Chizuk for Daf Yomi – The Special Significance of Gemara
Study: Adapted from the Torah of Rav Yitzchok Hutner, zt”l (Pachad Yitzchok,
Shavuous Maamar 17)
Adapted
By Eliakim Willner
Eliakim Willner is author of “Nesivos Olam – Nesiv
HaTorah: An Appreciation of Torah Study”, a translation with commentary of a
work by the Maharal of Prague, published by Artscroll/Mesorah. He is currently
working on a continuation of the Nesivos Olam series, “Nesivos Olam – Nesiv
HaAvodah: The Philosophy and Practice of Prayer”.
Section
1 – Laying the Groundwork
The Rambam writes the following in Hilchos
Talmud Torah 1:11:
“A person is obligated to
divide his study time into three: one third should be devoted to the Written Torah;
one third to the Oral Torah; and one third to understanding and conceptualizing
the ultimate derivation of a concept from its roots, inferring one concept from
another and comparing concepts and understanding the principles by which laws
are derived from the Torah’s verses, until he appreciates the essence of those
principles and how they are used to determine what is prohibited and what is permitted,
and the other laws which were received according to the oral tradition. The
latter topic is called Gemara.”
In the next halacha, the Rambam continues:
“The above applies in the
early stages of a person’s study. However, once a person increases his
knowledge… he should focus his attention on the Gemara alone for his
entire life, according to his ambition and his ability to concentrate.”
This Rambam conveys an innovative insight. We know
that there is a distinction between laying the groundwork for sanctity and sanctity
itself, as well as between laying the groundwork for a mitzva and the mitzva
itself. But the Rambam is teaching us that there are similar relationships
even when it comes to actual Torah; there are aspects of Torah that play a
laying-the-groundwork-for-Torah role, and aspects that play a Torah-itself
role.
This is clear from the Rambam’s presentation. The Rambam
discusses all three of the Torah branches only in the context of the early
stages of a person’s study. Once a person has graduated from those stages,
however, the Rambam says that he should focus his attention on Gemara
alone. In other words, only the study of Gemara constitutes Torah-itself,
the other branches of Torah study are merely means to an end.
This, as we said, is an innovative insight. When we speak
of the study of Torah-itself, the three branches do not have equal footing; each
branch has its own role and its own relationship to the other branches. Specifically,
these relationships are set up such that each of the branches of Torah study
except the study of Gemara play a laying-the-groundwork role.
Section 2 – The Seemingly Redundant Bridge
It behooves us to find a basis for this insight. We know
that there are two hekesh “bridges” that connect Torah study through the
generations to the Torah study of the first-generation Torah recipients at Sinai.
The first connection is via the “study it now just as we got it then” bridge – as
the Gemara (Brachos 22a) puts it, Just as when the Torah was
given, it was with reverence and fear and trembling and quaking, so must in be
when studying it now, as well. The second connection takes the form of, “Just
as I teach you for free, so too you also shall teach for free”. Figuratively
speaking, Hashem is making that statement to Moshe, telling him that just as
when Hashem taught Moshe the Torah, there was no quid pro quo, so also,
when Moshe teaches the Torah to Yisroel, he may not take any form of payment.
The basis for the first bridge is the juxtaposition of the verses, “And you shall impart
them to your children and your children’s children” (Devarim 4:9) which
speaks of present-tense Torah study, and the following verse, “The day that you
stood before Hashem, your G-d at Chorev”, which is a reference to the giving of
the Torah at Sinai. Based on that bridge the Gemara declares, “Just as there
it was with reverence and fear and trembling
and quaking, so in this case too it must be with reverence and fear and trembling and quaking.
The basis for the second bridge is the verse (Devarim
4:5), “Behold, I have taught you statutes and laws, as Hashem my G-d commanded
me”, on which the Gemara declares, “Just as I teach you for free, so too
you also shall teach for free”. In this verse Moshe is telling Yisroel that he
is teaching them Torah in the same no-cost manner that Hashem taught it to him.
The practical outcome of the halacha that emerges from
the first bridge is that one may not study Torah when not in a state of “reverence
and fear and trembling and quaking”. This is the basis for tevilas Ezra (Ezra
decreed, on the basis of the first bridge, that a baal keri may not
learn Torah until he purifies himself by immersion in a mikva). But it
is worth asking why the second bridge is necessary at all. Why does the first
bridge not suffice, to derive the prohibition against receiving payment for
teaching Torah, as well, since any number of specifics can be transferred from
one topic to another using a hekesh? It would teach us that just as the giving
of the Torah was without pay, so too should the teaching of Torah today be
without pay! Why is a separate bridge necessary to teach us this halacha?
Section 3 – The Justification for the Second
Bridge
The key to answering this question lies in the words of
Rav Yosi (Brachos 22a), who says that tevilas Ezra is not
required when one is reviewing superficially, which Rashi explains to mean
that he is reviewing Mishnayos that roll off his tongue as a result of his
familiarity with them – with rigilus. Thus we see that the first bridge
is limited-application because it does not preclude review by rote Torah study.
However it is obvious that the distinction between superficial and non-superficial
Torah does not apply with respect to teaching Torah for payment, because the prohibition
against taking payment applies to other mitzvos, not just to teaching
Torah. Since accepting payment is a blanket prohibition that spans all mitzvos
it would not make sense to differentiate between different forms of the mitzva
of Torah study. Therefore, we require the second bridge to derive the payment
prohibition: “Just as I teach you for free, so too you also shall teach for
free”. Since any imperative derived from the first bridge will be limited to
non-rote situations, we must find another source for the payment prohibition
that does not carry along with it that limitation.
Section 4 – The Significance of Torah Study with
Toil
The words of Rav Yosi provide a new perspective on the significance
of ameilus, toil, when studying Torah. What is it that characterizes the
superficial study that is exempt from the requirements imposed by “study it now
just as we got it then”? It is that superficial study is the antithesis of
study with toil. We see, then, that toil when applied to Torah study does not merely
produce a more praiseworthy, or more exalted, form of study, because failure to
achieve what is merely a non-obligatory level of study would not create an exemption
from the requirement of “study it now just as we got it then”.
It is clear that the “reverence and fear and trembling
and quaking” of Sinai pertains only study with toil, and only study with toil
carries the obligation of “study it now just as we got it then”.
Section 5 – Gemara – The Ultimate Level of Torah Study
We are now in a position to better understand the words
of the Rambam cited in section 1 about non-Gemara Torah study
being a preparation for the ultimate goal, the study of Gemara .
The Rambam describes the study of Gemara as
understanding and conceptualizing the ultimate derivation of a concept from its
roots, inferring one concept from another and comparing concepts and
understanding the principles by which laws are derived from the Torah’s verses,
etc. Certainly, the study of Gemara is the natural habitat of an
intellect that toils to get to the essence and the scope of a matter, and
that labors to infer one concept from another.
Rav Yosi’s rigilus terminology is meant to refer
to the bottom rung of Torah study, since that level of study involves the least
amount of ameilus. When the Rambam discussed ameilus in
connection with the study of Gemara he is attempting to put as much
distance as possible between that and rigilus; they are at opposite ends
of the exertion spectrum.
The study of Mishna falls somewhere in the middle
of that spectrum, since it does not rise to the level of Gemara study,
but some elements of Gemara study (such as “understanding and
conceptualizing the ultimate derivation of a concept from its roots, etc.”
which are the elements of the study of Gemara as the Rambam
defines them) will always be present when studying Mishna; when the mind
grapples to understand Mishna it is engaging in a mental activity that is
akin to the study of Gemara.
In the same way, it is impossible to study the Written
Torah without reference to Oral Torah – that is, to Mishna and Gemara
– since the Written Torah is not understandable without external explanation,
and external explanation constitutes Oral Torah, as the Rambam
explicitly states.
Thus both Written Torah and Mishna do qualify as “training
grounds” for the study of Gemara.
Now, the Torah was given at Sinai in a state of “reverence
and fear and trembling and quaking”, as we discussed in section 2, and the epitome
of that state can only be reached post-Sinai through the study of Gemara with
ameilus, which takes us as far as possible from the level of rigilus
– for which “reverence and fear and trembling and quaking” are irrelevant. This
is the basis for the Rambam’s conclusion that the other realms of Torah
study serve as preliminaries for the study of Gemara and therefore their place
is the early stages of a person’s study.
Section 6 – The Significant Absence
The question we must now address is, “Why?”. Why is the quality
of ameilus when studying Torah so significant that its absence permits Torah
study even in circumstances when Torah study is ordinarily prohibited? Clearly,
the absence of the quality of ameilus creates a fundamental change in the
nature of Torah studied in that state. Why does not the absence of ameilus
create a similar fundamental change in other mitzvos, when they are
performed without ameilus?
Section 7 – The Priceless Intellect
Our journey to discovering the answer to this question begins
with the well-known halacha that if someone sells medicinal herbs to a
sick person for more than market value, the buyer must pay no more than market
value. If, on the other hand, a doctor sets a high price for his services, the
buyer must pay the full price quoted. The Shulchan Aruch in Yoreh Daiya
336 explains that the rationale for this distinction is that the doctor is
selling his sagacity, which has no set market value.
We explained elsewhere that the reason that wisdom, in
general, has no set value is because each learned person’s wisdom is unique,
and since it is unique there are no like items that it can be lumped together
with to arrive at consensus value. Only when items are similar enough to fit
together in a single category can the market establish a value for those items.
Each person’s wisdom is unique, however, and is therefore not susceptible to having
a “standard” price assigned to it. In other words, commodities have market
values because the prices charged by individual sellers will tend to converge
toward a narrow range. Sellers that charge more than the going rate will have a
hard time finding buyers. Sellers that charge considerably less will arouse the
suspicion that their product is of inferior quality. Most stores will sell an
apple for about the same price, for example. But the owner of a rare and unique
diamond can set his own price because there is no diamond similar enough to
his, to assess whether his is over or underpriced.
Thus only when it comes to wisdom may the seller set his
own price, and must the buyer pay that price. If a tradesman were to attempt to
set a high price for his services, however, his customer would not be obligated
to pay any more than market value for those services.
Now, it might be argued that since every one of man’s
capabilities is unique to him alone, and the fruit of Reuven’s labors will of
necessity be different from those of Shimon’s, why should not even the common
tradesman be able to set and collect a high price for his services? Why should
their unique capabilities be treated any differently from wisdom?
This is not a valid argument, however, because wisdom is
fundamentally different from man’s other capabilities. Wisdom is what separates
man from other life forms, and thus wisdom is the “true-man”, within “man-as-a-composite-of-his-various-capabilities”.
In fact, wisdom is to man’s other capabilities, what mankind itself is, to the
animal kingdom, within which there is no individuality. (The Torah uses the
word, l’mino, “after its species” when speaking of animals. See, for
example, Vayikra 11:15. As our early Sages put it, only with respect to
man is there a concept of individuality. Men are provided divine sustenance as individuals,
not in the composite, as a breed.)
The bottom line is that although a person may have multiple
capabilities that theoretically differ from the parallel capabilities of his
fellows, it is only with respect to the intellect that the differences in the
capabilities between one person and another have any practical significance –
to the extent that there is no set market value to a person’s wisdom. Man’s
other capabilities may be individual to him, but they are not fundamentally
different from the capabilities of other species, and therefore they are not
significant enough for the variations between the capabilities of one person and
another to have a financial value.
Section 8 – The Inventive
Power of the Intellect
Individuality is ingrained in the intellect as a trait,
and that means that in its very essence the intellect is an innovator. If it were
not the case that every intellect, by virtue of its nature, carves out its own innovative
path, it could not possess the trait of individuality. One intellect would be a
cookie-cutter image of another intellect.
Intellectual individuality is only possible because each
intellect creates something unique, something that no other intellect could
have come up with. Thus the unique identity of an intellect is formed by its
originative power. That is the meaning of the phrase (Chagigah 3a), “there
is no Bais Medrash session without innovation”. The Bais Medrash
is where the intellect shines most brightly; where its true nature comes to the
fore. The statement that “there is no Bais Medrash session without
innovation” is thus a statement that innovation is the hallmark of the
intellect; more, that it is impossible for an active intellect not to be
innovative.
The intellect exists to create; its toil is entirely dedicated
to originating something that did not exist before. When the intellect contemplates
a matter, it is laboring to discover a fresh outlook on that matter. Before the
contemplation the matter appeared one way. Afterwards it appears in an entirely
different light. This change in outlook is what we mean when we speak of the
intellect’s creative power. We call the intellectual process of focusing on a
matter to see it in a more clarified way “ameilus of the intellect”. Thus,
to speak of the intellect divorced from ameilus is akin to speaking of the
fatherhood of someone who is sterile – an impossible contradiction in terms.
When the intellect’s immersion in Torah leads to a fresh understanding
of a Torah matter – that is ameilus in Torah. We refer to Torah study with
this kind of ameilus as “Gemara-level study”.
We are now prepared to understand why the absence of ameilus
creates a fundamental change with respect to the study of Torah, but does not create
a similar fundamental change with respect to other mitzvos.
The study of Torah is an intellect-bound mitzva and
as such it is primarily an act of innovation, and that innovation is achieved,
as we have discussed, through ameilus. Ameilus, then, has the
power to uplift Torah study to Gemara-level heights, the optimum level
of Torah study, and to purge it from the superficiality of rigilus,
which stands at the opposite end of the spectrum from Gemara study – so much
so, that Ezra’s decree prohibiting Torah study when in a certain state does not
even include rigilus-level study.
All this is true, however, only of Torah study, which is accomplished
through the intellect. However, ameilus is not critical to other paths
of service to Hashem, which are not necessarily tied to the intellect and
therefore do not rise and fall on the basis of innovation. For those paths ameilus
is beneficial and praiseworthy but it is not indispensable. The presence or absence
of ameilus does not draw a firm line of demarcation between two distinct
categories of that particular form of service, as it does for Torah study,
where the categories are Gemara on the one hand, rigilus, on the
other.
Section 9 – The Unique Association of Ameilus with
Torah Study
With the concepts developed in this Maamar we can
understand the words of the Maharal at the beginning of parshas Bechukosai.
On the verse (Vayikra 26:3), “If you travel the path of My statutes…” Rashi
comments, “what is the meaning of ‘If you travel the path of My statutes’? It
means that you must toil in the study of Torah”. The Maharal explains that Rashi
derives this interpretation from the verse’s choice of words, “if you travel…”;
just as traveling a path transports a person from one place to another, so too
does ameilus, toiling in Torah, transport a person from echelon to ever-rising
echelon in his journey to increase the depth of his Torah understanding. The
word tailaichu, literally means to travel a path; the simple
understanding of its usage here is that it is merely a metaphorical way of
saying, “If you follow My statutes” but the Maharal understood that Rashi
derived his interpretation, “you must toil in the study of Torah”, from this
precise choice of words.
However, this explanation of the Maharal is puzzling. After
all, toil in any avenue of service to Hashem also transports a person from
echelon to higher echelon. Why does Rashi conclude, according to the
Maharal, that this stepwise elevation must be a specific reference to ameilus
in the study of Torah?
The answer lies in what we have been saying. It is only
with respect to Torah study that ameilus creates an entirely different
category of the mitzva, for ameilus takes Torah study out of the category
of rigilus and catapults it into the category of Gemara. As the Rambam
writes, Gemara is to the other areas of Torah, as an end is, to a means
toward that end. With respect to other areas of service to Hashem, ameilus
creates an enhanced form of service but it does not create a different category
of service. It does not transport a person to a distinctly different place. And
because the Torah uses language indicating that kind of transport, Rashi
infers, explains the Maharal, that “If you travel the path of My statutes…” is
a specific reference to Torah study.
This article is dedicated in honor of my three
grandsons for whom this is the year of hascholoas ha’gemara: To Efraim Willner
and his classmates at Yeshivas Toras Aharon, Lakewood; to Efraim Meir Willner
and his classmates at Yeshivas Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin, Brooklyn; and to Shmuel
Wulliger and his classmates at Yeshiva Tiferes Torah, Lakewood. May you all
shteig in your learning and grow to become great talmidei chachamim!
An adaptation into English of the full text of Pachad
Yitzchok, Shavuous Maamar 17 can be obtained from the author at
eli@eliwillner.com.
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