Hil. Talmud Torah 1:8 – extent of chiyuv mitzvas T”T

Rambam in Perek Alef, Halacha Chet in Hilchos Talmud Torah:

כל איש מישראל חייב בתלמוד תורה בין עני בין עשיר בין שלם בגופו בין בעל יסורין בין בחור בין שהיה זקן גדול שתשש כוחו אפילו עני המחזר על הפתחים ואפילו בעל אשה ובנים חייב לקבוע לו זמן לתלמוד תורה ביום ובלילה שנאמר והגית בו יומם ולילה.

So the Ohr Somayach comments the pasuk והגית בו יומם ולילה of course is from sefer Yehoshua. It's not the makor for chiyuv Talmud Torah. There are psukim in the Torah which talk about chiyuv Talmud Torah: velimadtem osam, veshinantam levanecha. The Rambam quotes the pasuk from divrei kabbalah because, because of the yomam valailah, because the prat of kvias itim is expressed so directly in that pasuk. But that's certainly not the makor for mitzvas Talmud Torah. Then the Ohr Somayach goes on, he has an arichus, a very, very yesodostike arichus, and he says that what you find in the Torah... the the lashonos of the Rambam here are very suggestive. The Rambam doesn't write, Ich veis,

כל איש מישראל חייב בלולב בין עני בין עשיר בין שלם בגופו בין בעל יסורין בין בחור בין שהיה זקן גדול שתשש כוחו.

So Reb Meir Simcha says as follows: he says whatever you find in the Torah, he says is always only the least common denominator. Dehainu, anything that it says in the Torah is something which is shaveh lechol nefesh. The Torah doesn't have anything which isn't shaveh lechol nefesh. The Torah writes chiyuvim, mitzvos which are uniformly and universally binding, and the reason for that is because it's within the the ability and the capacity of every single person to comply with. But heyos that that's the case, he says implicit in that is that since what the Torah says is the least common denominator, so that means if a person's capacity is greater than that of the least common denominator, so then his chiyuv is adjusted accordingly. And he says case in point, Talmud Torah. He says you can't compare, he says some people are just more, Ich veis, משל למה הדבר דומה. People don't have the same physical capacity, right? You can take two people, assign them to spend the same number of hours working out in the in the gym, and one will for a year, one will come out and be able to lift 150 pounds and the other will still prefer kleila de'agba in shul. And kachah zeh, people have different... they've both worked very hard and they both maximized their, they both maximized their potential. One has a, one has a greater potential, a greater physical capacity to realize. He says the same thing is true in ruchniyus also. He says some people have more of a spiritual capacity, more of a spiritual netyah. Again, everyone has to maximize, but but people have different capacities. He says you can't equate what the chiyuv Talmud Torah is going to be for, you know, the counterpart, the analog of of of the guy who still doesn't want hagbah after after working out for a for a year. And the emphasis in the Rambam is that kvias itim is the least common denominator of the דבר השווה לכל נפש. And the challenge is that everyone has to figure out where he stands beyond the least common denominator in terms of his chiyuv Talmud Torah. The Baal HaTanya already in his Shulchan Aruch says part of this. The Baal HaTanya doesn't factor in the range of factors that Reb Meir Simcha says. The Baal HaTanya says that you can't compare, he mentions I think two factors... He mentions one: you can't compare; some people have to work hard and long to make a parnasa, and some people make a parnasa working fewer hours and it comes much more easily to them. He says you can't compare the chiyuv Talmud Torah that the person who's working a ten hour day, a twelve hour day to eke out a parnasa, you can't compare his chiyuv Talmud Torah to the person whose parnasa comes easier. Then he also says people have different abilities. Some people have better memories than others, and in terms of how much a person is going to know, so that's factored in also that some people, he says, are going to have to constantly just keep going back over the same ground again and again because otherwise, if they don't come back to it within three months, within a month or something, they're going to forget it. And other people, other people vays have photographic memories and don't know what it means to forget. He says clearly the expectations from those are not going to be the same. So those are the two factors that the Baal HaTanya mentions in his Shulchan Aruch. And then Meir Simcha expands it. And this is that nekuda as intuitive as it is and as compelling as it seems to be, the Rambam never says it mefurash. The Rambam in Perek Aleph, the Rambam takke talks about kveiat itim. And in Perek Gimmel, the Rambam talks about מי שרוצה לזכות בכתר של תורה. But that the chiyuv is on an adjusting scale, the Rambam again as compelling as the Or Sameach is, the Rambam never says it mefurash. The Rambam doesn't say it mefurash. But people have different abilities, so that the Rambam does talk about mefurash in when he talks in פרק ד יסודי התורה when he talks about going into pardes, he says that not everyone, you know, is going to be raui to go into pardes and even some of the Chachmei Yisrael, Heilige Tanna'im weren't, it wasn't, it wasn't appropriate for them. So that the abilities are different and the pshat remains different, one's purity of, according to this school of thought, one's purity of motivation notwithstanding, that differences remain. So that the Rambam has, but that the chiyuv itself is on a sliding scale, the Rambam doesn't. The closest he has is in the end of Halacha Yud Beis. At the end of Halacha Yud Beis, במה דברים אמורים בתחילת תלמודו של אדם. Right? The Rambam says that veshinantam levanecha that חייב אדם לשלש זמן לימודו is betchilat talmudo, a person should have a seder in Tanakh, he should have a seder in halacha and he should have a seder in Gemara.

אבל כשיגדיל בחכמה ולא יהא צריך ללמוד תורה שבכתב ולא לעסוק תמיד בתורה שבעל פה.

Torah Sheba'al Peh here means again basically halacha.

יקרא בעתים מזומנים תורה שבכתב ודברי השמועה כדי שלא ישכח דבר מדברי דיני תורה ויפנה כל ימיו לתלמוד בלבד לפי רוחב לבו ויישוב דעתו.

But again that just acknowledges that how much omkus a person is going to be able to learn and how much he's going to understand is going to vary depending upon the person, but it doesn't talk about in terms of the amount of time and effort a person is supposed to expend, that that depends on the person. I don't know if you really have that in the Rambam. Shtika l'tzorech iyun, why not? My father zichrono livracha used to comment that the Rambam was accused of trying to.

ואחר כך קורא בזה ויודע ממנו תורה שבעל פה כולה ואינו צריך לקרוא ספר אחר ביניהם.

So that's it. Cancel the sefarim sale for 2011, we'll just sell, just sell the ArtScroll Tanach and the Frankel Rambam, v'sulo midei. That's the only thing they should, they should have at the, at the sale. Says you learn Tanach and you learn Mishneh Torah, that's it. You learn Tanach, you know Torah she-b'chsav and you learn Mishneh Torah, you know Torah she-b'al peh. So what else is there? So the teretz is, no, when you look in the Rambam here in פרק א' הלכות תלמוד תורה, he doesn't use the term Torah she-b'al peh the way we do. We use Torah she-b'al peh to include all of Torah which isn't the Torah she-b'chsav. The Rambam is using Torah she-b'al peh to refer to what the Gemara calls Mishnah as distinct from Gemara, which clearly means halacha. So the Rambam is saying you don't have to buy, you know, you don't have to reprint Rav Hai Gaon's Sifrei Halacha and the other Sifrei Halacha of the Geonim with Piskei Halacha. He says this will be enough in terms of Sefer Halacha. Again, A, you see that the Rambam's Torah she-b'al peh is the second of the three parts of Torah, and the third part of Torah he refers to as Talmud, which is להבין דבר מתוך דבר and and to know how the Torah she-b'al peh emerges from the Torah she-b'chsav and it includes Pardes, all of which is is impossible without the without learning Gemara. So when the Rambam said that it's Mishneh Torah, he meant that this is an all-encompassing Sefer Halacha with Psak Halacha. He didn't he didn't mean l'afukei from from learning. And be'emes the raya from here is is very conclusive. Okay. Next week will be primarily chazarah. We'll probably have one shiur. I'm not sure yet whether it'll be Sunday or or Monday, but it's a good idea to come Sunday anyway even if there won't be a shiur, it's a good idea that everyone should come. So and then we'll see which day the, which day it is.