Journalist Hanoch Daum on Torah Study: "The Happiness Was Real"

Readers of journalist Hanoch Daum's regular column in 'Yedioth Ahronoth' were surprised this week when they encountered thoughts somewhat different from what they were accustomed to. Daum began by talking about his youth days dedicated to Torah study in a Jerusalem yeshiva, and described the feelings that enveloped him and his peers when Shavuot night arrived. "No one forced us to study all night, no one commanded us to join the senior yeshiva students who walked at five in the morning with Rabbi Avraham Shapira. He was walking very fast, even in his eighties. Although he had small steps, it was a kind of jogging gait. We did everything with a youthful sharpness, and there was a great spirit. Where is the kid I was back then, and where am I today," Daum wrote. 

Daum skillfully depicted the intellectual challenge he faced when trying to unravel his studies on 'hefsa' and 'gavra' - that is, what is between objects and human beings. In this context, he delved into the issue of the bird's nest commandment as an example. "Does a person have a commandment to go and send away the mother bird if on her chicks, etc., or if you find a nest and want to use the eggs, must you do it?" Daum writes, continuing to clarify his intention, "In this case, the answer is that the law is on the hefsa, which makes the bird's nest commandment free of evil, but rather a thread of kindness drawn over it. Its purpose is to prevent the mother of the chicks from the emotional pain of taking her eggs."

Hanoch Daum

Throughout the column, Daum praised Torah study, took pride in the Aramaic language at his command due to Talmud study, and mentioned that the most significant memory he holds is the lingering longing for 'a certain sweetness in study,' as he put it. He also shared with his readers the profound pleasure he experienced from the study itself. "During periods when I was deeply involved and studied throughout two daily 'seder' sessions the tractate of study, meaning long hours each day in front of the Talmud's font, I could at times derive very deep joy and happiness just from studying. And this is amazing because I haven’t felt that pleasure since - in any other place. Not in studies or in reading other things I chose to learn, and not in any encounter with any other text, even Jewish texts," he wrote. 

With this optimistic note, Daum concluded the column, with words that seemed to come straight from the heart. "One thing I cannot deny: the sweet delight I felt in good days of 'morning seder' with the 'chavruta,' I haven’t been able to replicate since. The feeling of satisfaction and joy in debating with a friend over the interpretations of a dispute in Tractate Bava Kama and continuing the argument on the way to lunch, I have not felt again. Perhaps it was an experience without academic value, but the happiness. Well, the happiness was real."