<html><head><title>[Aspaqlaria] Torah Lishmah and Nefesh haChaim</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.aishdas.org/asp/wp-content/themes/twentyeleven/style.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /></head><body>Aspaqlaria has posted a new item, '<a href="http://www.aishdas.org/asp/torah-lishmah-and-nefesh-hachaim">Torah Lishmah and Nefesh haChaim</a>'<br />
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<div id="attachment_4257" style="width: 179px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=34182&pgnum=1"><img class=" wp-image-4257" src="http://i2.wp.com/www.aishdas.org/asp/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/237_171.jpg?resize=169%2C230" alt="Nefesh haChaim, 1st edition" data-recalc-dims="1" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Nefesh haChaim<br />Cover Page, First Edition</p></div>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Nefesh haChaim is a collection of Rav Chaim Volozhiner organized posthumously by his son and successor, R’ Yitzchak. We can see this in the self-description in the title page of the early editions of the Nefesh haChaim which opens, “<em>Yir’as Hashem </em>– for Life! Notebooks of holy writings of the true genius who was famous for his Torah and righteousness, and whose deeds proclaim before him.” The choice of title of the book “Nefesh haChaim” is explained that it is “based on the quote in the Jerusalem [Talmud], Sheqalim pg 6 [<a href="http://www.mechon-mamre.org/b/r/r2502.htm" target="_blank">2:1, vilna ed. 10b</a>], ‘Rabbi Shim’on ben Gamliel repeated: we do not make monuments for the righteous, for their words are their memorials.’ And the memory of the righteous is a blessing.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Being that it’s a compilation of multiple texts, Nefesh haChaim can be a challenge to combine into a single picture of how Rav Chaim believed we are to serve Hashem.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The first section of Nefesh haChaim speaks of the nature of the soul and man’s role in creation. The second addresses prayer, and it gives people the ability to connect this world back to its Source. Section three is about unity and duality, and how the One G-d is present in creation. All three build on each other — man’s power to connect creation to its sacred Source inheres in how Rav Chaim Volozhiner describes the structure of the soul, and this connection is making explicit the Presence which is latently within creation. Then there are some chapters that about the <em>yeitzer hara</em> and its strategies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But the <em>yeshivos</em> focus — in fact, most exclusively learn only — section four. There he discusses the special nature of Torah, its work on the soul, and how Torah study is central to the task of self-refinement. Obviously for those of the Yeshiva Movement, this is going to be the central piece to their worldview.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If we take Nefesh haChaim sec. IV on its own, it champions the idea that “Torah lishmah — Torah for its [own] sake” means that that learning is supposed to be an end in itself. But before R’ Chaim, this was FAR from consensus. A simple reading of either Talmud (TY Shabbos 1:2, vilna 7b, TB <a href="http://e-daf.com/index.asp?ID=3808&size=1">Sanhedrin 99b</a>) would conclude that <em>Torah lishmah</em> is learning in order to know how to observe, how to decide future questions, or to teach. And assuming the <em>amoraim</em> aren’t really arguing, any of these three motives is “<em>lishmah</em>”. The Yerushalmi goes as far as to say “One who learns but not in order to do, would have been pleasanter that his umbilical cord would have prolapsed in front of his face [and he never came into the world].” The Meshekh Chokhmah (<a href="http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0528.htm#61">Devarim 28:61</a>) explains that
this is because it the goal were to get Torah into the soul, full stop, then that is more easily accomplished before birth, as an intellect unencumbered by a body. (I translated this comment in the Meshekh Chokhmah: <a title="Aspaqlaria: Torah and Sefer Torah" href="http://www.aishdas.org/asp/torah-sefer-torah" target="_blank">part I</a>, <a title="Aspaqlaria: Learning and Teaching, part I" href="http://www.aishdas.org/asp/learning-and-teaching-1" target="_blank">part II</a> [where this point is made], <a title="Aspaqlaria: Learning and Teaching, part II" href="http://www.aishdas.org/asp/learning-and-teaching-2" target="_blank">part III</a>.)</p>
<p>Looking at the text as a whole, it is left for us to wonder how sec. IV relates to the first three sections and the “chapters” after section III. Or are they the prelude to IV? In another blog post (“<a title="Aspaqlaria: The Mussar Dispute" href="http://www.aishdas.org/asp/mussar-dispute" target="_blank">The Mussar Dispute</a>“), I suggested that we might understand a split in Lithuanian movements as being about this point, and how to understand R’ Chaim Volozhiner’s worldview in general. Rav Chaim’s student, R’ Zundel Salanter, taught a young Yisrael Lipkin that the central goal is <em>yir’as Shamayim</em>, which can only be acquired though Mussar study. Which led to Rav Yisrael founding the Mussar Movement. In a sense the origins of the Mussar Movement run through the first words on the title page of Nefesh haChaim. Clearly a mussarist must see a different relationship between the ideas in each section.</p>
<p>Arguably, much lies in how we understand the post-section III chapters. They open:</p>
<blockquote><p>Pleasant reader! Here I have guided you with God’s help in the paths of truth, in order to show you the way to go assuredly, so that you may train yourself bit by bit by order of the aforementioned levels… You will see for yourself that the more you habituate yourself to each of these levels, your heart will increase in purity. … I also would like to discuss, in writing, the greatness of the obligation of Torah study…</p></blockquote>
<p>In my earlier treatment, I showed how taking this as an introduction to the fourth section would lead to the Yeshiva Movement’s philosophy, whereas if they are a closing to the first three section, we see that actions other than learning to develop <em>yir’as Shamayim</em> are central, as per the Mussar Movement.</p>
<p>But this time I want to head in a slightly different direction. If we take sec IV as the thesis, and I – III as prelude, then Rav Chaim Volozhiner’s understanding of <em>Torah lishmah</em> is explicit, but unique — as we saw earlier, a break from the straight-forward read of the <em>gemaros</em>. But what does <em>Torah lishmah</em> mean if we take a more integrated approach?</p>
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