JoelNothman.com

There is a term, bittul torah, which literally means ‘negation of Torah’—a term that I long did not understand. By some people it can be thrown around anywhere to refer to time spent doing anything apart from learning from the corpus of Jewish text and thought. The assumption is that if you’re not learning Torah (or possibly otherwise doing God’s Will), you are destroying it merely by wasting time.

I failed to understand this assumption until I decided to spend a bit of time in a yeshiva. Although maybe the feeling has decreased a little since then, the atmosphere here is one of immersion and little distraction, and so the first time I tried to leave the yeshiva, I felt somewhat guilty for not studying for a few hours. Learning of course doesn’t preclude enjoying (through studying or apart from it), but you really begin to notice when you have left it for something else.

It is an idea far from the secular world. There time is money; here time is Torah. It is a very different heuristic by which to measure one’s life and the expense of a day’s hours.

The focus on the bookshelf and the study hall is certainly not a focus of other religions, while most people in this pragmatic world consider learning as something utilitarian. Judaism has an equivalent in the idea of learning in order to be able to properly observe religious duty, i.e. mitzvot. But while this is also talmud torah leshem shamayim (learning for the sake of Heaven) it is distinguished starkly from talmud torah lishmah—learning for its own sake.

The academic world’s study and research nearly comes close in its attitude. There learning ideally aims only for the embetterment of the world in some disciplines, and for the sake of the investigation itself in others. But there its lacks in motivation: it is not in the same way leshem shamayim. There is a significant philosophical distinction between talmud torah and simply investigating text, even Jewish religious text.

In talmud torah lishmah, people do not try to look for shortcuts. One struggles (and this can really mean fighting) to gain insight into texts that thousands of others before have already claimed to understand and have even summarised. There is a focus on ‘inyan, understanding evne small passages deeply, and exploring the ways they have been discussed and juggled by the sages of the ages. It is a fantastic pursuit and exercise for the mind, but also plays centrally in developing one’s relationship with God, tradition, and the physical world one lives in.

Having said all that, while I think there is merit to dedicating some time, whether it be hours, or years, to learning, recognising the need for both leisure and financial support is also important (neither to excess), an idea that some ultra-orthodox segments of the Jewish community relatively neglect. The Torah itself is certain in describing a lifestyle that involves financial and everyday interactions, and indeed one fails to fulfill much of the Torah law without practicing a lifestyle away from the beit midrash. While the bookworm is admired in Judaism, the active mensch, a person of good deeds, is often moreso.