Vacation and Down Time in Hashkafah

On the one hand obviously there's no such thing as a vacation from Torah, there's no such thing as saying that I'm on vacation, it's winter break, whatever it is so I'm not going to daven, I'm not going to put on tefillin, I'm not going to make brachos. There's no such thing as a vacation from Torah. Mei'idach gisa, there certainly is an appreciation of the fact that sometimes we need to recharge our batteries. Just to give one mashal, the Rambam talks in Shemonah Perakim about a person going for a walk in a nice garden and seeing the trees, the flowers, and the refreshing and revitalizing effect that that has on him. But what perhaps, let's take a few minutes and perhaps to reframe more correctly how we should see the issue at this stage in your life and at subsequent stages. The Sforno has a very beautiful penetrating comment on the pasuk in the Aseret HaDibrot of ששת ימים תעבד ועשית כל מלאכתך. So it's interesting that the Torah refers to work in this context in the first half of the pasuk with the verb of ta'avod. The Sforno explains that when a person is involved with the mundane, those obligations which willy-nilly make demands on at least some of our time during the sheshet yemei hama'aseh, he does so as an eved. What characterizes an eved? מה שקנה עבד קנה רבו. The eved slaves from dawn till dusk and nothing goes into his pocket. מה שקנה עבד קנה רבו. Whether he's working in the field at whatever job he's working, מה שקנה עבד קנה רבו, it all goes into the adon's pocket. Says the Sforno, again we need to do it. A person is supposed to make hishtadlus for parnassah. A person has mundane responsibilities and as such there are legitimate valid mundane claims on our time, but its legitimacy and its validity notwithstanding, besofo shel davar we do it as an eved. A person is amel for an olam she'eino shelo. An olam she'eino shelo. A person builds a house, a person buys a house, maintains the house, besofo shel davar he doesn't take the house with him. He's amel, he's oved, he's oved, he's working for עולם שאינו לו שלו. That's what the Torah is saying sheshet yamim ta'avod. Again there's a dialectic here, there's a tension because again to a degree the Torah is telling us that we need to do it. The Sforno returns to that theme in his perush in Kohelet on אל תהי צדיק הרבה. He says that if a person neglects this and a person doesn't spend the requisite time on chayei sha'ah on the mundane, so then he's going to undermine himself. A person needs a source of livelihood. But it's again its legitimacy, its necessity, not just legitimacy and validity, its necessity notwithstanding, besofo shel davar it's an olam she'eino shelo. It's a bechina of sheshet yamim ta'avod. So that's the sheshet yemei hama'aseh. מה שאין כן שבת. What happens on Shabbos? So Shabbos is a day off from the mundane. It's a day off from work and in that sense a vacation. Not a vacation in the sense of kicking back and putting one's feet up on the table, not a vacation in that sense, not a vacation in the sense of dressing down, dressing down. casually and coming to shul in short sleeves. But a vacation in the sense that one is free of those mundane responsibilities and claims and demands on one's time. A vacation in that sense. So what's Shabbos for? Shabbos is the tools down day. What's Shabbos for? So the Yerushalmi tells us that

לא ניתנו שבתות וימים טובים אלא לעסוק בהם בדברי תורה.

Shabbos is the time for... Ramban comments, he doesn't reference the Yerushalmi but mistama the Yerushalmi is reverberating in his mind. Ramban comments in זכור את יום השבת לקדשו that we should recognize that the purpose of Shabbos and the purpose of being shoveis mimelacha of abstaining from melacha is l'asos oneg lenafsheinu to delight our souls, and he quotes the pasuk of מדוע את הולכת אליו היום לא חודש ולא שבת. Why are you running to the ish Elokim? It's not Shabbos today. Michlal d'be-Shabbos ba'im eitzo. But that's what a day off represents is an opportunity to immerse ourselves not in the olam she'eino shelo but in an olam shelo, in an olam ha'emes, in an olam which endures. Similarly the Yerushalmi returns to this theme here again, it's the Ramban who quotes the Yerushalmi. The Ramban in his Hakdama to Moed Katan is talking about whether or not the issur melacha on Chol Hamoed is d'oraisa or d'rabanan. Ramban thinks that basically the issur melacha on Chol Hamoed is d'oraisa, but then he says there is a Yerushalmi which is mashma that at least some elements or some details of the issur melacha on Chol Hamoed is only d'rabanan. How do you see that? Because the Yerushalmi says as follows: אילו היה לי מי שנמנה עמי, I forget who the Baal HaMeimra is, if there would be others who would join me and we had the ability to do so, התרתי שיהיו עושין מלאכה בחולו של מועד. I would rescind again whatever element or aspect of the issur of melacha on Chol Hamoed which is only d'rabanan. Why? כלום אסרו לעשות מלאכה בחולו של מועד, why did Chazal again whatever element of this is d'rabanan, why did Chazal impose the issur melacha on Chol Hamoed? כדי שיהיו אוכלין ושותין ויגיעין בתורה. Because the issur melacha again forces us and therefore allows us to be freed from the mundane demands and claims on our time so that we can be mekayem simchas yom tov, ochlin v'shosin, אוכלין ושותין ויגיעין בתורה. So sometimes when we think about the question, and again we're not talking narrowly now just trying to get a perspective on Yeshivas Bein Hasmanim, but we're talking about at subsequent stages in one's life as well. So sometimes we define the question backwards. We define the question: how much of my vacation should I be giving up, how much of my vacation should I be sacrificing for limud Torah? But the Torah perspective is the vacation is Talmud Torah. That's the vacation. The vacation is the rest of the time. Again at this stage in one's life when I'm going to college classes, again it's legitimate, it's valid, it's necessary for the preparation she-bo, but again the validity and necessity notwithstanding,

בסופו של דבר ששת ימים תעבוד, בחינת עבד עולם שאינו שלו.

The vacation, the vacation is Shabbos, the vacation is Chol Hamoed. The vacation is when a person has the opportunity, has the blessing, has the zechus to devote himself to Talmud Torah unencumbered by those eved responsibilities. Obviously, obviously religious life requires balance. None of this is to ignore there can be a reality of physical exhaustion and... And how family has to and is supposed to be integrated into the balance. None of that is to to ignore any of those factors, but in terms of how what the perspective should be, how the issue should be framed, it's: Now I have a vacation of Talmud Torah. That's the definition of vacation.

לא נתנו שבתות וימים טובים לישראל אלא לעסוק בדברי תורה, כלום עשו מלאכה בחולו של מועד אלא שיהיו אוכלין ושותין שמחת יום טוב ויגיעין בתורה,

Yegia and Amola batorah. And and the vacation is a vacation of Talmud Torah is because Torah to be oved in an olam she'eino shelo again, even to the degree that it's valid and necessary, Lema'aseh is enervating. Torah is כי הם חיינו ואורך ימינו, Torah is a source of chayus. There is a famous drasha, it's probably printed somewhere online, maybe even the audio is online somewhere, where the Rav is talking about the the effect that the Talmud Torah has on him. And and he describes how saying this already close to y'may zikna v'seiva he's speaking, how he walks in and how he has no strength and and he has pain from his back, but then he opens the Gemara and begins learning and then gradually the the energy begins coursing through through his veins. And when he finishes the shiur, two, three, four hours later, so he feels like a young man of twenty again. He feels totally refreshed and and totally energized. That's the bechina of Ki hem chayeinu, that's the bechina of a vacation of Talmud Torah.