The Daily Inspiration from Our Teacher, the Esteemed Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a – "Today There Are Kollels and Donors, Everyone Can Study Gemara"

Sunday, 22 Tevet 5786 – "If His Son Is Diligent and Sharp and His Learning Is Retained"

These are his holy words:

One must study Torah day and night, twenty-four hours, but if you have a wise son, then the son goes to learn.

Because in the past, there were no kollels, so everyone had to provide for the household, not like today where there are kollels and generous donors.

In the past, there was no one to donate, everyone worked for themselves. Rabbi Akiva had to draw water. Rabbi Akiva would buy a bundle of wood every day, light it, and the smoke would enter the neighbors' homes. The neighbors would come to complain about the smoke filling their homes.

Rabbi Akiva replied, I am warming myself, I am cooking on it, it gives me a bit of light – I can study the Gemara.

In the past, everyone had to fend for themselves, there were no kollels. If a father went to study, there was no one to provide for the household, or the father would go to study and one of the children would go to grind at the mill. Today there are lawyers, doctors, in the past there were no lawyers, so they went to work at the mill grinding wheat.

In the past, they had to provide for the household themselves, so either the father went to study Torah or the son. If the father was sharp, he studied Torah, if the son was sharp, then the son studied Torah.

The Gemara says, "The Gemara says (Kiddushin 29b – 30a), 'And you shall teach them to your sons' (Deuteronomy 11:19) and not your daughters.

[The Rabbis taught: He to learn and his son to learn – he precedes his son. Rabbi Yehuda says: If his son is diligent and sharp and his learning is retained – his son precedes him.]

So, "if his son is diligent and sharp," there is a diligent son, a sharp son, he can study for 8 hours, he does not fall asleep – so he goes to study Torah.