Torah Study, Lesson 1

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Today we’ll deal with the concept of Torah study. And there are all kinds of aspects here, some of them halakhic, meta-halakhic, and even ultimately contemporary. We’ll have to sink into current events too. I’ll start perhaps with the question of why study Torah at all? What for? What’s the reason? There are a few directions one can suggest as answers to that question. The first direction that naturally comes to mind is: to study in order to do, meaning to study in order to know how to act. Right? An ignorant person can’t be pious; someone who doesn’t study won’t know how to act. That’s a very common view, and maybe a very intuitive one for people, but it can’t be correct. It can’t be correct because study in that sense is really a kind of preparation for a commandment. Right? Because if we study in order to know what to do, that means the study is a means, not an end. The goal is to know what to do, and the study is the means. So it comes out that study is really preparation for a commandment, not a commandment. But for that there would have been no need to give a commandment of Torah study at all. After all, it’s obvious that if we’re commanded to do what Jewish law says, then we also need to know what it says. And therefore we could have reached the conclusion that one has to study even without there being a commandment of Torah study. So it’s very unlikely that the commandment of Torah study is exhausted by studying in order to know what to do. Maybe there’s also such an aspect, and we’ll talk about that more, but it’s unlikely that that captures the whole issue.

[Speaker B] Where is the commandment of Torah study written? “And you shall teach them diligently to your children”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maimonides counts it in the enumeration of the commandments as positive commandment number 11. Well, usually people learn it, I think, from “And you shall teach them diligently to your children,” or “And these words shall be upon…” all kinds of things, you can derive it from various directions. “And you shall teach them to your children,” right. About “And you shall teach them diligently,” the Ran in Nedarim says that that’s only a homiletic derivation, that it’s not the source of the commandment itself, and therefore he says that an oath can take effect on it. Ran in Nedarim 8a. Anyway, it has sources, this is agreed upon. It has sources; all the enumerators of the commandments count it as a positive commandment, Maimonides as positive commandment 11, so there is such a commandment. So the first direction, which sees study as a means to know what to do, has something to it, but apparently it can’t be the whole thing. It can’t exhaust the whole matter. There’s another direction, and I don’t know what to call it—cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He. Meaning the formulations of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin in Nefesh HaChaim, Gate 4. He expands on this there. He has a kind of polemic there against Hasidism—the book was written against Hasidism—and it’s rather surprising to discover how similar it is to what happens in Hasidism. Maybe I’ll comment on that more. But he writes there that contrary to what the Hasidim think—he doesn’t say “Hasidim,” he doesn’t mention them by name there—but he says that contrary to views which say that Torah study is intended to create a religious experience, let’s call it that in my language, or a religious emotion, to develop a religious feeling, that’s not true. Torah study is cleaving to the Holy One Himself; it doesn’t create cleaving. Meaning, the Hasidim understand Torah study—Hasidim as he presents them—as basically having the role of producing an experience of cleaving or a religious experience, what you might call it. And Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin says, what are you talking about? Torah study is itself the cleaving; it doesn’t produce cleaving. When you engage in Torah study, in that very act you cleave to the Holy One, blessed be He. Meaning, it’s not that it creates something; it itself is the cleaving. Therefore all the emotional, experiential dimensions are unnecessary; they are not part of the issue.

[Speaker B] You don’t need to feel it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. That’s what he wants to argue. You’re allowed to feel it; I assume that’s not invalid. But he says that’s not the point, that’s not the issue.

[Speaker C] So you can cleave to God without feeling it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. You cleave to God, cleave in an almost physical sense. Simply, when you engage in Torah, “the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Torah are one,” so if you engage in Torah, then you and He are one. That’s it. So you’re cleaving regardless of what you feel and what experiences you’re going through, right? Litvak. Meaning, where did the Litvaks come from? They didn’t appear out of nowhere. So that’s really the claim. Now, the disagreement between him and the Hasidim is really, for our purposes, a secondary disagreement. Because in principle, both understand the meaning of Torah study in the same way. Both understand that Torah study is, as opposed to what I said earlier, a means to know what to do—its point is cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He. Now what is this cleaving? That depends whether you’re a Hasid or a Litvak. Is cleaving the experiential, emotional dimension, or is cleaving the very fact of being in a state in which you engage in God’s will? All right? That’s already the dispute between the Lithuanian and Hasidic approaches, but in the fundamental, philosophical conception of what Torah study means, it’s a similar conception. Since both see study as something that either serves as a means to cleaving or is itself the cleaving. Okay? But it is not a means in order to know what to do. On that they both agree. Okay? There’s another answer—I don’t know whether it’s an additional one or the same thing—but still it’s phrased a bit differently, so I’ll present that too. This first occurred to me when I was teaching in Yerucham. We spoke there one evening, the whole yeshiva gathered in the dining room, and we talked a bit about Torah study. And the guys there asked, basically, why? Why is it important? Why do we need to do it? What does it give? What’s the meaning of it? Not what it gives in the self-interested sense, but what it gives in the value-based, religious, spiritual sense. So various answers came up there and were rejected, and various proposals of one kind or another. And at some point I thought that none of these proposals, beyond the difficulties with each one, really describes the matter. Meaning, forget the objections—it’s just not that. There’s something about Torah study that, at least I don’t know, the common conception in the world—one can discuss what its source is and why—but it seems to me that it more or less correctly describes the yeshiva-world conception at least, okay? That there’s something about Torah study that doesn’t need any explanation at all. Meaning, if I give an explanation for Torah study, then I’m giving it in terms of some principle that is more understandable, right? If I want to explain— we’ve already talked more than once about an English-English dictionary, right?—which explains one unclear word by means of ten less clear words. So if we really want to explain something, we have to ground it in what is familiar. Explanation means grounding in the familiar. I take something I don’t understand and explain it by means of a principle that I do understand, and then I also understand the thing I wanted to understand. Okay? Now when I want to explain the commandment of Torah study, the meaning of Torah study, then I need to take some principles that themselves do not need explanation. Or never mind—if they have an explanation then we go one more step back—but somewhere I have to begin from a system, or not even a system, even one principle that is self-evident, that doesn’t need explanation. Now the question is whether there is such a thing. Or alternatively, I’ll ask it in reverse: suppose there are other things I want to know why it’s right to do them or why people do them. So I’ll explain them in other terms—where does that stop? Where are the basic principles such that when I ask, wait, but why that, they answer me: that’s just self-evident, no answer needed. Who sits there at that self-evident foundation? Which principles are so basic, or so self-evident? My feeling is that in the world of serving God, Torah study sits there. And when I want to ask why we study Torah, that’s an illegitimate question. It’s an illegitimate question because I’m expecting an explanation in terms of another principle which is supposedly self-evident. Torah study is the principle that is self-evident. Meaning, through it I can explain other things—meaning, because the Torah says such-and-such, therefore one must do such-and-such. So the principle—because whenever we look for explanations, we obviously have to define for ourselves in terms of what we want the explanation, meaning what are the principles that we accept, which we’re allowed to use in order to explain other things. Without defining such things there’s no point in looking for explanations, right? We have to start from something on which one can build. Otherwise it will be… turtles all the way down, right, like the famous story. Meaning, that chain of explanation will never stop. Now my feeling, at least—or again, the way I sense the environment, not only in the personal sense—is that Torah study sits there. Why isn’t it really self-evident? What? Why isn’t it really self-evident, in your opinion? But again, for the person who asks, for the person who asks it’s not self-evident. But I don’t know—I have no way to bring him a source or a justification or an explanation for why it really is so. If he isn’t there, then he isn’t there, so okay, there’s nothing to do. But when I try to discern—not to know what to answer, but to know what to answer myself—meaning, I’m trying to understand where I stand on this issue, or where people generally, it seems to me, in the yeshiva world more or less stand. I think they stand there. And therefore many times these explanations are explanations that don’t really hold water, because people aren’t aware that when you look for an explanation, you’ll always have to assume something that itself doesn’t need explanation.

[Speaker D] You need a very special and specific context of a Jew and Jewish life and Torah study for this to become something self-evident. Okay, right. Like the yeshiva

[Speaker E] world.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right.

[Speaker D] And because this yeshiva-centeredness is so self-evident, you still have to…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so that’s why I say: I have a problem, call it pedagogical, or polemical, if I’m arguing or educating or explaining, whatever, that’s a problem. I don’t know what to do with it. I’m only saying: when I explain it to myself, not to someone else, I want to know, wait, why do I actually do this? Now when I’m inside this whole thing, I’m already inside it. And from within it, it seems self-evident to me. Meaning, I’m not looking for explanations. I can try to describe to someone else: listen, if you study and you’re inside it and you internalize it and live it and so on, then it will become self-evident to you too, you won’t need explanations. The question is whether that will persuade him and whether he’ll be willing to start entering the thing in order to try me out or test me—I don’t know. That’s a pedagogical problem; I don’t know what to do with it.

[Speaker F] If it’s explicitly written in the Torah, isn’t that an answer? What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, fine, then he’ll do it as a commandment. But the question is why do it in the essential sense—not because it’s a commandment, but why did the Holy One, blessed be He, actually command it this way? The Holy One commanded it, fine, I understand. Why did He really command it? What is achieved by it? Why is it useful? Understand? You can ask these questions about all reasons for commandments in general. It’s not an ill-defined question if you accept answers of that kind. Why do we put on tefillin? Because it says in the Torah that we have to put on tefillin. So what is the meaning of reasons for the commandments? Reasons for the commandments always mean trying to find an explanation for why it says in the Torah that one must put on tefillin—not why I do it; I do it because it’s written in the Torah. But why does the Torah write that, on the assumption that it isn’t just saying arbitrary things, as Maimonides writes, that there are no arbitrary things.

[Speaker G] Maybe it really is good pedagogy to tell someone: if you do it, you’ll feel it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying that’s an option, but I may have a pedagogical problem if I can’t persuade him and he won’t try doing it, fine. But when I ask myself where I stand—not what I explain to others and how I bring everyone to repentance—but why am I really there? Why do I really see this as such a foundational thing? Then it seems to me that this is the most correct answer.

[Speaker H] The fact is that Dafna said that in the yeshiva in Yerucham this question and polemic came up.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I think that’s exactly the point. Many times, people who ask this question are people who aren’t aware of that. If I tell them this, it will click for them. You understand? Meaning, many times people feel, what’s the problem—you don’t do things without a reason. Even if it’s clear to you, okay, maybe it’s clear to me, but still I need to give myself some kind of reflection, some kind of self-observation: wait, but what’s the explanation? Meaning, why do I do it? The fact that it feels right to me is not an explanation. We’re rational people. When we do something, it’s supposed to have some reason or some utility or whatever. And then you tell a person, wait a second—that’s not right. A rational person does not always do things because of some utility external to the thing. Sometimes the thing itself is my value; I don’t need to reduce it to something else. And that itself—for them, there I don’t have a pedagogical problem, or at least with many of them I didn’t. The moment I said it, they identified with it, I think—at least many of them. But people still ask this question because very many people are not aware of this option. This option that who said everything needs a reason? Meaning, who said that? After all, every causal chain stops somewhere. So if Torah study isn’t what’s at the bottom, some other value is there. If I asked you why that other value is right, what would you answer me? People generally don’t ask themselves that question, so somehow it seems obvious that every question should be asked and one should expect an answer. And then you say to a person, wait just a second—answers always presuppose something, so maybe this itself is the assumption and doesn’t need an explanation. Many times when people talk about serving God—not only why study Torah—there’s an article by Ross, Tamar Ross’s husband, Yaakov Yehoshua, right? He has an article on why we observe commandments. He discusses Wittgenstein there and proposes some variation on the answer. And basically, in one formulation or another, the answer is like this. Meaning, there’s something Leibowitzian there, right? People have the feeling: what do you mean, just like that? “Just because” is not an answer, as they say, right? Meaning, what’s “just because”? We’re rational people; we don’t do things for nothing, right? So it sounds irrational, illogical. When a person examines himself, it’s really very persuasive—after all, “just because” isn’t rational, I need an explanation. And then it takes some pedagogical effort to tell the person: no, that’s not true. Meaning, you can say “just because,” you’re allowed to say “just because,” since every explanation in any event presupposes some number of such “just becauses” that stand at the basis, and on that you can build something else. So who says this isn’t one of those? And in fact when he goes through several possible answers in the article, and just as I always felt, he also expresses it—I think not badly, though a bit clumsily—but he expresses it not badly: that all these funny answers, like what is said in Duties of the Heart, or gratitude, or all kinds of things like that—that’s not it, it doesn’t hold water. It doesn’t hold water. I’m not going to sacrifice my life for gratitude, with all due respect. Gratitude is an important thing, a moral value, all true. To dedicate my life to gratitude, to sacrifice my life for gratitude—for something that means nothing to me, just because the Holy One, blessed be He, created me, so I owe Him gratitude, or because He takes care of me, so I owe Him gratitude—that doesn’t persuade me.

[Speaker D] Still, it sounds like a post facto answer. The reality of the Jewish world in certain places, at certain times, is such that Torah study is the central religious occupation, and post facto we’re trying to explain why that is, because in the Torah itself I don’t see that this is

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] some matter of kindness or charity.

[Speaker D] I said—it’s an explanation, if…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If I were looking for a source for the matter, that would be a different question. I’m looking for an explanation, not a source. Those are two different things. As for source: there is a commandment of Torah study, so I study Torah. In the Torah itself, it really doesn’t seem that this is the most foundational thing. There’s the Mishnah in Pe’ah, right, “and Torah study is equal to them all”; there are sources in the words of the Sages. But when I look at the Torah—true. But when I try to explain my own religious world to myself, I ask myself what I say about it. Forget the sources; sources are another matter. Sources can be interpreted this way or that way. What does it really give me? I mean, say someone is looking for an explanation for himself and finds some other explanation for himself—an experiential explanation or who knows, whatever each person finds—well, that’s not written in the Torah either, that there are experiences. But he feels that he has experiences, so for him that’s a satisfying explanation. He has no problem, you understand? There’s a difference between the question of explanation and the question of source—two different things. And it’s not even certain that there’s a correlation between them. I’m not betting that this was also the Holy One’s intention. It could be that the religious personality that the Holy One envisioned for Himself at Mount Sinai was completely different from our yeshiva boy, or from the connection to Torah that for us is perceived as at least one of the successful models of serving God—not at all certain. But in our present situation, given this tradition within the world in which we live, what does it mean? My answer is: that’s what it means, that’s all. It could have developed differently too.

[Speaker I] And with someone engaged in Torah study in the yeshiva world, there’s also the intellectual enjoyment, the pleasure of doing it, and that can basically be like enjoying the study of physics.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously. I’m saying—

[Speaker I] So it’s exactly like—no—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s exactly the question: whether that’s really the reason. Reasons of that sort—sharpening the mind, intellectual pleasure, all kinds of reasons that are occasionally suggested—are roughly like the reason of gratitude. They don’t really hold water. If one day I don’t enjoy it, do I stop studying? Maybe some people do, but I’m saying that on the conceptual level it’s clear to me that I shouldn’t. Why not? If the goal is enjoyment, then yes—if I’m not enjoying it, I’ll go to the beach that day. These explanations are possible; you can find them appearing in various books and so on, but they don’t hold water.

[Speaker B] But I’m sure a person who doesn’t enjoy Torah study won’t continue just because he thinks—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not sure about that. I know a few people who do continue even though they don’t enjoy it. They suffer—each at his own level—but yes, people who don’t really enjoy it and still study, each according to what he can. There are those who do it all day and then they’re really unfortunate, and there are those who do it an hour a day, two hours a day—that’s also something—and they still don’t enjoy it that much, but they do it because from their perspective it’s a basic obligation. And therefore I think these self-interested explanations, let’s call them that, in these senses, do not really exhaust the matter. Again, I’m not asking what is right and what is not right, but what really motivates us. That’s an empirical question, not a normative one: why is it right, and let’s see what the Torah and the sources say. First of all—what really is, what is the reality, what drives us here. I think the most reliable, most correct answer is the “just because.” All the other answers don’t really hold water. And the fact that this isn’t conditional—it shouldn’t be conditional. It is conditional insofar as we are human beings. If on a certain day we don’t enjoy it, I assume we’ll study less well or won’t study at all. Fine, we’re all human. But we also feel that that’s not okay. That one ought to study even when one doesn’t enjoy it. Why? If enjoyment is the reason, then why is it not okay? What’s the problem? There’s something here that cannot be the reason. It can be the reason in the psychological sense. A person who dedicates his life to study generally, or often—sometimes it’s due to constraints—but sometimes these are people to whom this speaks; they enjoy it, it builds them. That’s true in the psychological sense. But when one gives a philosophical or existential account of it, or whatever you want to call it, then a psychological explanation isn’t enough. If I also enjoy speaking slander, then for the sake of Sabbath delight—they already said there’s a permission for Sabbath delight to speak slander on the Sabbath.

[Speaker J] So what does that mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Is that good enough? There is—enjoyment, I think, cannot serve as a philosophical explanation. It gives a psychological explanation; that’s certainly true. Everyone combines within his motivations his own psychological tendencies as well. So therefore it seems to me that there is something about Torah study—and “Torah study is equal to them all,” like “Torah study is equal to them all,” the Mishnah there in Pe’ah—that really makes it difficult to ask: why study Torah? What is Torah study for? Because the moment you ask that, you assume that it’s a means to something else, that this other thing is more foundational, more important, and doesn’t need explanation, and the study is only a means. That is not, I think, generally how people conceive of Torah study. And again, I’m saying—not yet in terms of the sources. I’m making an empirical diagnosis, meaning: what do people really feel toward Torah study, beyond the question of what the sources say. What the sources say is more complicated. Okay? People talk about Torah study for its own sake. Right? “As for one who studies not for its own sake, it would have been better had his placenta been turned over on his face,” and Tosafot there says, “from not for its own sake one comes to for its own sake.” So yes, one should also study not for its own sake. Meaning, there are several kinds of “not for its own sake.” But there are several kinds of “not for its own sake,” and what is “for its own sake”? There are several kinds of “not for its own sake.” For example, to study in order to provoke—that’s the case of “it would have been better had his placenta been turned over on his face.” Not for its own sake in order to gain honor—that’s a kind of “not for its own sake” from which one can come to “for its own sake.” Start with that and progress. And what is “for its own sake”? So it’s not honor and of course not provoking, and we didn’t mention earlier—not for enjoyment, not gratitude, not—so what is it? What does “for its own sake” mean?

[Speaker J] For the sake of the commandment of Torah study.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So “for the sake of the commandment of Torah study” still carries the connotation of what is called “commandments require intention.” You need intention in order to fulfill the obligation. But in Torah study we don’t call it “commandments require intention”; we call it Torah study for its own sake. The concept “for its own sake” and the concept “intention”—by the way, there are some later authorities who mix them up. Rabbi Lichtenstein talks about this once. I actually saw, with only a week or two between them, two books—old ones already, published somewhere in Lithuania, I think. I don’t even remember which books they were. Some sort of review of the Talmud happened to come my way. And in both of them, in one there was an approbation by Rabbi Shimon Shkop and in the other an approbation by Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman. And for some reason that caught my eye, because within about a week I saw two completely different books, and in both approbations they spoke about the same thing: that the author had confused the concept of intention with the concept of “for its own sake.” They are not the same thing. Rabbi Lichtenstein discusses this in Zevachim, at the beginning of his book on Zevachim. Keren Orah mixes them somewhat. “Commandments require intention” means the intention to fulfill one’s obligation—first of all, in terms of the content of the intention, it means intending to fulfill the obligation. That is called “commandments require intention.” Not the kavanot of the Ari or anything like that. The intention to fulfill one’s obligation. And there is a dispute among the halakhic decisors: do commandments require intention or not? Certainly they require it ideally, but the question is whether it is indispensable. That is a dispute among the halakhic decisors, already in the Talmud and later among the decisors. “For its own sake” is an entirely different concept. No connection. When we do something “for its own sake”—leave Torah study aside for the moment—the concept appears in many contexts in Jewish law. We guard the matzot for their own sake. We write a bill of divorce for the sake of the woman, for its own sake. Right? “For the sake of six things is the sacrifice slaughtered”—that’s a Mishnah in Menachot. We do many things “for their own sake.” But “for its own sake” is not “commandments require intention.” First of all, because of the simple fact that the thought of “for its own sake” usually, in most cases, does not accompany the performance of a commandment at all. We build a sukkah for the sake of shade, for example. There is no commandment to build a sukkah; there is a commandment to sit in a sukkah. So what is the “for its own sake” when we build the sukkah? There “for its own sake” doesn’t mean for heaven’s sake, it means for the sake of shade. Doesn’t matter, but that too is one kind of “for its own sake.” Or weaving tzitzit—there is no commandment to weave tzitzit, but the tzitzit must be woven for their own sake. What is “for their own sake”? That is not “commandments require intention.” “Commandments require intention” means an intention that accompanies me while I perform the commandment. That is called “commandments require intention.” One must intend to fulfill one’s obligation. The “for the sake of the unification” formula of the Hasidim—some say that that falls under “commandments require intention.” Fine. But what is “for its own sake”? “For its own sake” is an intention that qualifies an object for a commandment, a thought that qualifies an object for its commandment-use. That is “for its own sake.” When I offer a sacrifice for its own sake, that is a condition in the qualification of the sacrifice; it is not a condition in the act of offering. It is a condition in the qualification of the sacrifice. The sacrifice becomes a sacrifice if I do it with the thought of “for its own sake.” The sukkah becomes a valid sukkah in which one can sit and perform the commandment if I build it for the sake of shade. The bill of divorce can be used to divorce a woman if I write it for its own sake. The matzah—if I guard it for its own sake—it becomes fit to eat, at least on the first night, for the olive-sized portion. So for that you need “for its own sake.” “For its own sake” is not an intention accompanying the performance of a commandment, but rather a thought that is a condition in the qualification of the object for its commandment-use. It is the way in which one must prepare objects for their use as a commandment. That is called “for its own sake,” as opposed to “commandments require intention.”

[Speaker F] Is a sukkah preparation for a commandment? Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A sukkah not made for the sake of shade is invalid. No—the roofing, the roofing is the sukkah. That’s the first Rashi in Sukkah: the sukkah is named after the roofing.

[Speaker D] And Torah study for its own sake—what does “for its own sake” mean there?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s why I’m introducing this, because Torah study for its own sake is very confusing on this map. Because Torah study for its own sake does indeed seem like something related to intention. After all, I study Torah—that’s the commandment of Torah study, right? And the intention accompanying it is to study Torah for its own sake. So why is that called “for its own sake” and not “intention”?

[Speaker D] It should be intention; “for its own sake” according to this would mean for the sake of doing it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning for the sake of doing it?

[Speaker D] Torah study for its own sake according to this would be Torah study for the sake of doing it, just as making a sukkah for its own sake means making a sukkah for the sake of shade, and so on and so on.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s not the intention to fulfill one’s obligation. Yes, not for the sake of—exactly, that’s why I gave this introduction. On the face of it, Torah study for its own sake is simply an intention accompanying the fulfillment of the commandment of Torah study. Commandments require intention. So according to the one who says commandments do not require intention, one need not study for its own sake? Or perhaps it doesn’t invalidate—I don’t know, maybe one can reconcile it—but that’s not it. The concept “for its own sake” is a different concept. Even though in this case it really does accompany a commandment-act and not the preparation of an object for its commandment. But still, the use of the term “for its own sake” means that the significance here is not intention. The significance here is that it turns the study into study, into the object-status of study, in the language of Rabbi Chaim. Meaning that even abstract objects are still an object-status.

[Speaker K] Here, is “for its own sake” not the opposite, say, of what in the laws of the Sabbath is called an unintentional act?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re asking what I have to think. I’m asking why one has to think. Those are different questions. What is achieved by the thought of “for its own sake.” You’re asking what the content of that thought is. What one has to think. No—I have to think about the fact that I’m studying Torah and not just engaging mindlessly.

[Speaker L] And that’s like in the negative sense—not that you should learn the way you read, I don’t know what.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Be aware that you’re studying—then that’s “commandments require intention.” Intention comes to exclude an unintentional act. Not “for its own sake.”

[Speaker M] Could it be that “for its own sake” in Torah study means not for the sake of anything else?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. That’s the content of “for its own sake.” Meaning, “for its own sake”—but I’m saying, until now I haven’t yet spoken about the content of “for its own sake,” only about its halakhic function. Meaning, the concept “for its own sake” is not something that accompanies the performance of a commandment or the act of a commandment, but something that is supposed to shape the object used for the commandment. Now in Torah study there isn’t really an object, right? It’s something abstract, never mind. But the term used is the term “for its own sake,” not the term “intention.” And therefore, in Nefesh HaChaim, Gate 4, he indeed brings the Rosh in Nedarim, where the Talmud says there: “Do the matters for the sake of their Maker, and speak of them for their own sake.” That’s a verse. So what’s the difference? He says, “do the matters”—that’s the commandments. Those you do for the sake of their Maker, the One who made the commandments, meaning the Holy One, blessed be He. That is, commandments require intention. One must intend to fulfill the obligation of the commandment of the Holy One, blessed be He. “And speak of them for their own sake.” Meaning when you do, it is for the sake of their Maker, and when you speak—that is, Torah study—it is for their own sake. What’s the difference between “for the sake of their Maker” and “for their own sake”? So the Rosh—did I say Ran? The Rosh in Nedarim—the Rosh in Nedarim says: for the sake of the Torah. Torah study for its own sake means for the sake of the Torah. Torah is an end in itself. That is called “for its own sake.” The thought-content of “for its own sake” in Torah study for its own sake—and now this sums up everything I said earlier—the content of the thought of “for its own sake” in Torah study for its own sake is that I do not do it for anything else; rather, I study because I need to study. That is the reason. The “just because.” The “just because” I mentioned before—that is “for its own sake.” All right? There should be no other thought there. Now notice: not a thought of love of God, not a thought of fear of God, not all the other thoughts. You need to study. Nefesh HaChaim says this: you need to study for the sake of study. Not for any other reason, however lofty. He also elaborates there that fear of God and love of God are not it. Meaning, he says it explicitly; it’s not just my own idea. Okay? So what is it then? To study Torah for the sake of Torah study. That is a value in itself. It does not stand on—it cannot be reduced to another, more fundamental value, exactly what I said earlier with that “just because.” Okay? This is Lithuanianism in its full embodiment.

[Speaker D] So I was afraid this is the most, the most unnecessary commandment there is, because it’s just a waste of time if you fulfill it properly. Why? Because you don’t do it for the sake of love, not for the sake of fear, maybe not even for the sake of accumulating practical knowledge in order to observe commandments. Right. It would be preferable to learn the Zohar in translation. Why preferable? Because that way it’s most purely for its own sake.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? No, again, there’s a mistake here. I’ll answer you through an example. In the introduction to Eglei Tal by the Sochatchover, he brings there that many people err and say that someone who studies and enjoys it, that is study not for its own sake. Because you’re doing it for the enjoyment, not for the study. Too good to be kosher, as they say. So he says there: there is no greater mistake than this. Why? Every morning we bless: “Please make the words of Your Torah sweet in our mouths, Lord our God.” We want it to be sweet to us. We ask for that. Right? It’s in the blessing.

[Speaker N] Like praying that kosher food should be tasty, even though…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the blessing. That would be a futile prayer—to pray that kosher food should be tasty is a futile prayer. But there’s a mathematical statement, you know, that non-kosher food is by definition tastier than kosher food—greater than or equal. It has to be; it’s true. Because whoever eats non-kosher has all the options. So if the kosher option were tastier, he would choose the kosher one—what’s the problem? So by definition a non-kosher restaurant will be tastier than a kosher restaurant. That’s a theorem; it’s not… Of course that’s how it is. Really—don’t think that’s a joke; it’s not a joke. It’s simply a system of constraints. Fewer constraints, so you’ll reach higher achievements. That’s always how it is. The Ran writes—just associations—the Ran writes that many times the system of commandments is less moral than foreign legal systems of gentiles. That’s what he writes in Derashot HaRan. Why? Because Jewish law has goals beyond morality and justice and social order; it also has religious goals. So by definition it will come out less successful from the moral aspect. Because if there are systems whose whole purpose is only to achieve the moral goal, they’ll usually achieve it better. Since if Jewish law has a more moral solution they too will adopt it, but Jewish law will not adopt their solution if it conflicts with religious principles, even if it is the most moral and most just solution. And therefore many times it comes out that Jewish law has a moral inferiority relative to other systems, in the moral aspect—overall that isn’t so, because overall one needs to be good both in the religious senses and in the moral senses. But yes, once you want to achieve more, then on every front you’ll be less good. “None defeated me except a craftsman of one trade,” as Shimon HaTzaddik says there in Nazir. Someone who has one trade is always better than someone engaged in a hundred thousand things at once. Where were we? Eglei Tal. Right. So Eglei Tal says that this is a mistake, and “Please make the words of Your Torah sweet in our mouths, Lord our God.” There’s a less familiar part in Eglei Tal, where he adds there and says: but someone who studies for the sake of the enjoyment—that really is study not for its own sake. Two different things. It is permitted to enjoy Torah study, desirable to enjoy Torah study, but enjoyment is not the reason you study. An indication: if you don’t enjoy it, do you continue studying or not? If enjoyment is the reason, then if you don’t enjoy it, you don’t study, right? But I can study because I need to study, and I would study even if I didn’t enjoy it, but besides that I also enjoy it—what’s wrong with that? Okay? So Eglei Tal says: certainly it is desirable and proper to enjoy it, and there is nothing invalid about that. But when enjoyment is the reason for the study, the thing for whose sake you study, that is study not for its own sake. Still, one should study that way too, so that from not for its own sake one may come to for its own sake—but it is not the complete study. Okay? It is study not for its own sake. I return to what you described earlier: same thing. Meaning, the fact that I study something that also helps me know what to do does not invalidate it, so long as I am not studying for that reason. If I study for that—if that is the reason I study, like with enjoyment—then it is not, it is not Torah study. What’s the proof?

[Speaker K] That’s according to Nefesh HaChaim; it’s not accepted by everyone.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, now I’ll bring a halakhic proof for it, and then it’ll be more accepted. What’s the proof? In the Shulchan Arukh it is written that women recite the blessing over Torah study. Right? So the Magen Avraham there asks: why? After all, they are exempt from the commandment of Torah study. His assumption, apparently, is that this is a blessing over a commandment. I actually don’t agree with that assumption, but that’s what he assumes. It’s a blessing over a commandment. Therefore they recite the blessing over Torah study. Fine? And this is what it means to be exempt from Torah study. Women are exempt from Torah study, but they are obligated to learn what they need to know in order to observe. But if Torah study means studying in order to know what to observe, then women are obligated in the commandment of Torah study. In what sense are they exempt? Women are exempt from Torah study because Torah study is not that. To study in order to know what to do is preparation for a commandment. Of course one must do that, one must study in order to know what to do. That is preparation for a commandment; of course one must engage in it because one needs to know what to do. But that is not the commandment of Torah study—those are two entirely different things. It is preparation for the commandment of, I don’t know, sukkah or tefillin or whatever it may be. All right? So yes, one has to know what to do. It’s a means; it’s not a commandment. The commandment of Torah study is not that, and that is what women are exempt from. Okay? And here there is a conclusive proof in favor of this claim, at least according to the Mishnah Berurah and the Magen Avraham. Maybe one can suggest other explanations, but I’m saying that according to this conception, it is certainly so.

[Speaker O] And what about the conclusion they reached that study is greater because study leads to action? Is study greater or action greater? Ah, so here I’ll talk—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I’ll get to that now that you ask. What?

[Speaker E] Is this the only commandment that’s like this, that has no “for its own sake” except this kind of thing? In action, you said, there are all kinds of “for its own sake”—with sukkah it’s that there should be shade, to look at the “for its own sake.” Is this the only commandment that is just like that?