Shirayim From My Rebbe

Bitul Torah and Bitul Toyreh


Once, Rav Elon was organizing with a few of us in yeshiva a program to train some yeshiva students to become community leaders when they go back to chuts laarets.

At one point, I told him... You know, Rav, some people will probably not come because they will say its "Bitul Torah".. They don't want this training instead of learning in the beit midrash!
Harav Elon looked at me and told me..."No, maybe they will say its bitul "toyreh" but its definitely not "Bitul Torah"



He then explained what he meant: In massechet Chagigua, it says (paraphrased), "There was no greater bitul torah than when Am Israel went to Galut". So Harav Elon asked me: How can this be true? When we went to Galut, first the the gemara came out, then the gueonim, the rishonim, the acharonim, hassidut etc... How is that Bitul Torah? It is davka in galut that all the torah came out! Its the opposite of Bitul Torah!

He then clarified his thought: No, it is true that when we went to galut, it was the opposite of bitul "toyreh" but it wasn't the opposite of bitul torah.
If bitul "toyreh" is the lack of study of torah, then there was a lot of torah in galut, where all jews could do is study because they did not need to bother themselves with issues of how to lead a state. However, that is bitul toyreh, not bitul torah! Bitul Torah is when you have a lot of torah, but it becomes mevutelet (cancelled).

How does this happen? If you take the torah, and you study it without connecting it to your daily life, then it is bitul torah. Therefore, the gemara was saying: When we are in erets israel, the torah is torat chayim!

Everything in our life is torah - when we go to work, it helps buid Erets Israel and therefore its torah, our politics are Torah since they deal with the destiny of Am Israel, our army is torah, EVERYTHING is torah, its TORAT CHAYIM. Its bringing torah, and connecting it to every aspect of our life. In Chuts Laarets, we cannot have that. We can't say that by participating in the American elections we are being involved in kiyum torah! We can't say that by going to the Army we are fulfilling God's will.

After Rav Elon explained that, I realised that this clarified an explanation I heard on the meragelim. The reason the meraglim didn't want to go to erets israel is because in the desert, they could learn torah all day, take care of their individual religious self all day! The mann was their food, their clothes didn't need any laundry, everything was taken care of... However, if they go to Erets Israel, it would create so many problems! They would need to work the land, they would need to defend the country, they would need to administer the country... they thought it was bitul torah to go to Erets Israel!
Well, they were wrong! It was bitul Toyreh, but not bitul Torah. The real bitul torah was to stay in the desert where all you did was learn torah without connecting it to every single aspect of your life.

Rav Tzvi Yehuda, some of Rav Avraham Itzhak Hakohen Kook, was known to say: "If you do not know when to close the gemara, don't open it!". May we all open our gemarot as often as possible, but also know when to close them in order to fulfill that which is commanded in them.