Caution! How to Keep Torah and Mitzvot with Meaning

A close friend of mine, a ba'al teshuva, once told me, "Before I joined a yeshiva for ba'alei teshuva, I was convinced I was a righteous man. Only after entering the yeshiva did I realize that I was half secular all along." He shared that when he went for an interview with the head of the yeshiva, the rabbi asked him, "Why did you come here?" He innocently replied, "To study Torah." The rabbi grew serious and told him, "No, you can study Torah from home. In yeshiva, you learn to become a better person." While not everyone enters the world of yeshivot for ba'alei teshuva for various reasons, there is a message here for all of us. Studying Torah and observing mitzvot is certainly the purpose of our lives, but if that is all we do without understanding where Hashem wants for us, we can miss the entire purpose.

Sticking to Torah and living according to it should eventually turn us into 'children of Torah.' As a side note, the term 'ben Torah' is commonly used to refer to yeshiva students, but from a pure perspective, it is not entirely accurate. A 'ben Torah' is any Jew for whom Torah is the main priority in life. Someone may work as an engineer or a supermarket clerk to make a living, but the hour and a half he dedicates each day to learning Torah is, for him, the main and most important part of his day. He knows and truly feels that the essence of his life is those moments dedicated to Torah study and mitzvot observance, even if he must spend more time on secular matters.

Where is Hashem trying to lead us through Torah and mitzvot? He wants us to become better human beings, that the Torah is truly a part of us. It's possible to attend Torah lectures for years and put on tefillin every day but remain inwardly the same, thus missing the true purpose. The real goal should be to desire change, and Torah and mitzvot are the tools that allow us to transform our essence. Only when a person observes Torah and mitzvot with a sincere and genuine goal to be improve, by investing effort and mental work, can true change happen for him to become a 'ben Torah.'

One of the many advantages of attending a yeshiva or seminary for ba'alei teshuva is that it immerses you into a reality of character refinement, stepping out of egotism, seeing the other, performing acts of kindness, and leaving the comfort and indulgences we may be accustomed to at home. It's not simple, but it makes you a better person, a "mentsch," as they say in Torah jargon. Even if you are not in a yeshiva or seminary, you must still be aware of the true goal and aim towards it: the role of Torah and mitzvot is to guide the way to changing a person's nature and turning them into a being of Torah in every aspect. As Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, founder of the Mussar movement, said, "The Maharal of Prague created a golem from a lump of clay. There's no doubt this creation is a great wonder, but how much more wondrous is it to take a human being - flesh and blood, limited in ability and mixed in characteristics - and turn them into a mentsch." (Based on the book 'The Great Lights,' p. 129).