How (Not) To Learn Tanach

Since we've recently begun a new cycle of Krias HaTorah, maybe we'll talk a little bit about learning Chumash, learning Tanakh, and for tonight, just two subtopics that were within that. One of the methods which has become very popular as of late builds heavily on word association. You find a word here in this context, you find the same word in another context, and that association, one teases out of that association certain intimations, certain implications, and tries to arrive at insight into the pesukim based on that and uncover dimensions of pshat through that approach. The approach kesheleatzmo is not invalid. The approach kesheleatzmo is not invalid. Going backwards chronologically, the Baal HaTurim does it all the time. The Baal HaTurim tells you that you find this word twice, and this phrase or this word you find two times in Tanakh. The Baal HaTurim obviously had the Bar-Ilan and did his word searches, he somehow always knows how many times words and phrases appear in Tanakh, so he obviously invented the... And you find it in Chazal, you certainly do find that type of springboard for analysis in Chazal as well. So it's not a question of whether the method is a valid approach. But what's important to understand is that perhaps of all approaches to Tanakh, it requires that a person be so maleh vegadush in terms of Torah, in terms of having an intuition for what's what can be said, what can't be said, what is a potential legitimate understanding and what isn't. Because משל למה הדבר דומה, let's takke talk about gematrios for a moment. That gematrios are a branch of chochma is Pirkei Avos. It's not there's nothing there's nothing disputable or controversial about that. But the fact that in terms of numerology two words have the same number doesn't point you to what the significance is. A, it doesn't even mean that there is significance, and אפילו אם תמצא לומר that you had a Gilluy Eliyahu when you fell asleep during Seder and Eliyahu HaNavi told you that there is significance to the fact that these two words have the same the same numerology, but it doesn't point you in any direction to what that significance is. So a person who is maleh vegadush betorah can take that fact and interpret it in a Torahdik fashion, but a person who's not, he may succeed, he may hit a home run, but he may also end up projecting onto the canvas of Torah just his own ideas and there's very little control in that. So again from drashos Chazal, there are drashos Chazal of how long a nezirus has to be down to the Steipler's gematrios in our day and it's part of Torah, but the point is it's one of the hardest and most difficult approaches to psukim because it doesn't there's no indication. Which gematria is significant or what to do with it, what to do with the fact that I recognize this mathematical convergence. And the same is true with the word associations. Presumably, if you find a word two or three times in Tanakh, there's a very good chance that it's not coincidental and devarim bego. But what they are, there's very little, if any, clue or cue based on that per se. And because of that, the method is only one that can be consistently successfully employed by someone who knows a lot, knows a tremendous amount and has a feel for what's a correct peshat, what's a possible peshat and what's beyond the realm of possibility. משל למה הדבר דומה. It's not a self-sufficient comprehensive derekh halimmud in Gemara to say that you read and you medayyek in the lashon. You medayyek in the lashon ha-Gemara, you medayyek in the lashon of Rashi. So אף על פי כן, every word in the Gemara, every word in Rashi is calculated, is kodesh kodashim. But a diyyuk in Rashi, so then a diyyuk in Rashi doesn't do anything for you unless a person knows how to think about a sugya, knows how to think about a question, knows how to, it's part of learning, but it's not the fact that a person has the sensitivity to notice, humph, that word is extra, so that just gives food for thought. But then a person has to A: be trained in how to think and B: not only how to think, but to know what's a possible acceptable peshat and what's not possible. So it's important to realize again the method is valid, it has its place just like gematrias have their place, but a person has to, it requires tremendous tremendous yedios and a tremendous hush for Torah and what are genuine Torah ideas and what's a genuine hiddush and a genuine insight, and if a person is lacking that, he may strike gold at times, אף על פי כן, but he may also end up imputing to the Torah things which are not which are not Torah-dik. I think the Rav used to tell a story, someone once came to the Netziv and he wanted a haskamah on a sefer for gematrias. So the Netziv says, "I don't give haskamos for sefarim of gematrias." So the guy tayned the Baal ha-Turim is full of gematrias. So the Netziv told him, he says there was once a store owner, so he ran a general store. So there was one customer who was a very very big customer of his and he used to place big orders all the time. Vayehi hayom, once this customer on his way out, he accidentally closed the door a little bit too strongly and the pane of glass broke. So the store owner ran over to him and said, "Don't worry about it, don't worry about it." The customer offered to pay for it. He said, "No, it's no problem, don't worry about it, I'll take care of it." After that, a guy who comes in who happened to have witnessed this, he comes sporadically to the store. He buys, ich veis, a needle here, he buys a thimble here. Not a little bit of nickel and dime business. But he saw the gvir slammed the door and got away with it. So when he leaves, he slams the door and it also breaks. And the store owner comes running after him and says, "You're going to pay me for that, you mazzik. What are you doing? Mazzik mamon aherim, what are you doing?" So he says, "I don't understand. You were so accommodating to the previous customer." So he says, "What don't you understand? The previous customer gives me thousands and thousands of rubles of business every month. So of course I'm going to be mohel. You for the two pennies you..." Another issue to be aware of in terms of learning Chumash, learning Tanakh is what axioms we're supposed to have in understanding stories about the Avos, about the Shivtei Kah, about figures in Tanakh and the seeming—underscoring that word—the seeming tension between sometimes the pshat that is suggested and what seems to register upon us as pshuto shel mikra. So one prime example is with Yosef and the Shivtei Kah: ויקנאו בו אחיו וישנאו אתו ולא יכלו דברו לשלום. So the two options seem to be either, yeah, if one's going to be honest and faithful to the pshuto shel mikra, so the brothers were jealous and the brothers hated him and sibling rivalry vechulu. The alternative says, no, no, no, chas veshalom, that can't be the case, but what do you do with the words in the Chumash? What do you do with the words in the Chumash? So משל למה הדבר דומה. Let's say you're learning, you're learning Shevi'is here, you're learning a Yerushalmi in Shevi'is, a shvere Yerushalmi. Shvere Yerushalmi. So you go over to a little boy in first grade in Yeshiva Ketana, ask him what's pshat in the Yerushalmi? So he says, "I don't know." Then you get on a plane, go to Eretz Yisrael, you take a sherut to Bnei Brak, go to Rav Chaim Kanievsky, ask him what's pshat in this Yerushalmi? He says, "Taka a shvere Yerushalmi, I don't know pshat." So they said the exact same words, the exact same words. Did they mean the same thing? The little kid said, "I'm holding by gimmel, there's a dalet in this word, I don't know what it means." I'm holding by gimmel. Rav Chaim Kanievsky, he's cheshboning there's three Toseftas here, there's five Yerushalmis here, and there's six Bavlis here, and don't forget the Tikunei Zohar over there, so I can't reconcile all that with the Yerushalmi. Lema'aseh they said the same words. So it's an okimta, you're not being faithful to pshuto shel mikra if you say that Rav Chaim Kanievsky meant something different by his eini yodea than the first-grader. So obviously what the simple pshat is, what the pshuto shel mikra is, contextual. It depends who's saying it. It depends—I think they tell the story that the Rav once called on someone in shiur and said, "So what does the Gemara mean?" So the talmid starts translating what the words mean. So he says, "Yeah, I figured out what the translation of the words mean, but what does the Gemara mean?" So when a person says something, so what the words mean, or when we're given a description of a person, so what that description is expressing is very much a function of who said it. Who said "I don't know"? That will determine what the pshuto shel mikra of that "I don't know" is. And the description, what is that description expressing? It depends upon who it's a description of, whom that description is being provided. So what's pshat with Yosef and the brothers? Did they have jealousy? Yeah, that's what it says in the pasuk: vayikneu vo echov. Yeah, the brothers were jealous. And did they hate him? Yes, the brothers hated him: vayisnu oso. They hated him. That's what it says, and that's the pshuto shel mikra. Now, does it mean that they had jealousy the way we with our katnus hamocha experience jealousy? Does it mean that they hated him the way we with our katnus hamocha are familiar? mean? I don't know, so maybe, maybe חסידי עליון גדולים קדושים, maybe they understand what it means. Does it mean they had jealousy? Yes. Does it mean they hated him? Yes. But it means on their level, whatever, the same way, the same way we don't know when an adam gadol says ani lo yodeiah, we don't know what his itztada de-ma, we know what his itztada de-safeka that results in and that generates the ani lo yodeiah, we don't know. But we know that on his level he's an ani lo yodeiah, which is very, very different than what the ani lo yodeiah means on on our level, and it's not pshuto shel mikra to to impute the first grader's ani lo yodeiah to Rav Chaim Kanievsky. The same way, it's not pshuto shel mikra for me to impute the kinah that I experience and the sinah that I feel onto onto onto the shivtei kah. So it, that lechora is the the the kos hashlishi. Now, it is true, it is true, I think the Rambam comments on on the pasuk in Mishlei, תפוחי זהב במשכיות כסף, that the Torah is compared to gold with a silver wrapping. So gold is more valuable than silver. But sometimes you you get a present, a nice present, but you really like the wrapping paper also. It's nice, a nice wrapping paper. So you try to you open the present carefully that you should be able to save the wrapping paper also because the wrapping paper also has value. It doesn't have the same value as the as the present, as the contents, and you should never mistake one for the other. You should know which is the wrapping paper and it's only intended as, again, as wrapping, as embellishment, but it also, it also has value. So it is true that that that there are lessons to be learned even on this superficial level. So for instance, Chazal say, again coming to the story of the Yosef and the shivtei kah, that a father, a parent shouldn't play favorites. Because look, because Yaakov Avinu played favorites and because of that he gave Yosef the ksones passim and because of that the brothers had so much resentment and Golus Mitzrayim resulted from that that act of of favoritism. So Yaakov Avinu was playing favorites again the way the way we would be playing favorites that, oh, this he gets all A's in his report card so he is my favorite and he only gets B+'s on his report card so I don't have as much patience for him. And the one who comes home with B-'s forget it, he won't write him out of my will, you know, go, go. So that's how Yaakov Avinu is being being being depicted. So the teirutz is avada Chazal are telling us that on the level in which this lesson is meaningful to us, that's the pshat in what's happening between Yaakov and and Yosef and and the shivtei kah. Just like the vayisneu and the vayikanu doesn't mean what what we know firsthand from our experience what jealousy means and and and what hatred is. But אף על פי כן תפוחי זהב במשכיות כסף, that that even on that level, as long as we don't make the mistake of thinking that that's the ultimate pshat, that that's the real omek hadavar as to what's happening. But even the fact that on that level it can, it, it, on that superficial wrapping paper level it conveys that message, so yes, so then that's also an intended message, but but not intended as again as the insightful, correct pshat as to... and and it shouldn't be mistaken the same way whatever the brothers' sinah vekinah is on their level shouldn't be confused with with the sinah vekinah we know. So whatever whatever Yaakov Avinu is doing shouldn't be confused for the favoritism that we might be inclined or prone to demonstrate as parents. But אף על פי כן the lesson is still there but but it needs to be understood. So not on the level of ultimate pshat, that this is what, that this is what was happening between, between Yaakov and his children.