Q&A: What Is Deveikut in Torah Study?
What Is Deveikut in Torah Study?
Question
Hello Rabbi Michael,
I started listening to your lecture series on “Torah study” (very interesting), and there it seems that your conclusion is that the act of studying Torah itself involves an intellectual attachment to the desires/will of the Holy One, blessed be He—which is in fact attachment to God Himself. And therefore, every time one arrives at some understanding in Jewish law (which is in practice the actual will that the Holy One, blessed be He, instructed for us in the world), this in effect brings the learner to another level of intellectual attachment to God. And this is unlike, for example, Hasidism, which held that Torah is only one of the means of reaching attachment specifically through emotion.
So far, that is my brief summary of the matter as I understood it from you (I’d be glad if you’d comment in case I was not precise). But my question is: what exactly does it mean that someone is indeed attached to God? How is that expressed? Is he more providentially watched over, more open to spiritual insights and intuitions, closer to some kind of truth? Is there any empirical way to see that someone is indeed attached to God after in-depth Talmud study as opposed to someone else? And if somehow there is such a way, is there also a way to show that it happens specifically through a certain method of learning? (According to practical Jewish law like the Hazon Ish, a conceptual method like Brisk, Telz and the other Lithuanian yeshivas, etc., or even to show that Talmudic analysis has priority over learning of a different character such as aggadah / Jewish thought or Bible, etc.)
Or is this a kind of metaphysical / mystical “status” whose results we will see only in the World to Come, etc., with no way to see or feel it in our world?
I feel I have some vagueness about this concept, and I’d be happy to hear how you understand it.
I hope I formulated the question well; I’d be glad to hear your response.
Answer
I don’t think this has practical manifestations. It is a definition of the state itself (not necessarily some formal metaphysical status). To be in such a state is not a means to something else, but an end in itself. Nefesh HaChaim there cites the Rosh, that Torah study is done for its own sake—for the sake of Torah. The learning is a goal in itself, not a means.
I don’t think this is supposed to depend on the method of learning, but reasoning would suggest that in-depth analysis is greater than breadth. Deepening and uncovering patterns of thought seems like a deeper and more fundamental connection to the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He. You can see here on the site the series of columns on representation (379 and onward), where I explained this in more detail.
Discussion on Answer
Thank you very much for the answer.
But of course I didn’t mean that learning is a means to something. Rather, even when the learning is for the sake of Torah, which itself is attachment to God—how do I know that I am indeed in that state? Or alternatively, how can I point at all to the existence of such a thing as attachment, and moreover that it is achieved through Torah study?
But you answered that it has no practical manifestations in actuality, so how did you originally arrive at the conclusion that there is an attachment achieved through Torah study? Did you arrive at that conclusion only through study of the thought of the later authorities, such as Nefesh HaChaim and the author of the Tanya? Or is there some additional direct way to reach that conclusion (for example intuitions and rational reasoning of the intellect)?
You didn’t understand. If there is no goal that the learning is meant to achieve, that means that deveikut is not a state produced by the learning. The learning itself is the deveikut. So what do you want to see as an indication that you are attached? If you are learning, then you are attached, because He and His will are one. When you learn, His will is present within you and you are engaged with it. As I wrote to you, there is no need to get into mysticism or metaphysical “statuses.” The state of learning is by definition a state of attachment to the Holy One, blessed be He. It’s like if I tell you that I know that it is now daytime, and you ask me how I know that it is now daytime. I might be able to give some reason; in any case, that is a meaningful question. But if you ask how you know that you know that it is now daytime—that is a meaningless question. Knowledge is a state unto itself, and if I know, then I neither need nor have indications that I know.
One more question: in your opinion, for this matter of attachment as you described it, is identification with the Torah one is learning also required (that is, with the will of the Holy One, blessed be He), or is mere knowledge and deep understanding of the halakha already complete attachment, even if it feels very detached from the learner?
I don’t know. It seems likely that the learning itself is enough, since we are not talking about emotional attachment but about a state of learning that is itself the attachment.
And also in the series on poetry (107 and onward), where at the end I returned to explain why the Torah is called poetry—specifically in connection with analytical study (column 113).