The Chanukah issue of the COLlive Magazine, published this past month, once again included the “8 Nights, 8 Lights” feature. This time it profiled 8 maggidei shiurim dedicated to teaching Torah, Halacha and Chassidus in Crown Heights. The project was done in conjunction with the Irgun Torah organization.

Chanukah #6:

Rabbi Alex Heppenheimer

In 2012, at the beginning of the daf yomi cycle, Rabbi Levi Browd of Yagdil Torah was promoting the idea of completing a daf yomi siyum. There were scattered shiurim, but he wanted something bigger. Rabbi Yossi Paltiel asked me if I was interested in teaching this daf yomi shiur, and that’s when I began the shiurim.

I give a shiur once a week for Project Likkutei Sichos in Chevra Shaas each Sunday morning after Shachris. Every week we learn another sicha and plan to finish Likkutei Sichos over eight years. Every once in a while, I also give a shiur in halacha at Beis Eliyahu Nochum at 672 Lefferts Avenue. I also give an Ain Yaakov shiur which Rabbi Mottel Gurary OBM used to give.

Last year Irgun Torah began spearheading a series of halachah shiurim on Sunday mornings, and requested that I give them. I work for a software company, but I was able to carve out time to do such a shiur in two places (aside from my daily Daf Yomi and Ein Yaakov shiurim), first in Chevra Shas, then the same one in Congregation Anash (770 Montgomery). Currently, instead I do a shiur for Project Likkutei Sichos at 9:00 AM in Chevra Shas, and the halachah shiur in 770 Montgomery is instead given by a member of R. Michoel Lerner’s Kollel Anash (which is located in that shul), at 10:15 AM.

It was a big highlight for me to attend the Siyum Hashas in the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey with my kids in January 2020. It was special to have so many people honoring the Torah, and davening and singing together.

There is a piece of Gemara that touches me very much. It says that Hashem will give back everything taken away from Jewish people but on a larger scale. So instead of copper, Hashem will give gold. Instead of wood, it will be stone. The Gemara asks what about the spiritual treasures that were taken from us, such as Rabbi Akiva and chachamim? What greater thing can Hashem give us back? The answer is that there is nothing greater than the tzadikim we lost.

It is vital that a person learns niglah and Gemara in an organized way. Absorbing the core text of Yiddishkeit helps you understand more. It gives you a whole different perspective, and your mitzvos and attitude toward Yiddishkeit become different. You learn to think how a Yid should think.

The Sichos and learning from the rebbeim give us a perspective that is based on Gemara, Midrashim, and halacha. Therefore, it is vital to understand and be comfortable in those to have a grounding. When you learn niglah in an organized way, the Rebbe’s teachings mean even more to you.