Mitzvah 6; To Attach ourselves to HaShem

The sixth mitzvah that Rambam enumerates is the mitzvah of attaching ourselves to our Torah scholars.

The source of this mitzvah is found in the passage “For you shall observe this entire set of mitzvos that I command you to perform, to love HaShem, to walk in all His ways and to attach yourself to Him.”

Behold! The Torah has set her expectation that we attach ourselves to HaShem! The Midrash asks ‘How can one attach themselves to G.D, is it not impossible?’ The Midrash explains that this mitzvah is accomplished when one attaches themselves to Torah scholars. This Midrash is the basis of Rambam’s enumerating this as mitzvah six.

The obvious question is that the Torah says to attach yourself to HaShem not to Torah scholars. Does the Midrash mean to imply that Torah scholars are some sort of representation of HaShem? Furthermore, how does a Torah scholar fulfill this mitzvah? Are we to suggest that this mitzvah is just for laymen but scholars are exempt?

To answer this question let us examine how Rambam introduces this mitzvah.
“The nature of Man is that his opinions and actions are formed and guided by the people surrounding him. Therefore a person must be careful with whom he associates. One should associate with wise people so as to learn from their ways and distance himself from evil people so as not to learn from their ways. Similarly, if one lives in a region where the people conduct themselves in inappropriate ways move away to a different region. If there is nowhere to go or he is not capable to move due to sickness then he should live by himself rather than mix with the local population.”

Following this introduction Rambam writes; “There is mitzvah in the Torah which instructs us to attach ourselves to Torah scholars and their students in order to learn from their ways. This is intent of the Torah’s passage ‘and in Him you shall cleave’. Therefore one should marry the daughter of a Torah scholar, marry off his daughter to a Torah scholar, do business with a Torah scholar and connect in as many ways possible to Torah scholars…”

From the context presented by Rambam it is clear that the mitzvah of attaching ourselves to HaShem is not some type of religious transcendental meditation by which we connect to the spiritual. Rather the Torah is instructing us to grow and develop our worldly life in a manner that matches G.D’s expectations of us. In other words, HaShem gave us this mitzvah to further our personal character development and to live moral and ethical lives.

That said, we need to ask why does the Torah not instruct us explicitly to attach ourselves to Torah scholars, why associate Himself in the attachment?

The answer is clear. HaShem is the arbiter of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. The maker of the world claims the ultimate Authority of what is right and wrong, good and evil. Therefore, the ideal way to best develop our personal character traits would be to live with G.D and learn from His ways. However, one might find that arrangement quite impossible. The next best arrangement is to attach ourselves to people who learn the Torah of G.D. This is predicated on the notion that Torah is nothing less than the expressed Will of G.D. That being a given, it naturally follows that the greater the scholar and more learned he is in G.D’s Torah the closer his behavior and way of conduct will be in sync with G.D’s.

With this we can appreciate why Rambam writes “to attach ourselves to Torah scholars and their students” note, that he includes the students of the scholars along with the scholars. The reason for this is that the function of the attachment is to learn their ways; the behavior of such students will be similar to their masters.

Let us go back to the question raised earlier; what is a Torah scholar supposed to do? How does he fulfill this mitzvah? I uncovered the answer to this question by personal experience.

I have been blessed to associate myself with several young budding Torah scholars all of whom are half my age and much less than half my years of experience. Nevertheless, the more I interact with them the more dimensions of personal development I discover. Every person has their unique qualities and insights. A person who is studying Torah is, by definition (at least that is the way it was designed), working on his own uniqueness by assimilating the Torah’s values into his persona. No matter how great a scholar may be there is always more greatness to be learned from others. Therefore, when Rambam identifies the mitzvah as attaching oneself to Torah scholars he is talking to Torah scholars as well as everybody else.

(It is noteworthy the distinction between the general concept of religion and Judaism as it is manifest in this mitzvah. Other religions are created by Man to define God; to make God more understandable and more humanlike. The Torah on the other hand, was created by G.D to define Man; to elevate Man to the level of Godliness that lies latent in him.)