by R. Gidon Rothstein

What the Toil of Torah Secures, and Avoids: Sermons of the Aruch HaShulchan, Week 5, Sermon 15

R. Epstein’s sermons are rich and discursive, so that it hasn’t been until I’ve been presenting them that I’ve seen that in fact he sticks to central themes. Until now, that was the question of money and earning a living; from here, and for a while, he will stress the importance and impact of Torah study.

Although we have to wait for the end of our time on these sermons to be sure, a first guess would seem to be that he was addressing a community that was struggling financially and losing its connection to Torah, both study and observance. Aruch HaShulchan was trying to convince them that they were taking the wrong approach, that the correct response to their troubles would be to increase their involvement with Torah, for general religious and financial reasons.

Here, his opening gambit is Rashi and the Yerushalmi’s reading of Devarim 32;45-47, where Moshe warns the Jewish people to pay attention to all that he’s told them, reminding them that it’s not an empty matter, it’s their lives. Rashi offers two readings: 1) that it’s not empty, it’s what gives them much reward, and 2) there’s nothing empty in Torah, even an apparently insignificant verse such as that the sister of Lotan was Timna (Bereshit 36;22). The Yerushalmi says that Moshe was telling us that if Torah seems empty, it’s that we weren’t working hard enough at it, that it only is life-sustaining when we work at it.

Real Life as a Locus of Sanctity

As prelude to his reading of these sources, Aruch HaShulchan reminds his listeners of what was a common Jewish idea, that people combine the animalistic and angelic. Angels are wholly spiritual, animals wholly physical, and people are both. Not only that, Mishlei 15;24 tells us that people always go one way or the other, more angelic or more animalistic That’s why Moshe tells the Jewish people he is putting before them the path of good and bad, life and death—it’s one or the other, no in-between.

We have to cultivate our angelic side. One good way is by immersion in Torah study, since Kiddushin 30b says that Hashem created the evil inclination and Torah as an antidote. But people might think that was limited to those who can study all day, who can spend all their time on the spiritual [this certainly sounds like he’s addressing a reality of his time, that ordinary Jews that he knew assumed they were excluded from a life of Torah unless they studied all the time].

To counter that, Aruch HaShulchan notes Devarim 30;11, which reminds the people that the Torah is close to them; Yevamot 20a, which speaks of sanctifying oneself in what’s permissible; and the beginning of Parashat Kedoshim, which speaks of being sanctified and then mentions the obligation to have awe of one’s parents and to keep Shabbat.

The Torah chooses these two to link to sanctity because many nations of the world have versions of them as well—it’s common to have at least one day off a week and to treat parents well. But sanctity comes from doing it because the Torah said so, with the particular rules the Torah gave. So, too, the Torah concludes its discussion of prohibited foods (Vayikra 11;44) by saying that we have to sanctify ourselves and will become sanctified. In guiding our ordinary lives by the Torah, he says, those of us who do not spend all our time on Torah study can also achieve sanctity.

That’s also what Mishlei 3;6, be-chol derachecha da’ehu, know Him in all your ways, says. The previous verse had warned against overreliance on our own insight, and the next verse warns against being wise in our own eyes. It’s if we know Hashem in all our ways, turning everything in our lives to Hashem’s service, that we can be wise and sanctified, even those of us who can’t study all day.

[Two asides: first, the use of this verse for this idea appears already in Rambam’s Hilchot De’ot 3;3; what’s new here, it seems to me, is that Aruch HaShulchan is using it explicitly to contrast the misimpression that only all-day study can be “real” religiosity. Second, this verse is how the table of contents for these sermons titles this sermon; while it plays an important role here, we will see that the sermon is more about the role of Torah and the necessity of toiling at Torah, as much as one can, than about this idea].

Back to the Emptiness of Torah

I am skipping a discussion of whether one has to recite a blessing on prohibited foods, to see his return to the Yerushalmi, with its idea that Torah is only empty because we do not put enough effort into it. He notes that parents, and our Father in Heaven, want to give their children the best, fine food and drink and other material goods. But if the child misuses it (eats or drinks to excess, damaging his/her health), the parent will be forced to withhold those material pleasures, for the child’s sake.

That’s why Ha’azinu speaks of the Jews getting fat and rebelling, leaving Hashem. Material comfort leads people to rebel against, or abandon, Hashem and the Torah [as we’ve seen before].

If Jews realized that, they would understand that when they don’t have the wealth they want, it’s because of their failure to act with sanctity, to use their wealth for proper purposes, to make berachot on foods [that he brings that up as an example suggests that people he knew were lax in that area] and to perform other mitzvot.

That won’t be obvious to people who have not worked hard enough at Torah to understand [it’s empty because of them]. Ha’azinu was meant to teach them this simple lesson of Jewish history — when we serve Hashem properly, we get bounty, when we turn away, we do not—and if events seems opaque to them, it’s because they haven’t studied well enough.

The Ingratitude in Ignoring Torah

Skipping a side point about why Ha’azinu is written with words on top of each other, like the names of the sons of Haman, rather than like the Song of the Sea, where one line’s words are over the next line’s blank spaces; in brief, it’s because not making sure to understand Ha’azinu is a source of Jewish downfall, as the evil of Haman’s sons was the source of their downfall], R. Epstein points to a comment in Kiddushin 30a, that Torah is like an elixir of life, in that while the Jews involve themselves in Torah, they can expect to be protected from the evil inclination. He takes that one step further, saying that while that’s true, they can also safely enjoy the bounty of this world.

In that way of looking at it, the verse of Va-yishman Yeshurun va-yiv’at, Yeshurun became fat and rebelled, can only be in a time when Jews do not involve themselves with Torah. That same idea underlies Devarim 32;6’s calling the Jews an am naval ve-lo chacham, an ungrateful nation that is not wise. Those aren’t opposites, commentators pointed out, so why use them as contrast?

To explain, R. Epstein turns our attention to another problem, Hashem’s telling Moshe that He would have compassion on those on whom He would have compassion, a seemingly tautological statement. Based on the flow of the verses, and a homiletical reading of the word kavod, honor, as Torah (which he takes from Avot 6;3), R. Epstein argues that when Hashem passed by Moshe on Sinai, Moshe was taught all the secrets of Torah, in addition to the Attributes of Mercy.

Moshe was worried that the people who couldn’t learn all of Torah wouldn’t get Hashem’s full compassion. To that, Hashem responded that He would extend that compassion to whoever involved themselves with Torah, even if they didn’t achieve what Moshe did.

If so, being ungrateful, in the sense of not taking advantage of the gift of Torah, will also inherently mean being unwise, since the person will not be involved with Torah.

Back to the Yerushalmi

With that explanation, that Torah only seems empty when we fail to involve ourselves with it—and that it only gives us life if we put in the effort to study it– he points out that the blessing before Shema says all of that as well, reminding us that ki hem chayyenu ve-orach yameinu, it is our life and what gives us length of days, as long as we’re involved with it day and night. In that blessing, too, we ask for Hashem to have compassion on us, one more example of the connection between our being involved with Torah and gaining access to Hashem’s mercy.

But, again, most people cannot be involved with it all the time; their job is to have fixed times to learn, which is why Shabbat 31b thinks one of the questions we’re asked by the Heavenly Court after our deaths is whether we fixed times for Torah, not whether we studied Torah all the time. Fixed times is an obligation on all [male] Jews, having nothing to do with being a Torah scholar.

He closes with a prayer that they all will be among those who uphold [or re-establish] the primacy of Torah among Jews, the awareness of its importance and value, and—in doing so—restoring it to the position of being our life and the length of our days.

I hope I am not being too quick to contextualize, but this is a sermon that seems aimed at people who have bifurcated their lives, who see Torah as remote from “real” life, who are themselves becoming remote from Torah while they also struggle financially.

Aruch HaShulchan is urging them to realize that the connection is closer than they’ve let themselves understand, that the road to their goals [financial stability, physical comfort] runs through Torah itself; and, as the Yerushalmi said, their not seeing that, their thinking of Torah as empty, is a result of their failure to take the first necessary step, to regularly involve themselves with the study of Torah.