"My son, forget not My instruction, and may your heart keep My commandments for they shall add length of days and years of life and peace to you." (Proverbs 3:1)
History's wisest man ends his book of wisdom with the words, "The sum of the matter is to fear God and observe His commandments." (Koheles 12:13)
Thus, faith and mitzvos are the key to life, the focus of life. Yes, how many people today talk about either? I just finished reading a children's story about a boy that was driving his father mad because he didn't like Gemara study. We heard nothing about the kid's character, just his disinterest in Gemara. He was viewed as a lost child. The story ends happily because a new tutor turned him around with regard to his Gemara study.
I have read many stories like this. Many of the charedi gadol books suffer from the same problem.
I have read many stories like this. Many of the charedi gadol books suffer from the same problem.
Yet, R' Herschel Shachter tells us that for most of the last thousand years the average man did not study Gemara. He studied other things. We are talking about good Jews here. And certainly Mishlei doesn't say the sum of the matter is to study Gemara.
In my BT yeshivos we rarely talked about mitzvos, yes even in a school for people raised without mitzvos. We rarely talked about emunah other than to say you have to have faith that Hashem will send you money if you don't work and you study Gemara all day long.
The shuls I attended after leaving yeshiva were the same. Everything centered around daf yomi.
We have a real problem on our hands. What is the baal habayis who has maybe an hour a day for Gemara study to make of his life? What are women who don't study it at all to make of their lives? The problems are exacerbated for baalei teshuva since they were not raised with mitzvos. So an FFB doesn't hear about mitzvos but he or she did do them so even though they were not consciously valued, they were valued to some extent. But a BT isn't taught about mitzvos either by example or by other instruction.
Is all this a new kind of apikorsis? The Satan had his methods of stripping 90% of klal Yisroel from mitzvos - persecution, poverty, haskala. And what about the 10% die-hards who wouldn't leave. Oh, he gets them to leave by manipulating their idealism and redirecting it to a complete focus on Gemara study at the expense of faith and commandments. So who is left to honor King Shlomo's advice and the Torah's many exhortations to keep commandments?
Well, Hirschians are left as Rav Hirsch talked endlessly about the importance of commandments and developed an entire symbolism of commandments to make it more meaningful. And Chasidim are left as they emphasis mitzvos such as peyos, tznius, tefillah, and kashrus. Chabad's daily learning program includes study of a mitzvah a day and a chapter (or 3) of the Rambam, which is all about mitzvos, action.
The Tanya teaches that our purpose is to bring Hashem into the world and we do that through action, through keeping of mitzvos. The Maharal says that commandments connect us to Hashem.
Rav Avigdor Miller carried the torch on the topic of emunah, using the Duties of the Heart as his sourcebook in its discussions of God's interactions with the worl.
Chabad Chassidus approachs emunah from a different angle by talking about God and His interactions with the soul.
Interestingly Rabbi Miller's ethical will advises that a person combine musar and Chassidic life. He says to be involved with a group like Satmar or other anshei sephard.
Many people try to change their lives by going to shiurim. It's not enough. We need to live a life of faith and mitzvos. Connection to Hashem and action as a channel for our energies. The prevailing model of shiurim, shiurim is like college. How many of us became frum to get away from the approach to life? We need to involve our hearts and our hands in our Judaism.
One terrible irony of the Gemara study as life approach is that it takes so many Jews out of the workforce doubling the tuition of those who do work (largely because not working requires financial support from family). This leaves the workers who live under the Gemara as life model with little connection to Judaism because they are forced to take high paying, time consuming jobs. And if mitzvos don't matter then the work is all done disconnected from Judaism. So what you get are baal habatim whose main function in life is to pay for the lifestyle of the in-crowd, kollel establishment and their own religious life suffers. It's like the poor working for the rich.
I believe this is mostly a charedi yeshiva world problem. The answer for many might well be chassidism just as it was 200 years ago for many of our ancestors. Now many yeshivish rabbis head you off at the pass with their disparagement of chassidim even as the chassidim are so obviously superior in their religious observance. As the Rebbe noted (it's in one of the yom yom in English entries), the whole topic barely warrants discussion because the chassidim long ago proved themselves worthy in their derech.
Anyway, we have the wonderful Rabbi Miller telling us to go that way. And that's good enough for me.
Faith and commandments. That's the goal. That's the key. That's the ticket. How are you going to get there?
Many people try to change their lives by going to shiurim. It's not enough. We need to live a life of faith and mitzvos. Connection to Hashem and action as a channel for our energies. The prevailing model of shiurim, shiurim is like college. How many of us became frum to get away from the approach to life? We need to involve our hearts and our hands in our Judaism.
One terrible irony of the Gemara study as life approach is that it takes so many Jews out of the workforce doubling the tuition of those who do work (largely because not working requires financial support from family). This leaves the workers who live under the Gemara as life model with little connection to Judaism because they are forced to take high paying, time consuming jobs. And if mitzvos don't matter then the work is all done disconnected from Judaism. So what you get are baal habatim whose main function in life is to pay for the lifestyle of the in-crowd, kollel establishment and their own religious life suffers. It's like the poor working for the rich.
I believe this is mostly a charedi yeshiva world problem. The answer for many might well be chassidism just as it was 200 years ago for many of our ancestors. Now many yeshivish rabbis head you off at the pass with their disparagement of chassidim even as the chassidim are so obviously superior in their religious observance. As the Rebbe noted (it's in one of the yom yom in English entries), the whole topic barely warrants discussion because the chassidim long ago proved themselves worthy in their derech.
Anyway, we have the wonderful Rabbi Miller telling us to go that way. And that's good enough for me.
Faith and commandments. That's the goal. That's the key. That's the ticket. How are you going to get there?