Question:

from Edmond H. Weiss, a writer, lecturer and consultant from Cherry Hill, New Jersey: I am perplexed. Lately, my growing interest in Jewish studies has taken so much of my time that I find myself neglecting my business and my clients. Sometimes I resent the time I am forced to spend on "meaningless" work when I could be engaged in study and other mitzvot.

According to Pirkei Avot (2:2):

Rabbai Gamliel says: The study of Torah combined with a worldly occupation is an excellent thing, for the energy needed by both keeps sinful thoughts out of one's mind. And any study of Torah when not accompanied by a trade must fail in the end and become the cause of sin (Avot 2:2).

Elsewhere, though, this tractate urges "moderation" in business and cautions against using the excuse of business to avoid Torah study.

This is an easier problem, I suspect, for those with salaried jobs because, to a large extent, demands of a job are determined by one's employer. But the self-employed professional or business person is perpetually involved in moral choices: how to organize the day, how much to do, how hard to work and how high to aspire. Moreover, intellectual work demands study, imagination and reflection; creative work can be so depleting that one has no energy for religious study and perhaps not even time to observe the Sabbath. What should one do when the lure of Torah seems like a temptation, a seduction away from one's family responsibilities to earn money and provide for the future?

Responsum: 

Limud Torah [Torah study] is without a doubt one of the central mitzvot of Jewish life. We read in the Shema, the Torah portion recited three times daily:

These words which I command you this day shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, speaking of them when you stay at home, when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you get up (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). 

This is repeated in the Prophets: "Let not this book of the Torah cease from your lips, but study it day and night so that you may observe faithfully all that is written in it" (Joshua 1:8). And we learn once again in the Writings: "Happy is the man...the teaching of the Lord is his delight and he studies that teaching day and night" (Psalms 1:1-2). 

The centrality of Torah study was reiterated by the rabbis on numerous occasions. ¹ "Simon the Just used to say, 'By three things is the world sustained: by the Torah, by the Temple service and by deeds of lovingkindness' " (Avot 1:2). "[Hillel] used to say: `The more Torah, the more life' " (Avot 2:7). "Greater is learning the Torah than priesthood or kingship" (Avot 6:6). And a popular list of praiseworthy mitzvot concludes: "the study of the Torah is equal to them all". ²  

Many Jews are familiar with these quotations. It is, however, less well-known that the Bible and the rabbis had a highly positive view of melakhah [labor] and some even viewed it as a mitzvah. The prophet Isaiah declares that God teaches the farmers how to farm (Isaiah 28:23-29). The psalmist says: "Happy are all who fear the Lord. . . you shall enjoy the fruit of your labors" (Psalms 128:1-2). Finally, the Bible condemns idleness on many occasions: "through slothfulness the ceiling sags, through lazy hands the house caves in" (Eccliesiastes 10:18). ³  

The rabbis, too, were staunch advocates of melakhah. ⁴ "Rabbi Judah and Rabbi Shimon said: Great is labor for it honors those who engage in it" (Nedarim 49b). 

A person should not say: "I will eat and drink and enjoy the good life and not exert myself and Heaven shall take pity on me". Therefore it is written: "You have blessed the work of his hands" (Job 1:10). A person must toil and work with his hands and then God sends His blessing. ⁵  

As a result, a trade was considered obligatory by many rabbis: "Rabbi Yishmael said: 'And you shall choose life' (Deuteronomy 30:19) - that is a trade". ⁶ "We learned in a beraita [an early rabbinic source not included in the Mishnah]: A father is required to do the following for his son: to circumcise him... to teach him Torah... and to teach him a trade." ⁷ The rabbis also felt that it is better to engage in a lowly profession than to accept handouts: "Rav said: 'It is better to skin animals in the marketplace and earn wages than to say: "I am a priest, I am a great man, that is beneath my dignity!' " (Pesahim 113a).

Furthermore, in some midrashim, labor was given various theological underpinnings: 

1. In Avot d'rabiNatan we find: 

A person must love labor and engage in labor....If God created the world by doing labor as it is written, "the work that He had done" (Genesis 2:2), human beings, how much the more so! ⁸  

2. Labor is one of the items included in the covenant with God: 

A person should love melakhah...because just as the Torah was given in a covenant, so melakhah was given in a covenant, as it is written: "Six days shall you labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Shabbat for the Lord your God" (Exodus 20:9-10). ⁹  

3. Since rest on Shabbat assumes labor during the week, melakhah was even viewed by some rabbis as a positive commandment: 

"Six days shall you labor" (Exodus 20:9) is a separate decree. Just as the Jewish people were commanded to fulfill the positive mitzvah of Shabbat, so were they commanded regarding labor. ¹⁰  

4. The divine presence cannot rest until after labor is complete: 

Great is labor for the Shekhinah (God's presence) did not rest upon the Jewish people until they performed melakhah, as it is written: "And they shall build me a Temple and [only then] shall I dwell in their midst" (Exodus 25:8). ¹¹  

So we see that even though limud Torah was considered one of the most basic mitzvot, melakhah was also promoted by the rabbis as a basic Jewish value to be respected and practiced.

What then does one do when there is a conflict between Torah study and labor? Which takes precedence? This very issue is discussed in many places in rabbinic literature and, as is frequently the case, there are a variety of contradictory views on the subject. Rabbi Meir says that a person should teach his son an easy and clean trade while Rabbi Nehorai says that he would neglect every trade and teach his son only Torah because one enjoys its reward both in this world and in the World to Come (Mishnah Kiddushin 4:14). One man was so anxious for his son to study Torah that he took a vow prohibiting his son from engaging in any form of labor, ¹² while Rabban Gamliel said: "Excellent is the study of Torah together with a worldly occupation...but all Torah study without worldly labor comes to naught and leads to sin" (Avot 2:2) 

But the locus classicus is undoubtedly the following: 

Since it says: "And let not this book of the Torah cease from your lips" (Joshua 1:8), I might think that this injunction is to be taken literally. Therefore it says "And you shall gather your grain" (Deuteronomy 11:14) which implies that you are to combine the study of Torah with a worldly occupation - these are the words of Rabbi Yishmael. But Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says: "if a man plows at plowing time and sows at sowing time and reaps at reaping time...what will become of Torah study? Rather, when Israel does the will of God, their melakhah is done by others" (Berakhot 35b). 

Thus Rabbi Yishmael rules that you should engage in a trade and study Torah, while Rabbi Shimon, on the other hand, rules that you should devote all your time to limud Torah and God will provide. What is the halakhah? The gemara concludes: "Abaye said: 'Many followed Rabbi Yishmael and succeeded, many followed Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and did not succeed' ". Abaye's opinion was followed by the major codes of Jewish law. ¹³ Furthermore, we know that dozens of Talmudic rabbis such as Shimon ben Shetach, Abba Shaul, Rabbi Joshua, Rabbi Judah, Rabbi Yose, Resh Lakish, Rabbi Zeira, Rav Huna, Rav Hisda and Abaye supported themselves through manual labor. ¹⁴ So we see that despite all of the opinions on the subject, the halakhic ideal is that of Rabbi Yishmael: Engage in a trade and study Torah. 

What remains is the practical question: How do I organize my time so that I can earn a living and study Torah? The following four suggestions are culled from 2,000 years of Jewish experience: 

1. Rabbi Yose ben Meshullam and Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya were part of a group called "the Holy Congregation" "who divided their day in three ± they devoted one-third to Torah, one-third to prayer and one-third to melakhah". ¹⁵ According to this source, one should devote an equal portion of every day to earning a living and to Torah study. This, of course, depends on a person's profession. In many professions, one cannot devote such a large chunk of time to Torah study without harming one's livelihood. Indeed, that is probably why the practice is attributed to "the Holy Congregation"! 

2. This objective difficulty no doubt led to Rabbi Joshua's more lenient opinion: 

If a person learns two halakhot by heart every morning and two every evening and engages in melakhah all day, he is considered to have fulfilled the entire Torah. ¹⁶

In other words, quantity is not everything. If you don't have time to study many hours a day, just make sure to study on a regular basis. This approach was widely followed throughout Jewish history and led to the creation of countless fellowships (havarot) that met daily to study Torah. In Eastern Europe Jews preferred Mishnah, Talmud, Hayye Adam or Mishnah Berurah; in Yemen they studied Mishnah, Talmud, Maimonides and Ein Ya'akov. ¹⁷ In our own day, thousands of Jews study a daily chapter of Bible or Mishnah or a daily folio of Talmud (daf yomi). ¹⁸ You can adopt this system of Torah study by joining an already existing study group, starting a new one or finding a study partner (havruta) for daily Torah study. 

3. A third approach is to earn a living by day and study by night. This was the approach favored by Maimonides as described in a famous responsum detailing his exhausting schedule as court physician, from which it is clear that he did all of his studying at night. ¹⁹ This was in keeping with the opinion of many Talmudic rabbis who preferred nighttime study to daytime study. ²⁰  

4. Lastly, there was the system of Yarhei Kallah practiced in Babylon for close to a millennium, in which thousands of laypeople and students gathered in the Babylonian academies during the Hebrew months of Elul and Adar to study Torah (Bava Metzia 86a; Berakhot l7b). This system continued to flourish until the days of Rabbi Nattan Habavli (tenth century). A modern equivalent would be to spend the summer studying Torah at a camp or a retreat, at a yeshivah in Israel or at a Jewish studies program such as the one run by the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. 

In conclusion, learning Torah is a mitzvah and earning a livelihood is a mitzvah, but you should not go overboard in observing one at the expense of the other. Choose, rather, the middle road. As we learn in the Palestinian Talmud: 

This Torah is like two paths, one of fire and one of snow. If you follow one path, you will die of heat; if you follow the other path you will die of cold. What should you do? Take the middle path!²¹

NOTES 

1. For 881 Talmudic statements (sic!) in praise of Torah and Torah study, see Rabbi Moshe David Gross, Otzar Ha-aggadah, vol. 3, Jerusalem, 1977, pp. 1357-1382. 
2. Pe'ah 1:1 and Philip Birnbaum, ed., Daily Prayer Book, New York, 1949, p. 15.
3. For fifteen similar passages in the book of Proverbs, see The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 6, p. 499.
4. For a recent and thorough treatment of this topic, see Meir Ayali, Workers and Artisans: Their Occupations and Status in Rabbinic Literature (Hebrew), Givatayim, 1987, chapter 4 and see p. 193, ibid., for twelve previous books on the subject.
5. Tanhuma Vayeitzei, par. 13.
6. Yerushalmi Sotah 9:16, fol. 24c.
7. Kiddushin 29a and parallels.
8. Avot d'rabi Natan, Version B, chapter 21, ed. Schechter, p. 44.
9. Ibid., Version A, Chapter 11, p. 44.
10. Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, ed. Epstein-Melamed, p. 149.
11. Ibid.
12. Tosefta Bekhorot 6:11, ed. Zuckermandel, p. 541.
13. Maimonides, Talmud Torah 3:10-11; Tur and Shulhan Arukh Yoreh De'ah 246:21 and Orah Hayyim 156:1.
14. For a survey of occupations practiced by Talmudic rabbis, see Ayali, Workers and Artisans, pp. 100-101 and 143-151, and Moses Aberbach, Labor, Crafts and Commerce in Ancient Israel, Jerusalem, 1994, Chapter III.
15. Kohelet Rabbah 9:9, ed. Vilna, fol. 24a. Regarding "the Holy Congregation", see Shmuel Safrai, Eretz Yisrael V'hakhameha Bitkufat Hamishnah Vehatalmud, Jerusalem, 1983, pp. 43-56.
16. Mekhilta of Rabbi Yishmael, Vayassa, ed. Lauterbach, vol. 2, pp. 103-104.
17. For Eastern Europe, see Mark Zborowski and Elizabeth Herzog, Life is with People: The Jewish Little Towns of Eastern Europe, New York, 1952, pp. 100-102; A.J. Heschel, The Earth is the Lord's, Philadelphia, 1963, pp. 46-47; and Israel Goldman, Lifelong Learning Among the Jews, New York, 1975, Chapter 10. For Yemen, see Shimon Garidi, Torah Study in Yemen (Hebrew), Jerusalem, 1987.
18. Daf yomi, instituted by Rabbi Meir Shapira in 1923, has resulted in completing the entire Talmud (ca. 2,700 folios!) ten times.
19. For an English translation, see Franz Kobler, Letters of Jews through the Ages, vol. 1, Philadelphia, 1978, pp. 211-212.
20. Song of Songs Rabbah 5:1, ed Vilna, fol. 31a; Hagigah 12b; Avodah Zarah 3b; Sanhedrin 92a; Maimonides, Talmud Torah 3:13 and Shulhan Arukh Yoreh De'ah 246:23
21. Yerushalmi Hagigah 2:1, 77a and Tosefta Hagigah 2:5, ed. Lieberman, p. 381. That passage refers specifically to the study of Jewish mysticism, but the same holds true of many things in life. For recent discussions of the topic of this responsum, see Aberbach (above, note 14), Chapter IV, and Leo Levi, Tradition 28/1 (Fall 1993), pp. 46-81.