash?” (Chumash? What does Chumash mean?)

“Finef!” (Five!)

“Finef vuhs? Finef lollipops?”

“Nein!”

“Finef cookies?”

“Nein! Finef chumashim in dem heilegen Torah!”

Purists will recognize that the Yiddish itself carried a Yerushalmi dialect — “der” turned to “dem,” “heilige” to “heiligen.”

We opened our Chumashim to Vayikra, in accordance with the age-old minhag cited in Midrash Rabbah, which teaches, “yavo tehorim v’yisasku b’taharos — let the pure ones come and toil in purities.” In responsive chanting with our rebbi, we read the first few pesukim:

Vayikra — uhn her hut gerufen

El Moshe — tzu Moshe Rabbeinu

Veyidaber — uhn her hut geredt….

We completed the segment, and then a dialogue with Rabbi Cohen ensued.

“Teihere kinder vuhs ligt in dem vort Vayikra?” (Precious children, what lies in the word Vayikra?)

“A kleinem alef!” we’d respond.

“Farvuhs iz duh a kleinem alef?” (Why is there a small alef?)

And in Yiddish, we’d explain: Moshe Rabbeinu “hut zich gehalten klein — held himself small,” undeserving of Hashem’s personal summons, and he preferred to write “Vayikar,” connoting a less formal encounter, rather than the honorable “Vayikra.” Ultimately, he consented to writing “Vayikra” but only with a “kleinem alef.”

I’ll take the liberty to posit that nowhere else in North America does such a patently Yerushalmi experience transpire.

On a visit to Toronto a few years ago, my then-five-year-old son Aharon emerged from my parents’ basement, Mesores in hand (I don’t know if it was mine or my brother’s). He was excited about his discovery — it had the alef-beis in it! — and he opened the sefer and began reciting the letters. Aharon did well, trying his best to navigate through Rav Cheshin’s well laid traps.

Yingele yingele, vuhs lernst du?

You don’t know Yiddish, Aharon, but if you did, you’d know to say, “Ich bin nisht a yingele, ich bin a bochur’l!”

It’s cute to think of yourself as a bochur’l, Aharon, but you are a yingele, just as we were, and that’s something to be proud of. You’re a kleinem alef; hold yourself small even as you grow big. Small is safer, sweeter, purer.

Aharon, in your hand you hold a relic of Yerushalayim, a zeese platz, written by an old-time Yerushalmi melamed, a zeese mensch. Feel Yerushalayim, Aharon, feel its purity and its sweetness; even from afar you can be among the yeladim v’yelados misachakim birchovosehah.

And to all the Yesodei kids out there, my fellow kleinem alefs, here’s a humble suggestion: The next time you’re in your childhood home, go down to the basement and check out the boxes of old seforim. If you’re lucky, HaMesores Hashalem will still be there. Take it, lock yourself in a room, and sing and clap and celebrate with the spark that was ignited so many years ago.

Tateh ich dankt dir

Tateh ich loib dir

Az ich bin a yid

Molded by sacred letters, encased in a depiction of luchos, trees, doves, and a testament to shanim rabos of labor, let that sweet innocence live on.

Shmuel Botnick is a contributing editor to Mishpacha Magazine.