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Chapter Twenty Seven: ON TORAH

"With three crowns was Israel crowned : the crown of the Torah, the crown of the Priesthood and the crown of Kingdom" (Aboth 4:17, Yoma 72b, Eccl. Rabbah 7:1). Aaron merited the crown of the Priesthood, as it is said, "And it shall be unto him, and to his seed after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood" (Num. 25:13). David merited the crown of Kingdom, as it is said, "His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before Me" (Ps. 89:37). As for the crown of the Torah — it lies there waiting for all Israel, as it is said, "Moses commanded us a law, an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob" (Deut. 33:4) : anyone who wants the crown of Torah can come and take it. And should you say that the other crowns are greater than the crown of Torah, then behold he says, "By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth" (Prov. 8:15—16). From this you learn that the crown of the Torah is greater than the crown of Priesthood, and greater than the crown of Sovereignty. And the Sages said, "A bastard who is a scholar takes precedence over a High Priest who is ignorant" (Horayoth 13a). As it is said, "She (wisdom) is more precious than rubies" (Prov. 3:15). The Hebrew word "peninah" means both "ruby" and "inside", and the verse can therefore be interpreted as meaning : More precious is the Torah and he who studies it than the High Priest who enters the very inside of the Temple — into the Holy of Holies.

No other commandment is equal in value to the precept of studying the Torah, but the study of the Torah can be weighed against all of the other precepts together, because the study of the Torah leads to the performance of the deeds commanded there (Kiddushin 40b). And the statement that "the study of the Torah outweighs them all" (Peah 1:1) applies to him who studies in order to learn and to teach, to observe, to do, and to fulfill, but who, because of his constant study of the Torah, is not able to fulfill all of the commandments, and when he is not studying he does all that he can, thus showing the state of his mind, that he wants very much to perform the commandments. It is in such a case that "the study of the Torah outweighs them all." For when he studies the precepts and wants to fulfill them, then he already is rewarded as though he had fulfilled them, inasmuch as he has been kept from fulfilling them only because of his diligent study of the Torah. And so he finds that the reward of doing and of studying are both his. But he who frequently is idle, and is able to perform the commandments at the time that he is idle but does not hasten to do them, or when he does fulfill a commandment does not do so with great care, as is befitting, of him it is not said that the study of the Torah outweighs all the other commandments.

He whose heart has prompted him to perform this commandment (of studying the Torah) and to fulfill it as it merits and to be crowned with the crown of the Torah, should not let his mind wander off to idle things, nor should a man plan in his heart to acquire the Torah, wealth and honor all together. For this is the way of Torah : "A morsel of bread and salt shall you eat, and water in a measure shall you drink, and on the earth shall you sleep, and a life of anguish shall you live and in the Torah you shall labor" (Aboth 6:4).

And if you should say, "After I gather some money, and after I am free of my business affairs, then I will return and read and study the Torah" — if such a thought should come into your heart, then you will never acquire the crown of the Torah. But "fix a period for the study of Torah" (Aboth 1:15), and let your daily work be secondary. "And do not say, 'When I have leisure I will study' for perhaps you will have no leisure' " (Aboth 2:5).

It is written in the Torah, "It is not in heaven" (Deut. 30:12) and the meaning of this is : it is not to be found among those that are arrogant and consider themselves as high as heaven. "Neither is it beyond the sea" (Deut. 30:13), which means that it is not to be found among those who are constantly travelling on sea voyages (Erubin 55a). Therefore, our Sages, of blessed memory, said, "Nor can one who is engaged overmuch in business grow wise" (Aboth 2:6). And they said, "Engage less in business, but occupy yourself with the Torah" (Aboth 4:12).

Since a man occupies himself with the Torah for its own sake, and troubles himself and exhausts himself for the sake of Heaven, his two kidneys (his very vitals) will be like two fountains, and he will bring forth meanings and new laws from within himself — truths which he never learned from another and which were not given even to Moses at Sinai. As we find in the case of Abraham, our father (Gen. Rabbah 95:3), that he never studied in the presence of any man (who served as his teacher), but he himself would sit and think about the commandments, and he learned from his own heart all of the Torah and the commandments, until Scripture testified of him, "And (he) kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My Law (Gen. 26:5). And our Sages, of blessed memory, said that Abraham knew even the laws of Eruvei Tavshilin.** The laws governing the preparation of food for the Sabbath on a holiday which falls on Friday. And our Sages also said, "Abraham our father learned four hundred chapters, and who was there to teach him all of this? It must therefore be that his two kidneys became like two fountains, and flowed forth bringing to him wisdom and Torah.

And so we find with Rabbi Eliezer, the Elder (Prike de-Rabbi Eliezer, chap. 2) : because he occupied himself with much study of the Torah, our Sages testified of him, that there was revealed unto him what had not been revealed to Moses at Sinai. And so our Sages said, "From the generation of Moses, our teacher, until the generation of Joshua, and from Joshua to the Elders and to the Prophets and to the Men of the Great Synagogue and to the Tannaim (the teachers of the Mishnah) and to the Amoraim (the interpreters of the Mishnah) and to the Geonim, and to all the Sages of the generations, who occupied themselves with the Torah, and dedicated their lives to it, there were revealed the mysteries of the Torah and the secrets of wisdom, which no man can discover by himself.

And long ago our Sages, of blessed memory, numbered forty-eight qualities through which the Torah can be acquired (Aboth 6:6). And he who resolves in his mind to be deserving of the path of the Torah must exert himself to fulfill those forty-eight requirements, and then he will ascend to all goodness.

He who studies must be alert and careful to study (without interruption), for the craft of the Torah is not like other crafts, because in the case of one who studies another craft, even though he should stay away from it for several years, he will not forget it, but when a man studies the Torah and does not review it, he forgets it immediately. And even though he reviews it a hundred times, if he allows himself to be distracted from it, he will forget everything. It stands to reason that no craft requires concentration except when one is first learning it, but that in the actual performance of the task one does not have to pay strict attention, for a man can do his work mechanically once he is accustomed to it, and think about this and that. But the study of the Torah can not be done in this manner, for one must concentrate continuously and can not think about any thing other than what one is studying in the Torah. Therefore, a man who turns his heart to emptiness will immediately forget what he has labored for all of his days.

And the Sages also said, "If it were not for the fact that a man forgets the Torah if he does not study it constantly, he would learn all of the Torah and after that he would go idle, and idleness leads a person to boredom and to sin (Kethuboth 5:5; Aboth de-Rabbi Nathan chap. 11). Therefore, it was decreed that the Torah is easily forgotten, so that man would occupy himself with Torah all of his days, and thus not come to sin.

And the Torah leads one to good deeds. For when a man occupies himself with Torah, and learns what is the punishment for sins and the reward for good deeds, then he sets his heart to do good. And the effort required in studying the Torah causes him to forget and restrains him from sin, while idleness leads to sin and brings him down to the nether world. Therefore, a man should be alert to occupy himself always with the Torah — day and night — even when he walks along the road or when he lies in his bed. And if he is not able to study by heart, let him think in his heart about what he has learned and let his mind be on his study, so as not to remove the thought of it from his heart, and then he will have fulfilled "But thou shalt meditate therein day and night" (Josh. 1:8); for the Scripture does not say, "You shall speak about it day and night," but "You shall meditate about it," and meditation is in the heart. And concern ing this it is said, "And shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up" (Deut. 6:7, 11:19). And our Sages took pride in the fact that they did not walk four cubits without discussing the Torah. Either they would learn and study or they would think in their hearts about what they had heard concerning the Torah, or about their studies.

Therefore, you must set your heart and all your mind on the Torah at all times. For in the Torah a man learns wisdom, proper conduct, humility, modesty, and all good deeds, and Heaven will provide him his necessities. And the Torah guards him and uplifts him and exalts him, as the Sages taught : Rabbi Meir said, "Everyone who occupies himself with the Torah for its own sake merits many things ; and not only this, but he is worthy of all the world. He is called friend, beloved … and it raises him and exalts him over all created things" (Aboth 6:1). And lo the fruit of the reward for this devotion to Torah is in this world, and in the world to come the reward is such that no eye has seen it but the eye of God (see Is. 64:3), and there is nothing greater than that reward in the world to come. They said in the Midrash (Ruth Rabbah 1:1 letter 2) : Rabbi asked Rabbi Bezalel, "What is the meaning of what is written in Hosea 2:1, 'For their mother had played the harlot' "? And he said to him, "When do the words of the Torah become like harlots? When those who study them shame them by their conduct. How would that be? A wise man sits and learns 'you shall not incline or wrest judgment' (Deut. 16:19), but he does in fact wrest judgment. He studies, 'You shall not be prejudiced in favor of the mighty,' but he does respect the presence of a wealthy or powerful person in court. 'You shall not take a bribe,' and he does take a bribe!"

And thus did our Rabbis interpret the text, "The poor man's wisdom is despised" (Eccl. 9:16). What wisdom of what poor man is despised? It refers to a man who is poor in good deeds; then his wisdom is despised. And if one teaches laws that instruct us to do good and he himself does not do good deeds his words are not accepted, for "not learning but doing is the chief thing" (Aboth 1:17). Wherefore it is necessary tor every man to direct his deeds for the sake of Heaven and see and understand from the example of Elisha, the son of Abuyah : because his father taught him Torah not for its own sake, the son turned to heresy. As it is said in the Jerusalem Talmud (Hagigah 2:1), and in the Midrash (Eccl. Rabbah 7:8, letter 18) : When Elisha, the son of Abuyah was circumcised his father made a feast for the Sages and invited Rabbi Eiezer and Rabbi Joshua and the other Sages, and they sat at the feast and spoke words of the Torah to the extent that a fire came and encircled them. The father of Elisha came and said to them, "My good friends, did you come to burn down the house?" And they said to him, "The fire that you see is only because we are studying the words of the Torah and the Prophets and the Scriptures. And the words of our discussion joyously testify to the truth just as when they were given at Mount Sinai. From Mount Sinai were they given, and from the fire were they given!" The father of Elisha ben Abuyah then said, "Now that I see the power of the Torah, if this my son will live on, I shall give him to the study of Torah." And because the father had it in his mind that he would teach his son Torah not for its own sake but for the power it would give him, his son became a heretic. And even so, a man should study the Torah even if not for its own sake, because from studying it not for its own sake, he will ultimately come to study it for its own sake (Pesahim 50b).

And now I must write down matters pertaining to the Talmud and the commandments that are there contained.

All of the commandments that were given to Moses from Sinai were given with their interpretation, as it is said, "And I will give thee the tables of stone, and the law (the Torah) and the commandment" (Ex. 24:12). "Torah" refers to the written Torah "and the commandment" refers to the interpretation of the written Torah (Berakoth 5a). And we have been commanded to fulfill the Torah according to the commandment, and this commandment is called the Oral Law. Moses, our teacher, wrote the whole Torah with his own hand, before he died, and he gave a copy to each tribe. And one copy he placed in the Ark, as testimony, as it is said, "Take this book of the law, and put it by the side of the Ark of the covenant of thy Lord your God, that it may be there for witness against thee" (Deut. 31:26).

And the commandment, which is the interpretation of the Torah, he did not write down, but commanded it to the Elders and to Joshua and to the rest of Israel. As it is said, "All this word which I command you, that shall ye observe to do : thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it" (Deut. 13:1). And because of this it is called the Oral Law. And from the days of Moses, our teacher, until our sainted Rabbi, Rabbi Judah the Prince, the Oral Law was not written in a book from which the multitude could study, but they studied everything orally, and everyone would take notes for his own use on the things he learned from his teachers, and would teach orally to the many. And so everyone would write for himself, according to his ability, the explanation of the Torah and its laws just as he heard it; and those things which were created anew in every generation, and laws that they had not learned from tradition but through the application of the "thirteen rules of interpreting the Torah," and on which the great Bet Din was in agreement. And so did they do until the matter came before Rabbi Judah, the Prince. And when Rabbi Judah saw that in his days the situation had altered, for he saw that the pupils were growing less and less, and that new troubles were coming upon the Jews and that the dominion of Rome was spreading over the world and growing mightier, and that Israel was wandering to the borders of distant countries only to be enslaved; when he saw this state of affairs, that Israel was confused and that the Torah was being forgotten from Israel, then he compiled the Mishnayot so that they could be in the hand of every single person so that they could learn them and they would not be forgotten. And he sat all of his days, he and his colleagues, and they taught the Mishnah to the multitude. And there were in his presence the greatest of the wise men of Israel and they received the Mishnah from him, and with them were thousands and thousand of other Sages. And the pupils of Rabbi Judah, the Prince, likewise compiled their own compilations. Rav compiled the Sifra and the Sifré to explain and make known the principles of the Mishnah. And Rabbi Hiyya compiled the Tosefta to explain points of the Mishnah. And Rabbi Hosaya and Bar Kappara compiled the Baraitot to explain the words of the Mishnah. And matters developed in this manner until the Amoraic came and they had differences of opinion as to the meaning of the Mishnayot and the Toseftot and the Baraitot until Rabbi Johanan compiled the Jerusalem Talmud in the land of Israel almost three hundred years after the destruction of the Second Temple, and it was called the Jerusalem Talmud because Rabbi Johanan lived in Jerusalem. About a hundred years later, Rav Ashi, who lived in Babylonia, compiled the Babylonian Talmud. And the purpose of both of these Talmuds is to explain the words of the Mishnah and to interpret its deep meaning, and the things that were created anew with the coming of every Bet Din from the days of our sainted rabbi, Rabbi Judah Hanasi, until the compilation of the Gemara. And from the two Talmuds and the Tosefta, and from the Sifra, and the Sifré and the Baraitot, from all of them we can find the explanation of what is forbidden and what is permitted, what is clean and what is unclean, what is obligatory upon us and what we are exempt from, what is unfit according to the Torah and what is fit just as they copied it, one man from another's mouth, all the way back to the mouth of Moses, our teacher, of blessed memory, as he received it from Sinai.

These works will also make clear the rules which the Sages and Prophets of every generation decreed in order to make a fence about the Torah, as they heard explicitly from the mouth of Moses, as it is said, "Therefore shall ye keep my charge" (Lev. 18:30), that is to say, make a guard for the laws which were to be guarded (Moed Katan 5a). One can also obtain from these works a clear interpretation of the customs, and the regulations that our Sages enacted in every generation according to the way that the Bet Din of that generation understood the matter, for it is forbidden to turn away from the words of the Sages, as it is said, "Thou shalt not turn aside from the sentence which they shall declare unto thee, to the right hand, nor to the left" (Deut. 17:11). And similarly included were all those judgments and excellent laws which our Sages did not receive from Moses, our teacher, but which the Bet Din of that generation decided according to the rules by which the Torah is interpreted, and also the decisions which the Elders made and concluded that the law was thus. Everything was included in the Gemara by Rav Ashi, from the days of Moses until his own day.

And after the Bet Din of Rav Ashi, in the days of his son, Israel was scattered in a great dispersion over all the countries and they reached the ends of the earth and the distant islands, and strife increased in the world, and the roads were mobbed with mobilizations, and the study of the Torah diminished, and Israel did not enter their yeshivot to study by the thousands and tens of thousands as had been the case earlier, but only a few would gather together, that remnant which the Lord summons in every city and in every country, and they occupy themselves with the Torah and understand all the writings of the Sages and know from them the commandments which the Lord of all, Blessed be He, has commanded.

After the Amoraim, there arose the Gaonim who knew the whole Talmud — the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmud — and the Sifra and the Sifré and the Tosefta. And they brought forth into the light the mysteries of the Talmud, and they explained all of its matters, for the path of the Talmud is very profound. Moreover, it is in the Aramaic language, mixed with other languages, for Aramaic was known to all of them in Babylonia at the time that the Talmud was compiled. But in other places and in the days of the Gaonim who were in Babylonia, they did not know that language unless they learned it especially. And the people of every city would put many questions to every Gaon who lived in those days, asking them to explain difficult points in the Talmud. And they would respond according to their wisdom. And the questioners would gather the responses and would make books of them in order to understand them better. The Gaonim in every generation also wrote treatises to explain the Talmud. Some of them explained individual laws, some explained individual chapters, and some explained whole tractates and complete "orders" of the Talmud. And there were others who compiled laws which had been decided in the matter of what is forbidden and what is permitted, and what one is obliged to do and what one is exempt from doing in matters that demanded a decision at that particular time in order that those who were not able to descend into the very depths of the Talmud should have the matter close to their mind.

And the following is an excerpt from the words of Maimonides, of blessed memory, in his preface to Mishneh Torah :

"And this is the work of the Lord, that the Gaonim of Israel engaged in from the day that the Gemara was compiled until this very time, which is the eleven hundreth and eighth year since the destruction of the Second Temple and it is the 4,937th year since the creation of the world (1177-78 C.E.).

"And in these times, troubles have grown mightily against us and the urgency of the hour has pushed everything else aside, and the wisdom of our Sages is lost, and the understanding of our discerning people is hidden. Therefore, those interpretations and laws and responses which the Gaonim compiled, and which they regarded as having been explained, have grown very difficult in our days, and there are very few who understand them properly. And, needless to say, the Gemara itself, both the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmud, and the Sifra and Sifré and Tosefta, all require a broad knowledge and a wise spirit and much time, and only then can one know the correct path concerning which things are forbidden and which permitted, and how it is with the rest of the laws of the Torah.

"Therefore, because of all of this, I stirred up my breast and girded my loins, I, Moses, the son of Maimon, the Spanish Jew, and I leaned upon the Rock, Blessed be He, and I considered well all of these books and I saw that it was necessary to compile words that are very clear out of all of these writings, with respect to what is permitted and what is forbidden, what is unclean and what is clean, with the rest of the Laws of the Torah, all of them in lucid language and briefly, so that the entire Oral Law would be completely arranged on the lips of everyone without any difficulty and without any omissions, or with this one saying thus and this one saying so, but clear words, near to the mind and heart, true according to the judgment which has been elicited and clarified out of all of those compositions and commentaries which have been extant from the days of our holy Rabbi (R. Judah, the Prince) to now, and until all the laws would be clearly revealed to small and great according to the law of every single precept and according to the law of all the regulations which the Sages and the Prophets decreed.

"The general object of all this is that no man should require any other work in the world concerning any law of the laws of Israel, but that this compilation gathers together the whole Oral Law, together with the regulations customs and decrees that have been in force from the days of Moses, our teacher, and until the compilation of the Gemara, and as the Gaonim interpreted in all of their writings which they wrote after the Gemara. Therefore I have called the name of this compilation Mishneh Torah or (Repetition of the Torah) because if a man reads the written Torah first and afterwards he reads this book, he will know from it the entire Oral Law and will not have to read any other book."

And after this there arose our teacher, Moses of Coucy, and compiled another book and selected portions of Maimonides' book and joined to this work some of the views of scholars of the later generation. And so did many rabbis make compilations of halakhic rulings. For example, the "Rokeah" and Rabbi Eliezer of Metz, and the "Avi Haezri," and the "Or Zarua." ** There are seven books by this name; the reference may be to the work on the Talmud written by Rabbi Isaac bar Moses of Vienna. And so did many rabbis do. Each compiled a book according to what he saw that the circumstances of his generation demanded, for they perceived that because of our great sins the knowledge of the Talmud had diminished and no man would be able to know what the law was if he did not have a book of decisions.

And also our teacher Solomon (Rashi) who saw in his own days the lessening of minds and hearts, and that because of our great sins the generations of scholars were lessening and departing, and therefore his heart was aroused to explain the Talmud and to teach the children of Israel knowledge. And afterwards, there arose those who came forth from his loins — Rabbenu Tam and Rabbenu Isaac and the rest of the rabbis. And they debated with great sharpness of mind until they compiled the Tosafot, in the academy of Rabbenu Issac, who was the master of the Tosafot. And there were great scholars there, such as our teacher, Samson of Sans, who also compiled Tosafot, besides the other scholars who now were very many, and were mighty in the Torah, and their minds were very great, and as open as a wide hall. And they studied with great assiduity, and gave their lives for the Torah, and without having to glance at a page they knew all of the Talmud as well as the comments of Rashi and the Tosafot.

After this, because of the greatness of our sins, troubles multiplied and our academies of study diminished. And the later Tosafot became very difficult for them to understand and they could not bear the burden. Then came other great ones and abridged those Tosafot, everyone according to his wisdom, to make this study easier for the man of his generation. And even in those days there were still men who knew all of the Talmud completely and knew the commandments from their knowledge of the Talmud, until it came about that the Jews were driven from France (1391), where they were holding strongly to the Torah and were studying it with great diligence, just as the Early Sages had done in the days of the Talmud, when the principal goal of study was to review the Talmud over and over again in order to fulfill what they said (Sifré to Deut. 6:7, Kiddushin 30a), "And ye shall teach them diligently to thy children": "May the words of the Torah be sharp in your mouth, so that if anyone should ask you a matter of law you will not stutter and give him any answer but you will give him the corect answer at once." For it is impossible that the commandments will be on the tip of a man's tongue, so that he can readily respond to a questioner, unless he has reviewed many times, as they said, "He who has repeated his chapter one hundred times is not to be compared with him who has repeated it a hundred and one times" (Hagigah 9b).

Resh Lakish would go over a law forty times before he came before Rabbi Johanan (Ta'anith 8a), and so did they all do in the days of the Sages of the Talmud, for the essence of their study was constant review. And they said (Megillah 7b) : Rabbi Ashi was sitting before Rabbi Kahana; it grew late, and still the rabbis did not arrive. He said to him, "Why have the rabbis not come?" "Perhaps they are busy with the Purim feast," he said to him. "Could they not have held it last night?" He replied, "Is your honour not acquainted with the teaching of Raba? If one eats his Purim feast on the night (of the 14th of Adar) he does not thereby fulfill his obligation. What is the reason for this? For it is written (Esther 9:22), 'Days of feasting and gladness'." He said to him, "Did Raba really say so?" He replied, "Yes." He then repeated it forty times, until it was safely stored in his mind.

And now observe that this was a very simple matter and even so he would review it many times. And nowadays there is no man at all who would review a thing like this more than once or twice. And there are great and clear proofs in many places in the Talmud that all of the Sages were accustomed to review, and that every one had a set sum of chapters to review each day. And if they were too busy in the daytime then they would fulfill their set amount at night (Erubin 65a), and every thirty days they would review what they had studied. In this manner they also studied in France, until they had attained the lofty heights and possessed great knowledge and no longer needed the books of decisions, for they knew the precepts out of the Talmud and the Tosafot themselves. But, from the day that they were driven out of France, the study of the Talmud diminished greatly.

And in this generation the Torah is still being forgotten, because those who study it try to do exactly as the earlier Sages and cling to subtle argumentation, but they do not resemble the wise men of France at all. For the minds of the latter were as open as a hall, and Torah was their art, and they renounced the world for its sake, day and night, and that is why they reached new truths though their subtle argumentation. But our scholars of today do not know Torah thus, so they confuse one another and waste most of the day and occupy themselves with such study about half the day, and their study is strictly incidental, while time-wasting is the established practice. It was otherwise in the days of the Sages of the Talmud : the students would go to study for ten years or more, and their study was outstanding because of the fixed times for Torah, to the extent that if anyone should sneeze they would not say, "Good Health ! ", because that would interrupt their studies in the Beth ha-Midrash (Berakoth 53a).

From this one sees how much importance they attached to their fixed time of study. And they said : R. Joseph the son of Raba was sent by his father to the academy under R. Joseph, and they arranged for him to stay there for six years. Having been there three years and the eve of the Day of Atonement approaching, he said, "I would go and see my family." When his father heard of his premature arrival he took up a weapon and went out to meet him. "You have remembered," he said to him, "your mate!" Another version : He said to him, "You have remembered your dove!" They got involved in a quarrel and neither the one nor the other ate of the last meal before the fast (Kethuboth 63a). See and understand from this incident how devoted they were to the Torah; therefore they merited to have the Divine Spirit within them.

Thus it was in the land of France that they occupied themselves with great industry and much time, and they would sit in one place to study all of the Talmud, and they would constantly review, and the Torah did not cease from their mouths. And they did according to the deeds of the earlier Sages, as they said, "Let one by all means learn, even though he is liable to forget, yea, even if he does not fully understand all of the words which he studies" (Abodah Zarah 19a). And they said, "That a man should study and subsequently understand." And all of this they do not do now, for everyone wants to study Tosafot, and new interpretations before he knows even the structure of the Talmud. This being the case, how can they make any progress? For they do the opposite of what the Sages of the Talmud said, for everything that is said in the Talmud is all true and one ought not to take issue with it or change it, nor add to it nor subtract from it.

And it is because of the difficulty of studying, and concentrating and discussing keenly that many people abandon the study of the Talmud, because of the difficulty of understanding its tradition and its grammer when taught orally, for they say, "How can we understand all of these opinions that come from outside the book itself? Would that we knew what is in the books!" Yet if they would study at fixed times, day and night, then they would learn and be completely familiar with the Talmud and they would develop a strong desire to study, for then they would have mind to understand things easily, and a man would then come to study constantly whether sleepy or awake and they would acquire through this means a complete reverence for God. And then pupils would increase and they too would occupy themselves constantly with the Torah. But now, because of the great difficulty of understanding the tradition when taught orally, the study of the Law has become a heavy burden to them, and they cannot look at the Talmud any more, and because of this they occupy themselves with madness and frivolity, and they are confused and they waste their time and they engage in all sorts of scheming plans, and they have no fear of Heaven.

And they said, in the chapter entitled "The hiring of workers" (Baba Mezi'a 85a and see Rashi) : When R. Zera emigrated to Palestine he fasted forty days (some texts read 100 fasts) to forget the Babylonian Talmud, that it should not trouble him. And they said : If a man stumbled by committing a sin for which the penalty is death by the decree of Heaven, what should he do so that he may live? If he was accustomed to read one page of the Talmud let him read two pages, if he was accustomed to repeat a chapter once let him repeat it twice, if he was accustomed to study one chapter let him study two chapters (Lev. Rabbah 25:1). We thus see that study is the principal thing, for if sharp debate were the principal thing, to cry out and to raise one's voice half a day over one statement, then he should have said, "If previously he was accustomed to raise one objection let him raise two objections."

And in the chapter entitled "Man Takes Unto Him a Wife" they said that when Rabbi Meir died, Rabbi Judah said, "Let not the pupils of Rabbi Meir enter here for they are argumentative" (Kiddushin 52b). All this he said because he did not want to pause in his studying. For Rabbi Meir was very sharp and his companions could not successfully debate with him (Erubin 13b and 53a). Moreover, R. Johanan said, "The hearts of the ancients were like the door of the Ulam, but those of the last generations were like the door of the Hekhal, but ours are like the eye of a fine needle." ** The Ulam and the Hekhal were two of the chambers in the Temple. The door of the Ulam was 20 cubits wide while that of the Hekhal was only ten. And Abaye said, "We are like a peg in a wall in respect of Gemara." And Raba said, "We are like a finger in wax as regards logical argument." "We," said R. Ashi, "are like a finger in a pit as regards forgetfulness" (Erubin 53a).

And now we are empty of understanding and we are not able to learn like a finger and we are like a block of marble with respect to the Gemara and logical argument. And this is what is said in the chapter entitled "Where with May We Kindle" : Raba said, "When man is led in for judgment he is asked, 'Did you deal faithfully (i.e., with integrily)… did you engage in the dialectics of wisdom…' " (Shabbath 31a). Does this mean that one must engage in sharp debate? Here it means the study of the Gemara, where they present difficulties as between the Baraitot and the Misnah and reconcile them; it also means that when one occupies himself with the Torah constantly and meditating on it, one sets his mind to be very particular and he will discover its true meaning. But to sit all day and just chat! —obviously, one ought not to do thus. And yet now in these times, most of the students admit themselves that they are not studying as they should, and they also know that they are not studying properly. For as the result of so much idle chatter in which they engage they waste their time completely, and they do not manage to study either the Pentateuch or the Prophets of the Hagiograph, or the Aggadot, or the Midrash, or any sort of true wisdom, because of their many clever schemes.

And the verse in Proverbs 24:30-31 — "I went by the field of the slothful, and the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo, it was all grown with thistles, the face thereof was covered with nettles, and the stone thereof was broken down" — was expounded by our Sages as follows (Aboth de-Rabbi Nathan, chap. 24) : He who does not constantly review his Talmud will at first forget the chapter headings, then he will change the words of the Sages, and finally he will say of unclean that is clean and of clean that is unclean, and thus he destroys the world. We thus see that he who does not constantly review his studies cannot declare the Law properly, but errs because he cannot decide between the many teachings. And it is said (Midrash Prov. 10:1) : Rabbi Ishmael said, "Come and see, how severe is the Day of Judgment ! For the Holy One, Blessed be He, will in the future judge all the world in the Valley of Jehosephat; and when a scholar comes before him, He will say to him, 'Did you occupy yourself with Torah?' Then he will say to Him, 'Yes.' Then the Holy One, Blessed be He, will say to him, 'Since you have admitted this before Me, tell Me what you have read, what you have studied, and what you have heard in the academy?' It is on this basis that our Sages said, 'Everything that a man has read should be at his fingertips, so that shame and humiliation will not overtake him on the Day of Judgment.' "