We're familiar with the much-quoted Gemara about why בניהם של תלמידי חכמים didn't follow in their father's footsteps, why they didn't also emerge as talmidei chachamim, and the Gemara says מפני שלא ברכו בתורה תחילה, because they were remiss in not saying birchas hatorah before engaging in talmud torah. So it's clear that it's not simply the bitul or the chiyuv of saying birchas hatorah which the Gemara is getting at, but what that represents, what that bespeaks. And one of the ways that Gemara is generally correctly understood is that the difference between making a birchas hatorah before learning or just jumping into the learning without a birchas hatorah is whether learning just represents an intellectual adventure, an intellectual pursuit, or whether it's something which is fundamentally religious, spiritual, albeit it requires that we marshal all our mental abilities and energies and focus and concentration, but ultimately what we're engaged in is something religious, something spiritual and uniquely so. And that's what saying a birchas hatorah bespeaks, and rachmana litzlan, the failure to say birchas hatorah contradicts. In one of the volumes of the Rav's writings, they've transcribed an extraordinary drasha which the Rav gave, I think as a shiur from the Shulchan Aruch, the Shulchan Aruch HaRav has it already in Kuntres Acharon in his Hilchos Talmud Torah, and the Sussman-Muntner has it, and it's a staple that there are two dimensions to mitzvas talmud torah. There's a dimension of mitzvas talmud torah of yedias hatorah, that we all have the chiyuv to know as much of Torah as we can, dependent upon our abilities, life circumstances, etc. ושננתם לבניך שיהיו דברי תורה מחודדים בפיך. So obviously that's a lifetime mitzvah. There's no expectation that on the day a boy turns bar mitzvah that he's known Berachos to Uktzin, or in Don's case chazarah of Berachos to Uktzin, on the day of our bar mitzvah. So it's a lifetime mitzvah. But in addition, so then there's also a mitzvah of kvias itim as a daily mitzvah of talmud torah as well. Dehainu, one might have thought, okay, as long as I put in a certain number of hours over the course of a week or over the course of a month or over the course of a year, over the course of a lifetime, so eventually be'ezras Hashem it will add up. No, there's also והגית בו יומם ולילה, ודברת בם בשבתך בביתך ובלכתך בדרך ובשכבך ובקומך.
There's a mitzvah of kvias itim latorah. And again within that mitzvah of kvias itim latorah, it means each of the, not just within a 24-hour unit, but both in the daytime component as well as in the nighttime component, as reflected in the pasuk in Sefer Yehoshua, והגית בו יומם ולילה. But what's the significance of that? Why does the Torah, why is the Torah so micromanaged? Why not just say, look, here's your assignment, here's yedias hatorah, here's a daf, a perek, a masechta, a gemara, a Rishon, a Seder, zil gmor and leave it to us? Why is the Torah sort of micromanaging with a mitzvah of also dictating kvias itim? The Rav says something extraordinary. He says what the mitzvah of krias shema represents. What would be? What, let's say, let's say in current things. So what would be, so a father would sit down and make a cheshbon how many, make a cheshbon that okay, so my work week is is very, is very full and very demanding, I don't really have too much time for my kids then but I'll spend a lot of time on Shabbos. I'll spend, I'll spend a lot of time on Shabbos. But in the, once upon a time one would have said and I'll send them a postcard during the week, I guess now it would be I'll text them, message them during the week. So clearly, clearly that's not parenting, that's not being a father. A relationship requires continuity, it requires continuous involvement. It's not just a question of getting an assignment done. When you're, when you're, when you're a contractor so it's to get an assignment done. But a relationship again requires regularity, it requires continuity. So the Rav says that's the message the Torah tells us in krias shema. Again it's not just the body of knowledge of talmud torah but there's a meeting, there's a rendezvous with Hakadosh Baruch Hu every time a person sits down and opens up a tanach, a mishnayos, the gemara, the mishna berura. So there's a meeting with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, there has to be a regularity to that. A person can't just, that can't be done in an irregular way. That's not, you can't, you can't double up in terms of the relationship. You can't say well for for a month I won't see my kids but then the next month I'll spend extra time, I'll devote some extra hours to my children. When we learn, when we learn dvar Hashem, again it's not, it's not just an intellectual pursuit as as crucial as the intellectual component is and and that sense of the religious, spiritual significance of talmud torah, the fact that the talmud torah is is a pursuit of amittah shel torah, of dvar Hashem, so it imposes an achrayus on us, imposes an achrayus not not to be, not to be superficial, not to glibly sort of advance explanations, interpretations. There should be a sense of הגם שאין אדם רשאי להורות הלכה פסוקה that no one's rashai to go pasken shaylos rachmana litzlan, it's not based on הגם שאינו מדמה ונעשה מעשה, but the sense of koved rosh is even in the havana. The sense of koved rosh is to to realize that that what we're what we're doing what what the is a pursuit for amittah shel torah, for dvar Hashem. Rav Chaim used to say that that we're not mechadesh. He says the rishonim were mechadesh and our job is to understand what what the rishonim said. And we need to know where we are in the in the chain of the masorah when we engage in talmud torah also. Our entree into Torah she-be'al peh is via the rishonim, via the gedolei acharonim. He used to say our job is to understand what what the rishonim said. Rav Chaim's ksavim were published and... One's fluency in reading is very, very important. There is a direct correlation; one always sees it, it never, ever fails. The ability to read fluently, to know whether or not the word in front of one is in Binyan Kal or whether it's in Binyan Nif'al, to be able to read fluently, there is a direct correlation between that and the havana. And how can it be otherwise? How can it be otherwise? There can't be precision of understanding without fluency of reading. So whatever, whatever weaknesses we're aware of in ourselves in that turn, it's not the most exciting area necessarily, but it's absolutely, absolutely crucial. The foundation of Gemara obviously is a reading fluency and a basic understanding of the grammar and relevant dikduk, without which reading fluency can't be. How do we approach a daf Gemara? So, open the Gemara, looking at lines of Gemara without any sort of prepackaged questions, without any agenda, without any agenda. You open the Gemara to what is it, how does a person sort of get to the core, the crux of the sugya? How does a person get to the ideas that are beneath the surface? So there are prompts, there are cues in every, in a sugya. Sometimes those cues are more obvious, more blatant, and sometimes they're more subtle. Obviously, if there's a machlokes in the Gemara, if there's a machlokes, the Rambam and the Ravad, how to learn peshat in the Gemara, so obviously there's some issue that's driving that. So that's a pretty straightforward cue or signal that there's some havana that's necessary to understand things. Other times it means noticing a certain what seems at first glance to be a certain logical gap in the Gemara. That's the type of sort of bump in the road that a person encounters which again is a cue that somehow or other we missed something. There's more to this sugya than just the simple, the simple reading, because things don't, things don't hang together. Sometimes, right, this is almost what every Tosafot is based on, sometimes the cue is a yediya from a different Gemara. How do you, how do you integrate this Gemara with another Gemara? It's not always internal, sometimes it's by bringing to bear another Gemara, another yediya, another sugya. But it's very important that thinking about a sugya has to be prompted. If a person sort of thinks unprompted, so there is a joke that they tell in yeshivas, it's... Whatever, it's the joke is as follows that that that two talmidim are in the beis medrash or in the coffee room but they are querying the following the following sevarah. They want to know what is it that makes a cup of tea sweet? So one says the sugar is sugar is what makes it sweet. No, it's not sugar that makes it sweet. It's the act of stirring that makes it sweet. Ay, vechitaima but you can stir from today till tomorrow, if there's no sugar, it doesn't get sweet. That's only because the presence of sugar is a tenai that the stirring should have a chalos shem of stirring. But the etzem of what makes the cup of tea sweet is the is the stirring. So what's wrong with that? Now, isn't that the way one one is supposed to learn? So the answer is that what that joke illustrates is thinking, the questioning has to be prompted. It has to be prompted. Because otherwise it's just something which is which is artificial. Sometimes sometimes even sometimes it won't end up as ludicrous as it does with the cup of tea. But lemaaseh the the cues in the sugya, there's a bump in the road. There has to be something that prompts that question. There has to be something that, well how did the sugya seem to say this? Somehow or other the Rambam ends up over here or the Ramban says this. I don't see how. There has to be something there has to be a prompt. When there's no prompt, so then it's artificial and when there's a prompt also, so then that allows one to hopefully elicit Amita Shel Torah from within as opposed to imposing from without. If if there's nothing about the the cup of tea which really prompts the question, so then again besides the the artificiality of the whole question, anything I'm going to say is being imposed from without. When there's a when there's a cue, when there's a prompt within the sugya, so then I'm being prompted by something in the sugya and it's that which is again which is instigating and hopefully guiding my thinking. And that's why sometimes you you hear terms like conceptualization or abstraction but what it means is you you go from the something concrete where there's a problem here and and you're working backwards within the sugya of well to come to this conclusion, so how did you get there? But the prompt is is there in in the sugya and that's something very very important to recognize, which is why ultimately you can't reduce a derech halimud to a to a formula. Ultimately it's a certain chush. It's it's a sense. It's it's being sensitive to the bumps, it's being sensitive to cues and then it's known how to think backwards, thinking in a way to reconstruct well how would you get to here? How would you get to here? This doesn't seem to make sense. So obviously what I'm going to assume or what I thought you know was assumed was incorrect. And and that way the Amita Shel Torah hopefully bsiyata d'shmaya emerges from within as opposed to being imposed from without. Often there's no guarantee that that even clear... what about saying that taking something you believe somewhere else and then saying that well given that we stumble on what's going on over here even though it's not a prompt... for instance, and then say it's hard to... Give me an example. I mean, an actual example. I mean, an actual example. Give me an example I can learn a lot from. Give me an example of someone who makes up, not makes up, but just like meets state of mind. Anything which would be analogous for the cup of tea. Meaning, it's the question, the tzdadim have to be prompted, they have to be prompted because otherwise meicha taisi that it's either the tzdadim. If I'm just superimposing it from without, without being prompted, so hopefully the tzdadim that emerge are tzdadim that emerge from the kushya, from the problem, from the because of the thinking and the reconstructing way. But anything which will be, a person always has to ask himself, am I engaged with the cup of tea de'ata now or not? I'm not sure you saw, I don't know if this is what you had in mind, maybe it's one part of what you had in mind. Even if the sort of the question one's going to ask is a question that's valid in a different sugya, but meicha taisi that it's valid in this sugya. It's not necessarily the truth that sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn't. Sometimes you'll find a similar type of distinction in this sugya as you found in that sugya, but sometimes you won't. Sometimes the distinction in this sugya is a totally different distinction and the categories which emerged internally from the previous sugya aren't necessarily relevant here. Gavra v'cheftza, as the Gemara tells us about shevuos and nedarim. That's obviously a Torahdike distinction. But does that necessarily mean that when I'm learning another sugya that unprompted I should ask that question? No, because it doesn't mean the fact that it is a pristine Torah distinction and Torah categories, but the whole point is that every every sugya has to be understood on its own from from within, and it's only at the end of the sugya that I'll now know whether or not that same distinction emerged naturally, seamlessly in in this sugya as well. Sometimes I find that when I learn a sugya and nothing prompts me. I read it, I understand it, it makes sense and I see there's a machlokes, but nothing prompts me. What could one do to harness that chush for prompts? Shtei teshuvos badavar. One is, again, sometimes the prompt isn't necessarily within the sugya. Again, some Tosafos are asking kushyas minei uvei in the sugya and many many Tosafos are obviously asking from Talmud that elsewhere in Shas. So it could be that you didn't miss anything in the sugya and there wasn't the prompt, and what would send Reb Akiva Eiger on a whole ma'aracha, so we just didn't have the yediya to be prompted to think about the question. The other thing is, as lehavdil with other things in life, but להבדיל אלף אלפי הבדלות, it comes with experience. It comes with, sometimes the prompt can be based on experience in reading a Rambam carefully and in noticing an unusual sequence of words vechulu vechulu. So a lot of it comes with experience. Adam HaRishon was created in the komaso and he was born a fully developed adult and the rest of us we have to work to develop and so that's part of the process of growing and then we discussed the concept of imposing the mekora of the problem in prior thinking is that you would impose onto the text but wouldn't it also be helpful to think seemingly wouldn't it be helpful as a contrast in other words if a person were to object wouldn't it be helpful to have a contrast moving in for an example meaning mekora of the tzitzis as an example why would megadef why would megadef be an issue? So let's say as an objective standpoint I think that megadef would be an issue because it's related to Hiddum arbitrary example and then I read the Gemara it becomes clear let's say the mahalach we saw yesterday that no the issue of megadef is that you're trying chas v'shalom tell Hakadosh Baruch Hu that so why was what I said wrong meaning now as a contrast wouldn't it be helpful the example I gave you was just standard contrast is very very helpful very helpful I think the Rambam quotes Aristotle somewhere that out of comprehension and explanation that contrasting with something can contribute greatly to sharpening understanding and but one can't begin with a contrast a contrast is something that's sort of used pedagogically it's used in the process to help clarify to help sharpen to help help illuminate but one sort of just begins with a hashara so I don't know so one begins with a hashara so my hashara is that it's green but maybe it's not a color maybe it's a shape and maybe maybe the hashara maybe ultimately the contrast is going to be helpful it's an angle or or or circular so contrast you're a hundred percent right your hasharash is correct that contrast is but even that needs to be driven even that can sort of unknowingly impose a certain a certain assumption again I'll assume green and I'll go to look to see well oh this is an indication well it's not green so it must be red so but this was this is green on a different level but maybe not an entirely different level moving away for a moment from a study of halacha when we try to learn תורה שבעל פה try to learn Tanakh so learning Tanakh is more challenging than Gemara and the reason for that is the following in learning Gemara again I by no means try to underestimate or oversimplify but there are certain checks and balances that you have in Gemara that you don't have in learning Tanakh at the end of At the end of the day, there are more halachos and nafkaminas to what you say that you can try to check your havana against, v'chulu. Ma she'ein kein in Tanach, you often don't have. You can have a question, but the question can be a good question, or it may not even be clear if it's a good question. The same word is here, the same word is there. Is that sometimes a legitimate diyuk? Absolutely, because if it isn't, the Ba'al HaTurim wouldn't have been written out of the Grosser Welt, and the Ba'al HaTurim is one of the Rishonim. So obviously that has legitimate, and can prompt a very, very fruitful line of thought. On the other hand, there's a reason that אין אדם דן גזירה שוה אלא אם כן קיבלה מרבו,
because it's not necessarily the case that it's nitan le-af adam to understand in every instance why this word appears here and why this word appears there. So sometimes we may not even, sometimes it requires even more bechush to know what a good question is in Tanach than it does in Torah Shebe'al Peh. And then in trying to give the answer, there are less checks and balances, there are less controls, and I don't know, to sort of be driving somewhat blindly without a GPS is a very speculative endeavor. So for the same reason, Rav Shach once said to the Rav, "I understand," he says, "I understand your shiurim in Halacha," he says, "I couldn't give them, but I believe that I understand how you're able to give them. But how do you say pshat in Aggadata? How do you say pshat in Aggadata?" And what that question reflected is this same point. There's more to work with in Halacha than there is in Aggadata. In Aggadata you have this cryptic Midrash, this cryptic Aggadata in Shas. Okay, so obviously it's tzovei'a, it's אינו עומד אלא לדרשה. But where do you begin? Where do you begin? So you have to have, besides a creative mind, you have to have such a reservoir of knowledge to know where to begin, even when it's clear that this is a peli'adike Aggadata. But what do you do with it? What in the world do you do with it? So the Rav answered him and he said, "My father taught me how to read the Chumesh with Rashi." But as challenging and as much as we need to be aware of the challenge in learning Halacha and learning Gemara, the challenge is greater in Aggadata. Again, in terms of saying one's own havana, one's own insight. The same way within a sugya, so amita shel Torah is discovered internally, it emerges from within, the same is true when we talk about hashkafa. To degrees that many, many of us are not sufficiently aware. We absorb all kinds of values and axioms from the world around us. And we absorb them as axioms. They become axiomatic to our thinking. And in some instances, they're not at all compatible with Torah. They're antithetical to Torah. And the same way when we learn a sugya in גדר שבע בני נח, so again we're trying to look for cues to find amita shel Torah internally, the same is true in terms of hashkafa, in terms of what the values of the world. values are there, what the categories are there. It doesn't, the notion, to give one example, and bli neder another Thursday we'll be ma'arich on this, בלי נדר אם ירצה השם. The notion of an am hanivchar doesn't, doesn't sit well with most of the world. It doesn't, it doesn't fit with the universality of humanity. But obviously, obviously, Rav Shachter likes to ask why isn't it in the Rambam's yud gimmel ikkarim? So whatever the answer to that question is, but avada avada in a different sense clearly the Rambam was using the word ikkar in that context, avada avada, it's that it's an ikkar gadol. There's no, there's no Torah without, without the notion of an am hanivchar. And here the challenge is simply that a person has to step back, and a person has to not, again, it requires a lot of honesty and yirat shamayim to do so. A person has to make sure that he's trying to understand what the correct hashkafa is according to the Torah as opposed to somehow or other trying to reconcile what seems to be somewhat undeniable in the Torah with all kinds of assumptions and axioms that a person has assimilated from without. It's true in lots of areas. It's true in terms of the notion of am hanivchar. It's obviously true in terms of gender differentiation in avodat Hashem. These are things which are mamash mamash gufa de-Torah. And the Torah's teaching couldn't be more unequivocal and couldn't be more clear. But on the other hand, the way society is today couldn't be more at odds with what the Torah is. And I'm not sure, it's very very important that we have the self-understanding to realize just how porous we are and how poor we sometimes become because of that. And here too, the goal to be an authentic ma'amin, to be talmudo beyado, to be a ben Torah, so the hashkafos, the assumptions, the axioms, have to come from within Torah. It can't be that, again, how do you square this? How do you square the notion of am hanivchar? You don't have to square it with anything. The only thing the notion of am hanivchar has to be squared with is another pasuk in Chumash. A pasuk in Chumash doesn't have to be reconciled with anything else. It has to be reconciled with another pasuk in Chumash. It doesn't have to be reconciled with some contemporary ideological fashion. It has to be understood, it has to be appreciated, and it has to be internalized. And it requires of all of us, and I think ולא יצא מן הכלל, it requires just a lot of, again, self-searching and honesty to try to identify those assumptions and axioms that we harbor that have come from without.