yytz: As far as I know, there’s no pasuk that says, “Don’t worry about saving lives, just study Torah and that will save more lives than you ever could by trying to save lives.”
There is also no pasuk that says a person should learn medicine in case he needs to save a life. What we do have is the Yerushalmi that calls the lomdei Torah “neturei karta” over the guards. We have many gemaros that speak about how the Torah protects people.
The truth is, I think you’re right about this. How do I know X’s Torah study is enough to help Y. Maybe we should get Z in on it too, just in case. You know what- let’s get ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUV and W in on it. Then we can be be extra sure Y will be fine.
In fact, along the lines of give a man a fish/teach a man to fish, why don’t we get more people to learn more Torah so that they can ensure the protection of the Torah on themselves and their family a la Sota 21a, rather than reduce that protection from those that already have it.
In contrast, we are told “not to rely on a miracle,” that saving a life is like saving a world
I think that the definition of Teva is anything that come in the pre-programmed package. Torah is programmed to protect. That is not relying on a miracle, it is a natural affect of Torah. And yes, saving a life is like saving a world since a person is an “olam katan”. However, as the Nefesh HaChaim explains at length, Torah study sustains ALL the worlds.