[Avodah] Al Menas Laasos

[Micha Berger]

Last Shabbos I saw the following in the Meshekh Chokhmah (daf 202, amudah b;
a/k/a pg 403, top of 2nd column). See
<http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14061&st=&pgnum=396>.

The Y-mi Berakhos says that one interrupts learning to build a sukkah
or set up a lulav.

Rashi (Mes' Sukkah) says that someone going to teach is patur from sukkah
and lulav.

The MC gives a "taam mufla" (his words) -- that learning just to learn is
something he could have done before being born. Learning only has value
if he is learning al menas la'asos. And this is the essence of Moshe's
answer to the mal'akhim at Har Sinai -- "It says 'kabeid es avikha', do
you have parents?" The ability to do a mitzvah, even a hechsher mitzvah,
is the whole justification of being born, and placing that seikhel which
can hold Torah into a body that can act.

However, that's not true for *teaching*. Therefore, the hekhsher to
teach Torah outranks mitzvos maasios even as the hekhsherim for those
very same mitzvos outrank learning.

The contrast to Nefesh haChaim cheleq IV and its ideal of Torah lishmah
appears to me to be drastic.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and
micha at aishdas.org        this was a great wonder. But it is much more
http://www.aishdas.org   wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a
Fax: (270) 514-1507      "mensch"!     -Rav Yisrael Salanter