How Do We Build the Mind? The Secret of Study and Persistence

Lesson No. 1 | Wednesday, Parashat Kedoshim, 26 Nissan 5755

Rav Berland shlit"a explains why the attempt to become a "genius" quickly leads to despair, and what is the true way to acquire a portion in Torah. On the difference between momentary enthusiasm that disappears like "balls of fire," and building intellectual vessels that endure.

Prayer must be in the aspect of "supplications" (*tachanunim*), like a pauper and a poor man standing at the doorway. A person needs to liken himself to a poor man knocking on the door, begging for a slice of bread or a small charity. This is how prayer should look – gently, with deliberation, slowly, slowly.

Just like that poor man who asks gently and does not rush, so too must a person say his request word by word. If he runs and swallows the words, the master of the house will not understand what he wants and will close the door in his face. King David says: "I am poor and needy." Prayer requires this approach of a poor man at the doorway, who begs for his soul gently and with deliberation. The great mistake is the thought that through speed we will achieve more; the opposite is true – speed only causes a person to lose the abundance. Specifically, the more one prays slowly and gently, the more the mind opens up, and the person merits a higher ability to concentrate, which subsequently influences Torah study as well.

The Mistake of Those Seeking Quick Genius

Regarding Torah study, many people are immersed in a terrible mistake. Everyone wants to be a genius within a year, or at most two years. A person starts learning with enthusiasm, but after some time, he sees that he has not yet become a "genius." Then he falls into despair, closes the Gemara, and says to himself: "I tried, I learned seven pages a day, I sat for 18 hours over the Gemara, two years have passed and I am still not a genius." Consequently, he gives up and leaves the study.

This is a fundamental error. A person needs to know that the true way of learning is to learn section by section, Mishnah by Mishnah. Not to run, but to learn a line in the Mishnah, two lines, a quarter of a page or a third of a page – and not to try to swallow the whole page immediately. Although one can go over the page once or twice to get a general picture, the study itself requires delving into small parts.

The secret is repetition. One must learn a quarter of a page and review it dozens of times, with Rashi and with the Tosafot, until the matters are absorbed in the mind. In every word of Rashi, there are endless precisions, disputes between Rishonim and Acharonim, and methods in Halacha. The problem is that the person lacks patience; he wants to be a genius here and now. And when this doesn't happen, he mistakenly concludes: "Apparently this isn't for me, I wasn't born to learn Gemara."

To Cry Over Every Single Section

Our holy Rebbe, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, teaches us that there are no shortcuts. The Rebbe would cry over every single section he learned. He would cry: "I didn't understand the Mishnah, I didn't understand the Gemara, I didn't understand the Zohar." The Rebbe was not born knowing the entire Shas on the first day and Etz Chaim on the second day. The Rebbe toiled and labored.

A person's work is to know the order of study and develop the patience to review the same page ten or twenty times. One needs to break the *klipot* (husks) that prevent understanding. The Rebbe demands of us first of all to be "Litvaks" in the sense of in-depth study, without imaginations. He laughs at all the empty enthusiasms that have no substance.

The Parable of the "Flying Saucers"

The Rebbe explains (in *Likutey Moharan*, Torah 159) a deep matter regarding enthusiasm that is not based on intellect, and compares it to a phenomenon we know today as "flying saucers." People see balls of fire in the sky and get excited, thinking these are spaceships that arrived from distant stars billions of light-years away, with creatures and buildings.

But the Rebbe, already two hundred years ago, explained this phenomenon simply: these are vapors rising from the earth, gases that gather and ignite into a ball of fire as a result of air pressure and winds. It looks like a burning ball of fire, and sometimes it can burn for an hour or two, but ultimately – it is just hot air that ignited. There are no "aliens" there and no mystery, but rather a natural phenomenon of igniting gases.

"The Rebbe says: It is good for a person to be enthusiastic, one shouldn't be a 'fridge,' one shouldn't be ice. But if you are enthusiastic for two or three days and it works for you, but you have no mind – if you don't learn Gemara – then it is worth nothing. All this enthusiasm will not endure."

The moral is clear: there are people whose hearts "burn" for Hashem. They get enthusiastic, run, look for where the "action" is, jump on tables, and think they are already complete *tzaddikim*. They look for places where there is external enthusiasm. True, it is forbidden to be cold like ice, but enthusiasm without building the mind, without Torah study through toil, is like those "flying saucers" – a swollen balloon of hot air that explodes and disappears.

Building the Intellectual Vessels

This enthusiasm lasts an hour, half a day, maybe a week – but it is not forever. If a person does not build his mind, does not build the intellect through the toil of Torah, he remains empty. The Rebbe explains (in Torah 156) that the thought must move. One cannot rely only on "self-sacrifice" (*mesirut nefesh*) of traveling to the *tzaddik* or jumping.

A person can travel to Uman, perform acts of self-sacrifice, reach the *tzaddik* – and this is a tremendous and important thing without which one cannot draw close. But this does not guarantee that the mind will shine for him. In order for wisdom to shine, a completely different work is required – the work of toiling in Torah.

Without building the intellectual vessels, a person might, Heaven forbid, lose his mind from too many lights without vessels. He thinks: "I am a Breslover, I was in Uman, I am exempt from developing the mind." He settles for externality. But in Heaven, and also on earth, they rule that this is not enough. One cannot buy the World to Come only with a visa of "I was in Uman." Rebbe Nachman wants us to build a true stature, to reveal the truth and clean away the lies and imaginations.

The main thing is the internal and intellectual work. Even a simple Jew who sits in the corner and learns Torah 13 hours a day, who has never spoken *lashon hara* (slander) and views himself as dust and ashes – can reach higher levels than someone who makes noise and bells but whose inside is empty. The goal is not the noise, but building the person from within, layer upon layer, with patience and persistence.

---
Part 1 of 2 — Lesson No. 1
Next Part ←
All Parts: Part 1 (Current) | Part 2