‫‪Parsha‬‬ ‫‪Preview

Harav Hagaon Shmuel Wolman Shlita

An Exponential Equation

Parashas Nitzavim-Vayeilech

Harav Hagaon Shmuel Wolman Shlita

In this week’s parashah the Torah cryptically refers to a certain mitzvah, saying: כִּי הַמִּצְוָה הַזֹּאת אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם לֹא נִפְלֵאת הִוא מִמְּךָ וְלֹא רְחֹקָה הִוא. Rashi interprets this as a reference to the mitzvah of talmud Torah, whereas the Ramban and other Rishonim explain that it refers to the mitzvah of teshuvah.

I would like to focus on a mysterious Midrash on this passuk, which describes a fool who walks into a shul and sees people learning Torah. Intrigued by how the process works, he turns to them and asks, “How does one begin the daunting task of becoming a talmid chacham?”

“Very methodically,” they respond. “First you learn alef-beis, then Chumash, then Nach, then Mishnah, then Gemara.”

Basically, they were telling him that you start from the basics; you begin amassing knowledge, and, eventually, through consistent learning, you can master the entire Torah.

Upon hearing this response, the fool says to himself, “How can I ever learn all that Torah?” He gives up and leaves the shul.

The Midrash offers a mashal to explain the discrepancy between the fool’s outlook and the outlook of a smart person. A pikei’ach and a fool enter a room and see a loaf of bread hanging high above their heads. The fool immediately despairs of reaching the loaf, saying, “It’s way out of reach.”

“Wait,” says the smart person. “It had to have gotten there somehow. Someone was able to hang it there.” He immediately grabs a ladder or a long stick and takes the loaf down.

The same is true of Torah, says the Midrash. The fool approaches talmud Torah for the first time and says, “It’s much too massive.” Overwhelmed, he claims it’s impossible to master all of Torah, and he gives up trying to become a talmid chacham. Comes the pikeiach and says, “No, a person can learn just one perek a day and eventually become a huge talmid chacham.”

The Midrash summarizes this message by concluding: לא נפלאת היא, ואם נפלאת היא, ממך, שאין אתה עסוק בה. The Midrash is confirming the pikeiach’s mantra that it is possible — and if someone claims that it’s impossible — נִפְלֵאת הִוא — then he is to blame: it’s מִמְּךָ.

Let us examine the root of the fool’s mistake and understand how the pikei’ach set him straight.

Mathematically Impossible

On the surface, it seems that the fool is focusing on the limitless breadth of talmud Torah, and when he begins to contemplate how little he can learn every day, he experiences despair that will never turn into a talmid chacham who knows the entire Torah. To that, the pikei’ach responds that instead of becoming overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the Torah, cut it into bite-sized goals of learning every day, and eventually your knowledge of Torah will add up, turning you into a real talmid chacham.

Accordingly, it seems that the difference in their respective approaches is simply that the fool is focused on the whole picture and expects to master all of Torah at once, so he deems the task impossible, while the pikei’ach understands that the task must be broken into smaller pieces. This is hard to understand, however, for did the fool not know basic math? He couldn’t conceive on his own of the idea of splitting up the Torah into small segments so that he could eventually cover all of it? What was he missing?

You might say that this is precisely what makes him a fool: he missed something very basic. But the Midrash goes to lengths to explain his mistake, using a whole fancy mashal to illustrate what the fool did not understand. Apparently, while there is certainly something fundamentally flawed about the fool’s approach, that flaw is not as obvious as we may have initially assumed.

Moreover, the mashal doesn’t seem to accurately mirror the nimshal. In the mashal it seems obvious and indisputable that the loaf can be reached with a ladder or a stick. But how does that correlate to mastering Torah, which seems like a far more elusive goal?

Furthermore, in the nimshal the two seem to be arguing over whether a person can cut something as large as Torah into separate segments and make it more attainable, whereas the mashal seems to involve one simple solution of getting the entire loaf down in one fell swoop. How is that at all reminiscent of Torah being divided into segments over a lifetime?

Finally, in the mashal, what was the fool missing? Did he not believe that a ladder or stick would allow him to reach the loaf? What was so dramatic about the pikei’ach’s idea?

I believe that the key to unlocking this midrash lies in one extra line that the pikei’ach adds about the loaf of bread: He prefaces his solution of the ladder or the stick with the remark that someone put it up there.

This pivotal observation turned the absolutely impossible into absolutely possible: If someone put it up there, then there must be a way to get it down. That logic led the pikei’ach to think of using a ladder or stick. The issue wasn’t that the fool was stymied and couldn’t have come up with the idea of using a ladder or stick; rather, he looked at the loaf, he looked at his arm span, and he intellectually concluded: “Case closed, it’s scientifically impossible.” His arm could not, under any circumstances, reach the bread. End of story.

Returning to the nimshal of Torah, who’s right? It appears that the pikei’ach’s slow-and-steady, basic math approach is correct: one perek plus another perek, seven perakim a week, fifty-two weeks a year, and eventually you’ll become Rav Chaim Kanievsky!

I would like to brazenly suggest that scientifically the fool is right. The numbers don’t compute; the amount of free time in a person’s life does not add up to knowledge of the entire Torah, if you consider the sheer amount of information involved, plus the chazarah required. So why is he a fool? And how does it help for the pikei’ach to tell him to learn one perek a day and another perek the next day? The numbers still won’t add up!

The answer is that the fool is stuck on the mathematical process of addition: he’s approaching the equation of Torah learning assuming that it follows the natural process of learning, while calculating how much a person can process in a day, how much a person can retain from day to day, and how much material a person can cross-reference in order to maintain clarity and hold all the pieces of Torah together. Using this linear approach of simple number crunching, the two sides of the equation don’t add up! So what’s the pikei’ach’s secret?

Returning to the mashal, scientifically the fool is a hundred percent right! The loaf is way beyond human reach. The pikei’ach, however, comes along and says, “Back up a step and ask yourself – how did it get there?” The loaf’s position is screaming out, “You are shortchanging yourself! You are being foolish by convincing yourself it’s impossible.” The loaf is staring you in the face and saying there must be a way. That clarity of knowing there must be a way propels the pikei’ach past the natural barriers of what he can reach, and he starts to think, “True, it’s beyond my physical reach, but maybe there are ways to extend my reach.” That’s how he devises the idea of the ladder; he’s not stuck on his natural limitations.

“I might be only six feet tall,” he muses, “but with a ladder or a stick I can be twenty-six feet tall.”

This is the depth of the mashal. The minute you’re forced into realizing that it must be possible, you begin to extricate yourself from your original assessments of the realm of the possible, and you realize that there are ways to extend your natural kochos.

Non-incremental Growth

How do we apply this back to the mashal about Torah?

The Meiri, on Mishlei, says something astounding. He is discussing the tremendous importance of learning with hasmadah, consecutively, without interruption, and he writes the following:

יכול אדם ללמוד תורה בעשר שנים, לא תחשוב שהחלק העשירי ממנה ילמד בשנה ראשונה, אלא בראשונה ישיג מעט, ובשניה כפליים, וככל שיתעסק בה עוד תקל הבנתו, וימצא לפניו נתיב החכמה  דרך סלולה, ויפה לו שעה אחת בסוף, מאורך זמן בהתחלה.

If a person learns for ten years straight, don’t think that the first year of those ten years he’s learning ten percent of the amount he’ll eventually learn. The first year he’ll achieve a little bit, the second year he’ll achieve double that, and the more he learns the easier it will be for him to understand Torah.

The Meiri is telling us an incredible chiddush: that Torah learning does not follow the regular pattern of mathematics. A person who engages in ten consecutive years of Torah learning does not merely increase his learning additively — he compounds it exponentially, both quantitively and qualitatively! One year and another year of Torah learning is not two years, but far more. Similarly, a person who learns three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon is not the same as a person who learns six hours consecutively, for the latter person will accomplish much more than the former during the last three hours of his learning.

In the nimshal, the fool is right in terms of addition: If you’re stuck with the normal limitations of a person’s intellect, the numbers don’t add up, and it’s indeed impossible to master all of Torah.  Yet the pikei’ach understands that we don’t start backwards and divide all of Torah, in our attempt to become a talmid chacham. Rather, we start with the fundamental realization of: אשר בחר בנו מכל העמים ונתן לנו את תורתו. If the Eibishter gave us the Torah and told us to master it, that means it’s absolutely possible, just as it must be possible to get down the loaf of bread because someone managed to hang it up.

In both instances, the realization that there is someone, or Someone, orchestrating this challenge prompts the pikei’ach to think out of the box and realize that we can’t get stuck on the physical limitations that meet the eye. We need to ponder if there are possible ways that we can extend our kochos, whereupon six feet of height can suddenly multiply into twenty-six feet.

“Don’t get stuck on addition,” says the pikei’ach. “There’s also multiplication. One hour and another hour is not two hours, but more like four hours, and a third hour can turn into something like eight hours of learning, and suddenly it becomes possible.”

As you are ameil baTorah, you begin to experience exponential siyatta d’Shmaya, and your mind expands, similar to the ladder or the stick, and your natural capacities start to multiply.

I believe that we are all plagued, on some level, by the same notion as the fool. We look at Torah from a linear vantage point and tell ourselves, “There’s no chance. Gadlus baTorah – it’s out of the question.” And with that, we essentially shelve all of our she’ifos, as we busy ourselves with the scientific equations that prove it’s impossible: נִפְלֵאת הִוא. To contest that, the Midrash tells us: לא נפלאת היא ואם נפלאת היא ממך — Torah is eminently possible to acquire, and if you can’t fathom that, it’s simply your mistaken perception, מִמְּךָ.

Teshuvah Isn’t Scientific

This is a very powerful message to all of us regarding the mitzvah of Talmud Torah and the common pitfall of yiush associated with that aspiration. But I believe that this idea takes on a whole new meaning according to the Ramban, who explains that this passuk is referring to teshuvah. Many of us approach Chodesh Elul and the Yamim Nora’im knowing how vital it is for us to begin the teshuvah process. We all know in our sleep the fiery words of Rabbeinu Yonah regarding how incumbent it is upon us not to procrastinate teshuvah. But still, most of us cannot muster the energy to even begin the process. Why? What are we missing?

The answer is that we fall into the same trap as the fool who looks at the mountain of teshuvah and says, “No chance, it’s humanly impossible for me to achieve real charatah and azivas hacheit.” How are we meant to respond to this inner voice of the fool?

Says the Torah: לא נפלאת היא ואם נפלאת היא ממך. The voice of the chacham tells us that if the Eibishter created the possibility of teshuvah before Sheishes Yemei Bereishis, that means it is humanly possible. And the answer to the naysaying inner voice is that the process of teshuvah is also not linear. You make the first move of beginning teshuvah, achieving the most basic level of being a shav, and then immediately יעזור ה’ לשבים, Hashem responds with a shower of siyatta d’Shmaya that exponentially expands your ability to do true teshuvah.

As we get closer to the Yom Hadin and the obligation of teshuvah is ringing in our ears, let us not allow the naysayer within us be so scientific and mathematical and quickly dismiss it as unrealistic. Rather, let’s focus on Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s expectation of all of us to engage in teshuvah באשר הוא שם, and as we begin our ascent back to the Eibishter we will start to feel that exponential and existential siyatta d’Shmaya, which will allow us to properly internalize the idea that לא נפלאת היא ואם נפלאת היא ממך.

Gut Shabbos.

Parsha Preview Audio