At Avot 3:6 Rabbi Nechunyah ben Hakanah teaches:
כָּל
הַמְקַבֵּל עָלָיו עוֹל תּוֹרָה, מַעֲבִירִין מִמֶּֽנּוּ עוֹל מַלְכוּת וְעוֹל
דֶּֽרֶךְ אֶֽרֶץ, וְכָל הַפּוֹרֵק מִמֶּֽנוּ עוֹל תּוֹרָה, נוֹתְנִין עָלָיו עוֹל
מַלְכוּת וְעוֹל דֶּֽרֶךְ אֶֽרֶץ
Anyone who accepts upon himself the yoke of Torah—they remove from him the yoke
of government duties and the yoke of worldly cares; but one who casts off the
yoke of Torah is saddled with the yoke of government duties and the yoke of
worldly cares.
I recently found a couple of fascinating insights in R’
Yisroel Miller’s The Wisdom of Avos which read the mishnah as meaning
something quite different.
The first insight is the surprising one that saddling the
person who shrugs off Torah with the burdens of civic duty and having to make a
living is not a punishment or a deterrent. Rather, it is a benefit. Why?
Because “human beings with too much leisure time inevitably get into trouble”. This observation might seem strange in the
context of this mishnah, but it is quite in keeping with the tone of Rabban
Gamliel the son of Rebbi at Avot 2:2: there we learn of the virtue of combining
Torah learning with derech eretz (pursuit of a worldly occupation) since
the combination of the two makes one forget to sin.
The second insight is a psychological one:
“Too many people are obsessed
with keeping up with the news and worrying about it, especially various kinds
of political news (the yoke of government). And how much energy do we expend
worrying about our finance and our careers (the yoke of derech eretz)?”.
To political news one might add the unceasing stream of what
passes for war news, much of which consists of rumour, opinion, unverified
statements, bitter accusations and untested suggestions—and which is difficult
to resist, irrespective of its low veracity content and its ability to anger
and upset those who are compelled to endlessly consume it.
R’ Miller continues:
“The Jew who has voluntarily
accepted the yoke of Torah is not oblivious to current event, and he also puts
in the necessary effort to making a living, but his emotional energy is not
drained away with worry, because the focus of his day is elsewhere”.
These sentiments eloquently build on an observation made
many years ago by R’ Reuben p. Bulka (Chapters of the Sages).
Acknowledging that both Torah study and commitment to secular activities are
capable of inducing stress, he adds:
“There are always forces which
drive the individual, and anxieties which confront the individual who is faced
with negotiating these forces. It is up to the individual to choose which
anxiety will be the primary one”.
The challenge for each of us is to make the right choice,
and then to make the best of the choice once we have made it.
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