This coming week is the holiday of Shavuot. Shavuot celebrates matan Torah – the gift of the Torah which Hashem gave the Jewish People.
Akiva ben Yoseph was one of the greatest Rabbis who ever lived. He was born about 17 years before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. His father Yoseph was poor and uneducated, as his father had been before him and his grandfather before him. As a child, Akiva received no education; instead of attending school, the boy helped to support his family by taking care of their sheep.
As a young man, Akiva worked as a shepherd for Kalba Savua, one of the richest men in Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel. Kalba Savua had a beautiful daughter name Rachel.
Akiva asked Rachel to marry him and she replied that she would marry him only if he agreed to study Torah and get a Jewish education. Akiva was sad as lamented his station in life. He was too old and how would it be possible for him to study Torah when he did not even know how to read and write?
One day as Akiva sadly sat beside a brook while tending his sheep, he noticed a large stone with a deep hole in it. What had formed the hole in the rock, he wondered. He looked closely and saw that the hole in the rock was in a spot where the water from the brook ran over it. He realized that the constant pressure of the water was what had worn away part of the rock. Amazing, he thought to himself, that something as soft as water could make a hole in something as hard as stone - all it took was time a great deal of time.
Akiva realized that even though he was no longer a child, and had no formal education, that if he devoted himself to the study of Torah he would be able to learn. From seeing the rock, Rabbi Akiva learned that the study of Torah is about the process of learning – Torah impacts those who study it over time.
This teaching – that the process of learning Torah impacts a person over time - is evidenced by the obligation of reciting the Birkot HaTorah – the blessings on learning and reciting Torah.
In Parashat HaAzinu, Moshe Rabbenu gives his final address to b’nei yisrael in the form of a shira – a song – in praise of Hashem and His relationship with the Jewish People. Moshe introduces the shira and says, “The heavens will listen and I will speak, and the land will hear the sayings of my mouth. My lesson shall drop like rain. My saying shall flow like dew – like wind-blown rain upon the herb, like a powerful shower upon the covering of vegetation.”
Based on the next verse, “That I will call the name of G-d, let us make the L-rd great,” our Sages explain that, as Moshe began this song, he said to the Jewish People, “I will make a blessing first and you will answer Amen.” Because he was about to begin saying words of Torah, Moshe led the group with a bracha and b’nei yisrael participated with him in praising G-d by answering Amen. Moshe said the bracha that we call birkat HaTorah – the blessing on Torah learning and on reading the Torah publicly. This bracha praises Hashem that He gave us the Torah and focuses our attention on the fact that we are engaged in Torah thought and not other type of thought.
We are obligated to make this blessing prior to learning Torah (usually in the morning with birkot hashachar) and prior to reading from the Torah in public, such as on Shabbat, Holidays, Monday and Thursday. However, only by public Torah-reading do we also make an after-blessing. Why is there no comparable after-blessing for Torah learning?
Rabbi Baruch Epstein, the author of the Torah Temima, explains why an after-blessing is appropriate only for public Torah reading and not for general Torah learning.
He explains that the requirement of public Torah reading is to produce the recitation of a certain passage at a certain time – Monday, Thursday, etc. A person makes one blessing prior to the recitation and one after the recitation. We praise Hashem before the recitation because He selected our nation to have the Torah and after the recitation has been completed because of the benefit that accrued to us for studying Torah.
The same argument, however, cannot be made for Torah learning. When can one say that he or she has finished learning? The Torah commands us to study in it day and night. The Torah’s approach is that our whole life is dedicated to Torah study and that ending a study session is merely a break – not a complete cessation. As soon as we complete the Torah on Simchat Torah, we continue by reading it anew from Beresheit. As soon as we complete a masechet of Talmud, we say the hadran and pray to begin another masechet of study. Therefore, it is inappropriate to make a blessing after studying Torah.
Many of our activities are results-oriented. How much did we produce? How much money did we make? Results-oriented activities, appropriately, have an important place in our lives.
This halacha of bircat HaTorah – that we make one blessing before Torah-learning but not after is indicative of the Torah’s view of learning – it is process-oriented and not result-oriented. This idea is also the message of Rabbi Akiva and the rock. Rabbi Akiva understood that the just like the dripping water creates a change in the rock, so too, Torah-learning creates a change in the person. The more time and more involvement that one has in learning, the more impact Torah has on him.
We are not Rabbi Akiva. However, we can understand from Rabbi Akiva that although a results-orientation is important in certain contexts such as publicly reading the Torah publicly, a process-orientation is critical when considering Torah education. By involving ourselves and our children in the process of Torah education, we are changed for the better.
May this Shavuot be a holiday of commitment and re-commitment to Torah education for us and for our families.
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