Q:
How can a person train himself to become a masmid?
A:
Masmid means of course he should sit and learn a long time.
And the answer is לעולם יעסוק אדם בתורה ובמצוות שלא לשמה שמתוך שלא לשמה בא לשמה — A person should always learn Torah and do mitzvos not for their own sake, because by means of doing it not for their own sake, he’ll come to do it for its own sake (Sotah 47a)
Now pay attention to this ma’amar. It says you should learn Torah and do mitzvos shelo lishmah. Try to find some ulterior motive why you do things, to be an incentive to do things. Say “I would like to be known as a lamdan in the community.”
“I would like my children when they grow up they should look up to me not down upon me.”
“I would like in my beis hamedrash people should say, “Look, here’s Chaim the lamdan.”
“I would like when people marry my daughters, they should marry a bas talmid chacham.”
Think about that.
Don’t think, “I’m a tzaddik. I don’t care for kavod. I’ll learn Torah lishmah or I won’t learn at all.” Find incentives. And the Gemara says you should do it. The reason is like this. To drive a wagon uphill is a hard job; it’s a hard job. You have to have horses to pull it up. So the horses are shelo lishmah; incentives. If you try with lishmah, you’ll never climb it. And therefore all your life look for reasons to want to do mitzvos.
Now listen. Even mitzvos; not only Torah. For instance, you say “I have to go to tefilah betzibur every morning in the beis hakenesses because I have to uphold my reputation with my wife. She married me thinking I was a frum man. So every morning I’ll take my tallis bag and go to beis hakenesses.”
Or, “I cannot fight with my wife because in my community they’ll hear about it,”— so all his life he remains loyal, they stick together, because he’s ashamed to divorce his wife. He has a name in the community that he’s a decent man.
So Torah and mitzvos shelo lishmah is very important.
And therefore if you want to become a masmid, find some incentive. And after a while you’ll learn Torah lishmah; מתוך שלא לשמה בא לשמה. It won’t become a perfect lishmah. Little by little, however, more and more lishmah will begin entering into your mind; and that in itself, even a partial lishmah, is a very big achievement.
(January 1989)
