This is the central path of the members of the Torah world, tens of thousands of yeshiva students and avreichim. This is the path they follow: Torah, more Torah and again Torah, only Torah. Toil in Torah, perseverance, exploiting time to the fullest, and growing throughout the full expanse of Torah, but above all, the exaltation of their status and esteem, for they are the pinnacle and crowing glory of the Chosen People.
If we were to maintain that Torah study through privation on the part of the tens of thousands of avreichim was a state of bedi'eved, necessary in these times and conditions, this is not true in the least.
Our rabbis teach us that it is the preferred state. Torah from deprivation is a desired value, a unique state which has no comparison.
We are not talking about degrading poverty or want which leads to desperation, but of a life of happiness and respect, of good fortune in this world, coupled with eternal goodness in Olam Haba. Not for naught was the status of those who study Torah from want upheld as the desired and ultimate significance. It is because our ladder of values recognizes the fact that Torah study and devotion to it is the very peak of contentment.
Such people live like those who subsisted on the manna, directly from the munificent and generous Hand of Hashem. They did not seek a life of luxury and pleasure; they have no need for extra expenditures of vacations and pleasures, not because they can't afford them but simply because they are meaningless and superfluous to them. They derive their full satisfaction from studying Torah, both they and their families.
The Chasam Sofer wrote in his Torah commentary on Parshas Vayechi (p 246) exalted words relating to the joy which accompanies the privilege and happiness in receiving the Torah. His words are deeply moving and instructive:
"Joy is a positive mitzvah from the Torah, namely to serve Him through joy and goodness of heart in one's bounty. I maintain that the Torah did not explicitly command us to rejoice on the day of the giving of the Torah. Rather the Torah attributed the joy of Shavuos to the Festival of Bikkurim and of the wheat harvest. It is not logical that we be commanded to rejoice at the assuming of a yoke upon our neck for this would be another yoke upon our shoulders. Thus, Hashem did not command such a joy since it would override a joy over the first fruits and the wheat harvest, which belongs to this world..."
Amazing! The holy Torah commands us to rejoice in a material way, in the fact that Hashem provides us with our physical needs at all times, especially when we dwell securely in Eretz Yisroel, sow at sowing time and harvest at harvest time.
But we extrapolate that joy to something else which makes us forget the original commanded rejoicing mentioned in the Torah. We understand the dimension of joy which we have in our privilege of assuming the yoke of Torah, for this dwarfs everything else, leaving everything else totally meaningless.
This is the advantage of those who have been fortunate in experiencing the taste and pleasure in Torah study, for which they are prepared to give their very lives. Nothing else has any value; they need nothing else in life.
Every individual Jew is a unique cosmos. Every person who has established for himself set times for study is necessarily exalted and uplifted. All of the good prophecies were expressed solely for those who support Torah and love it, to those who know how to value Torah and its scholars, the talmidei chachomim. No eye has yet beheld, save for You, the bounty which awaits such a one (Brochos 34b).
