Getting to Know Your Torah - 06 Difficulties in Learning Torah

Ohr and Me’ohr: The Essence, and The Source

We continue here, with the help of Heaven, to explain how one connects himself to the Torah. We have mentioned the three levels of Torah learning: “Ner Mitzvah”, “Torah Ohr”, and “Me’ohr”. We have already explained the first two levels, Ner Mitzvah and Torah Ohr; and here we will explain more what Me’ohr in the Torah is.

Hashem said on the first day of Creation, “Let there be light”, and on the fourth day Hashem said “Let there be “meoros” (lights) in the sky.” Rashi explains that meoros is from the word mehairah, which can mean “curse.” This is referring to when the level of me’ohr has fallen.

Let us try to understand what me’ohr in Torah is and how one can connect himself to it.

What is me’ohr of the Torah? Me’ohr means “it comes from ohr”. In the previous chapter, it was explained that when one is learning Torah, he needs to understand not only the essence of the matter, but the root source of the matter. The essence of a matter is called ohr, and its source is called me’ohr. In every matter a person studies, he must know its source.

Torah learning results in being able to perform the mitzvos, as the Sages state, that the offspring of tzaddikim is their good deeds. The essence of Torah learning is called ohr, and the root of the ohr is called me’ohr.

If one learns Torah focused solely on what will result from it, his Torah learning is at the level of “mitzvos”, which is the lower perspective towards learning. For example, if one learns Torah only to know how to act, his learning is on the level of mitzvos, not “Torah”. [Although it is commendable that he will know how to do the mitzvos, he doesn’t reach the depth of Torah learning]. He only wants the results of the Torah, and not the actual Torah itself. Similarly, if one gets married only to have children, he is not connected with his wife.

In anything a person is involved in, he must be in touch with its essence, not just its results. So when a person learns Torah, he must get to the essence of Torah, and not only focus on what will result from his learning. When one is in touch with the essence of Torah as he learns, this is called the level of “Torah”. Even deeper than this level is when a person needs to get to the root of the matter. This doesn’t just mean to know the source of a Torah statement; rather, to know where the matter is rooted in.

Every matter has roots and branches to it. A branch of matter can also be seen as the root of another branch, with the deeper you keep getting towards the root of a matter.

Thus, Torah Ohr refers to the essence of Torah. Me’ohr means to reflect into the root of that essence.

These are well-known matters, but we will give order to them as it applies to our current topic.

Me’ohr: The Original Darkness

Before Hashem separated light and darkness, light and dark were mixed together. The original kind of darkness that existed was a holy kind of darkness; after the separation, darkness is now in the form of a lower darkness. Me’ohr was the original darkness that preceded the light of Creation we are familiar with. Thus, Me’ohr preceded Ohr, so Me’ohr is a deeper perspective than Ohr.

Me’ohr is either above the ohr or it comes from the ohr. Me’ohr is dark, while ohr is light. When me’ohr fell from its original state – a result of the separation between light and darkness - it became mehairah, “cursed”, as Rashi states. It was lowered from the higher form of darkness to the lower form of darkness.

“Wisdom is found in ayin (nothingness)” - the root of all chochmah\wisdom comes from ayin, which is another term for the original, higher kind of darkness. Creation is entirely ohr, for Hashem said “Let there be light”. But this light was all coming to reveal what’s above the light – the me’ohr, which is above ohr. The purpose of Creation was to reveal me’ohr, the source of the ohr.

Ohr is the essence of Torah, for Torah is called Torah Ohr. The root of the Torah, however, is me’ohr – the Source of the Torah [Hashem].

Torah is not the purpose of creation; it is the way to get to the purpose, and there is no other way other than the Torah to get to the purpose, because from it Hashem created the world. There is no other way to recognize the Creator. But that doesn’t make Torah the purpose of the world. The purpose of Creation is to recognize the Creator, and the Torah is the important tool that we have to get there.

Gentiles and Torah

If a non-Jew ever recognizes the Creator, it can only be possible because the non-Jews have some part of the Torah. However, they can only connect to the general parts of the Torah, but they don’t have an individual part of the Torah.

A non-Jew who keeps the 7 Noachide Laws is connected to Torah on that degree. If not for this minimal connection to the Torah that is available to a non-Jew, a non-Jew would never be able to recognize Hashem. That is clear. There are 70 facets to the Torah, and a non-Jew can have one facet of these 70. That all pertains to the Written Torah; as for the Oral Torah, they have no connection with it whatsoever.

So the non-Jews can recognize Hashem too, but only through connecting somehow to the Torah.

Torah Is The Tool To Get To Hashem

The difference between Torah and Hashem is that Torah is the tool which reveals Hashem, while Hashem Himself is the Keil Mistater, the Hidden Almighty. We know that Hashem exists, but we are not able to know His essence. Torah reveals Hashem, but Hashem Himself is hidden.

So Torah comes to reveal Hashem, but when one recognizes Hashem from the Torah, what does he understand? He discovers that he cannot comprehend Hashem.

For this reason, the Torah was created from me’ohr, from a dark light. If the purpose of Creation would be the Torah, then the purpose would be ohr, not me’ohr. But Torah is not the purpose; it is the tool of Hashem to reveal Hashem, and therefore, Torah is not the purpose. So Torah, which is ohr, is not the purpose; me’ohr is the purpose.

Me’ohr is where the ohr comes from. Me’ohr is Hashem, the source of the Torah.

The Torah is thus a kind of “darkness” which can reveal light.

Torah Conceals and Reveals At Once

Thus, Torah is called “sasrin v’galya”, “concealed yet revealed”. Hashem though is called galuy (revealed) with regards to His actions, but His actual mahus (concept) is concealed from us. For this reason, the purpose of Torah is to reveal the Creator, and not the other way around.

Torah is thus both concealed and revealed at once. Before the sin, when there was no death yet, the Torah was also concealed, but not as much as it is today. After the sin with the Golden Calf, it became concealed with regards to the fact that it became difficult to understand. Before the sin, it was concealed in the fact that its depth could be not be understood, but that’s a more subtle different kind of difficulty. Today, the difficulty we have with the Torah is that it is simply difficult for us to understand.

Torah is sasrin v’galya – part of it is revealed, and part of it is concealed. “Hashem looked into the Torah and created the world” from it; the part which Hashem used to look into it was the concealed part, while the world created from it was from the revealed part of it. The fact that “Hashem looked into the Torah” represents the hidden part of the Torah, while the world which was created from it represents the revealed part of Torah.

When a person goes from darkness to light, he can see. If one wants to see the hidden, dark parts of Torah – which Hashem created the world from – he won’t be able to. There is always a hidden part of the Torah which we can’t see. The Torah by essence is dark, so we can’t see its essence.

Before the sin, the he’arah (illumination) of Torah was our hasagah (comprehension) in Torah; and the hester (concealment) was the fact that we knew that we can’t comprehend it totally. As our Rabbis write, “The purpose of knowledge is to know that we do not know.” As a result of the sin, through, the hester in the Torah became even deeper. We can’t reveal as much understanding in it; and our difficulties in understanding the Torah also increased greatly.

Before the sin, there were parts of the Torah that were hidden from us, but it didn’t blot out the ohr of Torah from us. But after the sin, the concealment we find in the Torah is so dark that it simply blots out the ohr of Torah from us.

The Root Of Why We Have Questions In Learning

This is the secret behind all kushyos (questions) that we have in our learning. All the kushyos we have in learning Torah are due to the hester (concealment) which came after the sin. Therefore, we can’t understand what we learn, even what is written explicitly in the Torah.

Torah is called “black fire on white fire” – in other words, it is “concealment” upon “revelation”. The Torah never changes. But what changed after the sin was that the hester became kushyos. Before the sin, the hester was merely that we couldn’t get the full understanding of Torah. Our lack of full understanding then didn’t take away our actual hasagah of Torah. But after the sin, when we don’t understand the Torah, we see that we have no hasagah of it at all. The sin produced a great lack of understanding in Torah, in which the concealment of the Torah prevents us from getting to the ohr of Torah.

This is the depth that lays behind all our difficulty in understanding the Torah we learn.

Hashem wants us to exert ourselves in Torah – as Rashi says in the beginning of Parshas Bechukosai, that we should be “ameilim B’Torah”, to have ameilus\exertion in learning Torah. The root letters of the word ameilus, which is amal, is from the word he’elam (concealment), because amal can remove he’elam.

After the sin, the darkness that is above light, me’ohr, has currently fallen to the level below ohr. Chazal state that a person learns most of a person’s wisdom is acquired at night, because the darkness of nighttime is meant to remove the hester.

So Torah contains both giluy (revelation) and hester (concealment). When a person encounters a kashya (and some people are busy all the time with kushyos in learning), if he only has a superficial attitude towards learning, he feels frustrated at the fact that it’s hard to understand the Torah. But when one has an inner perspective, he is aware that our connection to Torah requires both giluy and hester. When you encounter kushyos\hester in your learning, you need to get to the root of the hester, and not just focus on the personal hester that you’ve come across.

One must clearly recognize the root of the hester. When one recognizes it, on this Chazal give two methods of advice of what to do, and we will need both.

Solving Our Difficulties In Learning

When a person encounters a kashya in learning, or he doesn’t understand, or he finds a contradiction, he feels the difficulty; how can he solve it?

There are two root methods.

1) One part of the solution to difficulties in learning is ameilus, and the ameilus removes the hester.

2) The second thing one needs to do is: teshuvah (repentance). When one does teshuvah, Hashem shows him the way. What is holding back a person from understanding? His sins are getting in the way. It might be his sins from this lifetime, or from a previous lifetime, or from the sins of others in his generation, or from sins of souls who share the same root as his. But what is it that is concealing the Torah from a person? The sin of the Golden Calf is the root of all hester in Torah, because that was when we fell from our previous level of purity; all other sins that came after that are branches of the sin with the Golden Calf.

The root of all he’elam (concealment) is me’ohr. Through ameilus, one removes the he’elam, and through teshuvah, one removes the root of the he’elam.

There is also a middle step in between ameilus and teshuvah: tefillah (to daven to Hashem for help in understanding).

To be more specific, the lower aspect of the solution is ameilus, the higher aspect of the solution isteshuvah, and the middle part of the solution is tefillah. These were the three methods which our great leaders of the past used.

When a person encounters a question in his learning, these are the three methods he can use. Ameilus in learning is a well-known matter, and much of Chazal is written about it, and so is tefillah a well-known part of learning. Teshuvah was the method used by the Chozeh of Lublin. But all of these methods are written about.

Ameilus helps a person get to the branch of the difficulty, while Teshuvah helps a person get to the root of the matter, because teshuvah returns one to the root. Tefillah is the middle point that holds onto both ameilus and teshuvah and connects them together.

In other language, the two general solutions, ameilus and teshuvah, are also represented by the weekdays and by Shabbos, which play two different roles. The week serves for ameilus, when we work hard, while Shabbos resembles teshuvah, when we “return” to our roots.

Chazal state that when a person learns Torah with children on Shabbos, he should not teach them new matters or ask them questions, so that they can have oneg Shabbos. In other words, Shabbos is a time of teshuvah, in which questions go away. It is only later on that ameilus became the way to remove concealment of Torah. The original method was teshuvah.

In different terms: when a person has a kushya, he looks for a teshuvah – an answer. He has ameilus in his kashya. If he does teshuvah for his sins, he will come to the teshuvah to his kashya. The question causes ameilus, and if one does teshuvah in his soul, he will find the teshuvah to his kashya. Thus, the six days of the week represent kashya, and Shabbos is the teshuvah to the kashya. This is the depth behind the meaning of our Sages, “The Torah was given on Shabbos.”

[If a person only uses one of these solutions alone, he will not succeed. Only with all three can person succeed in his learning. How much Teshuvah needs to be done, how much Tefillah and how much Ameilus needs to be done? It depends on each person. But everyone needs to make use of all three. The Kotzker Rebbe zt”l brought from the Avnei Nezer that his tefillah was greater than his ameilus, and his understanding in Torah came more from tefillah than from ameilus. However, this is a subtle matter. One needs to have all three of these methods in order to succeed. The only issue is how much ameilus, teshuvah and tefillah is needed, and each person is different with this. The most important part of course is ameilus, but the issue is, how much ameilus, how much teshuvah, and how much tefillah? It depends on each person’s situation, and each time is different as well].

Looking For Questions Vs. Bothered By Questions

Now we will mention a sharper point.

We have mentioned the levels of Ner Mitzvah, Torah Ohr and Me’ohr. Now we will reflect about the following. There are two kinds of people. One kind of person enjoys clarity and understanding, while another kind of person enjoys – and intentionally looks – for more “questions”. This kind of person, when he learns, always asks, “So, what question can we come up with over here?”

Sometimes a person does this because he likes to be challenged, which is a superficial reason. But even if this is not the reason, a person who intentionally looks for questions on his learning is doing so because he is far from the level of Torah Ohr, and he is still at the level of Ner Mitzvah.

He is more interested in questions, rather than in answers. There are people who, as soon as their questions are answered, they immediately look for a new question to ask…

[When someone is concerned mainly about getting clarity at his learning, he is also bothered by questions, but only because he feels unclear. He will still be connected to Torah Ohr, because he mainly seeks clarity. But when one looks for questions, his whole enjoyment in learning comes from questions, and he will not be connected to Torah Ohr.]

The word “question”, kashya, is reminiscent of the term kashyus oref, “stiff-necked.” When a person looks just to have questions when he learns, he is only seeing the “oref”, the “neck” or the side of something – but he isn’t seeing the panim\“face” of the information.

This is a subtle kind of awareness in your learning. The correct approach is for a person to seek clarity, and when one has questions, he is bothered, because he is not clear. But others are seeking questions on their learning, because they feel like that there must be questions, and they would rather remain that way.

The purpose of Creation is the me’ohr, the higher kind of darkness which the Torah was created from. But when me’ohr is misused, a person seeks questions in his learning – he wants it to be dark.

We can find a physical manifestation of this problem as well. There are people who enjoy sitting in the dark, and others enjoy sitting in the light. Some people will never sit in the dark, because they can’t deal with the loneliness, and they get anxious. But there are people who enjoy sitting in the dark! Why? It can be coming either from a desire for holy darkness, or for unholy darkness. This needs a deep, inner clarification to discern why a person desires to be in the dark. We won’t get into this now, and it was only mentioned to help illustrate the concept we are discussing.

So connecting to the Torah requires both giluy and hester. Every person needs to clarify how much he is connected to giluy as well as hester.

There are people who are simply missing clarity in their learning; this is not the kind of hester we are discussing. We are speaking about how much a person is connected to his difficulties in learning.

Intellectual Connection Vs. Heart Connection To Learning Torah

When one feels difficulties in his learning, how does he feel towards it?

The three solutions of ameilus, teshuvah and tefillah can be practically applied as follows. When a person is learning Torah, there are two possible ways of how he is learning: either through his intellect, or through his heart.

When we speak of the “heart” here, we don’t mean emotions. We are referring to palpable knowledge. Heart is lev, which equals 32, parallel to the “32 Pathways of Wisdom”. These pathways of wisdom are referring to a palpable kind of knowledge. It means to feel your knowledge.

Feelings are just the external part of our heart; when your feelings are feeling your knowledge, this is using the inner layer of the heart (We won’t get into this discussion now).

When one learns Torah and he’s just using human intellect alone, what will happen when he encounters questions and answers? It merely passes through his human intellect, so he will understand it on an intellectual level, but not beyond that.

But when one learns Torah with his heart – when he palpably feels his Torah knowledge he is learning about – he can feel the Torah, and then the questions he comes across really bother him, and the answers he learns about will feel truly calming to his soul. The questions are hard on him, and the answers to him will feel like he is returning to his root.

There are two kinds of questions. When a person has a difficulty, and he needs to solve it, he will look to find the answer, but the question has no bearing on him. He had a difficulty, and he got his answer; he won’t feel how the answer is returning him to his root. But a question in Torah, when truly felt, feels to a person as if he’s being distanced from the essence of the matter, and the answer to his question will feel like returning to one’s source. This is the meaning of how Torah is a Toras Chaim (a living Torah), a Toras Emes (a Torah of truth), as opposed to the Torah learning of Doeg and Achitophel, which was only superficial.

A person connected in his heart to his learning really feels the intensity of each question and answer in his learning. He takes each question personally, and the answer feels like a relief to him, like he is being returned to his source.

To say it simpler: A person is learning the Gemara and he has a question on Abaye. He has a question on Abaye, but does he feel like it’s a question on himself too? The true way of learning is that a person needs to feel that a question in Torah is on himself as well.

This is not a far-fetched concept; it is to be truthful. There really is no question on Abaye – it’s a question only on you! This is not just because Abaye knew the answer. It is because you need to feel bothered by the question, to feel that the question is distancing you and how the answer is drawing you closer to the essence of Torah.

This is not a mere idea to ponder. It is a question of how a person is connected to his learning. When a person has the correct mentality towards learning, he will always be connecting to the Torah as he learns it. Ner Mitzvah refers to questions in Torah, and mitzvos connect a person to the Creator.

Fusing Together The Intellect and Heart In Learning Torah

Now this concept will be sharpened.

When a person has a question in his learning, there is an avodah of “And you shall know the matter today, and you shall settle it upon your heart.” Let’s say a person wants to internalize the words of the Gemara before he has even contemplated the words of the Gemara thoroughly. Such a person wishes to jump to the “heart” level, before he has even acquired the knowledge part. He is acting detrimental to himself, because he immediately seeks to feel how he is being distanced because of the question, before he has even absorbed the question. He will damage his ability to comprehend questions.

On the other hand, if he only thinks about the question and he doesn’t feel how he is being distanced from the Torah, he is learning Torah on just an intellectual level, and his heart is not in the equation.

So it’s a subtle avodah. If someone was used to learning Torah since he was young, generally, he is used to learning Torah all the time with human intellect alone. If someone started learning Torah when he was older, his emotions are probably more dominant, and his Torah learning to him will probably be only with his heart, with no intellect. Either mentality towards learning Torah won’t succeed. We need both the heart and the intellect when we learn Torah.

If one thinks that only his heart needs to be used when he learns Torah, he will view Torah as a “segulah”, (a spiritual charm), but he won’t be able to develop a subtle intellect from his learning.

He will learn Torah solely to get close to Hashem, or to purify his soul, to become spiritual, but, he never actually learns. Why isn’t he learning? Because he doesn’t know what it means to use his intellect in the Torah! He is waiting for the Torah to act on its own for him; he doesn’t try to use its power.

The Fusion of “Torah Ohr” and “Ner Mitzvah”

Most people, for this reason, haven’t experienced the “Torah” that is the Torah; they experience it on the level of “mitzvos.” All people receive spiritual gains from it, but most people aren’t learning Torah as “Torah”, only as a means to gain something from it.

One needs to realize that there is the essence of the Torah, as well as what results from it. The essence of the Torah is when we use our intellect in it. This is “Torah Ohr.” The mitzvos, which result from the Torah, implies that we need to feel the knowledge of the Torah, because internalization is the result of learning.

Thus, a person needs to fuse together the roles of “Torah Ohr” with “Ner Mitzvah”. When the balance is achieved, a person can understand the subtle depths of the Torah, endlessly. This is called the level of learning that is “Toras Chaim”, a “Torah of life”, in which a person feels how each question in his learning distances him, and how the answers return him to the source.

Usually, a person learning Torah in-depth only knows of the concept of internalizing it so that he can act upon what he learns; “Ner Mitzvah”. But this alone isn’t enough to access the essence of Torah. Without accessing the actual Torah, a person will not either get to the Creator through the Torah - even if he wants very badly to get there. It might seem to him like he is getting there, but he is not really there.

Me’ohr: Seeing The Light of the Torah

One must go through the process of being distanced and drawn close to understanding the Torah; and this is the lower use of “me’ohr”. The higher use of “me’ohr” is for one to search for the root of the information.

After ameilus (exertion) in learning Torah, if a person still doesn’t understand the point he is learning about, he must be aware of the following two factors. It is either due to the concealment that has been created from his sins, and in order to rectify this, one needs to keep increasing his ameilus, teshuvah and tefillah. But even after doing all this, and in fact, it happens precisely after doing all of this – the reason why a person is having difficulty in understanding his learning is because the Torah is really above our current hasagah (comprehension).

Therefore, one who tries in the beginning of his learning to get to the level of “me’ohr” in Torah, is really doing so out of immaturity and laziness. He doesn’t want to work hard, so he doesn’t have ameilus in his Torah learning; he doesn’t do teshuvah, and he doesn’t either daven for success in his learning. He is trying to jump levels, and he will end up with a “tower floating in the air” [which will plop down on him].

Thus, there are two stages that a person must go through, when he realizes that he lacks of understanding what he is learning about in Torah. At first, it is due to one’s sins. To rectify it, one needs to go through the stages of ameilus, teshuvah and tefillah.

After that, a person can then receive understanding of Torah at it essence, according to his current level of hasagah\comprehension that is within his reach. And at that point, whatever one doesn’t understand in Torah is not because he simply doesn’t understand, but for a deeper reason: “The purpose of not knowing is to know that we do not know”.

There is deep point in which can ‘know’ that we really cannot ‘know’ the Torah. To “not know” doesn’t mean to simply not know – it is to palpably feel that you cannot comprehend the Torah. It doesn’t mean that you simply cannot understand it, in the simple sense of struggling to know what you are learning. It is a deeper kind of “not knowing”: it means that you are connecting yourself to the incomprehensible.

And when you realize that you are dealing with the incomprehensible, you are then utterly bound with the Creator and you recognize Him[1].

In Conclusion

The words here are very subtle and deep within the soul’s experience. These are not intellectual ideas, although they certainly require our intellect to understand what is being said here. Beyond the understanding of our intellect, we need inner connection in our soul to the Torah which we learn.

At the beginning of our learning, we don’t understand it. “The peel comes before the fruit.” We begin to understand as we get older, but at first we do not understand. The fact that we don’t understand our learning at first is not by coincidence; we are supposed to be connected to the depth of why we don’t understand. One of the Sages prayed that he should not come to make errors in his learning; this was not just because he was afraid to make mistakes in his learning. He connected to the fact that he didn’t understand.

We must know that the reason we don’t understand our Torah learning right away is because our sins prevent us at first. But as you work your way through understanding what you are learning, you eventually can come to the deep point in which you realize that the reason why you don’t always is because you are a limited human being, which cannot fully comprehend the depths of the Torah.

If one palpably feels this, and this knowledge envelopes him as he learns, then he is one who recognizes the Creator through his Torah learning.

We have described, briefly, the three levels of connection to one’s learning: Ner Mitzvah, Torah Ohr, and Me’ohr.