Parshas Mishpatim: If You Find Torah Study Dull and Uninspiring, Listen to This!

What if the key to unlocking a more profound spiritual connection with Torah study lies in breaking away from traditional methods? Join us as we explore the journey of "floaters," individuals seeking true fulfillment amidst the often rigid frameworks of Daf Yomi, Oiraisa, and Mishnayas. Discover how the teachings of Rashi and the wisdom of this week's parasha offer hope and potential solutions, guiding our search for a study method that truly resonates with the soul.

Drawing on Rashi's interpretation of "place these laws in front of them," we challenge the notion of rote memorization and instead advocate for an engaging and comprehensible approach to Torah study. Imagine Torah teachings as a well-prepared meal, inviting and methodically laid out for all to enjoy. Through this lens, we delve into the tradition of interpreting Chazal, emphasizing clarity and depth as the pillars of meaningful learning.

Structured and clear Torah study isn't just beneficial—it's transformative. By examining the works of Rashi, Tosfos, and the Rambam, we highlight the joy in grasping complex ideas and the profound connection that comes with true understanding. The discussion underscores the importance of foundational knowledge and a methodical approach, likening it to a perfectly arranged feast that nurtures both the mind and spirit. Let’s explore how organizing and personalizing your learning journey can turn Torah study into a deeply enriching experience.

Chapters

• 0:00 Searching for Meaningful Torah Study
• 7:44 In-Depth Analysis of Torah Study
• 23:55 Clear and Structured Torah Study
• 28:36 Creating a Clear Torah Study Path

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

We call them floaters because they float Quite literally from Limud to Limud, chabura to Chabura, study group to study group, trying to find that perfect group of gentlemen to engage in Torah study with. That will give them that sweetness in Talmud Torah that they so badly crave. They want it to be meaningful and they want their learning to be fulfilling. But they end up as a floater Because the first place that anyone goes to try to study Syria's Torah After all, everyone knows the verse we're obligated to study a little bit of Torah during the day, a little bit of Torah, minimally, in the evening. So where better to start than let's join a daf yomi chabura In the morning, wake up before davening, before business and all of my other obligations? I'll join a big group that my friends are a part of and I'll finally get to understand the wisdom of God and the Holy Torah, learning it page by page, learning it page by page, but over time as the Mesechtos get more challenging. Sanhedrin Bavakamah, hezkaz Habatim, very tedious, and the Shia goes incredibly fast. He's embarrassed to yell out that he doesn't understand the translation of that word or what in the world the Gemara is bothered by, and after missing it for one day, or too bashful to ask, doesn't understand the translation of that word or what in the world the Gemara is bothered by, and after missing it for one day, or too bashful to ask, and then the very next day he has a huge family obligation, so he misses. So he's now two to three days behind and after falling significantly behind he ends up throwing in the towel because either way he wasn't gaining much from the Dafyomi Chabura. He falls back and says well, I'll join a Raisa, a great program where I can learn not as fast, not as much. I don't need to do one Daf, an entire front and back folios of Talmud every single day, but one Amud during the week, during each weekday before, on the evenings and on the weekends I get to chazar. What I learned I get to review, so I don't have to go as fast. A great program, oiraisa.

Speaker 1: 2:37

But then after just a couple weeks he realizes that the chazara is tedious. The review and reviewing all of the material is not really what his soul wants. He really wants to touch untouched materials and move a little bit quicker than just two blot a week. So he floats to the daf ha-shavua, let's learn. Just one daf per week is a much more easy to internalize. Pace Plus it allows for deep eon, even though it isn't as fast. But just knowing that I have to do one daf per week it gives me a chance to dig deeper, but quickly.

Speaker 1: 3:20

He floats from there because the leader of the Chabura wasn't the right fit for him and his friends weren't there and the guy sitting next to him smelled bad. He now floats the. You know what? If I want to get my daily fix of Torah, let's do Halacha Yom. You gotta know Halacha Mishnebura. Some learn with the Chayei Adam, some learn the Sefer Orekha Shulchan with the Chayei Adam. Some learn the Sefer Orekha Shulchan and after some time that it does give him clarity on how to live his life.

Speaker 1: 3:55

He still feels himself itching for more because his soul wants gemara. His soul wants to know the roots in Tamei HaHalachos and why things happen and why we pasken this way. So he's really not sure where to go. He's tried every style of Talmud Torah known to mankind. He doesn't know where to go for his V'hegisobo Yomam Volayla fix and Talmud Torah K'neged Kulam Ch Chabura. So remembering somewhere from the recesses of his mind that Rav Moshe Feinstein, when he would unravel his tefillin from his arm, would study a couple minutes of Mishnayas. The fellow says to himself well, let me join a Mishnayas Chabura, because at least learning a couple Mishnayas a day will help me to fulfill my obligations. And just until I find the proper Chabura, that's all stick to Mishnayus. But sure enough, halfway through Seder Zeroyim, when the doubtfully tithed produce called Demai Smech secta comes up, before being assaulted by the complex topic of the mixed species all nine prukim that deal with the laws of kilayim, forbidden mixtures in agricultural, clothing and animal breeding it all comes pouring onto him like a large filling bucket at the top of a Great Wolf Lodge water park, pouring upon him yeosh hopelessness, because he doesn't have anywhere to find his sipok ha-nefesh in Talmud Torah. He's tried every program, he's tried every single approach to Talmud Torah, but he has simply become that fellow that earns the title of floater, floating from Chabura to Chabura, from Limud to Limud.

Speaker 1: 5:58

If this sounds like you, there is hope. If this is far from your current Talmud Torah experience, well then bravo. But I encourage you to bend the ear as the rabbi of all of Israel in our parasha exposes the secret about how perfect Talmud Torah teaching of Torah as well is done. Expose a secret that Rashi gives us a most critical detail on the most important aspect of all of Judaism Ve'eile hamishpotim, asher tasim lefneihim, these, not these, and these, ve'eile hamishpotim, and these laws that you shall set, you shall place in front of them, is the, the book of code, the covenant code, the codified law, the legal code, the law book of what you're entitled to in business and how you should live your life amongst a billion other humans in this world. And every single one of the rashis on the very first verse of our parasha is eye-opening. But I'd like to direct your attention to the final Rashi of the very first Pesach of Parashat Mishpatim.

Speaker 1: 7:44

The words that Rashi is commenting upon are place these laws in front of them. Interesting In front of who seems to be Rashi's question. And what am I to learn from the fact that Moshe, who's teaching the entire Torah over and this great covenant code to Klal Yisrael? How is he told to teach the Torah? To learn the Torah, it is to be placed, lifnei hem, in front of them, says Rashi. To give context and clarity to this. God spoke to Moses.

Speaker 1: 8:30

Do not let it enter your mind, don't have an initial reaction or a hava amina, that the way you should teach the Torah is two or three times, until it will be fluent in their mouths exactly according to its wording, aka until they have memorized the text verbatim. Do not think like that and do not think further, and do not dare think that I should not trouble myself to make my students aware of the reasons and the significance of each halacha. Therefore, to deal with this possible approach to teaching Torah, the verse comes to tell us you shall put the laws in front of them. How, continues Rashi? It should be placed like a fully laden table, set immaculately before the fellow, with everything properly seasoned and ready to be eaten. It should be like a set table. It should be like a set table that the food is ready to be consumed. That is what the definition of lifneihem means. Place the laws in front of them At this most precious moment that the man whose very last name is our teacher, moshe the Rayon Ne'emon, our venerated sage, is teaching the very fiery law of the book of God and we are told a law of meta-study, a studying of a study.

Speaker 1: 10:54

We are taught here how it is that we are to study, how it is that we are to teach Torah, how it is that we are to study. How it is that we are to teach Torah. How it is that we are to study Torah? It is to be Tossim Lefnei Hem.

Speaker 1: 11:07

Moshe is advised to not even think that the Torah study. It would be sufficient, satisfactory, to have the Talmud memorized. Don't think like that. Ad shitesa dur b'fim kimishnasa. Do not think that that shall suffice. It's not good enough that havamina Forget it. Instead, you must teach it until it is precise. It is crystal clear that the sacred information is totally set and ready to be eaten, that they should know the reasons for the laws, they should know the explanations for the laws. Every jot and tittle of their Talmud Torah should be like a set table.

Speaker 1: 11:58

Now there's a very maybe subtle goal of the Motivation Congregation and the Weekly Parsha podcast, or I hope it's not so subtle, but it is to try to bring to life the very dense, concentrated and measured words of our sages, specifically of Chazal. This is the tradition that I have from my rabbi, from Rav Nussenstein, who got it, from Rav Meir Hershkowitz, who received it, from Rav Aaron Cutler, who received it, from the altar of Slabodka, who received it, from the altar of Kelm, who received it, from Rav Yisrael Solanter, who received. It Kind of can't go back any further than that, but this is what we try to do. Try to unpack the words of Chazal. Look at the whole Sefer, all of the Sfarm of the Ma'aral, and you'll see an expert and most eye-opening example of how one should deal with the words of Chazal. I'm talking about specifically the words of Chazal, if you don't know who Chazal are.

Speaker 1: 13:07

Those are all the sages of the Mishnah and of the Talmud, all their words dealing with the last 300 years of the second Bais HaMikdash and going a little bit further than that, until about the 7th century. But every single one of their words is so weighty, so concentrated, so measured. Their parables are precise and there are goodies, treasures, treasure troves and secrets that are there for the taking, for those that mine and dredge Chazal's depths. So I invite you to put your scuba gear on and take the plunge. Chazal, tell us these are the words that Rashi brings that you are to teach Torah. They could have picked any parable, they could have ditched the idea of bringing a parable, but they said teaching Torah should be like a set table that's ready to be eaten. And so I did some research.

Speaker 1: 14:11

Why is it that we even set the table. Why is it that food is brought out totally prepared, and what does that convey? What I discovered is that many of these facts may be self-explanatory or you may find them to be nothing novel or new, but most of the time people set tables because it's to prepare for what is to come. People set tables to make sure that they're guests of everything they need. People set tables to make food and the ambiance pleasing to the eye. They want their guests to be totally relaxed and at peace. They want everyone to enjoy the meal. Some people will go as far as to set the table with certain tablescapes flowers on shavuos to make a very Torah and holiday-inspired feeling in the air.

Speaker 1: 15:07

Sometimes the tablescape or the shulchan ha'aruch umu'uchan can give a certain clue into the proper etiquette that the restaurant or the entertaining hostess really is trying to envision and establish. There's golden rules of how to set up the table. It must be precise. It must be organized. You're to have, as the golden rule states, that the utensils should be in order of their usage. Did you know this? There are casual and formal, certain sets of tablescaping, but always the spoon that you are to use first is on the outside, before you move your way inside and make your way through the luxury cutlery that you use to shovel the food into your pile. There are specific luxury cutlery sets and brands pure francais and christophe and Hermes that are unwaveringly committed to excellence in their superior craftsmanship and their attention to detail, all to make the proper set table.

Speaker 1: 16:30

Royal Copenhagen, this Danish company, has really honored their time-honored craftsmanship and been noted for their keen eye for detail. Since the very 1770s they have been oh-sake in setting up tables, the way that the food should be prepared. Muchan le'echol, if you should ever dare to have all the cutlery and the tablescaping there but serve a steak that is not seasoned, not cooked, would you call that the table is set and the food is ready to be eaten? You must think of the laws of preparation of your food, like mishloach manos, when you're not allowed to send food that isn't ready for consumption, it has to be mishloach manos, ishleri yahu. It needs to be something that's an already cooked waffle, an already cooked, grilled, seasoned piece of meat or food or sea bass ready for immediate enjoyment. The way that you think of it, the visual appeal of the dish and the preparation of it, that is how we are to teach and study Torah. Ladies and gentlemen, torah is so yummy, torah is so scrumptious, torah is so tasty.

Speaker 1: 17:58

So why is it that so many of us become floaters, so many of us become chabura nomads and seder stragglers, feeling so unconnected and unfulfilled in our mitzvah and we are not fulfilled in our mitzvah and we are not fulfilled in our mitzvah and we are not fulfilled in our mitzvah and we are not fulfilled in our mitzvah and we are. I would like to assert, without stuttering and without asking for your permission, but I'd like to put forward and argue from it that our Torah does not taste yummy and we do fail to enjoy it and become floaters because our Talmud Torah, it is not clear to us, it is not organized, it is not set on the table and the food has not been prepared to be enjoyed. And we are missing out on understanding the Peirushim and the Ta'amim that God says that it should be taught, that Moshe Rabbeinu is to give over the Torah, each thing its significance and its reason, like a set table ready to be consumed. That's how you're supposed to learn and teach Torah. But for many of us, we lose the sweetness in Torah because our study and the sacred information to us is nothing more than a big hodgepodge of facts. Rabbi Huda said this, rabbi Yossi said this, and I always have to get ready 18 minutes before this go here on. This time we don't understand the time. We don't understand the time, and so our Torah study and the laws that we know become nothing more than a big mess of facts in our heads, nothing more than ideas and comments and idioms of the sages that slosh around our brains like murky, sediment-filled, muddy liquid. Our sugyas are not structured, the logic has not been clarified, the necessary steps were not all taken.

Speaker 1: 20:21

Each word in our learning hasn't been accounted for. When we are to learn and open up our Jewish and holy textbooks, to learn and open up our Jewish and holy textbooks, every letter should be accounted for why, how, what? What is the time that I can say kriya shema? Wait a second. What is kriya shema? Oh, you're thinking honestly, thinking openly, thinking with logic, following the necessary steps and the scientific method. You've just come up with the Gemara's question. That's exactly what the Gemara wants to know. Wait a second. Where do I even know that I have to read kriyashima?

Speaker 1: 21:05

What is kriyashima, the Torah, when it's clear, when it's set and when it's clear, when it's set and when it's organized, it becomes like it really becomes, and it becomes sweeter than sugar and so scrumptious to the palate and to the belly. There's a structure as to how to learn sweeter than sugar and so scrumptious to the palate and to the belly. There's a structure as to how to learn. Rabbi Lopiansky goes through it in his newest Sefer.

Speaker 1: 21:40

You learn the Gemara. Try to understand what's happening. Try to understand how you would translate the question, then the answer, the steps. You then see if Rashi says differently, you understand. Why does Rashi say differently? Why is Rashi saying that? Has every word, every letter been accounted for? Or are you sticking in your own understanding into Rashi and then failing to account for some of the extra words that are extra only to you because you haven't seen it the true way, or at least the way that Rashi sees it? Have you been able to take the next step and follow up what the answer is? What did the rabbi think?

Speaker 1: 22:19

The sages of the Talmud were nearly prophetic. The words of the Talmud were edited over 40 years, if not more. I believe 40 years was just what Rav Ashi's editing was Everything organized for you to know what Torah is the entire body and soul of God, of Torah. What we live by is all in the Talmud. Everything is precise.

Speaker 1: 22:46

When you open up your book of Halacha, is it just a book of facts or do they sing to you? When you're giving over the rashi, the chumash, the ramban, a la parsha, you're going through a medrash. Can you explain it in simple and plain terms to a sixth grade student? How terms to a sixth grade student? How about to a sixth grade girl? I mean to say, can you break it down so that it's crystal clear and you're not using any catchphrases or ways to speak in different languages that give you an excuse to skip the clarity, to say it's just a gavra, it's just a chavza, it's just a asr or mutter, or it probably means, if you are, then your Torah is not lefneim, it is not kisholchan ha'arachumuchan le'echol lefanov, lefnei adam.

Speaker 1: 23:55

When your learning is clear, your learning is gishmak. It's wonderful. When your learning is clear, when your learning is structured, when everything is accounted for, you understand what you know and you also understand what you do not know. You know what still needs to be researched, which approaches need to be investigated, and Torah's not an impartial discipline, but it's real, it's the ability, really the obligation to go through the spirit of what it is that your life's about. Every single bit of Torah. It is not foreign, it's to guide you, it's to look into it and to say what does this mean to me and why is it stated like this?

Speaker 1: 24:45

You begin to think about it. You begin to see how Rashi really, truly sings and why it is not even the slightest wonder that he's called Rabun Shele Yisrael. You understand the brilliance of Rashi and how he answers myriads and bushels of questions in such an incredible brevity. When you look at Tosfos, you understand he's asking from that piece of Gemara I probably should go and make sure that I can master that Gemara so then I can compare notes and see what's really bothering these superstar scholars. And when you finally ingest, internalize what's going on, you then get to ask yourself how does this sit with me? Do I understand what came out? Do I see now the novel approach, that gray area between that's the new chiddish from the rajba, the insight or the novel interpretation as to how Reb Chaim Brisker? He came to the incredible conclusion of why the Rambam said the words exactly how it did?

Speaker 1: 25:53

Do you see it clearly? Did you ponder it and did you take that piece of perfectly set, organized and seasoned bit of Torah down into your esophagus and down into your belly and do you enjoy it? Do you taste it? Do you agree with it? Have you made enjoy it? Do you taste it? Do you agree with it? Have you made it yours? Do you see it differently? Have you pondered it? Or has the Baal Magad Shear's piece of Torah kind of given you an upset stomach where it wasn't how you had seen it? Do you need a side of Pepto-Bismol? With how the Magad Shir Explained the Rashba, you begin To feel that passion for the truth. Your soul begins to connect and to dance With when you finally found home.

Speaker 1: 27:08

Torah study, when done in an organized and crystal clear fashion, is the most pleas. Only just a couple of different ways that you can go about to find pleasure and clarity in your Torah study and how to properly structure your learning. Your Torah really becomes lefnehem. Your Torah really becomes the Fnei Hem. You stop floating and you realize that Dafyomi could work.

Speaker 1: 27:35

If I have the time and I pay attention and I ask questions and I build up from the beginning and I don't dare jump into the raid, the haq and maybe discuss the sugya. If I haven't even been able to translate every word that's in front of me, if I don't even know what the Mishnah said, how am I to understand what the Gemara is trying to testify and clarify? The Shinantham is how it's supposed to become. The Torah is to be razor sharp in our mouth. Sharp words like Teach the words incisively, like a sharp sword, it should be sharp in your mouth, but it sounds foreign for us ever to have the words of the Torah so on the tip of our tongues that we can answer them on the spot.

Speaker 1: 28:36

But how much easier would it be if everything was clearly defined, that our Mishnah, like the soup spoon, the steak knife, the gemara, the svarah, the logic, the perfectly sizzling overnight marinated skirt steak with just the right amount of olive oil, crushed pepper and sea salt. The rabchayim ala rambam, the rajba, the ritva, the shita mikubetes, the shari yoysher, all of the Shari Yoysher, all of it beginning to dance together into this incredibly delicious and hyper-perfect Suda that's Muchan Lechol. It's ripe for enjoyment. Perhaps that's what Chazal meant when they gave us the parable that, moshe, you should teach the Torah and put it in front of them, this book of laws, how כְּשֹׁוֹכַן הַאָרֶךְ, אֹמּוֹכַן לַאָכֹוּ לְפְנֵה הַעָדָם.

Speaker 1: 29:46

Every person where everything has been prepared and is now ready to be eaten. When our Torah study is like that, of course, there's no floating. If things are clear and structured, organized, torah becomes scrumptious and tasty. Scrumptious and tasty. We got a lesson the most auspicious time, when the teacher of all teachers told the Jewish people's teacher I meant to say Hashem taught Moshe how to teach Torah that we learn how it's supposed to be done in its perfect form, our sacred obsession, this book that ennobles every aspect of our lives, that steers us towards the direction of truth, this study, this discipline that ascribes meaning and depth to every single jot and tittle and detail and molecule of this confusing world. All of it stands there at our disposal, ready to be enjoyed, but it's all contingent upon clarity and the clarity that you have in your learning. Sift, sift, think, think, delve, delve, clarify, organize, season and set the table of your Talmud Torah so it is perfectly molded and prepared for immediate consumption. That's how to stop floating and start learning To be done, organized. To be done, organized.