“RABBI’S MUSINGS (&
AMUSINGS)”
Erev Shabbos Kodesh Parshas
Beshalach/Shabbos Shirah
10 Shevat 5778/January 26,
2018
As I was leaving shul one morning recently, a fellow stopped
me and asked me the following question:
“I’m a BT (Ba’al Teshuva)”, he began, “I learn Gemara, and
it’s quite challenging for me. I know that I’m not going to be a great Torah
scholar, and Gemara is particularly challenging and daunting. I have learned
that Torah study brings a feeling of internal happiness and joy. Indeed, I feel
uplifted and can’t get enough of mitzvos, and I love being a religious Jew.
But, where is the joy in learning Gemara for someone like me? It’s an uphill
battle every day, and I find it very arduous and challenging. I would
appreciate any chizuk you could give me.”
My immediate response was that it was too important a
question for me to give him a flippant answer on my way out of shul. I told him
I wanted to give his question worthy thought and then I would reply to him.
The truth is that it’s a question many of our yeshiva
bochurim grapple with as well. They may know that one day their learning can,
and hopefully will, bring them a surge of joy and internal happiness. They
hopefully see it on the faces of older students and rabbeim – the unique
blissful happiness that Torah study brings.
However, especially when beginning, and trying to decipher a
combination of Aramaic and Hebrew discussions involving precise analysis
of biblical interpretation, that often requires abstract thinking, it can be
extremely challenging. This is all the more true in a world which has a hard
time sustaining attention for more than a three minute, humorous, or incredible
You Tube clip. Where is the joy to be found in the intense struggle? Sure,
anything great requires patience and the ability to delay instant pleasure. But
is there a feeling of happiness and satisfaction that can be felt just from the
mere participation in this challenging, spiritual endeavor?
I believe the answer to the question connects with a more
fundamental question regarding religion itself. If all of Torah Judaism had to
be summarized in one word - all of our constant efforts to improve our
davening, learning, doing chesed, performing mitzvos, keeping halacha, etc. - I
would venture to think that the word is connection!
Our goal is to live a connected life - where we feel
uplifted, through a feeling of connection with Hashem and to our fellow Jews,
via Torah observance.
Imagine if somehow, we were able to meet our
great-great-great grandfather for a few minutes. Our lives couldn’t be more
different. We try to communicate, but the language barrier is the least of it.
He comes from a primitive world without electricity, a life of abject poverty,
subjected to blatantly anti-Semitic laws that confine him to a ghetto, and
render him a second-class citizen at best. His days are filled with difficult
physical labor, and he spends his nights immersed in Torah study.
I, on the other hand, live in a democracy, in relative
affluence and comfort, where if a child doesn’t go to Florida for midwinter he
is deprived. My world’s greatest challenge is its inability to appreciate what
it has, and its struggles with mental health.
What do we have to talk about? He tries to tell me about the
latest decrees against the Jews, and I try telling him about the upcoming Super
Bowl, and whether Brady can pull it off for New England, and if the Yankees
have a shot this year.
But then suddenly after a moment of awkward silence, my
ancestor asks “parsha?” I answer what parsha it is, and he begins rattling off
the words of a Rashi I am familiar with, and am excitedly able to finish
offThen he says, “Gemara?” I reply “Kesubos”. He suddenly smiles and starts
talking about a discussion in the Gemara and Tosafos’ comment. We are at once
literally ‘on the same page’.
Suddenly, despite being generations and worlds apart, we have
found holy common ground, and a point of connection.
That is part of the joy of learning Gemara, or any part of
Torah. No matter what we are learning, when we engage in the study of those
ancient texts, we are connecting to our people traversing time - past and
future. Of course, we are also connecting to our Creator in the most sublime
manner possible as well.
There is undoubtedly joy in accomplishment and achieving
mastery of Torah. But, even learning a few lines on a random page contains the
joy of connection, which is ultimately what all our efforts in Avodas Hashem
should lead us to feel.
When we open a page of Gemara, we are staring at the same
hallowed words that Rav Saadiah Gaon, Rashi, Rambam, Vilna Gaon, Chasam Sofer,
Rav Hirsch, Rav Moshe Feinstein, and Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman learned.
It’s the same words that were, and are, taught in Babylonia,
Persia, Russia, Lithuania, Poland, France, Germany, Australia, Chili, Eretz
Yisroel, New York, and Los Angeles.
That joyous feeling of connection can imbue in a person a
feeling of internal connection, even as he gruelingly tries to decipher the
challenging Aramaic code-like concepts in the gemara. It’s the joy of transcending
time and place, discovering and fostering the greatest feeling of connection
that one can attain.
Shabbat
Shalom & Good Shabbos,
R’ Dani and Chani Staum