I was reading pirkei d’rav elazar. (Maybe during mussaf on rosh hashana?)
R’ elazar ben horkinus was raised as an am haaretz. But he wanted to learn Torah. He thought it was too late; he was 28 according to this braisah.
One day he was plowing a rocky field and realized, if a plow can soften this ground, I can learn Torah. So he sat down and cried and didn’t eat and eventually ran away to R’ Yochanan ben Zachai to learn. The story continues that he didn’t even know Shema.
My thought was that if he knew nothing, and obviously wasn’t really keeping mitzvos, since he didn’t know Shema, how could he have so wanted to learn Torah?
He didn’t even know what Torah is!
I’m not sure how to explain it, but it is apparent that humans are capable of very pure emotions which I would have thought were just delusions.
The first lesson is not to be so suspicious of others’ emotions.
The better lesson is not to be so suspicious of your own good emotions. (Or at least to be suspicious that it is pure also.)