Aggadot from Hamivtar

by
Rabbi Yitzchak Blau

Intensity, Integration and Talmud Torah

Rav asked the following question of Rebbi: [a question follows which deals with carrying on Shabbat]. Rav Hiyya says to Rav: “Child of great ones. Didn’t I tell you that when Rebbi is involved in one tractate, you should not ask him about another, perhaps it will be difficult for him to focus on it (the new material). If not for the fact that Rebbi is a great individual, he would have been embarrassed for answering something that is not a true answer.” (Shabbat 3a)

Rav Yizhak Hutner points out (Pahad Yizhak Shavout 9) that the simple reading of this gemara is that the problem referred to by R. Hiyya reflects the weakness of the scholar in question. This scholar cannot easily make the transition to different material because he lacks complete mastery of the many tractates. Had he been a truly great scholar, the problem would recede. Rav Hutner suggests the contrary. R. Hiyya’s problem reflects the greatness of the scholar. The scholar is so immersed in his original topic that it is too difficult to tear his focus away and clearly think about something else. Someone who can quickly shift gears to another source may not have been thinking that deeply about the first source.

Rav Hutner contends that this idea reflects the fact that our personal Torah study is modeled after the original Torah study, the giving of the Torah at Sinai. Another gemara (Shabbat 88a) says that each dibbur from the asseret hadibrot filled the entire world and that gemara proceeds to ask how the second dibbur found room to enter. For Rav Hutner, this refers to a total focus on the aspect of Torah being studied at a given moment. We emulate this intensity in our own narrowing in on the text in front of us.

According to the gemara, Rebbi’s greatness allowed him to answer the question anyway. Zev Stender made the following suggestion which (as Daniel Vinick pointed out to me) appears in Rav Kook’s Ein Ayah on Shabbat 3a. Some unusual scholars are able to integrate the many texts of Torah to the degree that the other topic does not represent an invasion from an external source but rather a natural continuation from the original source. For such a scholar, there is no such thing as being asked a question from an unrelated tractate as all of talmudic thought forms part of a coherent whole.

May this Shavuot inspire us to combine both intensity of focus and a broad sweeping vision in our Torah learning.