Translate

Powered By Blogger

16.3.17

Bitul Torah is a sin. That is not learning Torah when one is able is a sin.

To me it seems like the package deal of learning Torah along with trust in God makes things go better. That is you might not be sitting and learning Torah all day, and you might not have complete trust in God but if you have a little bit of both I think that creates a tidal wave of success.

That is to say in theory perfect trust in God ought to work, but in  a practical sense there seem to be some limits to have far one can take this. Similarly learning Torah in theory ought to be all day every second. [That refers to either the written Law--the Old Testament, and/or the Oral Law which means simply the books of the חז''ל "Chazal" the sages.That last category is means The Two Talmuds, the Halachic Midrashim and the Agadic Midrashim.] In any case there are limits to how much one can learn Torah. But putting both ideas together makes a working combination.

The idea of התמדה in Torah is well founded. It comes from the idea that Bitul Torah is a sin. That is not learning Torah when one is able is a sin. Thus there are plenty of things one needs to do --to learn a vocation, to get married etc. But everything one needs to do needs to be weighed on the scales of "Bitul Torah"--that is "Is this other thing a mitzvah that can not be done by anyone else?" If not then it is forbidden.
[I would be amiss if I did not mention that Physics and Metaphysics as mentioned by the Rambam are not Bitul Torah but that does not leave the door open for any and all secular activities or studies. It is a specific provision stated by the Rambam and implicit in most Musar books from the Middle Ages. ]


Popper blamed  Hegel for totalitarian systems- unfairly. Yet in one way his was right that Hegel was used by the USSR. In University courses for preparation for work in in KGB, Hegel was taught and considered as a favorable preliminary step towards Marxism in that Marx borrowed some major concepts of his and the left still does.