Based on the Nefesh Hachaim
A lot of the theme of last week’s Nekuda Tova Shavuos magazine was about how Hashem infused His very essence into the Torah, and that learning lishmah means to learn for the sake of coming closer to Hashem. With that mindset, every word of Torah we learn brings that ohr of Hashem within us.
Once we’ve internalized this idea, the practical exercise becomes figuring out how to incorporate this avodah into our learning. We want to learn lishmah, we want to learn with dveikus. How do we do that in a way that enhances our learning, but not in a way that somehow takes away from it or reduces the amount of time we are learning?
In his sefer Nefesh Hachaim, Rav Chaim Volozhiner addresses these points. In honor of his yahrtzeit, 14 Sivan, we turn to Rav Chaim, who founded the famed Volozhin yeshiva, the “mother of all yeshivos,” to help us walk away from Shavuos ready to elevate our learning for the entire year ahead. The following is adapted from Shaar Daled, Perek Vav and Zayin, and a bit of Ches.
Whenever a person is getting ready to start learning, it is worthwhile for him to settle himself down for at least a short amount of time in thoughts of awe of Hashem with a pure heart, and to acknowledge his sins from the depth of his heart, so that his Torah study will be holy and pure.
And he should have the intention to attach himself to Hakadosh Baruch Hu through learning the Torah, to attach with all his strength to the word of Hashem (the Torah), and thereby attach to Hashem Himself, so to speak, because the will (ratzon) of Hashem and Hashem Himself are One, as the Zohar explains.
Every rule and halacha in the holy Torah is the ratzon of Hashem, from that which is kosher or non-kosher, tamei or tahor, assur or muttar, guilty or innocent. Even the stories of the Torah which have no implication for practical halacha, and even the questions that a young student will ask his teacher, it is all the word of Hashem.
Not only that, but when a person learns Torah down here, every single word that he emits from his mouth is being emitted, so to speak, at that very moment from the mouth of Hashem.
As the Gemara in Gittin says, there was a dispute between Rebbi Evyasar and Rebbi Yonason on the topic of Pilegesh B’Givah. Rebbi Evyasar encountered Eliyahu Hanavi and asked him, “What is Hakadosh Baruch Hu doing now?” And Eliyahu answered, “He is engaged in studying the topic of Pilegesh B’Givah.” “And what is He saying about it?” asked Rebbi Evyasar. To which Eliyahu answered, “He is saying, ‘Evyasar, My son, says this, and Yonason, My son, says that.’” We see from here that Hashem learns the same words of Torah that we learn at the same moments that we do.
This being the case, it is worthwhile for a person to prepare himself each time before he starts to learn, to think about his Creator with a pure heart and awe of Hashem, and to become purified of his sins by thinking thoughts of teshuva, so that he can connect and attach himself through his learning to the ratzon of Hashem. He should also commit to fulfill whatever he will learn and understand of the will of Hashem through learning the holy Torah. He should daven to Hashem that he merit to understand the Torah properly and arrive at the truth of Torah.
One is permitted to stop in the middle of his learning to think about his awe of Hashem before those thoughts which had before he started learning disappear from his heart. He should not worry that this will be a disruption from his learning (bittul Torah), because its result is the very preservation of the Torah he is learning.
This is compared to someone who instructs his worker to bring wheat into a storage house, and then he asks him if he added salty minerals to preserve it so it does not go bad, and the messenger responds, “No,” to which he says, “If so, it would have been better for you not to have put it in the storage house at all!”
In a similar way, the time we spend preparing our intention in learning is what “preserves” the Torah, and is a crucial component of it.
On the other hand, it would be a mistake to spend all of one’s Torah study learning books about awe of Hashem. This would be likened to someone who builds many storage houses but never fills them with grain!
Rather, one should evaluate, based on his nature and circumstances, how to spend the right amount of time engaging in awe of Hashem for the purpose of safeguarding and preserving the “grain” of his Torah study.
May we merit to infuse the great ohr of Shavuos into our learning for the entire year ahead, and attach ourselves to our Creator through the words of His holy Torah.
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 83.