Parshas Eikev 5785
- Torah Tavlin
- Aug 15
- 2 min read
ולמדתם אתם את בניכם לדבר בם בשבתך בביתך ובלכתך בדרך ובשכבך ובקומך ... (יא-יט)
In Hilchos Talmud Torah (Ch. 3), the Rambam writes as follows: “If one is faced with a mitzvah or Torah study, if the mitzvah can be fulfilled by others, he should not interrupt his learning. If not, he should perform the mitzvah and then return to his learning.” While the Rambam writes this halacha elsewhere, the added clause is only mentioned here. What is the Rambam’s intention with this condition? Is it a prerequisite to doing the mitzvah, or is it simply a suggestion?
At age 8, R’ Eliyahu Chaim Meisels zt”l joined the Volozhin Yeshivah, and by 19 was already serving as Rav in Horodok. He later became the Chief Rabbi of Lodz, a position he held for forty years. While his Torah scholarship was renowned, he became most famous for his extraordinary acts of chessed. He opened a Jewish hospital, an orphanage, a home for the elderly, three yeshivos, even a textile factory that exclusively hired Jews to help ease unemployment. When someone once asked him where the seforim he had authored were, he held up bundles of promissory notes and said, “Here are my seforim.”
The Brisker Rav zt”l recounted that several Rabbanim once gathered to discuss communal matters. Among them was his father, R’ Chaim Soloveitchik zt”l. During the discussion, someone made a disparaging remark suggesting that R’ Eliyahu Chaim’s involvement in chessed diminished his Torah learning. R’ Chaim immediately responded, “A Rav who does not close his Gemara to do chessed; even when his Gemara is open, it is considered closed. But a Rav who closes his Gemara to do chessed; even when closed, it is considered open!” The mitzvah, he explained, is not a distraction from the learning but rather its fulfillment.
With this idea, the Rambam’s words are understood. Normally, stepping away from a complex subject disrupts one’s focus. But when one pauses Torah study to perform a mitzvah, it is not an interruption in any sense. Since the mitzvah is a completion of the learning itself, one can immediately “return to his learning” as if no break had ever occurred.