EMETTalk - Rabbi Reuven Kigel - Setting Aside Extra Time for Torah

Please help me welcome Rabbi Keigle. [music] >> Welcome everybody. So exciting to be back up here again speaking to everybody. Thank you for this TED talk opportunity. Putting five minutes of thought sometimes could take more time than putting in 5 hours of thought. So I'm talking about today learning Torah, setting aside time for learning Torah. But I just want to say the importance of learning Torah. Where does it come from? So the Torah is an instruction manual from Hashem to us about life. So when we learn Torah, that's where exactly where we get the instructions. So we know what to do. If we're not learning, we have no what to we don't know what to do. Now I know all of us, especially the guys here, when we put something together, like coming out of the box, we never want to read the instructions. So sometimes it comes out right, sometimes it comes out wrong. So life is much more complex than putting a uh you know, a shelf together. So, and I can almost promise you that without the Torah, we're not going to get it right. So, that's the concept of behind learning Torah. Now, we have another thing about Torah is it says Torah, right? [music] We read this every morning. We said that the learning Torah is equivalent to everything. Now, what does that mean? Does it mean it's equivalent to everything else in the world? So the rabb explains that kakula means that any mitzvah is not as worthwhile as learning Torah. Meaning all the mitzvah together of course are very important and all the mitzvah are important but learning Torah is more important than any other mitzvah. So why why? Because learning Torah is the only mitzvah that gets us to know how to do other mitzvah. Every mitzvah has its own uh finite to it. meaning you're doing the mitzvah, but when you learn Torah, not only are you doing the mitzvah of learning Torah, but you're also learning about how to do other mitzvot. So therefore, since it's going to help you do everything else, it's the most important of all the mitzvot. And therefore, when it comes to learning Torah versus another mitzvah, if those if it's your allotted time to learn Torah and someone else can do another mitzvah, you should let them do it. But if you're the only one that can do that mitzvah, so then you then you're obligated to do it. But almost every other time when you're learning Torah, since it's going to help you with all the other mitzvot, they would rather have you learn the Torah. That's what Kulam actually means. So before this retreat, my father called me and he said, you know, I I have this thought and I wanted to know if you can find me a puk, a source for these two thoughts that I have. So I said, what are the thoughts? So I said, the first thought is, and these are very paradoxal, ironic thoughts. The first thought is the more money you give to I'm not soliciting here. So the more money you give for to the more money you get. [music] And I said yeah there's a puk it says it says it means when you and our rabbis explained it means [music] when you give 20% you're going to become wealthy. You will become wealthy. So the puzz says when you give money to saddaka you will become wealthy. So there you go and it seems paradoxal seems ironic doesn't make any sense but [snorts] it says in the Torah. So therefore it is true. Now he gives me said son I have a second thought. The second thought is the more time you learn Torah the more time you spend learning Torah the more time you have. [snorts and laughter] I was like wow what a good thought. The more time you have learning Torah, the more time you have. So I thought to myself, yes, that also is a thought. Where is it? It said, it says the following thing. [music] It says, don't say when I'm going to be free, when I'm when I'm going to be when I'm going to be free, then I will learn. Don't say when I'm free, when I have time, then I'm going to learn. Why? Perhaps dilma. Perhaps you're not going to free. You're not going to be free. You're not going to have any time. So when you think about that, what does this imply? It implies that if you do learn Torah, you will have time. So it don't say, "I'm not going to learn. I'm only going to learn Torah and I'm going to be free cuz maybe you won't have time." But if you do learn, what's the implication is [music] when you if you do learn Torah, you actually will have time. So what is [music] the proper amount of time to learn? Cuz you know, of course, you could learn the whole day, you could learn none of the day and somewhere in between. So I [music] heard this from someone named Matusyahu Solomon and he said that when people come to him [music] that are currently working, he advises them that they even though no matter how busy they are, no matter how holy it is, whatever they're doing, whether they're rabbis, whether [music] they're in in business, whether they're dentists, whatever it is, that at least every [music] day spend 30 minutes learning. So 30 minutes learning could be broken up 30 minutes at night, could be 30 minutes in the morning, could be 1515. But if you put in in those 30 minutes, then a you're going to know how to live your life and b [music] you're going to have much more free time. [applause]