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Wisdom for Living
Rabbi Noah Weinberg on the Parashah
8 min read
This week's Torah portion continues to discuss the service of the Kohanim in the Tabernacle. Although the service involves many details, if we look at the big picture, an important theme emerges that teaches us a crucial lesson about how people grow and change.
The service in the Mishkan – and later in the Beis Hamikdash — consisted of a clearly defined, daily routine. For example, each day the service began with the terumas hadeshen, the removal of the ash from the previous day’s sacrifices. The Kohanim also placed wood on the Altar each day to ensure that the fire burned continuously, and the korban tamid, mandatory daily offering that was offered first in the morning and at the end of the day.
The activities in the Beis Hamikdash, the spiritual epicenter of the world, followed a daily schedule of acts that never changed. The Torah is showing us that genuine, sustained growth does not come from sudden bursts of inspiration; it is attained through constant, consistent, and continuous actions that require unwavering commitment and persistence.
How do we make our own actions constant, consistent, and continuous?
Imagine you're stuck in traffic and the driver next to you opens his window and throws out a dollar bill. A minute later, as traffic is inching along, he throws out another dollar bill. You can't believe it! Every minute that you’re stuck in traffic another dollar flies out the window!
Crazy, right? You’ve probably never seen that happen, and you probably never will. But how often do we throw a minute out the window, daydreaming and staring at nothing in particular? And then another minute and another… just killing time. Calculate the number of minutes we throw away any given week and add them all up. We are throwing away time that is worth way more than money.
Truly living means using your mind constantly. Whatever you are doing at any given moment – watching the news, working on a business deal, talking to a friend, reading this article – give it your full attention. Decide that you are willing to take the pain of thinking, of being aware, all day long.
Life is precious. Use it; don't kill it.
Consistency is the key to spiritual growth and learning Torah. Just as children crave structure in order to thrive, even though they kick and scream at bedtime, our yetzer hara behaves best when you give it structure and a consistent routine. Otherwise it will be throwing a temper tantrum and bouncing off the walls, making it next to impossible for you to focus on the mitzvah at hand.
So select your goal and commit to doing daily activities to reach that goal in the same time, at the same place, and in the same way, as much as reasonably possible.
For example, say your goal is to learn Shas, the entire Talmud. Set aside a time to learn, preferably with a chavrusa, a study partner, and make that time "holy" – no matter what, rain or shine, sickness or health, you show up and learn at that time. That is the power of commitment. Hammering away day in and day out carves out the path to change.
Whenever you pursue a specific goal, strive to do it without interruption. It is more effective to study for one hour straight than for two hours with interruptions. Interruptions break your train of thought and limit your ability to retain information. You cannot bring a pot to a boil if you keep taking it off the fire. You have to reboil it all over again.
This razor focus is very difficult for today's attention-deficit, multi-tasking generation. Concentrating for 20 minutes with no interruptions – no emails, no phone calls, no getting up to get a drink – requires real effort. But it is essential. Try it. Set aside a certain time when you block everything else out, where you will not budge from the activity you're focusing on. You are not endangering your life!
You can practice this while riding on the bus or waiting at the dentist's office. Set yourself a goal of 15 minutes to focus exclusively on one subject. It may be a problem you're having at work, a personal goal, or learning a text. Little by little, increase your time. First 15 minutes, then 30 minutes, then one hour, then two hours. Once you hit four hours, you're sailing.
The Vilna Gaon, the great 18th century Jewish scholar, said that the first three hours and 59 minutes is stoking the furnace. By the fourth hour, the pot is boiling.
Aish HaTorah was founded on the concept that lasting change comes through persistent repetition. Avos D’Rebbe Nosson (6:2) recounts that Rabbi Akiva was a complete ignoramus who did not know the aleph beis until the age of 40. What changed Rabbi Akiva and launched him on the path to becoming one of the greatest sages in the history of the Jewish People?
Avos D’Rebbe Nosson tells us that Rabbi Akiva bathed by a particular waterfall, and one day he noticed a rock with a hole right through it. He looked to see what caused the hole, and noticed that a steady drip of water was falling exactly where the hole was. Upon seeing this he made the following kal v’chomer (a fortiori argument). If water, which is soft, can make a hole in a rock, which is hard, then all the more so Torah, which is fire, can make a hole in the heart of a man, which is soft. This insight motivated him to learn, until he eventually became the great Rabbi Akiva, teacher of 24,000 students!
What did Rabbi Akiva see in the rock that so dramatically changed the direction of his life?
If you would ask someone watching water drip on a rock if a particular drop of water made any impact, the answer would almost certainly be no, because to the naked eye the impact is not noticeable. But the fact that there is now a hole in the rock means that every single drop counted.
Rabbi Akiva, like all of us, yearned for greatness in Torah. But he gave up on becoming great in Torah because he did not see that his learning was changing him. The rock showed him that he was wrong, and that every word of Torah he learned must be affecting him. It just takes time and patience to see the transformation.
Furthermore, the drops of water only made a hole in the rock because they fell in the exact same place over and over again. This point is the basis of all of Yiddishkeit. Every day we say the exact same brachos and tefillos, and we do the same daily mitzvos. It is through persistent repetition that we change and grow, by steadily inculcating the body with the concepts and aspirations of the soul.
When we learn Torah we must always remember that it is not possible for the finite heart of man to make contact with the infinite word of God and remain unchanged; it just takes time for that change to become manifest. Those who take that message to heart will have the ability to sit and learn, because they will know it is worth it – they are changing.
Our generation, more so than any other in Jewish history, is challenged by the problems of impatience and lack of discipline. Why? Because our generation lives in the era of post technology, and technology, despite its achievements, has trained all of us to expect instantaneous results in everything we undertake. Technology has the power to dramatically speed up all physical processes, from food preparation to communicating with our relatives abroad, but spiritual growth, acquisition of Torah, refining our middos, and a relationship with Hashem all require patience and discipline.
The above quote from Avos D’Rebbe Nosson, incidentally, was the inspiration behind the name Aish HaTorah, the Fire of Torah. And the message of Midrash is the basis of a Torah education, because without understanding the need for persistence and consistency, one can mistakenly give up on becoming great in learning – just as Rabbi Akiva initially did – and remain ignorant of the beauty and depth of Torah forever.
So whenever you see the name Aish HaTorah, remember the message of the rock: Greatness in Torah is guaranteed, as long as you don’t stop the water from dripping – one word at a time.
