"The Way of G-d"
Part 4: "Divine Service"
Chapter 2: "Torah Study"
Paragraph 1
Imagine a world with a fully laid-out plan for universal and human
perfection
that had somehow never been put in writing and which no one could access.
Well, that's what the world would be like if the Torah hadn't been granted
us.
For without the Torah we simply wouldn't know what to do to be the best we
could
be, or how to draw close to G-d Almighty (the plan's Author).
(After all, doesn't a great deal of the thrust of modern science lie in
unearthing the underlying principles of reality and setting them down? So
imagine
if that were already done, and all we had to do was to read it and follow
through on it -- and we didn't! Could there be a greater loss to
humankind?)
As such, the revelation of the Torah was a historic phenomenon of the
highest
order, and our drawing upon it daily is a high personal calling. For when
we
do that by delving into the Torah daily, we not only recapture the moment
of
revelation, we actually fulfill G-d's wishes that we study His "manual"
and be
able to follow through on its counsel.
For as we indicated above (1:4:9), G-d wants us to know His wishes for us
and
to be able to go back to the statement of them again and again. That's the
essence of Torah study, and it's thus one of the most vitally important
mitzvot
of all.
Text Copyright © 2004 by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Torah.org.
