Why do Jews spend time immersed in Torah and, in particular, why do I? Is it really Torah lishmah (study for its own sake), or is there always an agenda of some kind?
Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin thought that if the world were ever devoid of Torah study for even a moment, the entire world would collapse. So the yeshivot of the mitnagdim made sure that, around the clock, there was always at least one hevruta study pair alert and hard at work in the beit midrash, study hall. I wonder how the pressure of keeping the universe intact changes the nature of their Torah study. Is that an ulterior motive? Is it still Torah lishmah?
Taking personally what God says to Cain about sin, “Its lust is toward you, but you can have power over it” (Genesis 4:6), two of our sages interpret Torah study to be the tool that allows you to resist the seductive power of the yetzer hara (evil inclination). [1] Rabbi Hanina bar Pappa says you can use it to push the yetzer (evil inclination) away, but Rabbi Simon thinks it works a little differently: Your words of Torah will delight the yetzer, will make it so happy that it will stop taunting you. Imagine that: the yetzer hara — the powerful source of human temptation — loves Torah study! You can tame it with a thrilling Talmudic sugya.
In the stringing pearls story, [2] it is the words of Torah themselves that are joyful when you study them, so joyful that they burst into flames. When Ben Azzai was linking up the words of the Torah with one another and then with the words of the Prophets, and the words of the Prophets with the words of the Writings, the words rejoiced as when they were delivered from Sinai, and they were sweet as at their original utterance. If we understand “Torah lishmah” to mean “Torah for its own sake” (not a particularly precise translation), then learning in order to please the words of Torah seems pretty close to the mark.
I admire the work of my colleagues, whose learning uncovers and raises up the ways in which Torah insists that we build a more just, more kind, more welcoming world.
Some people translate “Torah lishmah” more literally, to mean “Torah for its name,” where “name” might refer to the reputation of Torah, its stature in the eyes of others. When I see the work of my colleagues whose learning uncovers and raises up the ways in which Torah insists that we build a more just, more kind, more welcoming world, I understand them to be engaged in this kind of Torah lishmah, even though they may not think of spreading respect for Torah as their first priority. I admire them tremendously. In addition to building such a world, they are raising the stature of Torah in the eyes of others, Jews and non-Jews. This presents a striking contrast with some members of Haredi communities in Israel who use the elevation of their Torah study, in their own eyes at least, to absolve themselves of responsibility for participating in the physical needs of their families and country. They disgrace the name of Torah in the eyes of outsiders, including their fellow Jews and countrymen.
No Goal Other Than Learning
I think the clearest, peshat reading (by which I mean a “contextual,” not a “literal” reading) of “Torah lishmah” is “Torah for its own sake,” where the “it” is Torah study, not the Torah itself. Learning with no goal other than learning. I used to do that all the time; I do it less now.
Back in the day, when I thought I was going to be a professor of classical Chinese language and thought, I loved sitting in the library with big volumes of Confucian texts, surrounded by dictionaries and tomes. Near the top of the pages were the ancient words in beautiful calligraphy; under the line and around the edges were progressively later commentaries in progressively smaller script. I loved trying to decipher the characters and put it all together.
I felt haunted by some sort of weird ancestral yearning to study texts in an ancient language.
But the only other people in that library were researchers. There was no living, bustling practice of people reading those texts and asking how they relate to someone’s life. One of the reasons I left that graduate program is that I realized I wasn’t actually studying those texts lishmah. I was studying them to articulate a foundation for a critique of Western social structures, not because I thought those texts were part of my soul.
The first time I saw a Mikra’ot Gedolot — the Rabbinic Bible with commentators encircling the text in every direction — I felt like the people in the 1977 Spielberg sci-fi movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” In that film, anyone who encounters the relevant UFO is haunted by a particular shape that manifests as a vision, as a sequence of musical notes or as a pile of mashed potatoes. These people are obsessed — compelled to seek out the origin of that shape, which turns out to be a mountain (spoiler, sorry) where everybody gathers and the extraterrestrials show up, and all is resolved.
It’s a lovely and uplifting movie, but my point here is that I felt haunted by some sort of weird ancestral yearning to study texts in an ancient language. Maybe it was some encounter at a mountain that took hold of my soul. I had thought that Classical Chinese texts had a shape like the one I was looking for, but they weren’t the real thing. When I discovered hevruta study in the beit midrash, it felt like I had come home.
Much water has passed under the bridge since then. Like our sages of blessed memory, sometimes I’ve managed to distract my yetzer hara with Torah study. Sometimes, when I’ve seen something wonderful in a text, when I’ve made a new (for me) connection or figured something out, I actually do imagine that the Torah is pleased to be understood in that particular way by this one simple, little mind at this one moment. My studies have not kept the world from collapsing, but maybe they’ve kept me from some kinds of harm.
Learning together is a unique and wonderful path to friendship.
The depth of flow that I have sometimes felt in the beit midrash has been a surprise to me. I’ve never been all that disciplined when I have real work to do; I get up and walk around every five minutes, I invent urgent household chores, I suddenly remember that I have not exercised today, and then I need a snack. But when I would sit in the beit midrash, connecting Torah to Prophets to Writings to midrash to commentaries, I could lose track of time and actually miss lunch!
It’s different now. I’ve moved to the woods of Vermont and, while I brought a healthy collection of holy seforim and other Jewish books, I don’t have a beit midrash. What I have instead is the vast and growing set of electronic resources produced by Jews and Christians. Instead of six or eight overlapping books scattered across a table, I have six or eight open windows and tabs. Instead of breathing in unison with my hevruta, I’m on the phone or on Zoom. Something is lost, and something is gained.
Bursting With the Need to Share
There are a couple of (not-so-hidden) agendas in my learning that make me wonder if it’s really lishmah. The first is one that I need something to teach. Sometimes, the calendar is relentless, and coming up with an appropriate shi’ur requires learning in a way that is decidedly not for its own sake. I know that the reason I ended up in rabbinical school, and the reason I became a teacher at all, is to have a structure within which to learn. But I yearn for the days when my learning could wander, generating deep flow. The problem is that sometimes I get so excited by an epiphany that it hurts, and I need to share it with someone, or I might burst. So I need to write, and I need to teach, and most of all, I need my hevruta partners.
The second agendum is the hevruta relationship itself — learning together is a unique and wonderful path to friendship. I would learn anything to spend quality time with my study partners, some of whom I’ve been in conversation with for 40 years. The goal of maintaining the relationship is even more of a driver that the learning itself.
More than anything, I admire my students, especially those learning biblical Hebrew. Some are young people whose jobs leave them very little extra time. Some are empty-nesters for whom learning a language is no picnic. Many are devoted leaders in Jewish communities. They are in no way using Torah as a spade to dig with. Their Torah is truly lishmah.
[Based on an essay in RRA Connection.]
[1] Bereshit Rabbah 22.6
[2] Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1.10.2
