By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal
SAN DIEGO–When I was attending the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, very little emphasis was placed on “practical rabbinics,” the nuts and bolts of being a rabbi. One piece of advice I do remember was aseh Toratcha keva, “fix a time for your Torah study.” We were warned that unless we designated a specific part of our day as a study period, we would find many reasons not to continue to learn.
When I began life as a congregational rabbi I took this advice to heart and set a fixed time of day to shut my doors and hit the books. I protected this time conscientiously…for about two weeks, and then I allowed appointments and phone calls to creep in, emergencies to interfere, and found fires to extinguish. “Fix a time for your Torah study” is wonderful advice, but only when we follow it.
Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Pesicha taught: “There are many who say, ‘If I did not have the pressures of making a living and other problems of daily life, I would be able to worship God with a fuller heart and greater fervor.’ About these people the Talmud says, ‘Do not say that when I have time to study, I will study, lest you never find time to study.’ Rather, the Holy One savors the devotion of one who worships him despite the rush and hurry of daily life.
When God spoke to Moses from the burning bush he said to him, “Do not come closer. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground.” (Ex. 3:5)
The Chofetz Chaim (Rabbi Israel Meir HaCohen Kagan) teaches that these words were meant not just for Moses, but for us as well. We should always remember that “the place on which you stand is holy ground.” That is, we should never wait until the right time and the right place to worship God or study Torah. God wants us to turn every place and time we find ourselves, even those in which we find ourselves most pressed, into “holy ground.” Perhaps our study and prayer at these moments when we really don’t have the time end up being the most pleasing to God.
I try to publish my weekly D’var Torah emails at the same time each week (4:00 a.m. on Friday morning). I do this for two reasons: one, so that they appear first in your list of Friday morning email (!), and second, to give myself a deadline. The deadline forces me to research and write a (more or less!) original D’var Torah at least once a week. In other words, no matter what is on my desk or who is on the phone, this deadline forces me to study Torah at least once a week!
While forcing myself to crack the books does not exactly meet the requirements of “Fix a time for your Torah study,” whenever we make the time to study Torah, God will find it pleasing and we will find ourselves enriched.
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Rabbi Rosenthal is spiritual leader of Tifereth Israel Synagogue