[Avodah] More on Mitzvos and Iyun

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, March 28, 2007 5:58 pm, I wrote:
:: The question is what is the point of diminishing returns. Would you not
:: agree that there is some point at which learning Ein Yaakov would be
:: more productive? (As I have noted elsewhere, the question is actually
:: sharper when it comes to bekiyus.)

: Actually, I agree fully WRT beqi'us....

But I never did return to the subject of be'iyun.

First, as I /did/ write:
> But given that you agree that chuqim have a refining effect on the
> individual in ways we can not understand, why can't you accept that your
> collegue believes that be'iyun, the shelish bigemara leshitas haRambam,
> might have such choq elements?

How does knowing a Brisker chaqirah make me a better human being? Not asking
that rhetorically; I really don't know. I am not saying it doesn't, but the
connection between the two is usually on a choq level.

Lomdus is of little practical value, except for the poseiq. And in fact,
Brisker lomdus is not known for producing poseqim; it tends to produce people
who can see every shitah rather than being able to choose one. Rav Chaim
refused to play LOR even when he was the LOR -- he gave the job of pesaq to
Reb Simcha Zelig, Brisk's rosh beis din. (Yes, RYBS did pasqen, but numerous
are the stories of how reluctant he was to impose his will when there was
another rav there; even if it was his own talmid! Did/does any other
Soloveitchik?) Back from the tangent...

Telzher lomdus at least connect the mitzvah to machashavah, allowing for
kavanah. I don't see that in gavra vs cheftzah or qinyan ishus vs qinyan
be'alma.

There is definitely a choq element to the chiyuv of talmud Torah. I therefore
can not assess the value of teaching a weaker student lomdus on his level.

Even though I would prepare him for a life of being a ba'al chessed, not a
lamdan, if he has the zitzfleish he still gets the same reward for being a
masmid as someone gifted investing the effort. Lefum *tza'arah* agra.

And then there's the occasional "miracle". R' Noach Weinberg, in a talk
inaugurating Parners-in-Torah, offered a portrait of R' Eliezer ben Hyrkanus.
As the gemara tells us REBH was already an adult, and didn't know how to
bentsh. It wasn't due to non-frum upbringing, elsewhere Hyrkanus is praised
quite highly. So, RNW concludes, REBH was not a successful student. Perhaps
people who saw him even assumed he wasn't all that bright. Not until he found
the right rebbe, R Yochanan ben Zakkai. There he learns to be "a cistern that
does not leak one drop". He eventually ends up in Beis Shammai, the school
that only took the elite (it is described as smaller and wiser than Beis
Hillel). I am not sure it's mutar to lower expectations; you never know which
one of those "slower track talmidim" may be another REBH!

But to reiterate my primary point and reason for writing this addendum:

Be'iyun is largely choq. I therefore will not try to guess its value for
people who can't master it to the same depth as others. All of us fall short
of its full depth; the difference is a matter of quantity.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter