Small tidbits and Sparks of wisdom

If we learn with less energy, God forbid, the flow of Divine light in all the worlds is diminished, and God sheds tears, so to speak. The Gemara in Chagigah 5b says: “Hashem weeps over three types of people every day, one of them being a man who has the opportunity to study Torah, but does not do so.” The meaning of Hashem weeping is that the Attribute of strict Justice prevails as a result of the weakening of the Divine light—which is a manifestation of Hashem’s great mercy in the hidden worlds.

A person who has never learned Torah is cast aside, God forbid, and handed over to the forces of evil, as the Gemara in Berachos 5a says: “Anyone who has the opportunity to engage in Torah study but does not do so, the Holy One, blessed be He, will bring upon him dreadful afflictions that make him repulsive (ochrin), as it says,

‘I was dumb, silent; I kept quiet from the good thing, and my pain makes me repulsive (ne’ecar)’ (Tehillim 39:3).

He deprives himself and the entire world of much goodness, because he tipped the scale to the side of guilt for himself and the whole world. And so it says in Bava Basra 8a: “Misfortune comes to the world only because of the unlearned.” If, God forbid, misfortune befalls an individual or a country even in the furthest corner of the world, it is the fault of the unlearned, may God spare us.

If one used to study Torah and then gave up his studies, he weakens the heavenly legions of angels and upsets the order of the higher worlds and the Divine chariot. He causes the destructive forces to gain the upper hand and undermines the power of the Shechinah, so to speak, for the Shechinah dwells among us through the study of Torah lishmah.

A Time to Act for God

Commenting on the verse, “For it is a time to act for Hashem; they have voided Your Torah” (Tehillim 119:126), the Zohar says: “When people are learning Torah, the Holy One, blessed be He, is happy with the worlds He created, and Heaven and earth are firmly established. But the moment the Jewish people stop learning, God’s power wanes. When that happens, we have to act for God. The tzaddikim that are left in the world must gird their loins and intensify their own knowledge of the Torah to lend strength to the Holy One, blessed be He. Why? Because many have abandoned the Torah and do not study it as they should. On the other hand, when Klal Yisrael are learning Torah, the Jewish faith stands firm and is crowned with perfection.”

In short, the heavenly realm rises or falls, according to the way Klal Yisrael is studying Torah.

When One Becomes Lax in Torah Learning

When a person’s Torah learning declines, God becomes distant from him, because He and the Torah are One. His Divine protection is removed, and he is handed over to the power of strict Justice, which he himself aroused, as the Gemara in Berachos 63a says: “Whoever weakens himself from words of Torah (by studying it without enthusiasm or diligence) will have no strength to stand in the time of distress, as it says,

‘Your strength will become limited’ (Mishlei 24:10) [i.e., if you are slack in your learning, you will become too weak to help yourself].

And the Midrash says: “Hashem says to Klal Yisrael: If you keep the Torah, I will guard you, as it says,

‘If you will observe (shamor tishmerun) all this Torah’ (Devarim 11:22).

The double expression thus means that if you keep (shamor), then you will be guarded (tishmerun).

And a well-known Midrash says: “[Yitzchak said,]

‘Hakol kol Yaakov, vehayadayim yedei Eisav’ (Bereishis 27:22).

[Why the repetitive hakol kol?] When the voice of Yaakov (i.e., the Torah, kol written with a vav) is heard in the synagogue and the study hall, the hands of Eisav are powerless, but when the voice of Yaakov is weak (kol written without the vav), the hands of Eisav dominate.”