The Torah Scholar is:
...like the Torah Itself.
...like the Godly Presence.
...both the Giver and the Receiver.
I

      “And they came, all of them, in covenant together. ‘We will do and we will hear,’ they said, all as one.” The wording, "we will do and we will hear" implies a single reality of receiver and giver, rather than two separate entities in which one is giving and the other is receiving. This is an entirely new existential reality unequalled in the universe, for the reason that the Creator Himself did not create this reality. This new reality might be defined as a Godly ability transferred into human hands by the Creator , in order to express a Godly creation, but one that human beings must create on their own.

      When Chazal describe the first stage of the creation of the human being as single and unique, prior to its division into two separate and opposed entities of male and female, they depict the human being as male from the front and female from the back, with the reproductive ability given over to this single unit, which possessed the ability to both give and to receive, to both beget and give birth. This must have been the lechatchila ideal version of the human being, as the ultimate in completeness and perfection. Elsewhere, in Bereshit, we attempt to explore the roots of this subject. Here we will suffice with pointing to the fact that perfection as a pre-determined ideal state was not received well by the human, in principle.  He did not find it satisfactory. He felt that challenge was lacking. “A man would rather have one measure of his own than nine measures of his friend’s.” Human beings wish to be the initiators, to take the mission upon themselves, to create perfection with their own hands; this is the perfection that arises from creating a new situation.

      From Separation to Union

      The world is comprised of complementary opposites, following the principle that “two scriptures contradict each other until the third shall come and resolve them.” Thus we find fire and water, light and darkness, sea and dry land, matter and spirit, and all the rest of the opposites. “By God’s word, the heavens were made,” and “by His rebuke He created the lofty vaults of the heavens” are references to the third scripture, to an active Divine intervention. “In ten statements, the world was created.” These are levels reflecting a process of unification between matter and spirit.  They progress from the most inferior level of physical matter to the supreme level of physical matter in which the spirit reflects in the tangibility of physical matter through active revelation.

      This structure of contradiction between opposed elements follows a back and forth “running to and fro” dynamic, of clash and construction, moving perpetually upward in spiral formation until the opposites attain a point of absolute union.  This is a dynamic process, incessantly unfolding and being created anew, through man's deliberate intention, which aims at a clear and defined target that holds his own ultimate purpose, of which he is completely conscious and aware. It was [God’s] deliberate and prior intention that this process be given over solely into the faithful hands of human beings, for it is man alone as crown of creation who reflects, in microcosmic form, a miniature world that contains all of the features of the greater universe, including the laws of matter and of the spirit as well. All of the conflicts and contradictions contained in the macrocosm of the created universe – rage volcanically inside of man, with a ceaseless intensity and at a level of concentration so high as to threaten to explode at any moment. They are to be found throughout the entire structure of all the elements that comprise a human being, in every form and aspect of human existence, whether in the private domain or in the public domain within the social structure.

    Peace, an Ideal – A Vision For a Future Time

      The war is constantly raging: Man with himself, between himself and his fellow, between himself and society, between one society and another, between one country and another. Peace in the sense of unity is held in reserve in the higher worlds in the Creator’s hands – and in man’s desperately yearning heart: Peace as the unreachable dream, as a heart’s desire only, as a prayer. “He Who makes peace in His lofty worlds – He will make peace upon us and upon all of Israel.” How, wonders man, can it be that the Creator keeps it for Himself, this longed-for peace? Why would He not entrust the ideal of peace into human hands? After all, the Creator has granted man the gift of the capacity to create unity between opposed forces.

      We must conclude from this that the Creator’s intention was to turn the contradiction that is accompanied by the capacity to create completing unity into the very purpose of creation. Out of all life, out of all the created beings, man alone was the single candidate endowed with everything required for this mission. Every single individual has been given a chunk of existence, a bundle of creeping crawling creatures devouring one another, carved of physical matter and of rules of existence that have been fitted to the uniquely original creative quality of that individual, who alone is capable of imposing peace among them, and it is for this reason that he was brought down from the world of souls to this lowly world. According to the extent of his success in his mission, so his level of spiritual success is measured.

      What is so interesting and surprising in this affair is that the bundle of crawling creatures that destroy one another has not been given into man’s hands. This bundle dwells inside him, within himself. “It is not in heaven, nor is it across the sea. For the thing is very close to you, in your own mouth and in your own heart to do it.”

      It has already been pointed out that a tool was needed in order to implement this mission. This tool is the ‘third scripture’. With Adam, the first human, this tool was found within his grasp, within himself. The first human’s problem was an excess of tools and ways and means. Even Gen Eden was unique in that the opposing forces inherent in creation complemented one another without any need for human intervention. Man thus felt the lack of opportunity to express the creative self within him. “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a help, opposite him.” This help will be flesh of his flesh, yet opposite him. Thus he will feel a lack and a need to fill that lack, but this time by way of a confrontation with contradiction, by dealing with opposition itself.

      Henceforth, confronting the other, for better or for worse, would become the third scripture that would resolve the conflict between them, in the sense of “ ‘love your friend as yourself;’ this is the great rule of the Torah. Chesed, or giving is the only receiving that works to fill one’s lack. Yet this tool as well, though it has found grace in the eyes of those idealists who love humanity and society, has not withstood the test. Social ideals have popped up at intervals in history – communism, socialism, etc. The moment they deviated from the private domain and became a social, political system, they lost the secret of the direct bond with the individual, with the other, and turned this bond into a whip. Missing the target, they related to suffering man as to an object whose entire purpose and destiny was to materialize the theoretical ideal that had been emptied of its human content, and would serve only to further the egoistic ambitions of the power hungry. From an instrument designed to impose peace on earth, it became the cause of class war, envy, and hatred, mainly because it had turned from identifying with others into competing with others. Only a few chosen individuals – our sacred forefathers – have proven their ability to protect the trait of chesed, and its efficacy in bonding with others and in bringing distant ones nearer.

      Even in our own day, after the humiliating failure suffered by the direct approach to human relations, na?ve thinkers and theorists, both Jewish (Levinas) and non-Jewish, still believe in it, and bestow upon such relations the crown of morality and religion. Yet they are nothing more than running in place on the theoretical-intellectual dimension, while ignoring the test of practical application. We must not forget that we are discussing ideas that deal with the most exalted plane of, first and foremost, human behavior. We are not dealing with theoretical mathematics.

      Yet in contrast we must remember as well that if we are not to remain within theoretical boundaries, we must necessarily bring these vital principles down to the plane of relations that primarily influence ordinary human beings, rather than dwellers of ivory towers. “The mitsvot were given only in order to purify human creatures.” All human creatures, not only the elitists. The Torah intends a way that is accessible to all.

      For this reason, the Torah offers an entire network of concepts and laws that encompasses all aspects of behavior, and is all-inclusive in its scope. It is focused upon an axis that drains toward itself and corrects and perfects everything that requires repair, both in the center and in the periphery of the human personality. In order to accomplish this mission, the Torah must deal with the dimension of uniqueness and originality that characterizes every single individual, and this indeed is the reason that the Torah did not suffice with hard and fast rules and dogmas. The characteristics of the Torah approach are flexibility, openness, and going the entire length of life’s many different, interconnecting and merging tracks, while exploiting sensitivity to the maximum, for the sake of the individual’s needs.

      The Torah approach awakens profound and cautious study, which takes into consideration the difficulty of classifying the Torah perception into each of the known and familiar processes accessible to the study halls of the dimensions of time and space, object and subject. Yet the Torah approach is astounding in its simplicity:

The Torah does not set man up to face a confrontation with the outside.  All that is required of man is to identify with his self, by focusing on his own meaningful content and on his own creative ability.  This is not a preaching for individualism, as a counter-reaction to the danger of losing oneself in the floodwaters of western technocratic culture.  Rather it is an encouragement to identify with the Torah – to the point of absolute sacrifice – for the Torah itself is your own truest essence.  It holds the preservative for the uniquely original quality of every individual’s innermost self, and the antidote for all the external shells of the ego, which is influenced by external stimuli, by alien stimuli whose whole power lies in devastating the systems and erasing the self.

    “When a person shall die in the tent,” Chazal explain to mean “Torah’s tent.”  This is the death of the ego in favor of the self.  It is devotion.  It is constantly sacrificing the ego shell in favor of liberating the self and its uniquely original expression.  Learning Torah requires an act of choice from the individual, an incessant sorting out and opting for the elements of a value-driven qualitative life, as opposed to being easily and mindlessly pulled down with the current of materialistic existence.  Additionally Torah learning endows the personality with a profound impenetration of elements belonging not to the outside but to the dimension of height.  This profound act of choice gains the choosing individual the right to the services of the ‘third scripture,’ which resolves the conflict between the two surface dimensions that contradict one another.  Through the view of the third dimension, a man discovers suddenly that he is not dealing with enemies against whom he must wage the war of survival.  Rather, he is dealing with friends who seek his welfare, and who complete and complement one another.  He need not distance them but rather must adopt them with a loving and unifying embrace.  Such an embrace is not an embrace of strangers, but rather an embrace of his own self, for the source of the contradiction is inside him, within himself.

    A Reality of Torah

    “For he desires only God’s Torah, and in his Torah he shall delve day and night.”  Chazal interpret the difference between “God’s Torah” and “his Torah” to mean that God’s Torah exists in its own right.  It is non-dependent, and needs no support from any reality other than itself.  It belongs to God alone.  However, when a learner of Torah is preoccupied entirely with it, and devotes all of his time and resources to it, then it is attributed to him and it becomes his own possession.  From “God’s Torah” it becomes “his Torah.”  From this point onward, the Torah takes up space inside of him.  His thought is Torah, his heart is Torah, and his actions are Torah.

   This is not only when he is actively dealing with Torah.  In contrast to all the other mitzvoth, which protect man from the pitfalls of existence during the moment he is occupied with the mitzvah, the Torah protects him even when he is not specifically occupied with it.  Furthermore, the preoccupation with Torah is not dependent on the specific intention of the individual occupied with Torah to be fulfilling a mitzvah, for after all, “out of not [learning Torah] for its own sake, he comes to [learning Torah] for its own sake.”  This means to say that it is not the intention that makes the mitzvah, as is the case with all the other mitzvoth.  Rather the very preoccupation with it awakens an intention of mitzvah.  Under one condition: That he must be immersed in it entirely.  He must see the preoccupation with Torah as the main element of his life.  “A Torah life” means an exclusive experience of existence, after which there is nothing at all.

    Chazal go to great extremes in their description of a life of Torah.  In the mishneh in Pirkei Avot, they count the forty-eight “acquirers,” necessary for acquiring Torah.  The guiding principle behind all of these “acquirers” is exclusivity, arrived at by completely ignoring – to the point of renouncing – all of the needs of survival.  There is no need to abstain from them, and there is importance in using them according to the needs of existence, according to the rule of “ ‘one must live by them’ and not one must die by them.”  Yet the needs of survival have no importance as a goal.  One must merely be aware of survival.  This is the case with all the mitzvoth. However, this necessity does not take up any space in the learner’s scale of values.  “When a man shall die in the tent:” Chazal remove the phrase “a man shall die” from the regions of death, and grant him the life of Torah.  This is to say that only a man who dies in the tent of Torah merits life in the full sense of the word.  His life becomes a life of happiness and fulfillment, with no threat that might rouse his survival instinct.  One who is immersed in the tent of Torah is exempt from confronting the adversariality inherent in existence; this war fights itself on his behalf.  A life of Torah is not energy wasted on existential contradiction.  Everything is conducted and carried out along the track of creativity, led by the goal of preoccupation with Torah – which exists at every moment and not only at the end of the tunnel.  There is no division between ends and means, as is commonly accepted in survival’s life of contradiction – meaning, suffer now, for future compensation.  The life of Torah unifies ends and means, because the ultimate goal is being actualized at every stage of implementation, and not only at its end.

    The Gemara discusses this question: What is more important?  Learning or action?  The Gemara concludes that learning is greater, because learning leads to action.  This is to teach you that the Torah occupation is not divided into parts, into theoretical Torah versus applied or practical Torah.  Learning is great, because learning is action.  Torah is not given over to the restrictions of space and time, which are segmented by survival.

The Mida of Bitachon
      The personality trait of confidence in God reveals the face of the believer confronting his own survival. In a world of hester panim, where the Godly presence and plan are well and thoroughly hidden, the mida of bitachon becomes an object of public ridicule – and riddled with internal contradictions. It finds itself serving the interests of the idlers and loafers, who wish to evade any confrontation with their duty.

      Only in the world of Torah – where the Godly purpose rules man himself – does the mida of bitachon find whole and perfect expression. It is within man’s capacity to internalize his Godly existence: By absolutely identifying to the point of sacrifice, one's mida of bitachon becomes a beacon of light, illuminating both the man and his occupation in its brilliant glow. One who has this type of bitachon identifies with the Creator, Who manages man’s world from within man himself, rather than as a stranger. Under this management, where man himself chooses his own initiative, and the purpose of his own existence, he is able to feel, with perfect faith, how his needs are fulfilled – for these needs are for the sake of heaven – even before he has made any request, even before he becomes conscious of the fact that his needs are needed in order to fulfill his aspirations.

      This is meant n the sense of “even as they speak, I shall hear,” and “from a wound, You will make our healing.” The sensation felt by one who is confident in God is that the ability to attain his wish rests in his own pocket. His obligation of hishtadlut, investing effort is limited to taking the trouble to actualize the dormant potential hidden inside him; it is within himself, in the sense of “not in heaven is it found, nor across the sea. It is in your own mouth and in your own heart to do it.”

      “A Life-Giving Drug” / “A Death-Dealing Drug”

      How is it possible that the Torah can be turned from a life-giving drug into a death-dealing drug? Yet indeed such wretched situations unfold every day, and the matter of “making Torah a shovel to dig with,” (meaning, using Torah learning to serve one’s own egoistic interests) is the least severe of them. Much worse is the one who makes of his Torah a means to dominate others, politically and socially. Worse yet is the one who deludes the masses into believing he possesses hidden powers, that he is a secret saint, sacred and omniscient. Worst still is the one who sets himself up as a god figure at the head of a cult of believers, of “pious fool” disciples.

      The least dangerous of all these is the process of “a learner who learns not for the Torah’s own sake, who gradually becomes a learner who learns for the Torah’s own sake.” Perhaps we should remind the reader here of the distinction between self and ego. Where ego rules supreme, the survival system is activated, but where the self rules supreme, the survival system would not dare to intrude into the space of the self, which is charged with cultivating one’s creative quality.  There ego unwittingly becomes the servant of the self, and there ego ultimately bestows the ruling crown upon the self. There the need for social recognition, for achieving status, for earning one’s livelihood – set the framework and create the containers that will contain the meaningful content of the self; there Torah is invited to fill these containers with the meaningful content of quality, and it is all for the good.

      When ego rules by brute force, and aspires to exclusive control, while the self is weak and effectively cancelled by a negative abundance of ego plots to take over control, through cunning and through the use of negative means, then the meaningful content of the self becomes a servant to ego, and “makes out of the Torah a shovel to dig with.” In such cases, the learning that is not for Torah's own sake never reaches the stage of becoming a learning that is for Torah's own sake.

      This explains the need for selectivity in determining who may enter the study hall.  We must discern whether tocho ceboro, whether a candidate’s inner reality matches his outer appearance. We must warmly welcome those who possess an ego that is not at war with the self, for though they begin their learning not for Torah's own sake, yet eventually the radiant light of Torah will bring them to learn it for its own sake, and we must reject those who possess a negative ego, for whom the self has become the indentured slave of the negative ego. For these people, the Torah serves as a powerful instrument for furthering their survival system, which takes center stage in their experience of existence.

      Summary

      The revolution that came to the universe through the giving of the Torah created a new human being, one who would be capable of internalizing the Godly presence. This new human being would no longer reflect the created universe in microcosmic form, but would instead reflect the Creator of the universe Himself in all His glory. The new human being would be a Godly presence, and would contain also His qualities that are not bound by space and time.

      From here we derive “the tsadik utters a decree, and the Holy One carries it out.” From here we derive the idea of partnership, of human beings as the allies of the Creator. Our minuscule contribution toward bringing this rare concept down to the level of human understanding is not for those who deal in nistar, in the Torah’s secret mysteries. We are dealing with an idea that reflects a tangible, actual reality.

      The Sforno sheds new light on our discussion in the closing verse of Naso (Bamidbar 7:89): “ ‘And he heard the voice speaking to him;’ means that the voice was speaking between Him and Himself, for “all that God has worked is for His Own sake.’ And when He informs Himself, He thereby knows and bestows good upon the other, with an immense generosity of influence that knows no termination [limitations, restrictions] and this works its effects upon the one who allows its effects to be worked upon him – all according to the level of that person’s preparedness. We have thus interpreted the meaning of every “speaking” mentioned in the Torah, whenever it says ‘and God spoke.’”

      The Sforno’s words mean that the expression of Godly presence inherent in human beings, which generously bestows an abundance that is unlimited and unrestricted – is dependent on the extent to which the worshiper has internalized and identified with and attached to the Godly presence within him. His influence is a function of his recognition and worship of God, which derive from his own Godly quality.

      On the other hand, the effectiveness of this Godly influence is obviously dependent on the extent of the ability of the one receiving the influence to be open to it and to digest it, according to his level of preparedness, and according to his spiritual willingness to receive. Thus an exchange of roles is brought about, blurring the Creator-creant relationship, moving toward a giver-receiver relationship in a virtuous cycle that constantly builds itself: Creator gives to creant, who is receiver – but who then becomes giver to another. No more “I-Thou” relations, but rather “love your friend as yourself.” I and other become interchangeable, uniting through “as yourself,” in the sense of “I will bless whoever blesses you.”

      So too with the priestly blessing, in which the cohen, who receives blessing from God, draws it down upon the heads of a holy people. So too with the holy words of the Alshich, who differentiates between Avraham and Moshe: “For Moshe’s power was greater than that of Avraham, because with Avraham, the angel made a distinction: ‘And an angel of God called out to him, etc’ and afterwards, He, be He blessed, spoke with him: ‘Do not raise your hand against the youth, etc.’ But with Moshe: ‘And He called to Moshe,’ by Himself.”

      The Alshich continues his discussion of the idea we are examining here: The power of Torah. “For when Aharon was despondently pondering the fact that the tribe of Levi had not been the one to dedicate the altar – Moshe too could have been despondent about this. This is why the Torah comes and tells us: Behold Moshe has no complaint, for what more can he possibly desire than his own attainment and nearness to Him, be He blessed. For ‘when Moshe would come [to the Tent of Meeting]’ before he would even plead with God, ‘He would speak to him’” – in the sense of “even as they speak, I will have heard,” by shrinking the distance between the Creator and man to attain a "Shema...God is One” level of unity.