Shabbat Parashat Matot Masei 5785

Moreshet Shaul: Rebirth Through Torah

There are two scenarios in which a person is considered reborn. One is a convert, who Halacha treats as if his past is erased (see Yevamot 22a). The new person, the convert, becomes one with a future but no past – like a born baby.

The other case is one who learns Torah. Chazal determined: “One who teaches Torah to his friend’s son is as if he gave birth to him” (Sanhedrin 19b). If the teacher is like one who begot him, then the student must be like one who was born. Thus, the same concept as conversion, with the radical change from non-Jew to Jew, occurs when one goes from being unlearned to learned.

Two friends were educated and played together; then a change came. One stayed home, while the other went off to yeshiva. After a while, they meet back at home, and their conversation is no longer natural. The friend who learned Torah is somehow a new person, not who he was before.

There are 613 mitzvot, corresponding to 365 sinews and 248 limbs/organs. These are the soul and root from which the body receives its vitality. If a person performed a mitzva or refrained from a transgression, he gave life to a body part. If he failed to perform a mitzva or transgressed, he damaged a body part. This is because the spirit of life is connected to mitzvot. For a non-Jew, the pipes of his nourishment are fed by a lower wellspring. If he converted, he was infused with a new soul and wellspring, and pipes were opened, turning him into a new person.

However, the world is divided into levels. That which is considered the soul of the lower level is considered physical for the higher level. Just like a person’s body receives vitality from the soul of a mitzva, so too a mitzva needs to receive a soul from the higher level; that soul is the Torah. In fact, the mitzva lacks its liveliness without the Torah behind the mitzva. Also, just as a person is reborn through conversion, so is a Jew reborn through Torah study.

There are people who study Torah and there is the study of Torah. One who studies enough becomes a “study of Torah” and a “son of Torah.” This is not so for all other intellectual disciplines, in which the student and the discipline are disconnected and the person’s being is not affected by it. There, the person controls the wisdom, and the wisdom does not control him. Regarding one who masters Torah, the Torah takes him over and leaves its imprint on him, pours its spirit on him, and makes him a new person. A studied page of Talmud is not just new information; it is a “liquid” that intermingles with his blood and spreads throughout one’s body and being. He thinks differently and has different manners and attributes. If one cannot touch the difference or immediately see it, it is because of his lack of perception.

Sometimes even the Torah observant miss this point. If they lack appreciation of Torah, they view its study as just one more of the 613 mitzvot. For such people, the Torah and the mitzva to learn it lack the power to change one’s day and certainly one’s life. They think that Torah is only for those who study it professionally, whereas the rest can suffice with reciting Kriat Shema twice a day. They think that this suffices to teach their children, as the parents do not feel inspired by the prospect of more. More than a few even do not respect those who study intensely, thinking that they do it for their enjoyment and view them as not contributing to the world.

Before the poor shepherd Akiva was “born” into Rabbi Akiva, he was the symbol for the ignorant people of the world. He was ignorant but not evil or disrespectful of mitzvot. He was humble and good and just was missing a desire to embrace the study of Torah. But this was not so, for the gemara (Pesachim 49b) told of his hostility toward Torah scholars; it was ignorance as an approach.  

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