Fw: Dvar Torah from the Rosh HaYeshiva - Parshas Behar Bechukosai– 5786

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From: "Rabbi Moshe Revah" <htcnews-htc.edu@shared1.ccsend.com>

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Sent: Thu, May 7, 2026 at 4:34 PM

Subject: Dvar Torah from the Rosh HaYeshiva - Parshas Behar Bechukosai– 5786

Parshas Behar Bechukosai– 5786

Dear Yeshiva Family: “Toil In Torah” In the beginning of this week’s parashah, Rashi, tells us that the pasuk of “if you will go in my statutes” means that a person must toil in Torah. And the truth is, this is a very difficult concept for many people to understand. What exactly does it mean to “toil” in Torah? In fact, aside from this usage, I’ve never really heard anyone ever use that word! So, let’s modernize it to ‘labor in Torah’. But still, what are we actually doing when we sit and learn for hours? What is the nature of that labor? And this leads to an even broader and more challenging question. Why are there so many people, hundreds of thousands of individuals and families across the globe, who dedicate themselves to full-time Torah learning? We are speaking about intelligent, capable people who could excel in many different fields, and yet they choose to spend years immersed in Gemara. Are they all planning on becoming rabbanim? Clearly not. Many are learning sugyos (topics) that are not immediately practical, not areas that will directly lead to paskening (ruling) halachic questions. At times, a person can spend an entire year covering only a small amount of Gemara, going slowly, analyzing, thinking, struggling. And yet, this is not only accepted, it is encouraged. It is presented as the ideal. Furthermore, we ask our youth to invest countless hours each day in learning Gemara, even when, at times, they feel they have little interest in it. And the question that is often asked, (at least once every Q and A session) sometimes openly, and sometimes beneath the surface, is: why? What is the purpose of all of this? What is being gained? What does it mean to be toil in Torah, and why is it so central to our existence? Working with a Purpose The answer to this question is extremely fundamental, and in truth, it is critical for anyone who is currently in yeshiva, spending hours every day in learning, to understand these basic truths. If a person does not know, or does not buy into, what he is doing, then the entire experience can feel like torture. Imagine being forced to spend hours every day doing something that you see no value in, something that is inherently difficult and demanding. It would be like asking a person to memorize a foreign phone book—pages and pages of information with no apparent purpose, no immediate reward, and no long-term gain. Naturally, a person will resist. He will push back. It will feel meaningless. And therefore, this point must be explained, and re-explained, in as many ways as possible, so that a person can begin to appreciate what he is actually doing. Let us give a mashal. Imagine a person who is forced every single day to ride an exercise bike for hours. He is not particularly interested in fitness. He does not care about health. Every day he is told to get on the bike and ride mile after mile. To him, it is exhausting, repetitive, and completely meaningless. It is pure effort with no purpose. Now imagine that we tell him something new. We tell him that this is not just an exercise bike. Every time he pedals, he is generating electricity. And not just electricity in general, but electricity that is being sent directly to a hospital that is currently without power. And not only that—the electricity he is generating is being used to power a ventilator, and that ventilator is keeping a person alive. And then we tell him one more detail. The person whose life is being sustained is someone of tremendous importance—someone whose life matters on a national, even global level, the President. And everything he is doing, every ounce of effort, every drop of energy that he is investing, is being immediately transformed into something real, something meaningful, something that is literally sustaining life. And imagine further that this is not hidden. You’re on camera and the entire world is watching. Every turn of the pedal, every moment of struggle, is being observed by millions of people and appreciated for what it truly is. Suddenly, the exact same activity changes entirely. The physical effort is the same. The exhaustion is the same. The difficulty is the same. But the experience is completely different. What once felt like pointless exertion now becomes energizing, purposeful, even inspiring. Because now he understands what he is doing. And that is the point. When a person does not understand the value of his actions, even meaningful effort can feel empty. But when a person begins to understand the true impact of what he is doing, the very same effort becomes something entirely different. And therefore, if a person were to truly understand what he is accomplishing when he sits and learns Torah, then all of that time, all of that struggle, all of that effort would take on a completely new meaning. So the question becomes: what exactly is he doing? What Torah Really Is The answer to this question is fundamental. When Hashem created the world, the Torah was not given as just another body of knowledge. It is not like a textbook, not like a collection of facts and information that exist for us to study and master. A math textbook, a medical textbook—these are compilations of truths that have been discovered. That is all they are. Torah is something entirely different. Torah is alive. It is a reality, a being, something that exists beyond just the information that it contains. There are many ways to explain this idea, and many nuances to it, but at its core, Torah is not just knowledge—it is a living connection. Hashem created a world in which there is a gap between the physical and the spiritual. We live in a physical world, and Hashem is beyond that. The question is: how does a person bridge that gap? How does a human being connect to something higher? The answer is through Torah. When a person learns Torah—when he thinks, analyzes, struggles, and works through a sugya—he is not merely processing information. He is using his mind as a tool, to access something far greater. Even when the subject matter appears mundane—laws of damages, of business, of marriage, of everyday life—it is not simply discussing those topics. It is Torah. And when a person engages with Torah, he is engaging with the word of Hashem itself. This is difficult to fully grasp, but we can give a simple mashal. A person can use his hand to lift an object. That is a simple action with a simple result. But imagine that instead of lifting an object, he places his hand on a lever that is connected to a massive machine—an earthmover, something powerful and complex. The motion of his hand may look the same, but what he is actually accomplishing is entirely different. That small action is now connected to something much larger. So too, when a person uses his mind to solve a math problem, he is doing one thing—he is solving a problem. But when he uses his mind to learn Torah, it may look similar externally—thinking, analyzing, focusing—but in reality, he is doing something infinitely greater. He is connecting himself, his Neshama (soul), to Torah, to something higher, to the word of Hashem. When we tell a young person to learn, it is not simply so that he becomes knowledgeable, not so that he becomes cultured, and not even only so that he can one day pasken a shailah or become a rabbi. Those may be outcomes, but they are not the essence. The essence is that through learning, a person plugs himself into Torah. The more a person learns, the more he invests effort, the more he struggles and thinks, the deeper that connection becomes. He is not just gaining information—he is drawing down Torah into himself and into the world. And that changes everything. Because now, the hours spent learning are not just time spent. They are moments of connection, of impact, of building something real. Working OR Understanding And with this, we can begin to understand something very important. Imagine the following situation. A person is trying to understand a Rashi. He can sit and work on it himself, think through it, struggle, go back and forth, and there is only a fifty-percent chance that he will arrive at the correct pshat in the end. Alternatively, he can simply ask a friend, or sit in a shiur, and hear the correct explanation with very little effort, guaranteeing that he walks away with the right answer. What should he do? At first glance, it would seem obvious that he should choose the path that guarantees the correct understanding. After all, isn’t the goal to know the right pshat? But based on what we have explained, the answer is just the opposite. We would tell him to work it out himself. Because the goal is not merely to arrive at the correct answer. The goal is the process—the thinking, the struggling, the concentration, the exertion of the mind. It is that effort, the use of the brain, that creates the connection. That is what allows a person to access Torah. It is not the fact that he ends up with the right answer at the end of the day; it is the process of getting there, that matters most. And this explains the approach of the yeshivos. So much of the time is spent not simply covering ground, not simply acquiring information, but thinking—deeply, carefully, and at times slowly—until things become clear. A person may spend hours on a single sugya, working to understand it, to clarify it, to make it his own. Because in doing so, he is not just learning about Torah. He is connecting to it. Imagine a jogger leaves his house and begins running a ten-mile route around the city. He is going to end up right back where he started. If you were to pull up next to him in your car and offer him a ride, he would look at you as if you were crazy. He does not need transportation. He is not trying to get somewhere. The whole point is the running itself — the exertion, the effort, the work. So too, when it comes to learning Torah, the goal is not only to “arrive” at an answer. The effort itself is part of the goal. The work of thinking, analyzing, clarifying, and struggling to understand — that is the essence of ameilus baTorah, toil in Torah. Working outside of Torah - for Torah With this, we can understand a statement of the Brisker Rav. The Brisker Rav explained that the ameilus baTorah referred to by Rashi is specifically the work within the Torah itself — the mental effort to understand, clarify, and make the sugya clear. At first glance, this needs explanation, because there is a Gemara in Menachos that seems to indicate that even physical effort invested in enabling Torah learning is considered part of ameilus baTorah[1]. But perhaps, based on what we have explained, we can understand the Brisker Rav’s approach. Torah is accessed through the mind. A person connects to Torah by running it through his thoughts, by exerting his seichel, his intellect, in understanding the dvar Hashem, the word of Hashem. Therefore, the primary meaning of ameilus baTorah is specifically the exertion of the mind in Torah. It is the struggle to understand, the effort to clarify, the work of thinking deeply and honestly until the Torah becomes clear. What, then, would the Brisker Rav do with the Gemara in Menachos? He would likely explain that there is certainly value in all effort invested in a mitzvah. If a person works hard to obtain an esrog, or goes through difficulty to perform any mitzvah, that effort enhances the mitzvah and brings great reward. So too, effort that enables Torah learning is certainly precious and meaningful and makes the Mitzvah of his Talmud Torah more precious. But that is not the inner definition of ameilus baTorah. The inner definition of ameilus baTorah is the work of the mind inside the Torah itself — because that is how a person accesses Torah, connects his neshama to Torah, and brings the dvar Hashem into himself. That is what talks to the Torah itself. Practically speaking, this has real implications. If a person has a choice between joining a shiur where he can sit back and absorb the information with minimal effort, or learning in a chavrusa setting where he is more in the driver’s seat and is forced to think, struggle, and actively engage, then the preferable option is the one that demands more of his mind. A framework that challenges him, that pushes him to analyze and clarify, and that requires real mental effort is what will bring him to true ameilus baTorah. And with this, we can understand something else as well. A beautiful Devar Torah that is produced without effort, without struggle, is not the same as real Torah. It may look impressive, it may sound polished, but it lacks the essence. It is, in a sense, like imitation jewelry—something that appears valuable on the outside, but is not the real thing. Real Torah is not created through presentation; it is created through effort. It is born from the struggle to understand, from the process of thinking, questioning, clarifying, and working through an idea until it becomes clear. That is what creates Torah within a person. That is how a person accesses it, internalizes it, and, in a certain sense, brings it into the world. And this is something that can only happen through mental effort—through focus, through concentration, through mental elbow grease! I once heard a beautiful line from Reb Avraham Yehoshua Soloveitchik shlita. He explained that real מסירות נפש in Torah today is not only in giving up comfort or time. The real מסירות נפש is when a person has something that is “pretty clear,” and he pushes himself further—he reviews it again and again until it becomes “crystal clear”. Most people are satisfied with “I more or less understand.” But to go from “pretty clear” to absolute clarity—that takes effort, that takes discipline, that takes real עבודה. And that, he said, is the true מסירות נפש של תורה. When we speak about being מוסר נפש for Torah in our times, this is what we mean. Not just showing up, not just learning, but pushing oneself beyond what is comfortable, beyond what is easy, until the Torah becomes truly clear and truly one’s own[2]. May we be zocheh to continue to grow together to the Yom Tov of Shavous where we will be mekabel the Torah together and use our brains to the best of our ability to create the greatest connection with Hashem! Have an amazing Shabbos! Rabbi Moshe Revah Mrevah2@touro.edu [1] The case at hand (Menachos 7a) is where one invests effort to obtain a sefer to help his learning. Does this fall under the rubric of ameilus BaTorah. Rav Aharon Kotler, in Mishnas Rav Aharon (1:40), develops this idea clearly. There is obviously a disagreement on this issue. [2] One could ask: if ameilus baTorah, toil in Torah, is so central, why is it not listed among the forty-eight ways through which Torah is acquired? The answer is that the forty-eight kinyanim are not what create Torah itself; they are the qualities that shape the person who receives it. They are the conditions necessary for a person to become a ben Torah, someone who is capable of holding onto Torah. But ameilus baTorah is different. It is not one of the tools—it is the very essence. It is the act through which Torah is accessed and brought into a person. In other words, the forty-eight kinyanim build the person; ameilus baTorah is the Torah itself. Download PDF Forwarded this email and interested in joining our Dvar Torah List? Click here to subscribe to this email list!  Hebrew Theological College is a member of Touro University and a partner with the Jewish United Fund in serving our community

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