[Avodah] Torah Study vs. other contributions to society

[Chana Luntz]

RDB writes:
 
> A few points in response.
> 
> 1) The comparison to an idiot savant, even as an extreme 
> example, holds no water at all. Such a person may very well 
> be Pattur from all Mitzvos.
> 
> A normal person who is a Baki who collates material will have 
> Chidushim almost involuntarily. 

...
> 
> This is something that a Baki with barely average 
> intelligence might very well come up with, and he should 
> write it down on Chol HaMoed with no Shaala.
> 
> (The truth it that I think it was the GRA who said this) :)

 So you are agreeing with me - ie "it is that something extra that human
beings are capable of adding called understanding that can, if done
properly, make this learning valuable".  In other words, human beings,
normal human beings, will have chiddushim because that is part and
parcel of understanding, in contrast to the idiot savant, who does not,
and as you say, is probably patur from mitzvos.

On the other hand, the implication also from what you are saying above
is that not all chiddushim are of the same quality.  While a baki with
barely average intelligence may well come up with a chiddush that he
could write down on chol hamoed, the implication from your writing is
that does not mean that we can equate him with the Gra.  If one had a
choice between learning torah from him and from the Gra, one would also,
I presume, have no shaila.  So while all normal human beings produce
chiddushim if they study torah, some produce better chiddushim than
others.  I thought that both of these statements was held relatively
universally.

Now, how we get to the greater levels of understanding, or greater
chiddushim or greater Torah learning or however you want to articulate
it is the question - and it is here that TUM differs from a Torah only
view.  You can certainly disagree with the TUM perspective, what I am
trying to do here though is articulate it in response to the question -
if a person was sitting and learning in yeshiva all day, without any
parnessa worries, would he, from a TUM perspective, be fulfilling his
tafkid in life?  Not from a Torah only perspective, - clearly from a
Torah only perspective he would.  RMB raised the issue of whether one is
permitted to be supported by others - but as I tried to indicate, that
is a totally different question, which could be answered either way by
somebody coming either from a Torah only perspective or from a TUM
perspective.

As indicated, there are also other questions that can be asked.  Such as
if you grant that some levels of chiddushim production are greater than
others, is there a point at which we say that a certain level is
sufficiently small that, if the gain in other ways, such as becoming a
medic and saving lives, is sufficiently large, one should l'chatchila,
and even without parnasa worries, abandon the the sitting in yeshiva and
go and become a medic.  I think everybody would agree that in the case
of the Gra, no way should he go off and be a medic.  But how about Mr
ordinary with his ordinary chiddushim?  

And one might well be more inclined to the view that Mr ordinary should
indeed go off and be a medic if one took a TUM view that what he learns
as a medic can help enhance the understanding and chiddushim that he
then comes up with when being kovea itim than if you took a Torah only
perspective that whatever he learns in training to be a doctor doesn't
really help his torah learning in a significant way.

>  
> 2) ROY is certainly a great scholar. He has integrated his 
> vast knowledge into becoming a fine person, - I appreciated 
> many of his Hashkafic perspectives as put together in a two 
> volume "Halichos Mussar" which I found valuable for its 
> application to day to day life issues. (This is not an 
> invitation for dredging up quotes etc.) 

You haven't been around here long enough, otherwise you would know that
I am a big fan of ROY (probably, to be honest, the person who quotes him
most frequently on this list).  And, while this post is going to be long
enough, too long for me to go into it, I fundamentally disagreed with
the final paragraphs of R Marc Shapiro's review of the biography of ROY
precisely because he suggested that ROY is not fundamentally mechadesh,
whereas I think that he is, just in a different (and more subtle) way
from your Rav Moshe or similar Litvishe posek.  But the point still
remains *if it were true that ROY was merely an encyclopedic reference
point, and was not in fact being mechadesh, then one would rate him as a
lesser scholar than someone capable of being mechadesh*.  I disagreed
with the assessment because I don't think it is true, not because the
underlying premise is flawed.

> 
> 3) I'm very confused about the conflation between getting 
> secular knowledge and a priori that means that one is out of 
> the ivory tower, in terms of the GRA. There are many great 
> professors who have great knowledge in of the secular who are 
> wholly detached from society. 


Sorry, I think I confused you and everybody by using the term "ivory
tower" which is probably in this context not helpful.  TUM started out
being about getting secular knowledge a priori - but part of its
reasoning and justification for the value in doing this has to do with
this being the knowledge of the non Jewish world in which we find
ourselves.  Secular knowledge of say, an extinct civilisation (such as
some of the south american ones) is probably less highly regarded that
knowledge generated by and of the society in which Hashem has placed us
(on the assumption that he has placed us here for a reason, nad not in a
different kind of society with a different kind of knowledge base).

> 
> 4) The Chazon Ish actually did read significant medical 
> journals according to R' Gedaliah Nadel.... 

OK so then he did explore secular knowledge (something a TUM perspective
would applaud).  He was cited here as being the classic case of somebody
who did not explore secular knowledge and kept completely within a Torah
only perspective, finding everything out from within the gemora,
rishonim, achronim etc.  I am not knowledgeable enough in the knowledge
of the Chazon Ish to tell you one way or the other.  The case we have
been discussing here recently concerned his position on electricity, and
the view expressed (by those much greater than I) that the Chazon Ish
did not understand how electricity worked.  Again the implication being
that if he had understood electricity, either he would not have held as
he did, or, alternatively he would have had a much better chance of
pursuading others that his view was correct.

> 
> 5) I think your comments on TuM enhancing understanding that 
> Torah is the Chochmah of the Borei are not in sync with the 
> Torah's Hashkafah. One who stops his learning to say how 
> beautiful a tree is in Mischayev B'Nafsho - and I think this 
> is, as a Mashal, like a master artist who shows his 
> apprentice a painting which, says the artist, is one in which 
> the artist has invested his very essence, asks for his 
> opinion, and the apprentice says "that other painting of 
> yours (which is nice, but not the essence of that artist's 
> soul) is nice." 
> 

Ah, but the TUM perspective is not to say that the other painting is
nice (to work within your moshel).  If the person in question could not
distinguish between the painting into which the master artist had poured
his very essence and the one in which he had not, he would be a lousy
art critic.  Rather, he needs to study both works precisely so he can
appreciate the extent to which the master artist has poured his essence
into the one painting and not the other.  But without any exposure to
the second, it is far harder to truly appreciate the first.  However if
he studies and appreciates all the skill that went into the second, and
then studies the first with that in mind, how much more is he going to
be impressed with the first by contrasting it with the second.

> 6) Understanding Halachah and Bein Adam LaChaveiro 
> interactions as linked to TuM also seems flawed. 
> Experientially, I do not think the case can be made that the 
> greatest Poskim are more involved in TuM than the second 
> tier, or that the biggest Mentches are more involved in TuM 
> than the second tier ones. 
> 

And you just told me that the Chazon Ish read serious medical journals
and had a familiarity with Kant ;-)  Seriously, is that also true on the
second tier level?  Regarding menchlichkeit, I tend to agree that an
intellectual TUM perspective (ie knowledge of physics and philosophy and
what have you) does not particularly generate Menschen.  We have been,
however, discussing on areivim how endless time in yeshiva also does not
seem to necessarily generate menschen.  However, and this is where one
can talk about an extended form of TUM if you like, I would certainly
argue that exposure to human beings in all their frailties and failings
does make for greater menschen.  People with some exposure to the world
of hospitals tend in my view to be better at bikur cholim, as they have
a better idea about what to say and what not to say.  People with some
exposure to the world of death and dying are better at being menachem
avel, no question in my mind.  People with disabled children are as a
rule better at providing support to somebody who has suddenly been faced
with this kind of tragedy, what can I say.  These skills are learnt, and
generally learnt from experience.  And the more experience you have the
better you are at them.  People can have the kindest hearts but they can
say the cruelest things in ben adam l'chavero situations because they
just don't have a clue how to handle it.  Some people are unquestionably
more natural at it than others, but the idea that sitting in a yeshiva
and becoming baki in several masechtos is the most direct way to achieve
skills in this area seems the part that is demonstratably flawed to me. 

> 8) Quantity vs. quality. There is no doubt that the quantity 
> of Torah will exponentially enhance its quality, perhaps even 
> more than the Madda.  L'Olam Ligras Inish V'Hadar Lisbar. 

That is the essence of the debate, how to enhance the quality of the
Torah and of the individual. With Mada, without Mada (ie the debate we
have been discussing), with sleep, without sleep (that too is a debate,
is it better to force oneself to stay awake and study even if both life
and the torah flies past in a daze, or should one try and get a good
night's sleep and be refreshed); with chevrusa, without chevrusa
(talking to somebody makes one by definition go slower, and so there is
less quantity, but there is generally thought to be more quality -
although I am not sure the Gra thought so necessarily for himself).
With an educational system set up to cater for the masses, or set up to
cater for the elite. In summary, a TUM perspective is that it should
lchatchila, be with madda (however madda is defined, narrowly or
widely).  A torah only approach is that is should not.  

> 
> All the best,
> 
> Doron

Regards

Chana