Question:
Why is Gemara in-depth the deepest kind of connection a person can have with Hashem? I feel closer to Hashem when I learn Mesillas Yesharim!
Answer:
Is learning Mesillas Yesharim a connection with Hashem or with the Torah? [The answer is, with Hashem). We must love Hashem, but we must also love His Torah. There must be ahavas Hashem (love of Hashem) and there must also be ahavas HaTorah (love of the Torah). They are not two separate matters, and they must become interconnected.
Question:
There are people who don’t feel a deep connection with Hashem when they learn Gemara, and they only feel it when they learn sefarim that talk about avodas Hashem. So what should they do when they have extra time to learn? [Should they learn Gemara, or should they learn about avodas Hashem?]
Answer:
When Rav Aharon Kotler zt”l first came to America, he had to convince parents to send their children to Yeshivos and learn Torah. They asked him, “What will come from our children? Will they become a Rav, a Rosh Yeshivah, a Dayan?” He told them, “Your child will become someone who learns Torah. That is what will come from him.”
We need to change our perspective towards our life. Hashem gave us 24 hours a day so that we can devote our time to Him and to His Torah. There is a curse given to mankind called “parnassah” (having to earn a living), and we need to deal with that curse. But we must know what the essence of life is; we need to breathe what life actually is. Learning Torah is not something that takes up your time. It is your soul itself; it is a very
Question:
It’s hard for me to open up a Gemara, because it doesn’t get me to feel close to Hashem. So how can I practically spend my time on learning Gemara? It is similar to the previous question, that people don’t feel a bond with Hashem when they learn Gemara.
Answer:
The sefarim bring a question: Who do you love more, your father or your mother? Hashem and the Torah are like our father and our mother, and to decide which of them we love more is like choosing if we love our father more or our mother more.
If someone feels like he’s not enjoying his learning, I have the following stories to tell you. There were two people I met last week. One person came to me and told me that he had to leave Kolel in order to go to work. He told me, “I had no choice.” I said to him, “Maybe it’s true that you had no choice and you needed to go to work. But did you at least cry on the day you left behind the Gemara?”
I met another person here whom I hadn’t seen in about 10 years. I said to him, “Nu, what’s with you?” He said to me, “Baruch Hashem, I have become an expert in Shas.” As I conversed with him, he mentioned to me that he’s thinking about a certain business he is pursuing. I said to him, “If you know Shas, how can it be that you’re thinking of going into business?!” He told me, “I learned all my years only for the sake of kavod (honor).”
If a person doesn’t feel enjoyment in learning, did he ever cry about that, that he doesn’t have feelings of enjoyment in his learning? The Gemara says that if a student didn’t see success after 5 years of learning, it is sign that he’s not seeing blessing in his learning. Did you try for 5 years to learn before you decided that you aren’t enjoying learning?
Compare this to a person who loses his appetite for food, so he decides not to eat anymore. Should he stop eating just because he doesn’t have an appetite…?
Question:
Many people learn Gemara in-depth but they don’t come to feel the closeness with Hashem that are described in these [the Rav’s “Bilvavi”] sefarim.
Answer:
It is because those people only have Torah in their life, and no Avodas Hashem. Torah without Avodas Hashem doesn’t lead to success, and neither does Avodas Hashem without Torah. We need both – we need both our “father” and our “mother”.
Is there anyone who has an easy time making a living? Well, why should Torah and Avodas Hashem come any easier to you? The Alter of Novhardok once said that if a person would try to establish a Yeshivah as much as when he tries to set up a living, he would be able to build 100 yeshivos. (He himself built many yeshivos.)
Torah and Avodas Hashem doesn’t come easy. But life is not easy. We have free will in how we will live our life and how we will use our energies. There is no such thing as anything successful that was easy. If a person uses his energies entirely for parnassah, he’ll be wiped out by the time he opens up his Gemara. Not just with regards to having time for learning; he has used up all his soul’s energies when it comes to work, so he won’t be able to learn Torah properly.
But if one changes his perspective and decides that he will mainly channels his energies towards learning, he will be able to exert himself properly in Torah. Man has the power to choose between a life that contains real vitality to it, or to live a “dead” kind of life; it is written, “I have placed before you life and death, and you shall choose life.”
Question:
When it comes to making a living, I know how to set up a business and learn how to make it work. But when it comes to learning Torah in-depth, where do I begin? How should I devote my learning Torah time to learning with iyun, when I have very little basic knowledge of Torah and I haven’t even gotten to the first step [just reading the Gemara and having a basic, simple understanding of it]?
Answer:
Are you willing to pay someone to help you learn Gemara b’iyun?
Question:
Yes, I do have someone who teaches me how to learn b’iyun, but my chavrusa is way ahead of me; he understands it way better than me, and I see that he is enjoying his learning, but I don’t have that enjoyment.
Basically, there are people who are missing hadrachah (guidance) in learning, and they don’t feel enjoyment and success in their learning.
Answer:
If you will allow me, I will split up this question into different parts. When it comes to “knowing how to learn”, generally, if someone didn’t learn in Yeshiva and he wants to know how to learn, he should hire an avreich to pay him and be his personal trainer to teach him to how learn. After doing that, if someone wants to taste enjoyment in his learning, there is one secret he should know: besides for exerting ourselves in Torah, we must cry to Hashem for success. If you cry earnestly to Hashem, you are guaranteed success.
Question:
If I have 2 hours a day to myself, should part of it be spent learning Gemara, and the other part of it should be spent learning a sefer? Or should part of it be spent taking a walk in hisbodedus and asking Hashem “Please help me”, and the other part of the time should be spent in Gemara, and another part of the time should be spent on learning sefarim?
Answer:
What is your goal? Where do you want to get to in your life?
Question:
I don’t even know what my goal is and where I am supposed to get to. But I still yearn to be close to Hashem.
Answer:
Do you want to be in Gan Eden, or in Gehinnom…? What will you do in Gan Eden? In Gan Eden, there is only Torah learning going on, for 24 hours a day. If you don’t gain an enjoyment in your learning already on This World, what will you do there? There is just 24 hours of learning there; no sleep, no work; what will you do? If a person doesn’t have enjoyment in his learning, for what purpose does he live for…?
Question:
If I feel more sipuk (fulfillment) when I just read through many pages of Gemara and reviewing them (bekius), or to learn Mishnayos, or to keep reviewing a certain masechta - is that also a proper way to get a deep bond with Hashem, just as much as a person who learns b’iyun? After all, there are people who learn Gemara b’iyun and they don’t cover enough ground; they spend half a year on 5 pages of Gemara, and they don’t feel fulfillment from this kind of learning!
Answer:
Imagine if a person only gets married to a woman so that he can have children; he didn’t want a wife, he just wanted children…The Torah is not just a tool you use to get to Hashem – it is also a goal unto itself. Therefore, one who only learns bekiyus (a quick reading of the Gemara, where you can cover more pages of Gemara) won’t be able to gain a connection with the Torah. A person should learn both iyun and bekiyus, but not only bekiyus. The deep connection with Torah is gained only through learning with iyun.
Question:
What about working people, who don’t have 3 consecutive hours a day to learn Gemara with iyun - we only have an hour before davening, and an hour at night?
Answer:
Are in you in a jail???
Question:
: Is it still effective to learn Gemara for 3 hours a day in-depth, even if it’s not 3 hours in a row?
Answer:
It’s better to have 3 consecutive hours of learning in-depth, but even if it’s not consecutive, it’s still better than nothing.
Question:
I don’t have any 3 hours of the day at all, to learn. I only have one hour before davening and one hour at night, so I don’t have the time to get into the Gemara properly.
Answer:
For what purpose is our life for…?
Question:
I am not yet actually on the level of accepting that my life is only about wanting what Hashem wants and to only learn Torah, and not have to any of my own personal retzonos. But I still want to be in such a situation in which I can earn a living yet also be close to Hashem, to do Hashem’s will and to learn Torah.
Answer:
I didn’t dream for one second that my words will be accepted 100% and that a person who hears them will become willing to totally change. So why I am saying all of this? It is so that at least once in your life, you should still hear the truth. Also, if you can actualize the words here even 10% - and even that much I not expecting - then even that would be a big shift towards the right direction.
Question:
I understand that most of one’s time to himself should be spend on learning Gemara b’iyun (and the remaining extra time should be spent on Halacha and on learning about Avodas Hashem), but still, even if I know what I have to do and I am actually doing that, I am not yet feeling a connection with Hashem through learning.
Answer:
If you just close your Gemara at the end your learning session and you come back the next day to your Gemara to get back into it again, then I agree with you that you won’t find learning Gemara enjoyable. You keep splitting apart your learning, and there is a constant interruption in your learning like this, because in the way you are going about your learning, you never think about what you’re learning throughout the course of the day.
Instead, prepare for yourself a question in your learning to think about during the day – for example, throughout the day, contemplate something you learned about in the Gemara. This will give you a taste of enjoyment in your learning. Experience with this shows that it is a tried and tested solution to give you enjoyment in learning. There are other methods of advice too which can help you, but the question one must first ask himself is: if he’s willing to even start.
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