I am kind of trying to figure out something in the Obligations of the Heart. [Rav Behaye ben Yoseph Ibn Pakuda] He has ten categories of people that learn. The first ones are about learning the Old Testament. He divides them into a few subcategories (of levels of understanding). Then he gets up to the Mishna. So far everything goes smoothly.
Then he gets to the category of those that learn Talmud, and his first category is those that do it for honor, and not for its own sake.
There is no question that I stumbled on this my first time reading this book in the Mir Yeshiva in NY. And I stumbled on it again today.
But then he gets to the next category of those that learn Gemara for its own sake.
I am pretty sure almost anyone reading that passage is wondering exactly what I am wondering. Why specifically the Talmud? All the other kind of learning one can do also for the sake of honor or cash.
It is confusing.
If you take what he says in his introduction of Metaphysics this might become a bit more understandable.He takes Metaphysics [in the Intro] as important for the sake of Torah-but not being Torah itself. So he must be thinking along the lines of Saadia Gaon about the need for Metaphysics along with Gemara.
[You have to be exacting in his words in the Introduction to see this.]
When I was at the Mir and read the Musar Book of the disciple of the Gra Reb Haim from Voloshin [נפש החיים] I saw he was saying also this same kind of idea.--the need for fear of God along wit learning Gemara.
[Anyone who knows the major book of Reb Nahman from Breslov will already be familiar with this idea that there is a kind of tendency to learn Gemara for the wrong reasons--money, pay, privilege as he brings in Volume I section 12. The idea seems the same--to work on one's fear of God along with learning Gemara so that the learning should be for the right reasons.]
Then he gets to the category of those that learn Talmud, and his first category is those that do it for honor, and not for its own sake.
There is no question that I stumbled on this my first time reading this book in the Mir Yeshiva in NY. And I stumbled on it again today.
But then he gets to the next category of those that learn Gemara for its own sake.
I am pretty sure almost anyone reading that passage is wondering exactly what I am wondering. Why specifically the Talmud? All the other kind of learning one can do also for the sake of honor or cash.
It is confusing.
If you take what he says in his introduction of Metaphysics this might become a bit more understandable.He takes Metaphysics [in the Intro] as important for the sake of Torah-but not being Torah itself. So he must be thinking along the lines of Saadia Gaon about the need for Metaphysics along with Gemara.
[You have to be exacting in his words in the Introduction to see this.]
When I was at the Mir and read the Musar Book of the disciple of the Gra Reb Haim from Voloshin [נפש החיים] I saw he was saying also this same kind of idea.--the need for fear of God along wit learning Gemara.
[Anyone who knows the major book of Reb Nahman from Breslov will already be familiar with this idea that there is a kind of tendency to learn Gemara for the wrong reasons--money, pay, privilege as he brings in Volume I section 12. The idea seems the same--to work on one's fear of God along with learning Gemara so that the learning should be for the right reasons.]
