an invisible string connects them,
mouth to mouth,
heart to heart.
beyond the grave,
my torah remains your torah,
your torah is my torah.
death is not finite,
one’s torah extends backs and forwards,
student and teacher forever tethered,
made greater by each other.
Parshat Bo, January 24, 1942
There is a well known teaching in the Talmud (Yevamot 97a): “When anyone repeats the Torah of a dead scholar, the lips of the dead, through lying in a grave mutter along with the speaker.” That is, particularly the lips and particularly in the grave, because in the upper worlds, in the Academy of Heaven, everyone learns Torah all the time anyway. For someone to speak Torah in his grave, someone living ust be repeating the dead person’s Torah. The dead man had a connection with his students during his lifetime, and so the students were in his mouth and his Torah was in their hearts. His students retain this powerful connection with him even after his death, and thus his lips move “in the grave.”
Furthermore, anyone who repeats the Torah of a dead teacher becomes his student even after the teacher’s death, and the lips of the dead teacher begin to speak in the grave as this new student begins to draw Torah from the mouth of the teacher, as we said above, “And the lips of the cohen will guard knowledge, and the Torah will be sought from his mouth…” It is only when the teacher has students and they fill his mouth with Torah that he transcends his own personal understanding. It follows, therefore that even after a teacher has died he still remains connected to his students in this world. Similarly, when a student dies, he remains connected to the teacher’s continued learning in this world. The student is still connected to the teacher because he was in the mouth and in the heart of the teacher. The revelation of the Torah that came to the teacher only came to him because he had this particular student.
וכל האומר שמועה מפי חכם שפתותיו דובבות בקבר שפתותיו דייקא ובקבר דייקא כי בעוה"ע במתיבתא דרקיע גם בלעדי זה לומד תורה אך שתהי' גם בקבר לומד תורה הוא ע"י שאומרים שמועה ממנו מפני שגם בחייו למד לתלמידים וכן האומר שמועה ממנו נעשה בשעה זו תלמידו ואז שפתותיו דובבות בחי' ושפתי כהן וכו' כנ"ל שע"י התלמידים אומר בפיו יותר מלעצמו לכן כשנסתלק ח"ו הרב יש לו להרב חלק בעבודת התלמידים שבעוה"ז וכן כשנפטר מי מהתלמידים גם אז יש לו חלק בעבודת ותורת רבו שבעולם הזה מפני שהי' נמצא בפיו ובלבו ועל ידו נתגלה תורה יתירה לרבו
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