I have been taking a long look at Avot 6:6 and how it relates to the weekly parasha.  In consecutive order, I have matched the forty-eight values by which Torah is acquired with a verse from the weekly portion.  This week, the value is mityashev b’talmudo, a phrase easily felt, but hard to translate.  Perhaps mityashev conveys “concentration,” as one edition suggests.  Another suggests, “mature reflection.”  A third translates the phrase as “composing himself in study.” 

I choose “patient deliberation in one’s studies.”  It may or may not be any more accurate than any other, but it resonates with Rashi’s notion that it refers to the relationship between two claims.

Few people need to be reminded that patient deliberation in one’s studies will yield results.  In the world of Jewish learning, it is the time in chevruta – literally sitting in study – that is the locus of the deepest internalization of Torah lessons.  The intimacy of intellect and discourse that develops between study partners makes learning not just an exercise, but an acquisition.

There are some who would like to believe that wisdom is acquired in less time-consuming and labor-intensive ways.  An inspirational lecture can provide a sudden insight, but still requires reflection and consideration.  Contemporary charlatans suggest that one may acquire the substance of a text by sleeping with it under your pillow.  Others suggest chemical approaches to learning; an Eastern teacher once dismissed the claim that drugs could make a person enlightened, saying, “Make a simpler drug – one that makes a man a doctor or a lawyer.”

In modern Israel, this reflexive verb has political implications.  (Then again, what doesn’t have political implications in modern Israel?)  Hityashvut means “settlement.”  Aside from geography, the essential meaning of creating a settlement is very helpful in understanding the term.  In an Israeli settlement foundations are laid and roots are planted, quite literally.  It is a place people come to live - to build and to be built.  Settlement is not designed to be transient, but carries the intention of permanence.

The verse in Vaetchanan is very familiar:  V’shinantam l’vanekha v’dibarta bam b’shiv’tikha b’veitekha…(6:7).  With its emphasis on the study of Torah and its use of the same root as in mityashev, the connection is too inviting to overlook.

Here, too, is a problem in translation.  The usual “when thou sittest in thy house” makes Torah education seem an almost casual thing – as if to say, if you are sitting around with nothing to do, teach a little Torah.  But the implication of patient deliberation is that learning must be not only purposeful but integrated.  In the fertile soil of our children’s souls we are laying foundations and planting roots, processes that take time and intention, just as our own studies demand.  There is no inoculation that creates instant Torah.   Like chevruta, that teaching demand intimate relationships.

When learning is approached with patient deliberation – and deliberateness – it becomes internalized Torah for teacher and student, parent and child, chevruta and chevruta alike.

Rabbi Jack Moline, a member of the UJC Rabbinic Cabinet, is rabbi of Agudas Achim Congregation, Alexandria, VA.