Balancing the study of faith and the study of Torah
I am a ‘Haredi Lithuanian’. Thirty years old. I study in a kollel. The camaraderie is good, the atmosphere is serious, and the learning is fruitful.
A few months ago, the head of the kollel [almost our age – 35 I think], as part of his weekly conversation, began to talk and engage a lot about the subject of ‘love of God.’ It was a somewhat sharp conversation [that’s his style] in which he wondered how we neglect a large part of the mitzvot. Chief among them – faith, love of God, fear of Him, etc.
To our surprise, we thought this was ‘another conversation’, and next week there would be a ‘regular’ topic – weekly parashat, and so on.
But… from that time until now, the head of the kollel began to deal intensively with matters of ‘dekkot in it’, faith, ‘living with God, the Blessed One,’ and he has not relaxed about the matter.
The central ‘motto’ is that it is impossible for a Jewish man of the 18th century, who studies 8-10 or more hours a day, to actually live ‘detached’ from God: not thinking about Him, not ‘knowing’ Him, not ‘talking’ to Him in truth [but only in prayer, and even that is not always]. Mumbling blessings without intention. And so on and so forth.
And here we came in embarrassment –
The head of the kollel suggests and believes that everyone should dedicate about an hour of their time a day to this. ‘Talking to God.’ [Later we saw that the quote is taken from the book series ‘In the Hearts of the Tabernacle of Our Lord’. Perhaps the rabbi knows].
On the one hand, his arguments sound logical.
On the other hand, the feeling is that the path we received in yeshivot is not like this. No one ever spoke like this. They spoke that the study itself is the greatest devotion, and the Torah is the names of God, the Holy One, etc.
What do we do?
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Indeed, Rabbi Volozhiner’s words are well-known, that devotion to God is the study itself, and not that study is a means to devotion (which is the religious experience, as the Hasidim perceive it). But he also speaks of the kev chomtin of Yerosh that preserves the wheat (=study) in its entirety, as in his words. Therefore, in my understanding, there is nothing wrong with such a demand, and vice versa. Whether to do this through speaking with God or in some other way, I believe there are no fixed prescriptions here, but perhaps it is worth trying and seeing.
Ultimately, if you feel that such an activity does not increase the love and fear of God but will only bother and interfere, then of course there is no point in it. In such a situation, I think it is worth talking to the head of the kollel and telling him this openly. A story to illustrate. My late father became the principal of a religious high school. He told me that one of the problems he saw there was a lack of love for God and love of Torah. I asked him what he intended to do, and he said to reduce the number of Gemara hours by half. I was amazed of course, but he explained that if you increase the Gemara hours for people who do not like it, it is a proven recipe for making the situation worse. In my opinion, he was very, very right and this is a lesson for all of us. Not always when we have a problem (even if we agree that it exists), increasing the direct involvement with it improves the situation. And carefully.
successfully,
Michi
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