Torah Study and Forgetfulness
STUDENT SUMMARIES OF SICHOT OF THE ROSHEI YESHIVA
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DAYS OF DELIVERANCE: ESSAYS ON PURIM AND HANUKKAH
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PARASHAT KI TISA
SICHA OF HARAV
Torah Study and Forgetfulness
Translated by
"And He gave to Moshe, when He finished (ke-chaloto) speaking with him at
Rashi
explains:
"The word 'ke-chaloto' is written without the 'vav' (ככלתו
instead of
ככלותו) – teaching that Torah
was given over to Moshe like a bride (כלה)
is given to a groom, for he could not learn all of it in such a short time."
What Rashi is saying is that no mortal – not even the greatest prophet and
thinker – can learn the entire Torah in forty days. Therefore God ultimately
hands over the Torah to Moshe as a gift before his descent to the nation.
Rashi's explanation is based on the midrash, but there the message is conveyed
with a different emphasis:
"'He gave to Moshe' – Throughout the entire forty days that Moshe spent atop the
mountain, he was learning Torah and forgetting it. He said to God, 'Master of
the world – I have forty days, and I know nothing.' What did God do? When the
forty days were up, God gave him the Torah as a gift, as it is written, 'He gave
to Moshe.' Did Moshe then learn the entire Torah? [Surely not; as] it is written
of the Torah, 'Its measure is longer than the land, and broader than the sea'
(Iyov 11:9) – could Moshe then have learned it all in forty days? Rather, God
taught Moshe the principles." (Shemot Rabba 41:6)
Moshe ascends the mountain in order to bring the Torah and teach it to Bnei
Yisrael – but he cannot remember what he has learned. Each day he awakens to a
new day of study, and each evening he is enveloped by the same feeling of
frustration, as he becomes aware of all that he has forgotten. Every one of us
is familiar with the experience of learning and learning, and ultimately
discovering that we have not progressed as we had planned to. However, the
message of the midrash is clear: despite the frustration that Moshe feels each
day anew, he still returns each day to God's beit midrash; he doesn't give up
and stop trying, but rather sits from morning until night, day after day, not
eating or drinking, investing his whole self in his study. And in the end, the
midrash tells us, he does indeed succeed in internalizing the Torah, which is
given over to him as a gift.
The whole process of Moshe's ascent on Mount Sinai and the receiving of the
Torah is supernatural, but even the supernatural often operates in natural ways,
and we may propose an understanding of the "gift" that the midrash is talking
about, which is different from the literal meaning. Moshe sits atop the mountain
studying for forty days, believing that he is not taking in anything, but at the
end of this process he discovers that in fact he knows the Torah. We might
suggest that the "gift" mentioned in the midrash is not a complete gift; rather,
what the text means to tell us is that Moshe discovers, at the end of his stay
on the mountain, that during all the time that he was studying and thinking that
he was remembering nothing, he was actually absorbing the Torah and its values,
to some extent, unconsciously. If we relate this to our own experience, we are
all familiar with the feeling of learning at yeshiva but not achieving all that
we had wanted to. Still, is there anyone who, after a year or two years of
yeshiva study, can really think that he has not progressed?
This explanation relates to another point raised by the midrash, and that is
that Moshe received the Torah in its entirety. Moshe studies, and feels that he
is not remembering the details of the commandments, and therefore God tells him
the general principles of the Torah – explaining, in effect, that these concepts
are what he will learn while on Mount Sinai, while the details will remain for
him to study on his own, when he returns to the camp in the wilderness. Moshe
thinks he is not remembering what he has learned, so God gives him, as a gift,
the general principles, by means of which Moshe will be able to continue on his
own, and eventually come to know all of the rest.
In a certain sense, this midrash is speaking out against the perceptions which
place personal achievement at the center of life. The midrash is teaching us
that beyond the knowledge, and the extent to which one attains it, what is
important is the investment and the desire to know; in the wake of this,
knowledge will come – in some measure as a gift from God. Another thing we learn
from this midrash is that our orientation in learning while "atop
This midrash relates to another which talks about a laborer who is paid by his
employer to carry water from one place to another in a bucket that leaks
(Vayikra Rabba 19:2). The midrash says that a fool says to this laborer, "What
is the point of you doing this? All the water is leaking!" Our midrash expresses
the answer of someone who is wise: although the water is leaking, the laborer
still receives wages for his work, and therefore he is not troubled. The same
message is being emphasized: although a person does not feel that he is
achieving that which that he had hoped or intended to achieve, and it seems that
everything is being forgotten and disappearing, there is still value to his
investment and effort in Torah, because of the reward.
This perspective is also expressed in another well-known midrash which states
that the Torah was given in the wilderness to teach us that anyone who seeks to
acquire Torah must make himself like a wilderness: he must invest his whole self
in his learning, nullifying his personal desires (Bamidbar Rabba 1:7). As we
have explained, a person is required to have total, absolute commitment and
dedication to Torah values and Torah study, and the midrash promises that if we
invest ourselves as we should, the knowledge and memory will ultimately be
granted to us as a gift from God – as happened to Moshe.
(This sicha
was delivered on Shabbat parashat Ki Tisa 5765 [2005].)