This concept of learning without effort and stress is, of course, completely alien to Torah study

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” the college professor asks his son.

“I wanna be an intellectual like you are.”

The father chuckles good-naturedly.  “Great! But remember, you don’t become an intellectual overnight. You  have to put in lots of time and effort and study, and then maybe you might become an intellectual.”

Well said, but the good professor is wrong. Time, effort, and study are so last-century and, as an intellectual might say, anachronistic. We are in a brand-new era. Apple has a new app which, they claim, will make you an “intellectual” in only 15 minutes a day with a no sweat, minimal effort. The app offers “key insights” from over 7,500 books on leadership and on personal development. This “no fuss, no stress approach to learning” can be done “in 15-minute reads,” and enables you to “learn while eating breakfast or walking the dog.” (These are not concoctions of a fevered brain, but actual quotes.)

Here is modern man in microcosm. He is in a hurry, has no time. Pausing, reflecting, thinking, investing time and energy in a worthwhile project — these are outmoded concepts. Welcome to mankind’s new frontier.

This reductionism has even infiltrated the realm of sports, which was once upon a time supposed to give us a respite from life’s frenetic pace. Even the leisurely rhythm of a baseball game — usually a two-hour affair — is now rebroadcast and reduced to eight-minute highlights. We want only the key moments, the home runs, the sensational catch in the outfield. But the ongoing drama of lonely pitcher facing lonely batter, the subtle strategy: these do not interest us. Only the highlights, please.

Fifty years ago, book digests were the latest fad. Why spend 15 hours reading a good book, said the ads; with Book Digest you can glean the essence of the best book in under one hour. But today, even that has been eclipsed. Today the digests have been digested. Now you can get the essence in 15 minutes.

I shudder to think that some enterprising Jewish company might soon capitalize on this trend and begin promoting that you can know Shas — the entire Talmud — in 15-minute reads. Why spend seven long years in a laborious Daf Yomi shiur when, with our new stressless approach to Torah learning, you can master the essence of Shas in a few minutes a day while sipping your coffee and nibbling your danish in a comfortable lounge chair.

My late father used to laughingly repeat to me an old Yiddish witticism: Alleh villen zein a baki beShas in ein nacht… “Everyone really wants to know all of Shas in one night — but during that night they want to sleep nine full hours….” (By the way, he was a baki beShas, knowing the nooks and crannies of the entire Talmud, and not because of only one sleepless night….)

This concept of learning without effort and stress is, of course, completely alien to Torah study. For the Torah student, there are no shortcuts to learning. On the contrary, the toil and effort involved in learning Torah is itself a mitzvah, a positive good, and is not dependent on whether you grasp the material. This is the concept of “ameilim baTorah,” to “toil in Torah,” as Rashi famously notes in Bechukosai (Vayikra 26:3). The key to Torah knowledge is hidden within the amount of toil that is invested in it.

To contemporary ears, however, such ideas are discordant because with the press of an Artificial Intelligence button you can find out all you need to know about many things — from Aristotle to Rambam, from Bach to Beethoven to Brahms to Mahler, from Euclid to Einstein to Wittgenstein, even from Litvak to Chabadnik.

But there is one major difference. AI — or the new Apple app — gives you information and facts; it does not give you understanding and comprehension. AI might even summarize the disputes between Hillel and Shammai, but the deeper comprehension of what separates their views can only come with ameilus, toiling.

A few years ago, when I was a boy, the school report cards showed grades for every subject, but we also received marks for one special slot called “Effort.” To a perceptive teacher, effort was as important as good grades on an exam.

To try to understand an issue, to struggle with a concept, to miss sleep in order to wrestle with a subtle Talmudic argument, to force the mind to engage with a tough Tosafos when you would rather be napping, to achieve intense concentration without distractions — this is the effort called ameilus/toil. And the good news is that such toil is a fulfillment of the commandment of Talmud Torah, whether or not you win or lose the struggle with the Tosafos.

For Torah study, let it be understood, is not merely amassing knowledge. It is a pathway into the esoterica of the Divine, a road to personal sanctification and attachment to Him, a mitzvah just like tefillin and tzitzis and matzos and succah and mezuzah are mitzvos. Which is why every morning we recite a brachah — la’asok b’divrei Torah — at the outset of our davening. And for those genuine ameilim, it engenders genuine simchah and contentment beyond the mundane benefits of self-discipline and mental stimulation. (See Avos 1:4).

When I grow up, save me, O G-d, from becoming a 15-minute intellectual, or lehavdil, a one-night baki beShas. Sorry to disappoint the Apple company, but I must forego their miraculous app and its inevitable Jewish counterpart. Although I have no dog to walk, I do have a weakness for lounge chairs and chocolate ice cream. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) they do not seem to blend well with ameilim baTorah.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1064)