Reply To: Short & Sweet

Chukas: Wellspring of Torah

In the middle of the Shira that Bnei Yisroel sung about the miraculous באר מרים, Chazal find a surprising series of allusions. From the words ממדבר מתנה, we darshan: if one makes themselves הפקר כמדבר, then Hashem will give them Torah as gift. But what does this have to do with the well of Miriam?

R’ Aaron Lopiansky explains that the Torah is actually very similar to a well. One needs to work hard to dig a well. But once they have the well, they still do not think they have created the water. Rather, they have worked to uncover what was always there beneath the surface.

This needs to be our attitude towards Torah. We cannot just wait for Hashem to give us understanding; we need to work for it. But after we do understand, we still must think of the Torah as a gift from Hashem. The truths we see in the Torah are ideas we have uncovered, not created.

A well serves as a portal. From within a very small hole, one can extract a nearly endless amount of liquid. So too with Torah. Torah is not a finite pool of wisdom, it is a portal from which we can draw endless amount of Divine wisdom and inspiration.

לע״נ דוד חיים בן ישראל דוב הכהן
לע״נ ר׳ חיים דוב בן ר׳ בןציון שלום