“Tell me tzaddik what sugya are you learning?” The young bochur tense about sitting for an acceptance bechinah before the brilliant Rosh Yeshivah stammered out his answer. “Ba b’machteres.” (The sugya of a thief tunneling into a house and the permissibility of attacking him as a means of self-defense.) Rav Hillel smiled broadly as if hearing a favorite song. “Ah… Ba b’machteres… Tell me tzaddik what would you do if you heard that a thief was on the way to your home with the intention of breaking in and stealing your food? Would you be permitted to erect an electric fence that might kill him? Could you poison the food?” The bochur knew the sugya well and he began to offer his opinion. “The fence would kill before the thief enters before he’s technically a ‘ba b’machteres ’ so it would be a problem but the poison would kill him when he’s already liable so lichorah that would be mutar.” The Rosh Yeshivah was quiet. The bochur suddenly saw things differently. “Wait ” he paused “the thief might only eat the food after he leaves the house in which case…” The bochur began to realize just how broad the challenge really was how the Rosh Yeshivah had incorporated the entire sugya and all the Rishonim into this single question. He began to recalculate his answer when Reb Hillel stopped him. “Tzaddik the answer to my question isn’t important right now. The path to the answer the process is what’s important how you get there.” And the Rosh Yeshivah smiled again. “When you sayTefillasHaderech on Rosh Chodesh Elul it will be on the way to this yeshivah. We’ll be happy to have you here.”
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