Q&A: Studying Torah as a Person for a Yeshiva Student
Studying Torah as a Person for a Yeshiva Student
Question
Hello.
Is a yeshiva student who is legally obligated to study a certain number of hours per week allowed to use some of those hours for “Torah as a person,” which is not Jewish thought, such as books about evolution in order to help him clarify the physico-theological argument and the like? Perhaps since “Torah as a person” in this sense is a novel idea that is not so commonly accepted and agreed upon, it is not included in the “Torah” that the law requires the yeshiva student to study?
Thank you very much
Answer
A nice question, but the one who determines what counts as Torah is not the legislator, and not the rosh yeshiva either, but the learner himself. By the same token, you could ask about someone who offers answers to difficulties in an innovative approach that others do not accept. He too is supposed to do what, to the best of his understanding, constitutes growth in Torah.
Discussion on Answer
The problem here is not the law but morality. When a person receives an exemption from service in order to do something, he should do it. Not because the law says so, but because that is the proper way to act. Otherwise he is a liar and received an exemption without having done anything wrong.
And does the law in itself have any importance when a person is in private? If he does not study anything at all and instead reads adventure books, is there a moral or halakhic problem from the aspect of observing “the law”? If that is what is meant here, then that surprises me.