Studying the Study of Torah

(13) If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving the LORD your God and serving Him with all your heart and soul,(14) I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil—(15) I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle—and thus you shall eat your fill.(16) Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them.(17) For the LORD’s anger will flare up against you, and He will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that the LORD is assigning to you.(18) Therefore impress these My words upon your very heart: bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead,(19) and teach them to your children—reciting them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up;(20) and inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates—(21) to the end that you and your children may endure, in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to assign to them, as long as there is a heaven over the earth.

(14) Rabbi Elazar says: Be diligent in learning Torah, and know what to respond to one who denigrates the Torah. Know before Whom you labor--the Master of your work is trustworthy to pay you the wage for your activity.

(15) Rabbi Tarfon said: The day is short and the work is much, and the workers are lazy and the reward is great, and the Master of the house is pressing.

(16) He used to say: It is not your responsibility to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it. If you have learned much Torah, your reward will be much; and the Master of your work is trustworthy to pay you the wage for your activity. And know, the giving of reward to the righteous is in the future to come.

(5) The judgment of man in the world to come commences with no other than the question of the study of the Torah, whereafter concerning the rest of his deeds.⁷Ibid.; Sanhedrin, 7b. C. Therefore the wise men said: "Let man ever pursue the study of the Torah, whether for its own divine purpose, or not for its own divine purpose, because studying it for non-divine purpose he will attain its own divine purpose." (Pesahim, 50b; Sotah, 22a; Nazir, 23b).

(6) Whosoever is ambitious to establish this commandment properly and to become adorned with the crown of the Torah must not divert his thoughts to other matters, nor set his heart to acquire the knowledge of the Torah and wealth and honor simultaneously. The way leading to the knowledge of the Torah is such: "a morsel of bread with salt thou shalt eat, and water by measure thou shalt drink, upon the ground thou shalt sleep, and a burdensome life thou shalt live while thou toilest in the Torah." (Pirke Abot, 6.4; 21). Nevertheless, it is not obligatory upon thee to complete it, nor art thou free to exclude thyself from its study, for if thou hast increased thy study of the Torah thou also hast increased thy reward, as the reward is equal to the pain.

(7) Peradventure, one will say, I will interrupt my study of the Torah until I will accumulate wealth when I will again return to it, or until I will acquire sufficient substance to supply all my needs when I will retire and return back to it; if such a thought will penetrate thy heart you will never acquire the crown of the Torah. But make thy study of the Torah paramount and thy secular work incidental, and do not say, when I will be unoccupied then I will study, lest you will never be unoccupied.⁸Pir. Ab. 1.15; 2.5. G.

(10) Nevertheless, whosoever sets his heart to pursue the study of the Torah but do no secular work at all, and permits himself to be supported by charity, behold him, he blasphemed the Name, and degraded the Torah, and shadowed the light of religion, and caused evil to be brought upon himself, and deprived his own life from its share in the world to come; because it is forbidden to enjoy aught in this world in return of the study of the words of the Torah. The sages said: "Whosoever enjoys aught in return of the study of the words of the Torah takes his own life away from the world" (Pirke Abot, 4.7). They have, moreover, commanded and said: "Thou shalt not make them a garland by which to be considered great nor a spade to dig with them" (Ibid.). Again they have commanded and said: "Love manual labor and hate rank". (Pirke Abot, 1.10); whosoever studies the Torah and does not acquire at the same time a manual trade his knowledge of the Torah will be nullified and bring about sin" (Ibid. 2.2.). The end of this will be that he will rob people for his living.¹⁰

(11) He who supports himself by the labor of his own hands attains a high degree. It is an ethical conduct of the pious man of yore. Therewith one acquires all honor and good that is in this world and in the world to come, even as it is said: "When thou eatest the labor of thy hands happy shalt thou be and the good shall be with thee" (Ps. 1.28); happy shalt thou be in this world, and the good shall be with thee in the world to come, which is entirely good.¹¹Gittin, 67a; Berakot, 8a. G.