[Avodah] Torah LiShmah

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 01:08:10AM +1100, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote:
: I do not understand this - I understand that learning Torah Lishmah is only
: about knowing what it says and nothing else

To quote the Mesekh Chokhmah on Devarim 28:16:

    ...
    It was explained in the beginning that a person exists in his
    intellectual soul, like all the lofty people and like the heavenly
    causes. Before he was created, a person was also a seikhel nivdal
    [separated intellect; i.e. a pure intellect with no body, like
    angels; metaphysical] which grasped its Creator. As it says in
    Niddah pg. 30. [The soul] had personal existence and descended into
    the lower world in order to do mitzvos maasios [mitzvos that are
    actions] which require material substance. Like Moshe's answer to
    the angels [when they asked that Hashem leave the Torah with them
    rather than give it to us at Sinai], "Do theft etc... have meaning
    for you?" Therefore they said, "One who learns but not in order to
    do, would have been pleasanter that his umbilical cord would have
    prolapsed in front of his face [and he never came into the world."
    (Yerushalmi ch. "Hayah Qorei" [I found it elsewhere -- Shabbos 1:2,
    vilna 7b -micha]) Because then [before birth] too he was a seikhel
    nivdal who grasped his Creator, may He be blessed. (Qorban Aharon,
    introduction) Similarly if he teaches others then his learning has
    a purpose, which is to preserve the species on a spiritual level.
    Therefore also, the one who learns but not for the sake of teaching
    they thus said, "it would have been pleasanter for him not to have
    been created."

    Even his creation on the physical level, we find in the Torah that
    it is for the intent of his preserving the species on a spiritual
    level. As Hashem (blessed be He) said [of His selection of Abraham],
    "For I know him, that he will teach his children after him..."
    (Bereishis 18:19) Similarly, it says in "Yeish Nochalin" [Bava
    Basra 116a, quoting Yirmiyahu 22:10] "'Weep for the one who
    goes...' Rav Yehudah said that Rav said: the one who goes with no
    male children. Rav Yehoshua ben Levi said: it is one who goes without
    a student." Both preserve the species and to the same effect.

    As it says in chapter "Cheileq" [Sanhedrin 99b, on Iyov 5:7] "Man
    was born to toil" that is the toil of learning in order to teach,
    learning in order to do. For it is only for this that he was born,
    as we explained.

And he uses this idea to justify a nafqa mina lema'aseh:

    With this what I wrote in my novellae on [tractate] Kesuvos can
    be understood that which we find in the Yerushalmi Berakhos [1:2,
    vilna 8a]: Does not Rabbi Shimon bar Yochaiagree that we would stop
    [learning Torah] to make a sukkah or to set up a lulav? [Does not
    Rashbi agree that one must study in order to do, and not to study
    not in order to do, for someone who studies not in order to do is
    better off not having been born?] In [tractate] Sukkah [25a], Rashi
    ["sheluchei mitzvah"] explains that those who are going someplace to
    learn Torah are exempt from sukkah and lulav. I explained there that
    the gemara is speaking of [travelling to] serve a talmid chakham.
    (see there)

    According to this, the reasoning is astounding: If it were about
    learning Torah, isn't that something he could do before being born?
    Thus it is only to do. Therefore for the preparation for a mitzvah,
    such as the building of a sukkah, we also interrupt word of Torah.
    But to teach, even the preparation for [teaching], is dearer than
    fulfilling a mitzvah. For the mitzvah of teaching Torah is greater
    because one can only do the mitzvah via someone else.

    As [Rav Zei'rah] the Jerusalemite is quoted in Peiah [22a; a guess
    since I found this citation, but couldn't find on in the Y-mi Pei'ah],
    this is the apprenticeship-service of a sage to understand the
    halakhah as it was established [i.e. with its underlying reasoning],
    for then one can teach others and without apprenticeship-service of
    a sage one is not able to teach others. Like they say in [tractate]
    Sotah [22a], "Swallowers of the world' ... -- these are the sages
    who teach halakhah from their study of mishnah [i.e. decided law
    in without also the mastery principles and having a feel for the
    mechanics gained through apprenticeship]." For this reason they said
    in Berakhos [47a] that an am haaretz [ignorant peasant] is someone
    who learned scripture and mishnah but didn't apprentice to a sage,
    because [such a person] can't help others.

    Therefore [summing up the "astounding reasoning], to fulfill a
    mitzvah we interrupt from learning Torah. For this [the mitzvah] was
    why he was created, and that he could do even before he was created.
    And this is That Rav said "eulogize me", for Rav taught others and
    many schools. As Rashi explained in the beginning of [tractate]
    Gittin, "when Rav went to Bavel", and in Bava Qama he explains.
    Therefore he wanted that his yeshivos [that he founded in Bavel]
    and the Torah study he established in his life would persist so that
    there would be preservation of the species also on the spiritual
    level. That is over there (in the physical world) persists on the
    spiritual level also. And understand this.

Rav Meir Simchah haKohein prioritizes mitzvos as followest:
Lowest priority is learning, since we could do that even without being
born. Learning derives its value from its being necessary in order
to be able to do anything else. Then come other mitzvos. Then comes
teaching. And not just the teaching of facts, but the internalization
of modes of thought that can come only through shimush, apprenticeship.
This is the spiritual development of the next generation, our entire
purpose in having been born. In contrast to Rav Shimon Shkop's notion of
imitating Hashem by bestowing chesed on others, where becomes unified
with all other people primarily in the now. Rav Meir Simcha haKohein
sees a person's value as being unified with the chain of mesorah and
the spiritual progress of the human species.

This whole thought is beautifully folded into a comment about "which is
not written in this Seifer Torah", or really "which are no written in
the book, this Torah". Jumping back to the beginning.

    Look into Rashi on Parashas Nitzavim. For the tipechah [a pausal trope
    mark] is under "beseifer" [the book], and the "hazos" [this] is on
    "haTorah" [the Torah]. That is why it [zos] is in the feminine. (And
    see there.) Therefore it says "And Yehoshua wrote these things the
    the seifer Toras E-lokim" on the last eight verses, from "Vayamas
    Moshe." It is so that [we can learn that] the death of the righteous
    is to protect the generation, like Moshe, it is written in the
    seifer Torah. But it is not Torah itself. After Moshe died there
    is no more Torah, like it says , "Remember the Torah of Moshe",
    and it is an article of faith among the 13 articles.

The Torah is that which Hashem gave us via Moshe. We can only get Torah
through Moshe, as per the Rambam's article of faith. However, there is
an opinion that the last eight verses of Devarim, which discuss Moshe's
death, couldn't possibly be written by Moshe -- that would be too similar
to having Moshe lie. Instead they were transmitted via Yehoshua. We are
obligated to include in the scroll, in the seifer Torah, not only the
Torah but those eight verses as well, to teach us a lesson about how to
relate to the death of a tzadiq.

A kosher seifer Torah must include 8 verses that the MC holds are not
part of the Torah itself, just like it must include stitching and other
things other than the words of the Torah. The requirement for the closing
verses is to teach us that the purpose of learning Torah it to continue
the chain of mesorah to future generations.

The question is the Torah lishmah of the Nefesh haChaim.

In sec 4 ch. 3, Rav Chaim Volozhiner explains that the "lishmah", the
"it's own sake", of Torah study is unique. (He has a longer description in
Ruach haChahim on Avos 6:1,) Rav Elazar beRav Tzadoq says, "do things for
the sake of the One Who caused them [lesheim Paalan], and speak about
them for their own sake [lishman]." (Nedarim 51a) Rav Chaim cites the
Rosh, who notes the difference in language: when it comes to mitzvos of
action, we do them lesheim Pa'alan -- for the sake of G-d; but when it
comes to learning, we learn leshman -- for their own sake."

And Rav Chaim points the reader back to something he wrote at the end
of sha'ar 1, that the primary effect of the mitzvah is in the action
itself, which is why kavanah (intent) is not an obligatory component of
the mitzvah, but one that allows it to effect repairs in higher worlds
than otherwise.

But as he explained previously in ch. 2, the role of lishmah is
different in kind for Torah, for immersion in and internalization of
Torah is identification with Hashem's Thought. One is not relating to
Hashem-as-Maker of a world we're trying to refine, but directly with
Him. For the Torah's sake is for the sake of becoming shaped by His
Will. It is this that Rav Chaim identifies with communion with the
A-limighty, rather than deveiqus, cleaving to Him.

Chapters 4 - 7 discuss the relationship between yir'ah and Torah. To Rav
Chaim, yir'ah is something you work on for a few minutes in preparation
for learning. It is the silo that enables one to retain Torah. But the
focus is on the Torah.

This is unlike the Chassidus, where deveiqus is seen as a personal
relationship with G-d. And in the Tanya, yir'ah is the purpose of
learning, rather than a prerequisite, and he recommends that one should
pause occasionally during learning to remember G-d and insuring that
the study is leading to yir'ah

Rav Chaim seems to be asserting that "Torah lishmah" means that that
learning is supposed to be an end in itself. But before R' Chaim, this
was FAR from consensus. A simple reading of either Talmud (TY Shabbos
1:2, vilna 7b, TB Sanhedrin 99b) would conclude that Torah lishmah
is learning in order to know how to observe, how to decide future
questions, or to teach. And assuming the amoraim aren't really arguing,
any of these three motives is "lishmah". We saw the MC discuss the Y-mi.

And a bigger problem with thinking that he means that Torah lishmah is
an end to itself is that the introduction to the book tells us that Rav
Chaim made a point of teaching his son that people were created for the
sake of others. R Yitzchoq writes:

    He would routinely rebuke me because he was that I do not share
    in the pain of others. This is what he would constantly tell me:
    that the entire person was not created for himself, but to be of
    assistance to others, whatever he finds to be in his ability to do.

Refining my own knowledge doesn't fit that worldview, unless it's not
actually the end in itself.

Also the self-description on the original title page reads, "Yir'as
Hashem -- for Life! Notebooks of holy writings of the true genius who
was famous for his Torah and righteousness, and whose deeds proclaim
before him."

So, had RCV meant this as a definition of Torah lishmah as opposed to
a contrast in kinds of lishmah, 4:3 would not fit the author's general
worldview, not to mention the gemaros that more explicitly discuss
the tachlis of learning Torah.

(I think much is lost because some communities only learn sha'ar 4,
and do not see what the big picture is that talmud Torah is being made
only one part of, even if the heart of the matter.)

Seems to me RCV is simply saying that the point of a mitzvah
comes about through its impact on the olamos, and therefore 
lishmah is for the sake of their Creator. However, the point of
Torah comes out from knowing Hashem's Thought, and therefore is one's
focus should be on that thought, Torah itself.

But the focus while learning and the tachlis of learning needn't be
the same thing.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Weeds are flowers too
micha at aishdas.org        once you get to know them.
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