How Often Must You Learn Torah?

1:38You'll become an angel among men. Now, the Gemara in Masechet Berachot, page 32b, says that there are four things that need constant chizuk: Torah, good deeds, tefillah, and derech eretz. Torah, obviously, demands that we constantly increase our learning. If you're not going to learn Torah every day, your neshama will get weaker and weaker, and little by little you'll lose whatever desire you have to learn, and that three, four, five times a week you learn Torah will shortly become one, maybe sometimes you'll skip a week, and eventually, nothing. May we always strengthen ourselves and be committed to these essential areas. Your neshama will get weaker and weaker, and little by little you'll lose whatever desire you have to learn, and that three, four, or five times a week you learn Torah will shortly become one. Maybe sometimes you'll skip a week, and eventually, nothing. Why? Because Torah is fuel for the neshama, just like your body needs food every day. Your neshama needs food every day. If you feed your neshama every day, it's constantly satiated. You're constantly going to want even more Torah, but you're going to be okay even maintaining that status quo. Let's say you learn two hours a day every day; you'll be okay. You may want more, but even if you maintain that two hours a day, you'll be okay.

2:44But if you start doing, no, I'll do two hours on Monday, an hour on Tuesday; Wednesday, I'll take a day off. I'll take a day off from God, you know, on vacation from God. Thursday, I'll go back with an hour. Friday, you know, I'm with the family, so it's another day off. And Shabbat, you know, Shabbat, I have five hours to make up for lost time. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. The Maharsha says Torah needs constant chizuk. What's constant? Every day. It's better to learn. I asked my Rabbi; this is one of the original questions I asked him. We used to learn so much every Thursday, seven-hour sessions. And he told me, you have to start learning every day. I said, okay, but I can't learn seven hours a week. He goes, no, no, no, you learn 15 minutes a day. Why don't we just add it to the seven hours? He goes, no, no, you don't understand. It's better you do the 15 minutes a day, every single day, than once a week, seven hours straight. I said, wait a minute, but Rabbi, you know the math is a little off. If I do 15 minutes a day, I'm thinking he doesn't know math. I'm still retarded at this stage. I'm thinking, Rabbi, you know, seven times 15, it's not exactly seven hours. Seven hours is more.

3:53he says, for 15 minutes he repeats the same thing. Why? Because you know, I might feel limited, but he's treating me like I'm human. Why? Because the reality is, you have to feed your neshama every day. If you ate 87 steaks in one day and the rest of the week you starve yourself, it won't work. If you breathe one day a week and the rest of the week you don't breathe, it won't work. If you learn Torah once a week or twice a week and the rest of the week you don't learn, it's not going to work. Your neshama will stay weak. And the Torah will look like it's a burden. So the Gemara says the Torah needs constant chizuk. But also good deeds need constant chizuk. What does it mean good deeds? Constantly do good things. Help people out. Do mitzvot. Do different chesed. Constantly, constantly, constantly look for things to do. What can I do to help someone out? What can I do to help myself out? What can I do that's good?

4:53chase chesed, chase mitzvot, chase good things. okay, you have five minutes to spare, don't waste them. why are you wasting them? read some Tehillim, watch a video with Torah. do something good. why do you need constant guidance? take the Torah that you've learned and apply it to actual life.

5:58I'm here for any questions or further explanations.