Our Gemara on Amud Aleph states:
Rabbi Abbahu said that the Holy One, Blessed be He, said: I said that the Jewish people should be before Me as a plant placed by great waters, and what is that plant? It is a willow. And they set themselves as a tzaftzafa of the mountains.
Ben Yehoyada interprets this allegorically to be referring to the study of Torah. Hashem wanted the Jews to be sustained by pure Torah study alone, much as the Willow is fully sustained by the waters. However, the Jewish people failed to take advantage of this offer. This is represented in the switch from the willow to the tzaftzafa of the mountains. He also notes that the Willow is described as having a smooth leaf, while the tzaftzafa of the mountains has little teeth, like a saw, around its lips. This represents a failure to maintain pure speech, replacing it with speech that has barbs.
My friends there is incredible power in the study of Torah Lishmah. I think that sometimes the yeshiva world, in its valiant effort to promote the highest form of scholarship, can leave less than learned person stuck feeling despair, and not understanding that their Share in Torah is waiting for them even if they do not study Gemara in depth, or even if they do not study Gemara at all.
Torah, simply put, is our tradition of sacred written and oral revelation and analytic teachings of what God expects from Man. Do not get bogged down in what “you SHOULD” learn, because that ruins the fun. Learn whatever drives your curiosity. Torah is rich in history, ethics, physics, literature, mathematics, and Astronomy aside from of course basic halakha. As the Gemara tells us (Avodah Zara 19a):
But his delight is in the Torah of the Lord” (Psalms 1:2). Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi says: A person can learn Torah only from a place in the Torah that his heart desires, as it is stated: But his delight is in the Torah of the Lord, i.e., his delight is in the part of the Torah that he wishes to study.
If you set aside consistently time to study what you enjoy in Torah, great blessings are sure to come into your life.
Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation
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