Learning Torah for it's own sake - With Rabbi Alon Anava

and we one should learn Torah a for its sake lishma second one needs to learn Torah to know what to do and one another reason one needs to learn Torah is to be able to teach but if somebody learns Torah in order to H to for his own sake to be smarter and to have a bigger greater knowledge and then show off or Shalom go and contradict other people then he's not learning it the right way I'll give you an example there in our day of age an organization that is called Jews for yashka for what Jews for amen so they call themselves Jews for yashka and you know they go around and they do missionary work and they convert people Jews to to believe and and we had an encounter with some of them and many years ago my wife's best friend uh we were already religious and she was very very not religious she didn't have any knowledge about religion at all so she used to come to us to shabbat and we used to introduce her to things and make her pray and make her bench for the food and she you know she she kind of got the point but then one day she moved to a new home we went we put is on her door and these two people knock on her door look very innocent he's wearing a yamaka with a little beard and they tell her we're Jewish too blah blah blah why don't you come to us to our Temple long story short they were from this organization and they were trying to get her to come to them now after a couple times she came to us and she was like look I met these wonderful people but they saying that you are wrong and they are right and I'm very confused now they also do Shabbat they also do this and they he wears a yaka so go explain now to somebody innocent you know who's right whatever it's not like a 10-year-old being oh I'm I'm more right than that person so I said you know what if they're so Jewish and religious why don't you invite them to shabbat she's like oh that's a great idea okay she calls them and she tells them my religious friends want to invite you to shabbat and they they agreed now I just became religious I was maybe a year religious so I wasn't I know wasn't knowledgeable what did I know I was maybe a year and a half in Yeshiva so I didn't know how to deal with it so I started asking around does anybody know anyone that specializes in that same way that a doctor can be a a special doctor to heart surgery brain surgery gynecologist whatever same in in in in the Torah a person can be a and master everything everything that has to do with slaughtering the animals all the all the laws a person can be a sop a scriber a person can be a m uh each person has let's a trade in the Torah and he's mastering it so I found out about a person who actually is from Los Angeles a rabbi Rabbi Kravitz that his life mission his specialty is fighting the missionaries and he goes into churches he has undercover girls undercover boys he sends them into churches to get people out he's that's his speciality wow that's wonderful so I call him Shabbat and I tell him listen I have a I have a situation because I have these two people coming to me and I need to know how to how to deal with them not only how to deal with them how to diverse the entire table so I can get favor in the eyes of this innocent girl anyways he told me say this say that don't say this don't say that and the first thing he told me he's like you got to be very careful because they are so learned don't get into arguments if you're not like 100% proficient I know proficient how do you say very knowledgeable in the Torah don't get into arguments with them because they are so learned they're going to win you in a second and I wasn't so good you know what I was maybe a year and a half religious I wasn't really you know knowledgeable and the first thing he told me don't get into arguments with him because they they're so smart and sure enough and came that night and doesn't matter one one time if you want I'll tell you the whole story because it's real funny at the end we won because what happened we we kept calm and we showed our friend how beautiful Shabbat is and they kept getting upset because we were contradicting them at the end of the day you know truth and Anda holiness always proves it itself and the other side of Holiness lost that night but the reason why I'm telling you this story is because he was so learned they're so knowledgeable in tanak in in in in all the and the they know it inside out and they start quoting all sorts of verses from yes and if you're not knowledgeable you don't know what to answer and then you like stuck with your tongue out and you're like and then you lose that's why that Reb told me don't get into arguments because if you're really really knowledgeable fine if you're not then not going back to your question some people Jews and non-jews they learn the Torah so good they're very smart they have very good memory they know everything but they learn it for the wrong purpose to prove somebody wrong or to convert a Jew into Christianity they use it the wrong way so if a person learns the Torah for the right s sake lishma there's no problem it becomes the the the potion I don't know if potion is not the right translation the translation to some is drug but obviously drug is something negative unless you're looking at Pharmaceuticals that you look at something it can be positive but the reality if you do if you learn to for the right reason it becomes a positive effect you learn to for the negative cause then it becomes a negative effect we were just talking about she was asking me if a woman can study on sh all night like men stay up all night and study Tor and if it's okay for a woman to so that's how we got to it excuse me and the answer is there's no prohibition for a woman to stay up and learn I told her if the woman has a husband and there kids better that the husband will go and he will learn and she has to be awake in the morning to to be attentive to the kids but if the woman is single or no husband or she's old or this she doesn't have to be responsible for a 2-year-old there's no prohib prohibition for her to learn Tor and if she if she goes into a synagogue better to be if there's if it's a you know she should go to a synagogue where there's a separation that she's not going to Shalom get attention from the men and disturb them and if there's such no such a synagogue too close to where she lives learn at home there's no prohibition for a woman to learn Tor certain things it says it's it's not good for a woman to learn but the T of the sh what we read on shabat night is you read a piece a little portion from each par and then you read a little portion from all the all the and the and then some and all the 63 mitv it's actually nice to you know it's very very enlightening because you go through the entire tanak you just go like the highlights and then you go yeah then you go all from well you have to buy the book book there's a book it's called the the book is organized exactly how you need to read it I think the of has it no I I don't think any Sid will have it cuz you're talking about like 300 pages so so no it's a yeah it takes a good five six hours to read it you don't have to read the whole thing if you just want to have the power and the the effect of the learning at night then you can learn you know the first 20 30im vers from each par from the entire five books that's that in itself will take you three hours and you kind of go through the all the five books if you want to give a little bit more then do from also from the prophets and from theim but uh it's it's long I don't think there's any Sid that has the whole thing in it it's very long takes me a couple hours I was invited now to speak somewhere and they asked me to speak all night and I told them I want to I want to read it take to read the tun takes me for five hours and you want me to speak all night I can't charge my batteries I told him I'll speak for two hours so he said okay we'll keep you for the morning for sealing the deal