Torah Study, Its Retention and the Yeshiva Student

If you toil very much in the Torah’s words, the Holy One, blessed be He will remove the evil inclination from you.

If you learn Torah when it is difficult for you, your reward is one thousand; when things are going smoothly for you, the reward is only two hundred.

Regarding this unclear verse, Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: If one engages in Torah study, suffering stays away from him...

(1) Rabbi Meir says: Anyone who involves himself in Torah for its own sake merits many things... He is clothed in humility and reverence, and it prepares him to be righteous, devout, upright and trustworthy, and it distances him from sin, and draws him near to merit... It gives him kingship and dominion, and [the ability to] investigate in judgement, and the secrets of the Torah are revealed to him, and he becomes like an ever-strengthening spring, and like a river that does not stop. He is modest and long-tempered, and forgives insult to him; And it enlarges him and raises him above all [that God] made.

(2) Every Jewish man must study the Torah, no matter whether he is poor or rich, whether he is healthy or suffering pain, whether he is young or very old. Even a beggar who goes from door to door must set aside a certain time for Torah study during the day and night...

With regard to the same verse, Rava said: After departing from this world, when a person is brought to judgment for the life he lived in this world, they say to him... Did you designate times for Torah study?

(2) ככלתו WHEN HE FINISHED [SPEAKING] — The word ככלתו is written defectively (without a ו after the ל)... Another explanation why the word is written defective is: just as a bride (כלה) bedecks herself with 24 ornaments — those which are mentioned in the book of Isaiah (ch. 3) — so a scholar (תלמיד חכם) ought to be thoroughly versed in the contents of the 24 books of Scripture (Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 16).

(17) Shimon, his son, used to say: all my days I grew up among the sages, and I have found nothing better for a person than silence. Study is not the most important thing, but actions; whoever indulges in too many words brings about sin.

...it’s very important to learn mussar every day, whether a little or a lot, because the greater a person is the greater one’s evil inclination. The antidote to the evil inclination is rebuke from statements of our Sages.

...“It is crucial that one study Mussar daily, even if he must take away time from learning other portions of Torah, such as a chapter of Mishniyos or Gemara!

Talmud Bavli contains Tanach and Mishnah. Therefore, studying Gemara fulfills this requirement.

(11) Every man must complete the Parshah of the week with the congregation; that is, you should read the weekly portion (of the Torah) twice and the Targum (Onkelos) once. From Sunday and after, it is considered [reading] 'with the congregation' (for the congregation has already started reading this portion at Minchah on Shabbos). But the mitzvah done in its perfection is to read it on Erev Shabbos in the afternoon. You should [first] read each chapter two times and after that the Targum. It makes no difference if the Chapter is a closed or open one. And even if the chapter ends in the middle of a verse, you should stop there. After finishing the Targum you should read one verse from the Torah in order to conclude with the Torah. It is best not to interrupt the reading with conversation. It is also customary to read the Haftarah, and some are accustomed also to say Shir HaShirim after that. If you are traveling and you have only a Chumash without Targum, you should read the weekly Torah portion two times, and when you come to a place where a Targum is available you should read the Targum. [Every God fearing Jew should also study Rashi's commentary on the Sidrah. If you are not capable [of learning Rashi], you should study a commentary in Yiddish such as the seifer Tze'enah Ure'enah in order to understand the subject matter of the Sidrah].

(1) 49. Each person knows that in precisely that area in which his inclination attacks him greatly, he becomes a prepared vessel in precisely those matters to be clean and purified. And in matters in which he sins greatly, he should know he is becoming a prepared vessel to be, precisely in that matter in which he sins, clean and pure of heart.

It was taught in a baraita that Rabbi Yishmael, son of Rabbi Yosei, says: As Torah scholars grow older, wisdom is increased in them, as it is stated: “With aged men is wisdom; and length of days brings understanding” (Job 12:12). And as ignoramuses grow older, foolishness is increased in them, as it is stated: “He removes the speech of men of trust and takes away the understanding of the aged” (Job 12:20).

§ The Gemara returns to its interpretation of the verse that was discussed previously: “But his delight is in the Torah of the Lord” (Psalms 1:2). Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi says: A person can learn Torah only from a place in the Torah that his heart desires, as it is stated: But his delight is in the Torah of the Lord, i.e., his delight is in the part of the Torah that he wishes to study.

...The main learning of a person is what his heart desires. If it’s gemara, derush, remez or kabbalah etc. then that’s what he should learn...

The Gemara asks: Is that so, that Torah study is beneficial only for the soul of the person who has studied? But didn’t Rabbi Elazar say: If not for the Torah and its study, heaven and earth would not be sustained, as it is stated: “If not for My covenant by day and by night, I would not have set up the laws of heaven and earth” (Jeremiah 33:25). It is the Torah, the eternal covenant that is studied day and night, that justifies the continued existence of the world. The Gemara answers: This is indeed correct, but at the outset when a person does this mitzva, he does it for himself, and only afterward does he have in mind the benefit that will be brought to the entire world.

The Gemara comments: And this statement disagrees with the words of Rabbi Eliezer, for Rabbi Eliezer said: Great is the Torah, for if not for Torah, heaven and earth would not have been established, as it is stated: “If My covenant be not with day and night, I would not have appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth” (Jeremiah 33:25). According to Rabbi Eliezer, the covenant that exists day and night is the Torah, as it says: “You should contemplate it day and night” (Joshua 1:8).

(4) Six things preceded the creation of the world... the Torah were created... Rabbi Bannai said: The world and its contents were only created in the merit of the Torah, as it says (Proverbs 3:19): "God founded the world with wisdom etc."

The Holy One, Blessed be He, established a condition with the act of Creation, and said to them: If Israel accepts the Torah on the sixth day of Sivan, you will exist; and if they do not accept it, I will return you to the primordial state of chaos and disorder. Therefore, the earth was afraid until the Torah was given to Israel, lest it be returned to a state of chaos. Once the Jewish people accepted the Torah, the earth was calmed.

We have learned that any person who makes an effort with Torah and his lips speak words of Torah…, he maintains the world’s existence, and the Holy One (blessed be He) is pleased as on the day when He planted the heavens and the earth...

At any time that Torah is maintained in the world and people make an effort with it, it’s as if the Holy One (blessed be He) is pleased with His hands’ labors, and pleased with all the worlds, and the heavens and the earth are maintained in their existence. And not only that but the Holy One (blessed be He) gathers all the heavenly hosts and says to them: ‘Observe the holy nation that I have upon the earth, that the Torah is crowned because of them…’. And when they observe their Master’s pleasure in His nation, immediately they begin to say ‘And who is like Your nation, like Israel…’ (Shmuel Bet 7:23).”

Rather, happy is he who grew up in Torah, whose labor is in Torah, who gives pleasure to his Creator,

(12) He who during his study reads the words audibly, his study remains with him; but he who whispers out his words speedily forgets them.¹³Ketubot, 111b; Berakot, 65a; Menahot, 54a; Yer. Berakot, 41. C. G.

The Sages taught: If one wishes to study Torah himself and his son also wants to study, he takes precedence over his son. Rabbi Yehuda says: If his son is diligent and sharp, and his study will endure, his son takes precedence over him. This is like that anecdote which is told about Rav Ya’akov, son of Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov, whose father sent him to Abaye to study Torah. When the son came home, his father saw that his studies were not sharp, as he was insufficiently bright. Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said to his son: I am preferable to you, and it is better that I go and study. Therefore, you sit and handle the affairs of the house so that I can go and study.

From here Rabbi Eliezer said: A person is obligated to teach his student his lesson four times. And it follows by way of an a fortiori inference: If Aaron, who learned from Moses himself, and Moses had received the Torah directly from the mouth of the Almighty, needed this regimen; an ordinary student learning from the mouth of an ordinary teacher, how much more so must he review his studies four times.

Meat and other nourishing foods can invigorate the body to enable a person to study Torah better.

A person can learn Torah for ten years and yet forget it all in just two. How is that possible? If a person sits idly for six months without review, he will begin to say of that which is impure that it is pure and vice versa. After twelve months without review, he will switch the names of the sages one with another. After eighteen months without review, he will forget entire sections. After twenty-four months without review, he will forget entire mesechtos.^[1] [After reaching this state]’ he will eventually sit silently and be inactive…”

Everything that a person looks at, the image penetrates and fixes itself in his mind and when he comes to pray or to study Torah, those material images appear in his mind, and they damage and invalidate his thoughts and he will not be able to concentrate as required, because the eyes only see through the power that resides in the soul and the soul receives those images that come through the eyes and if the person looks at nakedness, he causes nakedness to penetrate in a high place.

The soul of intelligence is something exclusive to man, something he shares with beings in the higher worlds, beings which live forever in their sacred domains The seat of this soul is in man’s brain, and it is generally referred to as נשמה. This is what the Torah described in our verse as the נשמת חיים which G-d “blew” into Adam’s nostrils. We also have a verse in Isaiah 42,5 נותן נשמה לעם עליה, “He gives a soul to the people on it (earth).”

The soul (neshamah) is the rational part of man and its place is in the brain of man.

And thought, it is in the category of the Neshama. She teaches man knowledge and understanding via the holy Torah, and therefore the origin of its abode is in the brain, the tool of thought, and she is the highest category of them all. And so they said in Bereshit Rabba, chapter 14: “She is called by five names...”, “the Neffesh is the blood..., Ruakh..., Neshama is the nature of the creature”— [“nature”] meaning his knowledge and thoughts, as was explained by the Arukh and RaSh”Y (OBM).

(13) No man acquires most of his wisdom at any but during night-time...

A person should meticulous to learn Torah at night more than during the day.

HALAKHAH: 3. Rebbi Berekhiah in the name of Rebbi Ḥiyya bar Abba: Sabbaths and holidays were given only for being occupied with words of the Torah.

Shabbos is the day of the soul, not the day of the body.