May these words of Torah serve as a merit le’iluy nishmat Menachem Mendel ben Harav Yoel David Balk, a”h.
This week we learned Menachot 99. These are some highlights.
Is there still a prohibition against forgetting learning?
Our Gemara teaches about the importance of reviewing and remembering your learning. The Gemara says that one who deliberately forgets his studies, by allowing his laziness to prevent him from reviewing, violates three Torah prohibitions. It even says that Torah was given over 40 days and 40 nights, and it takes 40 days and nights to form the soul—to teach that one who does not maintain his Torah learning deserves to lose his soul. Does this law apply in our days? In our days we are allowed to write down Torah. Perhaps when a person can write down his learning and review his notes, there is no sin in allowing oneself to forget because the Torah is still available to him.
Rav Chaim of Volozhin and the Ba’al HaTanya argue about whether in our days there is still a prohibition against forgetting learning. Keter Rosh (Hilchot Talmud Torah 67) quotes Rav Chaim of Volozhin as teaching that the harsh words against a person who allows himself to forget his learning only applied when there was still a prohibition against writing down the Oral Torah and when all of a person’s learning had to be memorized. In our day, we are allowed to write down Oral Torah and as a result there is no sin in allowing oneself to forget learning. The Ba’al HaTanya, in his Shulchan Aruch Harav (Hilchot Talmud Torah 2:4), disagrees. He writes that anyone who forgets his learning because he did not review sufficiently is considered by the verse to have forfeited his life and has violated a Torah prohibition. The Ba’al HaTanya stresses that this applies in our days, when we are allowed to write down Torah. The fact that there are written accounts of Torah does not help the man who forgot his learning. He sinned in forgetting his learning. In the days of old, the Torah student who forgot could have asked his teacher; nevertheless, it was a sin to forget, and therefore in our days as well—even though a person can consult his notes and books, it is a sin to allow oneself to forget. In addition, the Ba’al HaTanya argues that Rambam has established that the mitzvot of the Torah will never change. Since our Gemara teaches that there is a prohibition in allowing oneself to forget, this prohibition can never change and it therefore applies in our days just as it applied in the days of the Gemara and Mishnah.
The Rebbe of Butshash (Divrei Avot to Pirkei Avot) proposes that if a person writes down Torah ideas he avoids violating the sin of forgetting learning. Remembering entails writing ideas on the tablet of the heart. Writing down Torah thoughts also helps inscribe the ideas on the heart. If someone writes down Torah learning, when he reviews his notes he will remember the Torah thoughts. In regard to testimony, a witness can write down his testimony and then allow his written notes to remind him of what he saw; the same should therefore be true with Torah learning—his written record will remind his memory and render him a person who has not forgotten his learning. The Rebbe of Butshash does record that these proposals are disputed by the Ba’al HaTanya, who feels that a Jew is not allowed to allow himself to forget any of his learning.
By Rabbi Zev Reichman
(Alim Letrufah)
Rabbi Zev Reichman teaches Daf Yomi in his shul, East Hill Synagogue.
