Q&A: Studying the Hebrew Bible on Tisha B'Av
Studying the Hebrew Bible on Tisha B'Av
Question
In light of your brilliant definition of "study," is it permitted to study (I couldn’t find another word) the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), the aggadic literature of the Sages, Hasidism, and Jewish thought on Tisha B'Av? After all, you logically proved that their "study" is not called "study" at all.
Answer
I assume you’re writing ironically. In any case, many thanks for the compliment on my definition.
My claim is that this is Torah study in the person—that is, it stimulates thoughts in you that can count as Torah. Moreover, even reviewing an in-depth halakhic analysis is not study in that same sense (since there is nothing new here, only internalizing what I already know). Therefore it would seem to be forbidden. Still, from the standpoint of suffering and boredom, it seems to me to be a particularly fitting occupation for the fast.
Discussion on Answer
According to the Rabbi’s approach, doesn’t the Written Torah have value as poetry?
Shai,
My emotional identification, even if it existed, is irrelevant. Positions are determined with the head, not with the gut.
Y.D.,
Why not?
In the person? I thought you argued—at least regarding study of the Hebrew Bible—that it is Torah in the object, which operates apparently in some segulah-like way that you don’t understand, because it’s hard for you to extract clearly defined new insights from that study. No?
(In any case, if this is Torah that doesn’t make you personally happy, then maybe for you it’s no different from studying the laws of mourning.)
The insights you derive are Torah in the person. As for the act of reading the Hebrew Bible itself, it indeed has only some segulah-like value. And with the aggadic literature of the Sages, or Hasidism and Jewish thought, it is only Torah in the person, without that segulah-like value.
(Indeed. That’s what I wrote at the end of my remarks, half-jokingly.)
Ugh, Rabbi Michi, you’re so hyper-rational…
Where’s your emotional identification? (sad, blushing smiley) ?