Your Quick Guide to Pre-Shavuos Inspiration

If you didn’t find the time to learn Pirke Avos over Sefirah, you can still bring the sparks of greatness into your Shavuos. Take in these highlights from the sixth Perek, also known as “Perek Kinyan Torah.”

The Shabbos before Shavuos is the perfect time to learn and absorb these messages of the majesty of the Torah. 

Back when I taught Pirkei Avos in a kiruv high school, I loved teaching the sixth perek. It is so profoundly moving and contains such beautiful descriptions of what living a Torah life means. The girls drank it in, often getting emotional at the majesty they found in the words of this perek, a perek that isn’t even officially part of Maseches Avos, but rather a braisa that was added on to prepare us for the yom tov.

Reading it and learning it before Shavuos helps us get in the spirit of Kabalas Hatorah, and celebrate the chag with renewed appreciation for the priceless gift we are celebrating.

Here are some elucidated  excerpts from the perek kinyan hatorah, highlighting the beauty of a Torah way of life. 

A World for Him

(Avos 6:1)

One who learns Torah lishmah, the creation of the entire world is worthwhile for his sake alone. To look around at the magnificent world in which we live and to contemplate that every single aspect of this intricate creation was worthwhile just for us to fill the world with our pure Torah is mind boggling. When we can show our children a world that was created for our sake, that is kept alive and thriving in the merit of our Torah, we open their eyes to the privilege and pride that a life of Torah should imbue within them. Of course, this is a humble pride and not a haughty pride, as a few mishnayos later we are told that humility is a prerequisite for Torah. Humble pride means that we aren’t proud in a way that makes us feel superior to others and lording our privilege over them, but rather in a sense that makes us feel grateful and awed by how vast our responsibility and obligation is to the One who has granted us all this. The more one learns, the more one understands how much he still has to learn, and so he approaches life not with ga’avah over others but with a humility that exists with the ga’avah d’kedushah that propels him forward.

A Spring Flowing Stronger

(Avos 6:1)

Aside from being the reason for all of creation, one who learns Torah lishmah is endowed with many qualities and attributes. The language of the Mishnah in describing them is rich and poetic, and my puny words can’t possibly do them justice, so here I enjoin you to look inside and see for yourself! One description that struck me was that he who learns lishmah becomes like an ever-strengthening spring and like a river that never stops to flow. Torah is compared to water, but not just any water. It’s mayim chayim, living water, flowing water as opposed to standing water. Its dynamic quality ensures that one who learns it is constantly growing, constantly uplifting and never staying in one place. It is the same Torah from now until eternity but we draw upon it with renewed vigor, new understanding and insight. One who constantly draws from this never-ending river with all of his heart—for the sake of learning and not for the sake of wisdom, influence, or reputation—becomes one with it. He becomes that spring that strengthens in force as it rushes forward, always dynamic, always growing in his depths of understanding and in his avodas Hashem.

True Freedom

(Avos 6:2)

It’s one of those counterintuitive things we’ve always learned, “Ein l’cha ben chorin ela mi she’oseik b’Torah.” On its surface a Torah life is one of restrictions, dictating our life from the moment we wake up. How is that freedom? The answer is metaphorically depicted in the words of Nobel Prize winning poet Rabindranath Tagore. “I have on my table a violin string. It is free to move in any direction I like. If I twist one end, it responds; it is free. But it is not free to sing. So I take it and fix it into my violin. I bind it and when it is bound, it is free for the first time to sing.” Without Torah we might be free to do, eat, wear, and see whatever we want, but our neshamos are in fact enslaved to our guf. Only once we’ve bound ourselves to our violin, to the Torah, can our neshamah freely sing and can we become the person we are meant to be.

This is the power of Torah, enabling us to soar to unlimited heights, to sing the most glorious and majestic tunes.

Always a Teacher

(Avos 6:3)

Learning even one thing from someone is enough to require you to respect them as a teacher and mentor. This is the beauty of Torah, that every word and every letter is so precious, anyone who teaches you even one tiny speck of Torah has given you an exquisite gift. We think of a teacher, a rebbi, a spiritual leader, as someone worthy of respect because of the fountains of Torah that flow from his mouth, but this mishnah teaches us that it doesn’t take a fountain to earn respect. Every droplet is so nourishing and so life giving, that even those who just give you a droplet have given you the world. Since a truly wise man, and a humble one too, is open to learning from anyone who has what to teach, even one not as wise or learned as he, he will find himself respecting a great deal of people in his life. Now, here is a question for the wise readers of Between Carpools. There are some people in your life who might teach you so much by virtue of showing you what not to do. Are they then, too, venerated as a mentor, a teacher, a guide?

Joy in Simplicity

(Avos 6:4)

The path of Torah is paved in simplicity. Bread dipped in salt. Sips of water. Sleeping on the floor. One who is truly immersed in Torah finds little need for material pleasures. He uses what he needs to live and doesn’t fall prey to the materialistic rabbit hole that lures in so many. And he doesn’t lose out for it. He lives a life of bliss, not only in the next world, which we understand, but even in this world. “Ashrecha b’olam hazeh.” He is fortunate in this world, which seems strange, because a life of bread and water doesn’t sound so fortunate in this world. But someone who lives it knows that it is true. He knows that when he derives his joy solely from Torah and not from the pursuit of worldly pleasures, his life is complete. He doesn’t feel deprived, albeit lofty, from having eschewed gashmiyus. He feels complete and content because he filled his life with ruchniyus.

In today’s environment, the bread and water of this mishnah is probably more symbolic than realistic. We are in a different generation, with different needs and expectations, different children who need to be raised with certain basics. Still, the words of the mishnah are timeless in their premise. A true Torah life is one spent embracing simplicity and contentment with little. It is spent dedicating ourselves to meaning and to growth, and not endlessly chasing luxuries. And for every piece of gashmiyus that we do without, every luxury we find we are happy not to embrace, we are one step closer to an authentic Torah life.

When ruchniyus is our life and the trappings of gashmiyus are the trimmings that enable us to live this life, then we will find true joy and contentment. It’s a cycle, really. When we fill our hearts with Torah, there aren’t so many holes that need to be filled with “things,” and when we don’t become consumed with “things,” we leave room for Torah to penetrate and fill us up.

Greater than Royalty

(Avos 6:5–6)

The crown of Torah is greater than that of the crown of kehunah and of malchus, the former acquired with twenty-four gifts, the latter with thirty prerogatives, while Torah is acquired with forty-eight attributes. Without going into all of those forty-eight attributes right now (that’s for next year’s article iy”H!), the superiority of Torah over kehunah and malchus isn’t just in quantity. It’s not just the fact that one is forty-eight, one is thirty and one is twenty-four. It’s in the quality through which we are acquiring each. The Torah tells us of privileges that come along with kehunah and malchus, but for the acquisition of Torah, it lists prerequisites instead. Torah requires the betterment of character in order to become ours. There have been kohanim and kings in our history who were evil people, but a ben Torah is one who has perfected himself in these forty-eight ways. He is one who bears the greatest crown because he has toiled to achieve all that Hashem demands of him. He doesn’t merely learn Torah, he has made Torah his own, he has acquired it through the perfection of his character. He has made himself humble, honest and kind; he has mastered the art of listening and attained purity, joy, diligence and more. He has become not only someone who learns Torah, but someone who is Torah. And there is no greater title than that.

Torah is Life

(Avos 6:7)

How great is Torah that she gives life to those who keep her, both in this world and in the next. Because, truly, there is no life without Torah. When we live life in the service of Hashem, when we keep Him and His Torah front and center, that is when we are truly living. Everything else is simply surviving, biding our time until it is no more. It can also be why so many of us feel like zombies, going about our day by going through the motions, without energy or enthusiasm. With so many distractions and so much clamoring for our attention, we sometimes forget our purpose and our true passion. (That, and sleep deprivation, of course.) Let this Shavuos be our reminder of why we are really here in this world and let us proclaim our rededication to that gift that is life itself. And once we throw ourselves into a life that revolves around Torah and nothing but Torah, then we can truly start to live.

Reprinted with permission from the Lakewood Shopper Family Room.

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