Now, there’s the degree of understanding of the Torah that most of us enjoy, and then there’s the sort of true and thoroughgoing *grasping* of it that sages experience.

After all, while I might fully understand each and every word I read and know its general import, I might still-and-all not understand some of the subtler implications of what’s being said the way they do; I might not be aware of the perspectives a reader would be expected to have; I might not catch many of the plays-on-words that would so color and affect the meaning; I could very easily not recognize the mystical import of what I’m reading, etc.

So while I would still be credited with having studied the text, to be sure, and I would likewise have benefited from and been nourished by its inner incandescence — even if I only *recited* the words — nonetheless, I would only have benefited by the transcendent force lying behind it to a relatively small degree.

But the fact remains that each one of us can in fact draw upon the Divine love and revelation that emanates from that most eminent transcendent force.

Text Copyright © 2004 by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Torah.org.