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For 2024's Mir Dinner opening feature presentation, Mint Media - in partnership with the Mir - present the 'THE SHTENDER', a story that will grip, move, and shake you. This is the emotional and moving story of the Mir Yerushalayim.
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As darkness blankets the world, it waits.
Soon, hands will grip it and wordless melodies will serenade it.
Men with hunched shoulders and burning eyes use it to weave threads that connect earth to heaven- and heaven back to earth- a craftsman’s table upon which eternity is made.
The lines hewn into its knotty wood tell a thousand stories.
More than furniture, it is a witness.
When the world fell silent, human voices stilled, this shtender welcomed those that emerged from the devastation, reassuring them that even though everything had changed, there was still an island on which nothing had changed: where yiush shelo midaas and toifes lebaal chov and davar sheino miskaven are the only reality.
And today, this shtender in the great beis medrash of the Mir hears the voices of a new generation join an ancient chorus.
This shtender is surrounded by those who have mastered Shas and poskim, and others who have not- but they aspire to, for in the Mir, they behold the towering heights which man can attain.
This shtender is pulled across the length and breadth of Torah, and it is there to encourage those committed to writing chidushei Torah: look closely and you can see the faint imprint of a pen dancing over sheets of paper.
If the shtender shows signs of hard work, deep wrinkles overlapping with each other, it is because it gets no rest. Along with the talmidim, it too has joined the chaburah committed to learning at least twelve hours a day. Late at night and early in the morning, Friday, Shabbos and even motzoei Shabbos, it stands, ready to serve.
The shtender knows the rhythm of the day. The gentle caress of hands, the agitated blow of a fist as a point is debated, and the gentle tapping of a finger as the subtle differences between Rashi and Tosafos are analyzed.
It knows the urgent banging as seder nears its end: not a moment earlier than necessary, the gemara is closed, the shtender released to its natural position, the yungerman running out to make the bus.
In the stillness of night, the shtender can ponder the paradox that surrounds it:
How as those who learn Torah become great, they become even more humble.
How those who teach are still learning and those who learn have much to give.
How those who sit by this shtender are able to fuse such unrestrained passion with perfect discipline and self-control.
But the shtender has no questions.
Now, it listens to the soft hum of a beis medrash which is never really silent and it waits with anticipation: soon, dawn will break and a new day will begin at the Mir- and there is nowhere on earth that it would rather be.
Written by: Yisroel "Sruly" Besser
Narrated by: Rabbi Yehuda Deutsch
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