[Avodah] Torah Study vs. other contributions to society

[Chana Luntz]

> On Thu, April 19, 2007 5:38 pm, R Doron Beckerman wrote:
> : Let us take a hypothetical of an 18 year old of average-ish
> : intelligence who seriously learns Torah B'Taharah, decent Hasmadah,
> : with no Parnassah concerns, and with no aspirations of 
> becoming a Rabbi.
> 
> : This person could be a great medic if he would train, but 
> he does not : want to give up the time needed for that course because
he wants to
> : continue learning for  the foreseeable future.
> ...
> : By age 40 or so, he'll be a Baki in a good few Massechtos, and he'll
> : have a good knowledge of Halachah, but he has no Rabbinical 
> skills. There are people aged 25 in Yeshivos who know far more than he
does.
> 
> : Has this person fulfilled his mission in life from a TuM 
> perspective?
> 
> I think the only problem from a TuM perspective is that he 
> had no justification for defying the Rambam's ban on living 
> off one's learning.
> 

I don't think you are right here - that is a Torah u'parnessa
perspective, not a TUM perspective.

Rather it is a disagreement about the nature of people and their
purpose.

Look, let me give an extreme example.  My computer is (at least when
attached to the Bar Ilan CD) Baki in all of Shas, Rishonim, Achronim,
teshuvas, what have you - at least if you know how to ask the right
questions.  But "knowing" Shas/Rishonim/Achronim in the fashion of my
computer does not fulfil a person's mission in life.  There needs to be
more than that.  Torah and mitzvos needs to be integrated into a
person's life.  One clear way of doing this  is if a person is going on
to be a Rav, he will be applying the Torah he has learnt to assist
others (and that requires developing his understanding).  Same is true
if he goes on to be a Rosh Yeshiva or teacher.  But if he sits in his
ivory tower of a yeshiva and learns b'Hasmada, how ultimately does he
differ from my computer (except that my computer does it better)?  The
answer that I think everybody would give is that it is not just having a
photographic memory that is important, but it is that something extra
that human beings are capable of adding called understanding that can,
if done properly, make this learning valuable.  Now, and this is where
TUM differs, a TUM perspective believes that this thing called
understanding is better achieved by interacting with the world at large,
and not just with Torah only.  It is closely linked to the confrontation
idea that you were articulating in a previous post.  While I tend to
agree that it cannot be  clearly seen from RYBS's article with that
title, it is a pervasive idea within the TUM world.  That is, people are
required not just to be like computers, but to develop an understanding
of the world and their place in it, through the lens of Torah, and that
to do that, they need to interact with the outside world and its ideas
and realities.  One way of doing that is work in practice in the real
world, and nothing is more real than working as a doctor.  Another way,
if one's skills do not lie in that area (to be a good medic one needs
all sorts of skills, a steady hand to be a surgeon etc that a particular
person may not have) but they do lie in the mind, is to study and
compare and contrast other forms of learning (philosophy, science,
history, geography) in order to gain a clearer understanding of Torah
that is not just a form of computer regurgitation.  From a TUM
perspective, the same level of understanding just cannot be achieved by
remaining in an ivory tower yeshiva setting for one's entire life, and
hence by doing so this fellow has just not fulfilled his mission in
life, which is to develop his understanding to the utmost extent
possible, no matter how hard he works at learning b'hasmadah and how
many mesechtos he is Baki in.

Regards 

Chana