Torah Lishmah -- New Course by VBM

I have written about "Torah Lishmah" (Torah study for its own sake) in other posts. It is a concept that I really love.

Starting today, the Virtual Beit Midrash is offering a class entitled, "Torah Lishmah - A New Horizon" by Rav Elyakim Krumbein -- http://vbm-torah.org/archive/lishmah/01lishmah.htm

I really look forward to it and cannot recommend it enough. In the course Rav Krumbein will be dealing with one of my favorite Orthodox works of commentary -- Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm’s work, Torah Lishmah: Torah for Torah’s Sake in the Works of Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin and his Contemporaries.

In the opening shiur Rav Krumbein quotes Rav Shagar z”l, "One who is not prepared to be part of that tradition and thinks he can begin the Torah by himself, one who is not prepared to reach that intimacy with the world of Torah and with Judaism, one who wants to be an individualist and remain alienated, and study like a 'maskil' – he will never be a ben Torah."

In the footnote to this quote, Rav Krumbein writes, "These words were written by a man who is regarded as a most original thinker and lamdan, despite the tension that he faced between creativity and fealty to tradition, as mentioned in that book." This description makes me want to learn more about Rav Shagar.

What I find interesting is that in David Brooks' Op-Ed column in the New York Times today, entitled, "What Life Asks of Us" he wrote, "In this way of living [living within institutions], to borrow an old phrase, we are not defined by what we ask of life. We are defined by what life asks of us." He goes on to describe how the push toward individualism has degraded and devalued this approach.

For me the words from Rav Shagar and David Brooks resonate together and challenge me to listen.

Saying "Yes" to life

While I regularly fight my decision to spend time studying the Talmud. because there are times that I question why I should focus on something so particular, so specific, so Jewish?

Listening to my teachers, Rav Michael Rosensweig and Rav Shlomo Singer, I have a profound respect for who they are and how they conduct their shiurim, however, their focus is entirely on the Jewish community.

Whether it is Rav Singer tirelessly learning Succah with those in his yeshiva or Rav Rosensweig using the Brisker Derech to create innovative interpretations (chiddushiim), I do not fit into their audience, nor do all the problems and struggles of those outside the Jewish community.

But . . . when I listen carefully; when I listen between the words, I can hear a profound "Yes" being shouted and lived by each man:

• a "Yes" to Hashem,
• a "Yes" to Torah lishmah (studying Torah for its own sake),
• a "Yes" to a "maximal religious aspiration" as Rav Rosensweig likes to describe the halachic challenge that the Torah presents,

which together create for me a strong and deep, "Yes" to life and all that life offers -- good and bad.

Importance of Time

Another recent shiur from Rav Michael Rosensweig entitled, "The Importance of Time," looks at Mishna 4 and 5 in chapter two of the Pirke Avos:

4.He used to say: Make His will like your will, so that He will make your will like His will. Negate your will before His will, so that He should negate the will of others before your will.

5.Hillel said: Do not separate yourself from the community. Do not believe in yourself until the day of your death. Do not judge your another until you are in his place. Do not say something that is cannot be understood, assuming that in the end it will be understood. Do not say "When I have free time I will learn," for perhaps you will never have free time. (translation from Rav Lau on Pirkei Avos)

These lines, of course, begin with the one of the most fundamental and demanding religious challenges, "Make His will like your will," and then ends with a statement about the importance of using our time well, using our time to learn, to study, which of course, represents within the tradition the highest level of honoring and loving Hashem.

In the shiur Rav Rosensweig talks about the risk and wastefulness of procrastination, which I had to smile about, because my wife, Eve, is someone who truly cannot procrastinate and just doesn't understand putting something off. This drive to get things done sometimes drives me a bit crazy, but Rav Rosensweig's words have helped me appreciate how Eve is trulz honoring time by her actions.

What I also get from Rav Rosensweig within this shiur and in his general approach to talmid Torah that sees learning, "as constituting the vehicle for dialogue and encounter with devar haShem—an intrinsically significant spiritual process and religious experience," [1] is that he helps me appreciate the time I have to study and to see it as something profoundly valuable and meaningful.

We live a world, a time, that seems to only value activity and movement. In which, if one isn't busy with work or a hobby or a sport, then one is not using one's time well. This view of accomplishment would not judge my listening and studying of the Talmud very highly. In fact, at times I struggle with its "usefulness" as well. But when I listen to a shiur like this, I am reminded of the intrinsic value of Torah lishmah (studying Torah for its own sake) and challenge myself to truly embrace this reality.

[1] ELU VA-ELU DIVRE ELOKIM HAYYIM: HALAKHIC PLURALISM AND THEORIES OF CONTROVERSY

Each of our actions is important

The other day I was reading one of Rabbi Gil Student's posts on his terrific blog -- Hirhurim Musings. It is about the halacha regarding brushing one's teeth on Shabbat, which was an issue raised when his young son had a friend spend the night on Shabbat. I will let you read it, but I have to admit that while I was reading all the detail that R' Student went into about the prohibition of causing bleeding and squeezing on Shabbat, I could not help but think "Unbelievable, this is legalism at its worst!"

BUT the next day as I was listening to a lecture by Hubert Dreyfus on Martin Heidegger's Being and Time, professor Dreyfus was describing sense of the worldhood of the world, but the important thing for this post, is that professor Dreyfus in discussing one of Heidegger's points (I can't even remember the exact point at this time), made the distinction that for the discussion Heidegger was really focusing only on the "important" types of actions that we perform (such as teaching or being a parent -- something that defines us), and not unimportant actions like washing our hands, etc.

On hearing him say this I couldn't help but think about how hard R' Student had worked to describe the issue of brushing one's teeth on Shabbat! Now that is an unimportant issue (except of course for the health of your teeth -- though one day probably doesn't hurt one's dental hygiene much), if I ever heard of one. However, instead of treating in as unimportant the halachic tradition took it very seriously and put much energy into understanding what Chazel and the tradition said on the topic.

A bit later in the day I was listening to Rav Soloveitchik's shiur "Al Hanisim Chanuka" from Boston 1971, which can be found on the http://www.bcbm.org/ website. In it Rav Soloveitchik discusses the dialectic between the importance of the individual and the community within Judaism and while I have yet to finish the shiur and probably couldn't summarize it, even if I did, the one message that came through clearly on it and through much of the other works I have listened to and read from the Rav, was how much and how deeply valued the individual is within the halacha.

The final piece of this puzzle, which brings together many strains of thought I have recently had, comes from Rav Michael Rosensweig's recently posted shiurim on the Pirkei Avos. In the first few shiurim Rav Rosensweig is discussing the first mishnah in the second parek, which reads:

Rebbe said: Which is the straight path that a person should choose for himself?

Whatever is honorable for him and gains him people's respect. Be as careful in performing a slight mitzvah as a weighty mitzvah--because you do not know the reward for mitzvos. Consider the loss caused by a mitzvah in contrast to its reward, and the gain of a sin in contrast to its loss.

Contemplate three things, and you will not come to sin. Know what is above you: An eye that sees, an ear that hears, and all of your actions are written in a book. (translation from Rav Lau on Pirkei Avos from Artscroll)

Again, there is no way for me to try to capture what Rav Rosensweig says, but at the heart of it seems to me the message that while there may truly be a hierarchy within the mitzvot, it is most important for a person to treat each mitzva with the same level of honor and respect. Or as Rav Rosensweig might say, even though I don't think he does in shiurim, a person should treat each mitzva with a "maximalist" level of love, respect and thoroughness.

While this mishnah in Pirkei Avos brings to mind images of God as a strict taskmaster watching and judging every one of our actions, on the other hand it also depicts Hashem as a listening and guarding parent who pays close attention to us and is fundamentally and profoundly concerned about our welfare.

In closing while I am sure that the Orthodox focus on strict interpretation of all mitzvot may at times be used as more of a badge of who is the most frum (most observant), what I do appreciate is that with all that R' Student writes about brushing (and there is a second part to come) at the end of the day, the two boys had different practices (one brushed and the other didn't)! For all the scrupulousness of the halacha this recognition that in some situations there can be differences and that one should respect the tradition that one is raised up in, seems to be an important, if not essential, counter weight to a overly legalistic view of the world.

For myself what I find most inspiring is that sense of importance that this discussion gives to my actions. While the world may be interested in the day-to-day activities of celebrities, politicians or reality show contestants, the message from the halacha seems to be "Everyone of us is important and essential, and each of our actions shapes us and our future and has seemingly infinite depth and significance."

This is a message that I think many, many people need these days. Since today it is easy to feel unimportant, to feel like a number or to define one's value only in what we consume. When I combine this vision regarding our actions with the importance of study, of Torah lishmah (studying Torah for its own sake), it helps see my life with a sense of depth and meaning that is difficult create on one's own within the often time's far too shallow, superficial and fast-paced world in which we live.

In closing, I am grateful to the Orthodox Jewish tradition for providing such an enormous array of online material and beautiful books in translation, like Artscroll's Schottenstein Babylonian Talmud, to help one become engaged in a conversation that began thousands of years ago and will continue for thousands of years in the future . . . What could be more important and exciting than that?