[Avodah] More on Mitzvos and Iyun

[T613K at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/4/2007 9:38:27 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
avodah-request at lists.aishdas.org writes:

> RMB  wrote:
> >> Lomdus is Torah lishmah,
> knowledge for the  sake of knowing Retzon haBorei.  It has no visible 
> impact on the  middos ....<<
 
I wrote: >>


>> I think this is a subtle denigration of talmidei  chachamim in general 
-- saying that their midos are no better than  anyone else's and that 
earning Torah doesn't improve their  midos.   <<
 
RDE then wrote:


>>RMB's comments are obviously true to anyone who 
has  spent time in yeshiva. I am surprised that Rav Bulman's daughter 
never  heard her father make identical statements. <<
 
>>>>>
When RMB said that Torah learning "has no visible impact on the  middos" I 
thought he was referring to Torah leaders, poskim, rabbanim, roshei  yeshiva and 
'gedolim.'  I thought he was making a subtly denigrating  comment about those 
known collectively as "the gedolim" which is why I responded  negatively.
 
If he was saying that the average yeshiva bochur is not necessarily a  
paragon of midos then he is correct.  And it is true that my father  bemoaned the 
lack of midos of too many yeshiva guys.
 
But we could then quibble about whether a person who does not let the Torah  
"get under his skin" and transform him is /really/ learning Torah lishma?  
 
Or to put it the other way, is it /really/ possible that a person could  
learn Torah day and night truly lishma -- not for a rich father in law, not  for 
esteem and kovod, but just lishma -- and his midos would be  unaffected?!  
 
If he remains a coarse and rough fellow after spending days and years in  
yeshiva I would truly question whether he was learning Torah at all, let alone  
"lishma."  I do believe that the Torah itself does contain within it  the tools 
to transform and refine character, and would look askance  at someone who 
would say that a person who spent ten years studying  advanced secular subjects 
and a person who spent ten years studying Torah would,  on the average, be 
indistinguishable from each other at the end of that  time.


--Toby  Katz
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