Please reply to me, why it is considered necessary to study the Talmud (interpretation of the Torah, opinions ravov etc.)? After all, I say to Gd heart, not the mind. Is not tempted opinions of others heart is more open to the Creator? Boris

Meets Rabbi Elyakim Zalkind

Dear Boris!

Let me divide your question into 3 parts and discuss each of them separately:

1. "After all, I am responsible to God heart and not the mind."

You are quite right in saying that God wants us to serve "with all my heart." So it is said in the Torah, and so we are commanded to repeat every day: "And thou shalt love the Almighty Gd with all your heart ..." (Deuteronomy 6: 5), "... love Hashem, the Gd of your, and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul ... "(Deuteronomy 11, 13). The purer the heart, the more a person is working on this purity, the higher the level of his ministry, the more desirable it is to God.

But you do not need the mind for this? The Creator gave us this gem. How could it be that in implementing our main purpose in this world, the task of all creation, the Creator of service, we will do without reason? For what it is given? For our device in the world? For science and culture?

Almighty said, creating the world (Genesis 1, 26): "Let us make man ... after our likeness ..." Rashi explains what the likeness of man to God? - Its ability to understand and think, comprehend (leavin u leaskil). Reason builds, raises, deepens the man, he learns the wisdom of the heart. After all, the heart itself without illuminating his mind becomes silent and emptied. A person deprived, not Gd forbid, mind, and deprived of the possibility to comprehend the heart.

But perhaps you mean the ministry with the wisdom of the heart, rather than "cold" intellect? It is, in fact, the Torah wisdom - the wisdom of the heart, the wisdom of understanding the world, truth, the depth of our relationship with the Creator. The man advancing in the study of Torah is accustomed gradually to listen to the "cautious" Truth's voice, sounding in any of the studied subject, to weigh in the balance of mind and heart: that tell me here that God reveals to us of what He wants from us, from the knowledge about ourselves, about the world, about him?

In the "Vaethanan" (Deuteronomy 4, 5-8) quoted Moses, "See, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Almighty commanded me, my Gd, to do so (you) in the land, whither ye go to inherit it. Keep well and do (them), because this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, will say, 'How wise and intelligent people of this great nation ... "And what a great nation, whose statutes and laws are just like the whole Torah? .. "

But realize this is possible only by studying and comprehending these laws, the entire Torah.

The Torah tells us that in the construction of the Mishkan (the portable temple, "Tabernacle", where she was to stay Divinity -B Divine presence) only wise hearted (hohmey lion) could participate. And the ark of the covenant, which stood in the Holy of Holies in the Mishkan and later in the Temple of staying Divinity, is likened to the heart of our books in the world. And it is - thanks to the Tablets of the Covenant, which were inside the ark. A Tablet, as you know - "quintessence" of the entire Torah. With these ten commandments started giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Since the Torah that fills the heart and living in it, making it the heart of the world.

2. "Is the heart, not the temptation to the opinions of others, is not more open to the Creator?"

We have already mentioned what was said in the Torah: "... and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul ..." On the other hand, it is said (Bamidbar 15, 39): "... you remember all the commandments of God and fulfill them, and (then) will not be follow your heart and eyes of your ... ". Both of these passages we say every day, reading the Shema Yisrael. And, apparently, they contradict each other.

The fact that the heart - a complex "vessel". It can be filled with high emotions, empathy, wisdom, devotion to the service, it can hear the truth, and can be filled with passion, raw emotions, selfishness, false ideas flames. Man is not born perfect, it needs a lot of work, correcting himself. And, especially in those cases where he imbibed from childhood alien opinions gleaned from the environment where they can edit erroneous views, untreated aspirations. Such things are easily "absorbed" into the heart. That he will oppose it to correct itself if you do not add to the deep and sincere heart needs to find the truth, to understand what it is they want from him - the power of reason, study, knowledge and execution of this truth? Then the heart, gradually purifying light, absorbing wisdom, becomes the basis of service - "with all your heart."

But, maybe, the person is capable of using only the mind, "grow" the wisdom of your heart, and then it will be clean and open to the Creator?

Indeed, the Torah tells us about one such man - our forefather Abraham. According to tradition, immediately after the birth of his hiding in a cave, and he first saw the light of day, only when he was 3 years old. And I was struck by the amazing harmony and structure of the wisdom of the world, which saw. Since then, he began to search for source of this wisdom - the Creator of the world.

However, God endowed him with the birth of a special purity of heart and the unique power of comprehension - to see any objects and phenomena in the world plan their Creator, hidden in them. And they say that the soul was the embodiment of the soul of the first man, Adam, he had to begin to fix what he destroyed.

But Abraham, for all that, opening the truth of the existence of the Creator, called to knowledge, began to study the traditions derived Noah (Noah) and his son Shem (who were also prophets) from the righteous generations who lived before the Flood, traditions passed from the creation of the world . The son of Abraham Isaac learned from his father, and in the yeshiva of Shem and his grandson Avery. And the son of our forefather Isaac, Jacob studied in the yeshiva and his father and grandfather. And all the patriarchs were the prophets and the highest himself shall teach them. And the children of our forefather Jacob, the founders of the tribes of Israel, learned from his father.

Then Gd gave us the Torah at Sinai, putting into it all wisdom, which wanted to give us, and told how to execute it. He taught how to pass it on from generation to generation, and discovered that through it we come to serve Him - such as He wants us to fulfill the purpose of creation.

Therefore, the teachings of the Torah is not "someone else's opinion" and knowledge bestowed by the Creator to our people and carefully passed down from generation to generation, the truth is already known forefathers of prophecy and of the traditions of the creation of the world.

Personality and the essence of each person is not contrary, because the Torah, in fact - the lifeblood of our soul, it is our true essence. And again, all of us, together with the entire Torah, and there is its own part in it, for the root of his soul, his task in creation.

"Alien" is the service (Avodah Zarah) Almighty calls are alien to us "cults" of other nations, foreign to the Creator, and the alien by those who practice them.

3. "Why do I need to study comments sages ask the opinion of Rabbi?"

This is already much has been said above, but added:

It is said in the book Iyova (11, 9) of the Torah, "longer than the earth and wider than the measure of its sea." And in Psalms (119: 96) King David said: "Everything perfect, I saw limit, but Your commandment is immensely voluminous".

Teaching given to us by the Creator, is incredibly large and deep. After all, it affects all aspects of life, of all that is in the world. And not only materially but also spiritually. In it - the depth of the design of the Creator for His creation. Is it possible to "discover" his own, or to understand it without the experience of generations of prophets and sages who studied and transmitted with great awe and responsibility of knowledge and understanding of the Torah to the next generation? The experience of those who checked and clarified for many generations (in our time) every detail of the Written and Oral Tradition?

Sincerely, Elyakim Zalkind

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