In the higher prayer that Rebbe Nachman speaks of one is asking to birth the Torah he or she is learning into the world as a physical deed. For what does it mean to bring forth child? It means that a soul, a bundle of lights, comes into a body. Similarly the lights of Torah, when embodied as behavior, are thus born into the world. And so, it is no coincidence that Chana’s archetypal prayer was a prayer for child, for that is the essence of higher prayer, the longing to bring light down into body, both literally, as child, and metaphorically, as rectified behavior.
Now this can also, perhaps, help to explain the halachic difference in the way Torah study has traditionally applied to men and women. Professor Susan Handelman[12] explores this difference in an essay she wrote based on a discussion by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Likutei Sichot where the Rebbe states that it is possible that there might be no difference in what, or how much men and women learn. The only difference might be in the source of their obligation. Men are obligated to study lishma, for its own sake, because of the mitzvah itself. Women are also obligated to study, but only to the extent that it is required to complement their practice. For some women this might mean the study of the bare minimum of practical halacha, whereas others might find that their obligations to love and fear HaShem, and the mitzvah to believe in His oneness, require a constant exploration of text and tradition.
By defining women’s obligation to study in more practical terms, it is perhaps acknowledging their greater drive and/or capacity to make their learning practical, to translate it into life and deed; In other words, to become pregnant with their study.
Now everything has its up-side and down-side. As a female teacher of women I can certainly say that I see this and appreciate it, and yet sometimes feel frustrated by my students’ need for every idea to be turned into practical Torah within a class period. There is little patience for teachings that can’t impregnate immediately. And yet, on the other hand, on the other side of the mechitza, there are too many learned minds that have little ability to connect their knowledge with their actions. There’s not enough pregnancy happening there.
And so, addressing this problem, Rabbi Tsadok emphasizes the need for their inter-inclusion. Lah garsi ela haycha de’matzli[13]…lah havah matzlayna, ela haycha de’garesna[14] – “I don’t learn except where I pray… I don’t pray except where I learn.” Study must be prayerful, and must be accompanied by an explicit plea to absorb truth and be changed by it. And conversely, the prayerful yearning to grow and transform requires the fortification of study. For learning, says Rabbi Tsadok, stretches one’s capacity to bear the discomfort of not-yet-answered prayer, and increases one’s tolerance for the delayed gratification of not-easily-integrated teachings.
For this we must thank Chana, the mistress of higher prayer, who gave voice to our yearning to birth holy lights into the world.
