Torah Study – Lesson 12

This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

🔗 Link to the original lecture

🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI

[Speaker D] But I’d like to say that it’s very dangerous to say it like that, because you can’t argue with it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. What can you do? I didn’t promise you a rose garden, as Churchill said. Meaning, it’s dangerous, so what can I do? By the way, even in a case where you do argue with someone and explain to him why a certain thing is correct, and then you explain it by means of something else, and he asks you about that other thing—what will you say there? So you’ll explain it by yet something else. In the end, you always stop somewhere.

[Speaker D] With first principles, I think.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But not everything you do can be explained on the basis of universal things. People also have particular values. Not every value is universal. Now, I’m not belittling universal values; I just don’t think they’re everything. In other words, universality is a certain indication, but it doesn’t really define things; it’s not a necessary condition. Meaning, there can be values. I absolutely understand that many people—the overwhelming majority of the world, of course—don’t share this feeling that Torah study is the thing. Not even most of the Jewish people, I think, share that feeling. And still, in my view, it’s a basic value. Meaning, I don’t think it needs an explanation. If someone needs an explanation, then from his perspective—

[Speaker D] I have no way to explain it to him. And it could be that it conflicts with other values, like maintaining a society, if everyone just sat and learned all the time.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That—to that—I’ll get in another moment. I said this was an introduction to current issues.

[Speaker D] Maybe Torah study also gives pleasure?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but then it’s not a value. Commandments were not given for enjoyment. Will you learn in order to enjoy? That—I think I mentioned once—the Eglei Tal in his introduction. The Eglei Tal says in the introduction that some people are mistaken and think that someone who rejoices in his learning is called someone who studies not for its own sake. You’re supposed to suffer, right? Too good to be kosher, as they say. Meaning, it can’t be that something good is kosher. That’s impossible. I think I once told you that this is actually a completely correct statement. Meaning, as a thing is—well, obviously, a kosher restaurant and a non-kosher restaurant: the non-kosher restaurant will always be better. That’s a mathematical statement. Why? Because if there’s something kosher that’s better, they’ll make it. But if there’s something non-kosher that’s better, the kosher ones can’t make it. So by definition the non-kosher option always has an advantage. Therefore, what isn’t kosher will always be better. At least, better. There are fewer constraints, exactly.

[Speaker E] And if the chef is good?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If the chef is good, they’ll take him to the non-kosher place too, obviously. If the kosher chef is good, they’ll take him to the non-kosher place—of course they’ll take the chef too. In short, the Eglei Tal writes that there are people who think this is study not for its own sake, and then he says that’s a mistake. Every morning we say, “Please make the words of Your Torah pleasant in our mouths, Lord our God.” We ask the Holy One, blessed be He, to let us enjoy Torah study. On the contrary: when you’re happy, it enters more, it’s understood better, it connects to us more. And therefore studying from joy, from pleasure, is of course very positive. But the Eglei Tal continues with another sentence that’s less well known. He says that someone who studies because of the pleasure—that really is study not for its own sake. Meaning, it’s not that it’s forbidden to enjoy; you may enjoy it and it’s desirable to enjoy it, but the enjoyment is not the reason you study. It’s something that comes along with it, a side effect. Meaning, you study because one ought to study, and you also enjoy it—excellent. If you also enjoy it, that’s wonderful. Do you study for the sake of the enjoyment? Meaning, if when you won’t enjoy it you won’t study, then that really is study not for its own sake. That’s regarding enjoyment. Meaning, you can enjoy learning, but someone who studies for the sake of enjoyment is occupied with pleasures, not with values. Pleasures cannot explain values. I think I’ve already spoken about the naturalistic fallacy more than once. In general, facts cannot explain values. The fact that I enjoy something cannot give it value. That goes for soccer too. The fact that someone enjoys something doesn’t turn it into a value. You enjoy it—fine, enjoy it, do it, no problem. But a value means something one must do, not something that gives me something, something that gives me pleasure. Pleasure is a fact. And the fact that one must do something is a norm. A norm cannot be explained on the basis of a fact. So if we understand learning, or the Torah, in this way—the Torah as some expression of God’s will, and study as cleaving to God’s will—then the value of Torah is simply in itself. And that’s what Nefesh HaChayim writes: it says, “Do things for the sake of their Maker, and speak of them for their own sake,” as it says in tractate Nedarim. So what does “do things” mean? Those are the commandments. “For the sake of their Maker” means for the sake of the Holy One, blessed be He. “And speak of them”—when you study Torah—“for their own sake,” not for the sake of their Maker. Meaning, Torah is for the sake of Torah. Commandments one should perform for the sake of the Holy One, blessed be He. Torah one should study for the sake of Torah, not for something else. Which is basically an expression of the idea that Torah is an end in itself. It doesn’t serve any further means. Again, Nefesh HaChayim says—the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are one—so it’s not detached from the Holy One, blessed be He. But Torah is something that is a value, in Leibowitz’s language. It doesn’t serve anything else. So maybe that’s also what stands behind the very widespread conception that Torah study really is some fundamental value, some infrastructure that doesn’t need explanation. Meaning, it’s the most basic thing there is. You can’t really explain it by saying there’s this commandment or that commandment, or by formal halakhic definitions. And therefore the status of Torah scholars, as people commonly at least understand it, really is a very fundamental status. And without understanding that there is reward for it?

[Speaker E] What, Torah study? What is there—does it have reward?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I assume so. I’m not an expert in matters of reward, but—

[Speaker E] You don’t see it as a commandment that…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s reward even for things that aren’t a commandment. What? If something isn’t a commandment there’s no reward? If you did a good deed, just behaved nicely, but it doesn’t enter the formal definition of a commandment, I assume the Holy One, blessed be He, does not withhold the reward of good people even if they don’t perform commandments, even if it doesn’t fit into formal Jewish law. On the contrary, here it’s something so fundamental that if there’s reward for a commandment, then for this there wouldn’t be reward? Torah study is equal to them all? Yes—much more so.

[Speaker B] Torah study that is equal to them all receives reward?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m speaking generally. The whole issue of reward is a matter that… well, never mind, that’s a whole separate topic.

[Speaker B] Torah study, which is equal to them all—according to this view, that Torah study is equal to all the commandments—what does “equal” mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s exactly the point: it’s not a commandment. If it were one of the commandments, then it couldn’t be equal to all of them—that’s bootstrap. Meaning, if Torah study is one of the 613 commandments, how can it be equal to all 613? It’s itself one of the 613. When you say it is equal to them all, it means you are not talking about something that is itself a commandment. That something is equivalent to the whole system of commandments. Are there other examples like this? Yes, there are, and that’s exactly the next sentence. There’s a book by Rabbi Wolbe called The Equivalent Commandments, an article or booklet like that by Rabbi Wolbe called The Equivalent Commandments. He brings there six commandments about each of which it says that they are equal to all the rest. Sabbath? Sabbath. Torah study. The Land of Israel?

[Speaker E] Tzitzit, the Land of Israel, there are several commandments—he brings six like that. What? Could it be that he’ll say this is cleaving to God?

[Speaker C] Wait, one second, let me just finish this point I wanted to make.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So when I read that, I asked myself: how can it be that six commandments, each one, is equivalent to all the others? Mathematically it doesn’t work. I mean, one commandment equivalent, say, to the other 612—not including itself—I understand. But within those 612 there are another five that are also equivalent to 612 others including themselves?

[Speaker E] No, but Torah study is not among the commandments.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—Torah study, and six other commandments that he brings. Six commandments? Yes. So what does that mean? I argue—no, it is an example, because I’ll explain why it is an example. Because the mistake there is that it’s not the commandment that is equivalent to all. A commandment really can’t be. Rather, clearly behind that commandment there is some fundamental value—as with Torah study—that is equivalent to all 613, not to the other 612. Rather, we’re talking about fundamental values, and the value is equivalent to the entire system of commandments, including that commandment itself in the technical, formal sense. Because what does “equivalent” mean here? It’s not a question of the same weight. Rather, the intent is that it is measured against the whole halakhic existence, against the whole… this value is outside the halakhic world. It isn’t measured in the language of whether this is such-and-such a commandment, an important commandment, a less important commandment. This is the commandment, this is the most fundamental thing, it’s like the entire Torah. There are, yes, I mentioned this once, people who try to explain Maimonides’ omission of the commandment of settling the Land of Israel that way. They argue that it is a fundamental commandment that is equivalent to the whole Torah, and therefore Maimonides didn’t count it because he doesn’t count inclusive commandments. That’s simply a mistake. Maimonides’ “inclusive commandments” means something else entirely. Maimonides’ inclusive commandments, I think I mentioned this, are commandments that really speak in a general way—“and you shall keep all My commandments”—that’s called inclusive commandments. Maimonides writes this in the fourth root. Maimonides doesn’t write anywhere, in any root, that because there is a commandment equivalent to the whole Torah, it isn’t counted. There is no such root in Maimonides. But the principle is a correct principle, I think Maimonides agrees with it too, just not in the roots; it has nothing to do with inclusive commandments. Why isn’t it counted? Not because of its importance, but because it really isn’t a commandment. It is outside the system of commandments, and therefore it is also equivalent to all of them. All the “equivalent commandments,” what he called them earlier—it isn’t the commandments themselves that are equivalent, but the value that the commandment reflects is what is equivalent. And therefore it cannot enter the count of the commandments; that’s why they really aren’t counted. The commandment of settling the Land of Israel, in my opinion, isn’t there, but that’s another discussion. What other value is like that? Torah study. Love of God, for example. There is a commandment of loving God, but love of God appears in more than two places—at least two places—in Maimonides, in the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah and in the Laws of Repentance chapter 10, where he talks about love of God, or serving God for its own sake, which is actually not a different value but the same thing. Why does it appear there? Torah study also appears both in chapter 10 of the Laws of Repentance and in the Laws of Torah Study. Why does it appear in two places? Because in one place it is discussed as a commandment, and in another place it is discussed as the fundamental value. You can see that there are differences in formulation. And generally, it seems to me that the Laws of Repentance are the laws in Maimonides that deal with fundamental values that are not commandments. You can show a number of points—for example, free choice is discussed there. In chapters 5-6 of the Laws of Repentance Maimonides deals with choice, the question of divine knowledge and human choice—those are two chapters he devotes to that issue. Now, choosing is not a commandment. It cannot be a commandment, because if you don’t choose then you also are not someone who can be commanded. When someone commands you, they assume you already choose; you can’t command someone to choose. Meaning, when someone commands you something, they assume you are a choosing person and command you to do such-and-such. And Maimonides devotes two chapters there to that. Why? Because really choice too—being a choosing being—is a terribly fundamental value, and it cannot enter into the system of commandments. There are several such values.

[Speaker E] In any case—yes, sorry. According to this direction—

[Speaker D] This direction, where you turned Torah study into cleaving to God, then—

[Speaker E] It’s easier—

[Speaker D] It’s easier to understand it if I define it—as Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin surely does—Torah study in the direction of Rabbeinu Bachya, that contemplation of the Holy One, blessed be He, is the highest thing, or the foundation of foundations, or the Account of the Chariot. But if I define it as studying the Shakh on the laws of claims and counterclaims, and Ketzot here, and so on—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So on that matter—that’s a good question. I had actually just been thinking of commenting on it, although I’ve also spoken about it before. In the Talmud it says: a great matter is the Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot; a small matter is the debates of Abaye and Rava. And Maimonides writes this too—he translates it as physics and metaphysics. But in practice, it seems to me we see otherwise. In practice, what is really considered Torah study, what is considered the great thing, is specifically the Shakh on the laws of claims and counterclaims and the Ketzot—not Rabbeinu Bachya and not the Guide for the Perplexed and not all kinds of books that supposedly deal with the big things. And Nefesh HaChayim itself speaks about this there. What he says is that to cleave to the Holy One, blessed be He, does not mean to understand His ways. You’re assuming that understanding His ways is the great thing, and Torah—fine—you should walk in the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He, not in the details of how you judge thieves, but in the question of what are the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He. But he doesn’t say that. He devotes his fourth gate to this. What he says is that He is His will, and the collection of laws are the wills of the Holy One, blessed be He, and when we study Jewish law we are in effect connecting to, internalizing, the wills of the Holy One, blessed be He. So in practice we cleave to Him. It is not to arrive at insights about how He behaves. Rather, it is the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself—not how He behaves in the world. The Holy One, blessed be He, Himself is within us through the Torah. The Holy One, blessed be He, and the Torah are one; Israel and the Torah are one. That’s what Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin says there. Therefore his concept of cleaving is detached from that question.

[Speaker C] Fine, and the question is how that—how that is a description of the technical side of the very late later authorities, or rabbinic matters—so basically here—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the topic I wanted to deal with in the next classes. I’ll say in one sentence: I think that when people deal with the Shakh, or it doesn’t matter, with questions of claims and counterclaims, with migo, with how you catch thieves, with fines, with rabbinic laws, with all sorts of things of this kind, basically one has to understand that… this mode of thinking is what I call God’s will. Not that the ox that gored the cow—I spoke about this, I brought it from the author of the Tanya, chapter 4, chapter 5, I mentioned it one of the previous times. The author of the Tanya writes there that the various laws are garments that the King clothes Himself in. And one who embraces the King in His garments is like embracing the King Himself; the order of the garments doesn’t matter. When the Holy One, blessed be He, wants to convey His wills to us, it has to pass to us through some medium. An abstract will—how do you say it? So He says it through oxen goring cows and thieves and double payment and migo and presumption and all sorts of things of that kind. But when you study it, behind it there is reflected a certain mode of thought, a certain conception, and that is basically the Torah. Not the details, not the medium through which it passes. But I intend to devote the next few meetings to that.

[Speaker D] You only mentioned that the method of Rabbi Chaim and that of the Chazon Ish are completely different, and that mode of thinking is also completely different, one from the other. There was an innovation—Rabbi Chaim basically introduced a way of learning that wasn’t there before. Okay, so to say that the way of thinking is the Holy One, blessed be He—but the innovations in the method?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m not talking about methodology. Methodology is always human. But methodology is a tool for uncovering the ideas that are in the Torah. Now, the ideas that are in the Torah—both in Rabbi Chaim’s methodology and in the methodology of the Chazon Ish—they try to understand what ideas stand behind the passage. Those ideas are Torah. The methodology, how you do it, of course you do with your own tools. So everyone does it with his own tools. People talk about it: the Briskers do it this way, the Chazon-Ish people do it that way. That’s already a question of what methodology you approach with. You can dig in archaeology with one tool or another tool. In the end, you want to discover what is down there. So the question of what technique you dig with is a question that of course depends on you, each person with the technique he prefers. But in the end, what you uncover—that’s the important thing, not the way you uncover it.

[Speaker D] The facts or the ideas? No, the ideas. But again, the ideas themselves are also things—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There, in my view, they do meet. Meaning, it’s only another way to formulate it, but it’s the same thing. The proof is that the Chazon Ish succeeds in arguing with Rabbi Chaim. His Ayelet HaShachar is devoted there to an argument with Rabbi Chaim. Meaning, they are speaking about the same thing. They may arrive at different conclusions and by different methodologies, but in the end you arrive at something that really is the abstract wills. The Kotzker writes somewhere, it seems to me, that Torah is a way of looking. It’s not the collection of details that are written. Rather, it is some mode of looking that you acquire in the course of dealing with the details. Also what I mentioned—that I really don’t like these inventions of “greats of the generation” in faith and all sorts of things of that kind, which they invented in recent years: Torah scholars in faith, as distinct from Torah scholars in Jewish law.

[Speaker E] Someone once asked me: why on the Sabbath of Repentance or the Great Sabbath do you give a passage in the Talmud and Maimonides—why not give a little ethics? I told him: you want ethics? Study Talmud and Tosafot. Because that’s where the ethics are. So I think he meant what you’re saying. Right. Through the method of learning and through the sages’ mode of thinking, you—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You internalize within yourself some mode of looking that has implications for many other things that aren’t connected to the migo you studied. It isn’t the migo at all. The migo is just the way you enter into the matter. Meaning, if the Holy One, blessed be He, didn’t speak through cows and oxen, how would He speak to us? That’s our world. Or the world of back then, it doesn’t matter. For us it’s cars. But He has to speak to us through concepts we understand. Yet through those concepts, ways of looking and ideas pass to us. You have to put it into some concrete medium so that one can speak. But the ideas are the principled skeleton, not the technique.

[Speaker F] Now you’re talking like a Haredi. What? You’re talking now like a Haredi. Now the great of the generation knows—the logic says that the great of the generation is da’at Torah, he’s the Holy One, blessed be He, he’s closest to Him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. I say that unequivocally.

[Speaker F] You want out? No, I admit the charge.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have no problem being called Haredi in certain contexts.

[Speaker F] I’m saying, the responsibility you take on yourself—that’s the responsibility, that’s your approach. On the other hand, you say the great Torah authority knows better than you, so why not just ask him and that’s it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because when I explained that the value of autonomy—that I rule for myself—is not because I’m more correct than the great of the generation, but because there is an obligation to rule autonomously. That’s separate from the other question of who is right. And on the question of who is right, then a greater Torah scholar is usually more right than I am. Yes. More than that: I really do believe that when a person studies Torah through those lenses—and therefore I won’t always agree with the person you call the great of the generation, whom I too might call the great of the generation. I don’t know. But also in other areas—areas of thought, areas of, I don’t know, society, all sorts of other fields—I think the Torah is present there. God is in the details. When you study migo and the Shakh and claims and counterclaims and all that, you can reach greatness. You won’t always reach it. Some people study it in a small-minded way. So there are those who, fine, know all the… they can be tested for rabbinic judgeship and know everything by heart, and they’re worth nothing. They’re worth nothing because they don’t really understand what this thing is saying; they control the details. You also have to study with this awareness—that you are trying to uncover modes of thought. Therefore when you arrive at a certain passage, and you found an answer to a difficulty, or divided a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim), you should immediately look—at least in my view—you should immediately look: what does this actually mean? There are two ways of looking here; this has implications for much broader things, and that is discovered specifically through the small things. If you engage with all the big things of providence and the special quality of the Jewish people and the redemption of Israel and all these bubbe-meises, you’ll get nowhere. You’ll get nowhere; it’s just empty belly-logic. But when you enter into this little halakhic give-and-take, and you try to understand what this actually says, how one looks at things—then when you look at things, you’ll look at them more correctly. I really believe that. And if that’s Haredism, then I’m Haredi in that respect. I’m for it, and that’s exactly it. Fine, then I admit the charge.

[Speaker C] Is the great of the generation the halakhic decisor of the generation, or something else?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. That’s why I say: what is the halakhic decisor of the generation? There’s no such thing as the halakhic decisor of the generation. I don’t know—he mentioned… In my view, a person has to rule for himself. I don’t know what “the halakhic decisor of the generation” means. I think that’s because of the value of autonomy, not because the person is always right.

[Speaker C] What is the great of the generation? And why is there only one?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I didn’t say there is only one. I said a great Torah scholar. I didn’t mean the great of the generation in the sense of the one who has authority, but rather: who is called a great Torah scholar? Someone worth listening to—what he explains, what he thinks, what he says. Not necessarily someone you must obey, but listen to—someone worth listening to. Usually, that’s someone who is a learned analyst. Someone who isn’t a learned analyst, in my eyes, that’s not… That doesn’t mean that if he is a learned analyst then yes. There are learned analysts who are petty learned analysts. Fine. I’m saying, that’s the law of the matter.

[Speaker B] But okay, let’s put that in parentheses, because I want to return to something else. Skepticism can reach very healthy places, okay? The yeshiva world, with its litigation—what is it, a litigation lawyer?—it’s the best ethical behavior handbook there is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously. Not because that’s what they study there.

[Speaker B] It’s also very healthy. It’s not healthy for society, it’s not healthy for people. What’s not healthy for people? It’s not balanced.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What’s not balanced? I didn’t understand. What’s not balanced and not healthy? Studying migo? What? Studying migo is not healthy and not balanced? Why, what’s wrong with that?

[Speaker B] There are quite a few psychologists you could talk to… So maybe studying psychology isn’t balanced, I don’t know. Do you know a yeshiva graduate who’s just corrupt all the time?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Excellent. I wish there were more like that. Excellent, in my eyes. But again, I’m saying, that doesn’t mean all the Jewish people have to do this. It means that this is the Torah training one should undergo; after that, everyone can do what he wants. The question of dosage—someone here asked earlier how many such people there should be—in a moment I’m trying to get to that and not quite succeeding. That’s another whole topic. But that’s the background I want to set out from in order to begin discussing the more current questions, because I think people often fall into stereotypes. If you’re like this, then you’re not Haredi, and not this, and you surely don’t think Torah is the revealed legal part; rather, Torah is Rabbeinu Bachya, and Torah is the Guide for the Perplexed. So no—I’m completely Haredi on this issue. And on the other hand, in my current-day views, I’m completely not Haredi. And I don’t think there is any connection between those two things. On the contrary, I arrive there out of this very conception. And therefore it was important for me to give this background before entering the current questions. Look, on current questions, because really—I’ll give you maybe one more sentence—I once wrote an article in a book that came out from the law faculty at Bar-Ilan. They published a book on the figure of the rabbi, something—I don’t remember what the book was called anymore—it was a collection of articles. They asked me for an article, so I wrote there an article about the Ohr Sameach and the Rogatchover, who were both rabbis in Dvinsk. The Rogatchover was the rabbi of the Hasidim and the Ohr Sameach was the rabbi of the Mitnagdim. And really, these were two gigantic figures, both of them truly figures on a historic scale. Both of them found themselves in some little town with a few Jews—Dvinsk. Now there’s a fascinating book, one of those “great men” books, you know, but very entertaining, about the Rogatchover. And it describes there a truly unpleasant personality. He comes to prayer, the cantor is being a bit too cantorial, he says, nu, nu, nu, we have to go learn already, leave me alone with all this pilpul, with all your trills—come on already. People say hello to him, he doesn’t even answer; he runs straight home after prayer. He’s the town rabbi, he gets a salary. Whereas the Ohr Sameach, by contrast, was a warm, radiant person, truly broad-minded. Grounded in the realities of the world, pleasant, talks—yes, Ohr Sameach as his name implies.

[Speaker C] Was Abuchatzeira one of his Hasidim? What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, Abuchatzeira was one of his Hasidim, and the Rogatchover had Hasidim and the Ohr Sameach had Lithuanians, and that shows that stereotypes don’t always hold.

[Speaker C] The Rogatchover was Chabad.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, the Rogatchover came from a Chabad home. And I wrote there why this really happens. Today we’re used to—it sounds like you also were, or still are, I don’t know—in a situation of choosing a rabbi; that’s what I understood.

[Speaker E] But here it’s a matter of continuation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Choice is a rule about the act, not the result.

[Speaker E] It’s the evening, not the result.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s a rule about the act, not the result. In any case, I’m saying: being in that situation, I wrote there in the article that there was a terribly strange phenomenon in Europe, because very small communities took for themselves people on a scale that simply wasn’t relevant for them. What are the people of Dvinsk supposed to do with the Ohr Sameach and the Rogatchover, really? There may have been one question there that required more than the Mishnah Berurah, but these are people in a league that is completely irrelevant to some tiny puddle of a place like that. From the Jewish perspective Dvinsk looks like New York—there are the Ohr Sameach and the Rogatchover there! What was it really? A little puddle with a few peddlers and wagon drivers. So what’s the explanation? The explanation is that communities didn’t take a rabbi in order for him to provide them services. That’s not what they expected from the rabbi. They took the rabbi in order to provide him services. They took the rabbi because they understood that maintaining figures like these is a service to the Jewish people for generations. And if they wouldn’t give them a rabbinic post, then they’d have to go become wagon drivers, and then the whole Jewish people for generations would lose out. They didn’t need him to answer the question of who says Kaddish first—the one in the twelfth month or the one in the first thirty days. They can toss a coin themselves; they don’t need him for that. They took upon themselves a mission. They forbade themselves—their money, with which they supported the rabbi, no matter; usually they also maintained a yeshiva for every such rabbi in order to support him—not that he came to provide them services, they provided services to him. And that is a completely opposite perspective from the one we’re used to. Because according to that perspective, you don’t choose the Ohr Sameach because he’s nice. The Ohr Sameach happened also to be an immense Torah scholar, so you can choose him on the second consideration too. But you don’t choose a rabbi because he’s nice and speaks well and so on—which is perfectly fine, but that is not the right criterion if you look at it from this perspective. Rather, you choose someone whose support will be a contribution for generations. You contribute to the Jewish people by supporting him. He isn’t coming to provide services to you. And you can see this at every step of the way—communities that supported people who simply weren’t relevant to them. It’s an extremely strange phenomenon. They sent emissaries to the ends of the earth to persuade people ten leagues above them to come be rabbi of their little puddle, and the phenomenon is just unbelievable. So I’m saying, why is that? Because the conception really was that these people who create Torah—people like the Rogatchover and the Ohr Sameach, who created things for generations—these are people of extraordinary power. These are the people to support; these are the people for whom we are here, not they for us. In the end, we are the ones who have to see to it that Torah develops and is passed on, because in the end that is the thing that sustains us all. And here I’ll begin to get to current issues. There is a great deal of criticism of the learning world—the yeshiva world, the kollels. These things are familiar, and I too have a great deal of criticism. But it seems that the criticism ought to come from this point of view. Very often the criticism throws out the baby with the bathwater. Because of that criticism, people completely lose the understanding or the identification with the important role that these institutions and this mode of learning have for all of us. Whenever I’m called up to the Torah, I bless the soldiers of the IDF and the yeshiva students. Even though I wrote very harsh things against them—against part of them, meaning against the proportions, or whatever, not against the yeshiva students. Because in my eyes we have not sufficiently internalized the enormous significance of this thing, how much we need it. And the Haredim take it to a certain extreme that provokes a reaction, and the reaction ends up throwing out the baby with the bathwater, saying none of this matters, it’s idleness, it’s unbalanced, or all sorts of things of that kind. I say: that’s not true. It’s completely balanced. This is how Torah should be studied; it’s a very important thing. We all need to engage in it, each according to his ability, and there also needs to be a core that is responsible for developing this thing and working at it full-time. And although Maimonides does write—and I brought the sources here, I won’t have time at all to get to them—but yes, the famous Maimonides in the Laws of Torah Study, in his commentary on the Mishnah in Avot, where he elaborates that anyone who thinks he will support himself from charity and study Torah and support himself from charity has made the Torah into a spade with which to dig, as the Mishnah in Avot says. So he has extinguished the light, quenched the light of religion, desecrated God’s name, disgraced the Torah, and all sorts of other very harsh expressions that everybody loves to quote today. And I think one has to be careful about how one relates to this statement on several levels. On one level, the Kesef Mishneh already writes in that place that in fact the custom is not like that, that people do in fact do this. And besides, he says that if we didn’t do this, then truly no high-level learners would remain. Not all of us are Maimonides. Maimonides was able to do his learning alongside medicine, alongside philosophy, alongside a hundred thousand other things. But generally people are not like that, and there has to be some layer of people who develop in Torah study; from our perspective it is existential. And it is existential not because it helps with something—that’s what I’m saying. It’s like the Chinese man who has two pennies, so he buys a slice of bread and a flower. They asked him: why didn’t you buy two slices of bread? You have nothing to eat, poor Chinese man, you got two pennies of charity. He said: I bought bread in order to live, and I bought a flower so there will be something to live for. And buying two slices of bread is a mistake. Here too, it’s the same thing. People always ask: what use is Torah study? What good is it? That’s the wrong question. All the other things exist for the sake of Torah study. So when I ask whether Torah study will bring security, or Torah study will bring, I don’t know, economic prosperity—I don’t know what answers people expect to get—or wealth and contentment and pleasure, whatever. But what do I need those things for? Why do I need to survive? Why do I need economic prosperity? Why do I need all that? In the end there has to be some goal for which everything is intended. So if we understand that Torah is our way of cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He, then this is basically the most fundamental thing we are meant to carry with us and pass on. I’m really talking like a mashgiach, sorry. Then these questions are turned completely upside down. Now the question is: why do we need an economy? And why do we need an army? And why do we need society? And why do we need all sorts of things? Well, we need that so that it will be possible to carry Torah forward. Now, that doesn’t mean everyone should be kollel scholars, that everyone should engage in Torah—absolutely not. I really do not think that is right, and I think the current situation is distorted. There are too many learners. There are too many learners mainly because most of them aren’t suited to it and don’t really do it in a way worthy of support. Meaning, the people who are supported have to deserve it. They have to be people with potential, people who can create Torah, pass Torah on, develop it, refine it. Those are the people one needs to support, no matter what Maimonides wrote or didn’t write. Those are the people one needs to support. One should search by candlelight for such people, and create more and more if there are such people. But of course, around that, the conception of a thousand enter study and one emerges to teach—that is a conception that says, okay, let’s bring them all into it and maybe a few will come out who grow and develop. That is a conception that in my eyes is very, very problematic. And here there really is more imbalance; here I do agree.

[Speaker B] Yes, but it already creates a distortion in outlook—the conception of doing this leads to undesirable things. Okay, and apparently that’s not good.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And the conception of not doing it also leads to undesirable things. What one needs is to do it in the right measure and not throw out the baby with the bathwater. That’s exactly the point. When people say this leads to undesirable things and therefore don’t do it—that’s throwing out the baby with the bathwater. If it leads to undesirable things, then try to prevent the undesirable things.

[Speaker B] I think the conception is excellent; it’s just the proportions that are wrong.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what are the right proportions?

[Speaker E] No, I don’t know. I don’t have a good answer.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The proper measure is however many people really fit it—that’s the measure. I assume that nature—I’m a capitalist—so I assume that nature, the invisible hand, will find its own. Meaning, if you look at who really ought to be there and support only him, the right measure will emerge. But there’s no need to set in advance that it should be five percent. I need to make sure that whoever sits there and is supported by the public is really someone worth supporting. A kind of Rogatchover or Slutsker or whoever—someone who can at least become that. We don’t have many of those. Entirely understandable. What? So no one gets hurt. No, I think—I hope nothing gets hurt, but this doesn’t come up enough in the discourse.

[Speaker E] The problem is that there’s a surplus of learners.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so I agree. I said to her—I share that criticism. I’ll say more than that.

[Speaker E] Look how many soccer players there are for the sake of Messi and Ronaldo. Yes, right. But you understand that you need tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. But the soccer league is not for Messi and Ronaldo.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] People also enjoy Zehavi.

[Speaker E] Right, but I’m comparing it to Torah study. In order for two to come out like Messi and Ronaldo—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You start playing micro-soccer in first grade. But the comparison isn’t good.

[Speaker E] Because first of all, we start playing soccer—fine—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But by age 22, 25, we already understand who will be the Messis and Ronaldos. You can release the others to their own path. I didn’t say people shouldn’t study Torah. Everyone should study Torah. But in the end there are those who need to make this their full-time job, and those are the ones society should support. Those should be the ones worthy of it. Around that there will be classes, of course. Torah study is a very important thing for everyone.

[Speaker D] But the problem is the system that turns this into the basic value and leaves no other value. I didn’t say there’s no other value. I said it’s a basic value. And if they don’t leave the others—if, I don’t know… if not…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Leave the others… I share that criticism, absolutely. I think the… tools have to be given in all directions, not only this. In my view too—who is a Torah scholar? We talked earlier about who is a Torah scholar. In my eyes, the definition is also wrong. A Torah scholar should also be someone who himself has tools in other areas. Then his Torah wisdom looks different. I mean, it’s not just that these are extra escape routes for people who aren’t suited to learning. In my view, this is important even for those who are suited to learning. Meaning, he should have a hand and a foot in additional fields. Today’s Torah scholar is not, in my eyes, the classic Torah scholar.

[Speaker D] And when you say that the learning should continue to be subsidized—what, what does that do if it isn’t practical, then what is it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, what I’m saying is: it isn’t practical. It’s study for the sake of study. When people ask why we need the learning, they’ve missed the point. That’s exactly the point. Why do we need them? Will they be judges? Will they be rabbis? No—they’ll be learners. We don’t need them; we need ourselves for their sake, not them for ours. The whole perspective is reversed. That’s why I gave this whole introduction. And this perspective, in my opinion, must not be lost. Despite all the criticism, and the fact that the whole business is managed crookedly—I also have criticism of the mode of learning and its scale. All true. And still, in my opinion, this point of view must not be lost, because it is the correct point of view. One must not throw out the baby with the bathwater. I’ll give you an example before we have to finish.

[Speaker B] Give an example you do like. What? In our world, or the Haredi world—give an example you do like.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s—what kind of example is there, you know?

[Speaker B] No, no, I’m not—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t want to get into names, it’s not…

[Speaker B] Me neither—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t matter what I like or don’t like. I want people to learn the way they understand, not the way I understand. Let each person learn the way he understands, and the person will grow. You see that the person… I don’t know whether there will be influence, there won’t be influence… nothing. No, I’m not saying that. There should be influence. I think there is influence; I just think you don’t do it for the sake of the influence. The question “What good will it do?” is the wrong question. The moment you ask it, you miss the point. That’s exactly the point. I’m not specifically looking for him to become a judge on a religious court, a rabbi, influential, a spiritual influence—no. Let him sit and learn there. That’s all I want.

[Speaker E] And if he writes a book?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Let him write a book, even better. If it doesn’t suit him, then he shouldn’t write a book. There are people who are oral Torah, and they’re not suited to writing books. That’s perfectly fine; we need them no less. Torah is a very complicated thing. We transmit Torah in many, many ways, and it’s not right to create a monopoly. Even if I think something about someone—so what if I think that? Someone else thinks differently. As long as people are really learning and really worthy of it, then let each one learn in his own way; that’s perfectly fine. I’m talking about those who aren’t suited, and everyone can see who is suited and who isn’t. It doesn’t matter; he doesn’t need to learn the way I think. I just want to complete a few more points that relate to this matter. Okay, in one of the cohorts in Yeruham when I was teaching, I told them that because of this criticism of what’s happening in the world, the idea that people stay in learning because they want to be righteous for years on end—that is a very serious mistake. Those righteous types are the most destructive thing there can be. Meaning, the ones who should stay and learn are those who find themselves in learning, those who create in learning, those for whom learning matters—not someone who’s righteous. Someone who learns in order to be righteous usually produces nothing. Without drive, nothing comes out. You need some drive, some desire to create; drive and creativity, yes, it’s the same root. And what happens today is that there are no exams that a person whom the public is supporting has to pass. Kollel fellows, for example, right? There are no exams. Meaning, anyone who is willing to be there gets in. So what happens? The state, as a state, funds all the kollel fellows. Whoever is there—it doesn’t matter. As long as he doesn’t… even if they’re upright, then let’s say those who are there for the hours; if they’re not upright, then they don’t even need to be there. They’re funded, funding that is truly minimal, starvation-level disgrace. Millions like that—not millions, but there are very many people like that. The right thing is: the whole social contract around this issue is wrong. Because actually, I as a person who really does want this thing, I would propose a different social contract on my own initiative, or on the initiative of the religious public, not on the initiative of the secular public. Cut the yeshiva budget in half, but cut the number of learners by a factor of twenty, and give each one a salary ten times higher. And every one of them who is truly worthy of it—give him a salary ten times higher. Support him. This is the elite unit, the commando, the top academy of Torah, whatever you want to call it. Yes, we need these people, and our policy today destroys this thing, because talented people are not willing to live on 200 dollars a month their whole lives. There’s a limit. You need to support a family, so they leave. So today I know super-talented people who are kashrut supervisors in the morning and school rabbis before noon, and they go into all kinds of other gimmicks and tricks, all in order to stay in learning. So forget it—go be a professor at a university and leave all the rest, because you’re not learning at all. What are we losing from every direction? We pay all this money, support all these people, those people don’t contribute to the economy, they don’t grow in Torah, the whole thing is a lose-lose game. Everyone loses.

[Speaker E] And you also fund Hapoel Marmorek from League C too. Okay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who said I’m in favor of that?

[Speaker E] Doesn’t matter, but that’s what happens.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And they’re not funded all that much anyway. But who said I’m in favor over there? I’m not saying everything is fine there, but what interests me right now is the yeshiva world. The claim is that if you create a different social contract and say: Friends, cut the budget in half, but create some criteria. See whether a person is really progressing—I don’t care in which direction. Again, I don’t want to dictate the direction, like academic freedom at a university. But support those people, because it’s very important that there be such people. And we aren’t succeeding in having them because we let everyone be one of them. And therefore we don’t have them.

[Speaker F] It will never happen, because the one who has to initiate it has the opposite interest, because in his ego he wants a hundred thousand students; he doesn’t want twenty talented ones.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? And who wouldn’t let him?

[Speaker F] The head of the yeshiva. But the head of the yeshiva can filter.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I once suggested—I once suggested this, I think I wrote a column about it on my website eventually—to persuade people not to donate to yeshivot, but to build a fund, a fund that would support people individually. Meaning, a person about whom I receive recommendations, and I’m impressed that he’s progressing. Like at a university. Yes, exactly. And then it would support him. Meaning, people would donate to a certain fund, not to yeshivot. Don’t donate to yeshivot—that’s throwing money in the trash. Really. It means supporting a lot of people who aren’t suited. There are some among them who are, but it means supporting a lot of people who aren’t suited. You need—not yeshivot; I’m talking about kollels right now. Yeshivot are perhaps another stage.

[Speaker D] So basically like the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health that give grants to those they think are worth it. Exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And then I say, as a first stage the budget can go down, but it will be focused on the directions that are needed. Now I said more than that: since the state will never do this, and there are interested parties there who won’t let this happen, it has to be done from below. People simply need to adopt such a policy. Such a fund needs to be built from below and not from above.

[Speaker D] How do I know whom to give to?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying: obviously you alone can’t do this; no one alone can do this. There has to be organization. I told the guys, for example—there was a class in Yeruham—I told them: Look, you’re now in fifth-year class, young guys. Some of you will leave, some of you will stay, some of you who shouldn’t stay will stay, some of you who should stay will leave—meaning, everything will happen. I told them: Look, there are, I don’t know, thirty guys in the class here, guys from… definitely a high-level cross-section, both in intelligence and socioeconomically. They’ll be financially established people. I told them: Are you willing to commit right now that this cohort, out of its tithing money, will support two guys who remain in learning? You choose which two guys are really suited, and take it upon yourselves to support them. Don’t donate anywhere else. Support those two guys. If every class in every yeshiva did this—if it chose the one, two, three, however many from among them who really need to stay, and supported them from its tithe money—the whole thing would look different. What happens today is that people don’t support this specifically; they donate generally to kollels, if at all. It goes to all kinds of people who shouldn’t be there, while the people whom I really know—I’m telling you, I have students—it breaks my heart. I have students who are super-talented, really, and they’ve been searching for themselves for ten, fifteen, twenty years as kashrut supervisors and I don’t know what else, synagogue lecturers, all kinds of things. Sorry, I don’t mean to belittle giving a synagogue class, but in short, they’re not progressing. They’re not progressing because they’re constantly occupied with how—with trying to make a living somehow. We lose a lot of people that way. Like in academia. Yes, fine. I’m saying, it’s an idea we once talked about. In my view, that’s the practical conclusion from the picture I described earlier. You have to understand: it’s a result of the picture I described earlier. Because if I understand that Torah is the thing that sustains us, then yes, there should be such a layer. All those Maimonides issues don’t interest me—I can deal with them; I’ll give you another lecture later if you want. That’s not the point. Obviously there need to be such people. There need to be such artists, such scientists, such academic researchers—so should a priestess become an innkeeper? Then obviously there also need to be such Torah scholars. That’s obvious. Meaning, that is the infrastructure. We are for them, not they for us. We ask what they contribute to us—that reverses the whole picture. We should be asking what we contribute to them.

[Speaker C] What kind of connection is there between them and the public?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There doesn’t need to be any connection between them. None. They don’t need to provide services to the public. The ones who provide services to the public are judges on religious courts, and that’s a different world. Judges and rabbis are something else. Judges and rabbis don’t have time to learn; they’re busy with other things. I need people who learn. I am for them, not they for me. The whole perspective is backwards. I ask what they give me? They give me nothing. I’m here for them. In the end they will pass the whole enterprise on, pass the torch onward. That is what we are here for. Yes, right, a certain kind of academia, right. And this whole conception, which is not a conception—the accepted conception, which is not an academic conception—is destructive to the Torah world. The one who loses from this…

[Speaker D] Is there a person here who just learns and never produces anything?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are such people. There are people who sit in the study hall. Of course. Why, why? No, that’s exactly the point. You see, you’re asking what the benefit is—that’s why I gave the whole introduction. Because the question that always comes up here is: Wait, so what’s the benefit? What do we get out of them? And I’m saying the whole perspective is backwards. What do you mean, what benefit do we get out of them? On the contrary—they are the benefit. I need to support them. They don’t need to serve me. The whole outlook is just upside down. I’m not asking at all what benefit they give me. You made—

[Speaker E] There’s a logical leap here between your introduction and this. Because it could be, according to your introduction, that each of us needs to learn at his own mediocre level and cleave to the Holy One, blessed be He, for himself. And the fact that there’s an elite unit—that doesn’t help me. Not you—the world, the Holy One, blessed be He, the Jewish people. Who says the calculation is global and not personal? Maybe I need to sit an hour a day and do something at my own mediocre level?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That really is another question that should be discussed separately—the question of what this cleaving means. For example, when you repeat the Talmud or the Mishnah Berurah or whatever it is you’re repeating, is that cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He? Or is cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He, the ability to develop Torah, refine it, understand what it says in other contexts, what the connections are between it and other fields of knowledge? Now that can mainly be done by the spiritual elite. Meaning, you can cleave at your level, I can cleave at my level, each person. But there are people who build the Torah so that there will be something to cleave to. The appearance of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world is through the way Torah appears in the world, and the way Torah appears in the world is through the way we build it.

[Speaker F] How do you write? It came out—how do you write? So I’m saying he has to publish.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Nothing is mandatory. Whoever wants to write will write, and whoever doesn’t want to write won’t write.

[Speaker F] But the very fact that you establish him with his Torah, I don’t establish him with his Torah—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] His Torah is created and passed on, and people talk with him in the study hall and ask him a question. It’s a dynamic process; it doesn’t work in the form of providing services. This is not professional training. Today, learning in yeshivot, in the non-Haredi yeshivot, is perceived as professional training. You learn in order to become a rabbi, become a judge on a religious court, become this, become that—and whoever won’t become that leaves. That is a big mistake, and it’s a mistake through which we lose many good people and many things that, on the contrary, are the goal. The rabbis and the judges are service providers—who cares about that at all? That’s not the point. We—the whole perspective is backwards. If I understand that Torah means leaving the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world, that this is my cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He, then the basic goal is the development of Torah. Everything else is created for that, not that Torah exists in order to provide me with services. The whole perspective is backwards. Now I’m saying: from that perspective, one should come with the criticism and have fewer learners and filter them more, but on the other hand give them a respectable salary and tell them, friends, you are the elite unit. Today people feel humiliated by the fact that the public supports them; they live off charity, off those two hundred dollars or something like that, and they’re uncomfortable even being in that position. They say: why? Why is it fine for academics? Why are academics, who conduct themselves in exactly the same way, at the top of the social pyramid?

[Speaker C] Because—no—because academics are perceived as people who bring benefit to the public.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s not true. In most academic fields it’s simply not true. Not true. In most academic fields there is no real practical benefit to the public. In my opinion, in some of them there isn’t even any non-practical benefit either. But that’s another discussion. Fine, that can be debated. But I’m saying, that’s exactly the point. The question is how you present it. If you understand that he is the elite unit, then you give him a high salary because he deserves it, because he is the best among us. Then the whole perspective is completely different. The whole perspective is not: I’m giving him some little two hundred dollars—fine, if he wants to learn so he’ll stay and be righteous and learn, at least he won’t starve to death.

[Speaker F] Because he’s a partner, he’s a partner in the one who is that—you enjoy the merit of what he does.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, because this is a collective mission. It’s not the mission of a private individual. Today we dump it on a private individual. Today we place the task on the guys who finish yeshiva at age twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty-two, from a hesder yeshiva. These guys look at the horizon—there is no horizon. How will they stay in learning? They can’t. They can’t make a living. What are they supposed to live on? If he becomes a judge on a religious court—if he’s a cousin of Deri maybe he’ll become a judge—but aside from that he can’t do anything. So what exactly is he going to do? So today this mission becomes a mission laid on the shoulders of those isolated individuals—that’s it, we place it on them. But this is a mission for all of us. If we don’t take it upon ourselves, and we don’t organize these guys, and we don’t see them as our agents, and give them the feeling that they are our agents, then the whole thing will look different. Then we’ll have such a layer, and it will be correct in its proportion. Those who are suited will be there, and those who are not suited will not be there. Their effort will not be the effort of beggars and collectors living off handouts and being a burden on the public, but the opposite—they are the avant-garde, they are academics, they are the smartest people and the people we want to be there. The whole thing flips around. And everyone gains. It’s a win-win situation. Today it’s lose-lose. Today everyone loses. Torah loses, the religious public loses, and the secular public loses—and it’s only a desecration of God’s name. Nothing comes out of it besides that. And it costs more money too. I’m saying: invest less money, do it this way, and it will be a win-win situation. Everyone will agree: these will agree because it’s less money, those will agree because there are more Torah scholars and people more suited to Torah, Torah will develop, Torah will be refined, and you won’t need to run after a livelihood all the time, but to sit and truly create properly. It’s basic, but all of this depends on whether I really understand how fundamental this thing is, how wrong it is to ask the question, “What does it contribute to me?” Rather, the question is: how do I contribute to it? That’s the important point.

[Speaker F] He leads the whole world.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I am for him. After all, that’s what this is for. It’s like: if he must learn and his son must learn, he takes precedence over his son. Why does he take precedence over his son? Because if everyone lives for his son, then in the end who will actually learn? There has to be someone who also learns in the end, if everyone only worries about the next person. So I’ll worry about my son, and my son will worry about his son—so who in the end will be the Torah scholar? So first of all I need to learn. I also need to pass it on, but first of all I need to learn, because in the end that’s what all this was created for. To produce a chain that in the end does nothing except keep passing itself on—that has no meaning. But all of this, of course, depends on our really grasping what the goal is, what this whole enterprise is meant for, what the means are, and what the ends are.