Tefillah - 069 Living In The Realm of Torah Thought

מהרה למען שמך. When we ask Hashem in Shemoneh Esrei to bring the redemption, we ask that He bring it למען שמך – “For the sake of Your Name.” We do not ask that He bring the redemption for ourselves, but rather, for the sake of Hashem’s Name. We make a similar request in the end of the first blessing in Shemoneh Esrei, that the redemption should be brought למען שמו באהבה, “for the sake of His Name, with love.”

Why is that when it comes to asking for the redemption, that we specifically ask that it be brought for the sake of Hashem’s Name? After all, the entire Creation is all about revealing Hashem’s Name. Why is it that when it comes to asking for forgiveness or for repentance, we do not ask that is should be “for the sake of Your Name”?

[The answer lies in the following concept.]

Creation – The Letters of Hashem’s Name

Chazal say that Hashem created the world in ten expressions, using the letters of the Aleph Beis. The entire Creation is really the letters (oisiyos) of the Aleph Beis, but they have been combined together so much that we do not see them. We see the sky and the earth, but we do not see the letters of the Aleph Beis. We do not see how the entire Creation is really entirely Hashem’s Name.

But this is actually the depth of our exile. Hashem looked into the Torah and He created the world from it; the Torah consists of all the letters of Hashem’s Name, but we do not see this. The Creation which we see in front of us is a world after the sin of Adam, which is an ongoing state of exile. The depth of the exile is that we see do not see the letters of Hashem’s Name that make up the world. We are missing the main revelation of Creation, which is that Creation is entirely made up of the letters of Hashem’s Name. All we see in front us is the physical layer of Creation.

In the future, it will be revealed how everything is really rooted in the Torah, and thus we will be able to see how all of Creation is letters of Hashem’s Name, contained in the Torah.

To illustrate this concept better, when a person puts on tefillin or tzitzis, what does he see? He sees boxes, leather, and woolen strings. He does not see how a pair of tefillin or tzitzis are composed of letters of the Aleph Beis. He sees them as physical objects that he does a mitzvah with.

People are so immersed in this world that if they hear about the concept being described here, they think that these are lofty, philosophical words that have no connection to us. Most of us tend to view matters of thought as “birds flying in the sky”, matters that have no bearing on the actual reality that we live in.

However, we all want Moshiach, and we all long for a better world, in which Creation will be restored to its true form. What is that true form of Creation which the world will be restored to when Moshiach comes? The true way that Creation looks is that it is entirely letters of the Aleph Beis!

A person only sees the letters of the Aleph Beis when he looks into a Chumash or Gemara, but when it comes to viewing Creation as being solely the letters of the Aleph Beis – this is usually far too of an abstract concept for him to think about.

Chazal say that in the future, the mitzvos will disappear.[1] The depth behind this matter is that in the future, we will see how everything is really contained in the letters of the Torah, and in that sense, the mitzvos will be considered nullified to the Torah. This is also the depth behind the concept of learning Torah Lishmah (learning Torah for the sake of Heaven); it is for a person to connect himself to the letters of the Torah, to identify the Torah’s letters as the deeper dimension that he connects himself to.

We understand that when we talk or speak, we are making use of letters. When we think, we are thinking about sentences, which contain letters. When we talk, we are pronouncing letters. But when we do an action, we do not connect this with the concept of “letters” of Creation. Most people are not connected in their actions to the concept of “letters”. But the truth is, all holiness consists of the letters of the Aleph Beis. If someone truly lives in the realm of Torah and he identifies it as a reality, he is connected to the dimension of the letters of the Aleph Beis, which is really what the entire Creation consists of.

This is a concept which requires reflection, because most people are not familiar with this kind of language. It sounds mysterious and abstract to most people.

When Adam HaRishon lived before the sin, he lived in the realm of thought; the world of thought, which is the Torah, was the lens through which he perceived the entire reality. He lived life through the prism of the letters of the Aleph Beis; he was perfectly connected to this concept. After the sin [the Vilna Gaon writes], man identifies this world as mainly being a place of “action”, while thought is considered to be the abstract.

We are very far from the original, perfected state of mankind. We tend to view thoughts and this concept of “letters of the Aleph Beis” as more of a “high level” to be on, and we consider the world of action to be “real life”, with matters of thought just being an intellectual kind of thing. But the truth is that we are supposed to live in the realm of Torah, in which everything is thought, in which Creation as seen as the letters of the Aleph Beis.

Living Our Torah Learning

Chazal use an expression, “The Torah does not cease from his lips.” When a person doesn’t entertain the thought of wasting time from his Torah learning, it is because he lives the reality of Torah; he lives in the world of the letters of the Aleph Beis, in which matters of Torah thought are reality. This is also the meaning of true Yiras Shomayim (fear of Heaven). Hashem is not merely in Heaven, in some faraway place above the sky that is Heaven. Rather, Heaven is a reality that can be revealed on this very earth.

When a person only identifies this world of action as the reality, he only lives in the superficial layer of reality. It could be that he keeps all the mitzvos and always tries to align his life with the will of Hashem, but he still identifies the world of action as the main reality, while the “world of thought” is some intellectual, abstract concept. He might even be very dedicated to always doing all the mitzvos, but he does so with the superficial attitude of “This is what I’m commanded to do.” He focuses on the “mitzvah” aspect of it, of the fact that this is his obligation, but he does not do so with an attitude of being connected with Hashem out of a sense of awe (yirah). He’s not living in spirituality; he simply “does” all that he has to do out of a sense of obligation.

The inner way to live life is not about always “thinking” or always “speaking” about a Torah thought. It is for a person to identify himself as actually being there, in that place. If a person always thinks Torah thoughts, he should not view this is just an obligation upon him, but he should consider himself to be found there, in that place, of Torah thought. And if a person always “talks in learning” with others, he should not just do this to fulfill the mitzvah of speaking words of Torah, but he should identify with the realm of words of Torah (the realm of speech) as being his place.

Chazal say that even the ordinary conversations of a Torah scholar teach us things. The depth behind is because a true Torah scholar lives in the realm of Torah thought, in which he is utterly aware that the letters of the Aleph Beis contained in the Torah are the very structure of Creation.

The concepts we are describing here are very far away from anyone who lives superficially, and they are very simple to anyone who lives an internal kind of life.

There was a student in the Yeshiva of Kelm who didn’t have a chavrusa, and he was very frustrated that he couldn’t find a chavrusa to learn with. He wrote a letter to the Alter of Kelm, asking him for advice. The Alter zt”l replied, “Your chavrusa can be your power of machshavah (Torah thought).” We can see from this how real our power of machshavah\thought can be. To “think in learning” is not just for the sake of “thinking in learning” per se, but it is rather about living in it.

When someone lives only superficially, considering the world of action to be the reality, and thoughts to him are just an intellectual kind of thing, then even when he does think into a Torah thought, he has tremendous difficulty in it. He feels like it’s not who he is; it feels like “cruel labor” which the Jews were forced to do in Egypt. In order to really “think in learning” and “talk in learning”, a person has to identify the reality that is the letters of the Aleph Beis, which are what Creation is entirely composed of.

This is not about getting yourself to strain your mind better so you can concentrate better and forcing yourself to always think in learning; this is impossible for a person to do. If a person considers himself to mainly be living in the realm of action, but he always tries to get himself to talk in learning or think in learning, this will be too difficult. Not only that, but it’s not enough if a person has three sedarim (sessions) each day from morning until night!

It is rather about using your soul to enter the world of thought. It is a totally inner kind of life, and it is vastly different than the world of action we see in front of us.

It’s very possible that a person is “sitting and learning” Torah for many years of his life, yet, he doesn’t consider himself to be living in the realm of Torah. Maybe he “talks in learning” with others and maybe he makes sure to always “think in learning”, but he still considers himself to be mainly living in the world of action. In spite of the fact that he is always learning and always involved with Torah, he might very well consider his own Torah learning to be something rather dry. He hasn’t yet realized that he needs to enter a totally different dimension than the world we see in front of our eyes.

In Conclusion

Now we can understand better what we ask for in Shemoneh Esrei, that Hashem should bring us a complete redemption. We want a complete redemption – in other words, we aspire to leave our superficial way of living. We do not want just long for the redemption because it will put an end to all our suffering, from our various problems in our family, to receive perfect health and to have livelihood, etc. Rather, we ask for a redemption that will be “For the sake of Your Name.”

Besides for the fact that we daven for the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash, we need to daven for a deeper kind of request. We need to daven to Hashem that our very soul should experience a redemption, to leave superficiality, the “world of action”, and instead enter into the world of spirituality, in which spiritual matters such as Torah learning and davening are real to us, that we gain vitality from it.

What was said here will sound very strange to someone who identifies himself as mainly being in a world of action. But if we use our heart to reflect, we will be able to feel, that the entire world is really a spiritual dimension, comprised of the letters of the Aleph Beis.

The fact that a person always “thinks in learning” or always “talks in learning” still doesn’t mean that he considers himself to be living in the realm of Torah-oriented thought or Torah-oriented speech. People tend to think that we just have to exert ourselves in learning the Torah and in doing the mitzvos, and they often evade the inner layer of reality.

The inner layer of reality, which was described here, is entirely a hidden secret going on, and therefore people are often unaware of it, in spite of the fact that they may always be immersed in learning [but it is there for a person to access].