Studying Torah 1

"For it is our life, and our length of days". These words from our evening prayer sum up the Jew's attitude to the Torah. It's not just a series of books. It is our life. It is the blueprint of the Universe, as well as that which gives shape, direction and meaning to us as individuals. But it is so vast, that many people despair of ever getting through it, or even gaining a modicum of its rich teachings. The Torah itself, however, says that "it is not distant from you".Where does one start? As I have indicated in the past, I have little formal training in Torah. I used to resent that. But with time, I came to see that having formal training in Torah is like having academic lessons on how to fall in love. Torah is much too vast to be limited to a series of classes or lectures. It is a total, transformational experience. First, let us review certain facts. The word "Torah", which means "the Teaching" in Hebrew, has both a narrow and a wide definition. It means the Five Books of Moses, but it also means the entire gamut of Jewish religious literature. Thus, when one studies Talmud, or even a book of insights written by a contemporary rabbi, one is said to be studying Torah. Another point that must be made is that following the Shabbatean debacle of 1666, whose scope far exceeded that which usually is acknowledged  in laymen's Jewish history books, many rabbis, especially in Europe, revamped the curriculum of the Yeshivot, to cover only those areas which were not likely to stir emotion. Therefore, the course of study in most places is quite dry. Mental gymnastics take the place of spirituality. The excitement inherent in the quest for G-d, is all too often replaced by the excitement of yet another interpretation of a well-known Biblical or Talmudic statement. In many ways, Hasidism was a reaction to these developments; an exercise in putting the soul back into Judaism. Not that the study of texts is, G-d forbid, unimportant. It is the body of Torah. But a body without a soul is dead. There are Hasidic, as well as Sepharadic ways of studying Torah. (They are actually quite similar). In this series, I will examine different approaches to the study of Torah. I shall also try to show that different approaches can be used by laymen, even those with little free time. A half an hour of well-planned study can greatly enrich one's life.I will also examine some methodologies of those who go much further in their studies. I shall also examine those methods that are, in my opinion, blind alleyways that yield virtually nothing. Let us begin our journey.