Torah Inbalanced

Personal trainers teach about balanced workouts. You have to exercise all of your muscle groups evenly to get a proper workout, and there can be deleterious effects if one works out in a way that is unbalanced. The best example is if someone were to workout his chest muscles without also working out his back, causing the shoulders to be pulled forward and the back to hunch.

I thought about this the other day as I passed by a yeshiva known for its disavowal of all Torah matters related to the running of a Jewish state and society, and the sacrificial rituals. And of course they believe that any area of knowledge or discipline outside of the Talmud is also verboten. The guy outside smoking was wearing a costume, complete with shaved head but overgrown beard and peyos, and a white shirt and black pants, as though it was forbidden to wear anything else. His large, wool tallith qatan with only white strings indicated that he was trying to keep certain commandments as best he could while attempting to ignore other possible commandments and that it was close to 100 degrees outside.

I began to think how Torah study can be also be unbalanced if you only choose to study certain topics.

W’hameivin yavin.