Episode
The Advice We Only Understand Later - Debarim
- Podcast
- Parsha with Rabbi David Bibi
- Published
- Jul 17, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 250
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://jewishpodcasts.fm/rabbidavidbibi/120390
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Summary
The Advice We Only Understand Later Parashat Devarim is unique. For nearly the entire Chumash, from the book of Exodus and forward, Moshe Rabbeinu is leading the Jewish people through events as they unfold. But now, standing at the threshold of Eretz Yisrael, he speaks differently. Devarim is a farewell address. It is a lifetime of wisdom distilled into one final conversation. Some of Moshe’s words were understood immediately. Others would only be understood years—even centuries—later. There is a remarkable story about Rabbi Yisrael Zev Gustman, one of the great Torah scholars of the twentieth century. As a young dayan in Vilna, he once accompanied his revered teacher, Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzzinski, on a walk outside the city. During that walk, Rabbi Chaim Ozer did something that seemed completely out of character. Instead of discussing a difficult sugya, he pointed to plants, shrubs, and trees, explaining which could be eaten and which were poisonous. He even showed Rabbi Gustman certain places in the forest and told him to remember them. Rabbi Gustman could not understand why the gadol hador was spending precious time teaching botany instead of Torah. Then came the Holocaust. Forced to flee into the forests with his wife and daughter, Rabbi Gustman survived for years on wild vegetation. The lessons that had seemed so strange suddenly became the difference between life and death. Only then did he realize that his teacher had been preparing him for a future neither of them ever discussed openly. Years later, after rebuilding his life in Jerusalem and becoming a great Rosh Yeshivah, Rabbi Gustman personally watered…