And it will be when he sits on his royal throne, he shall write two Sifrei Torah (Devarim 17:18)

A Jewish King is required to have two Torahs: one is to stay in his house and one is to always travel with him. Even though we (meaning those of us who are not a King) are not required to carry a physical Torah with us at all times, we should still always walk with the Torah with us.

In Pirkei Avos (3:9), it states: Rabi Yaakov said, “If one is walking and learning, and stops his learning to say, ‘how nice is that tree or how nice is this plowed field,’ he bears the guilt for his soul.” This basically means if a person interrupts his Torah learning to comment on a tree or a field, he deserves death. This seems like a very harsh punishment for stopping to look at a nature.

The commentaries explain what this Mishna means. A person is allowed to look at nature and comment about it while he is learning. The key word to the Mishna is the person “stops” his learning. If a person looks at nature and thinks, “this is not part of my learning,” then he has missed the meaning of nature. Nature is to bring us closer to Hashem. It is to see the beauty and the power of what our Creator made. If a person looks at nature and does not think of Hashem, then that person bears the guilt for his soul.

Recently, my family and I visited Lion Country Safari — this is a drive through zoo where many animals can come right up to your car. As we drove around, I noticed something interesting. The lions were placed in one end of the safari and were surrounded by high fences. On the other end of the safari were the giraffes and zebras. In the African jungle, though, they are all together. There are no fences separating them from each other. So, why did they need to be separated here?

The answer, of course, is the zebras and giraffes would not live for more than a few moments if they were together with the lions at Lion Country Safari. The lions would tear them to pieces.

But how can they live together in the African jungle? In reality, there probably should not be any animal able to survive in the African jungle except for the lion. The lion should rip all of the animals apart, but they do not. Many other species of animals are able to survive. The reason is because Hashem made the African jungle in such a way that all of the animals are able to survive. Hashem, in His kindness, made it that a zebra and a giraffe have instincts to be able to avoid lions. It is true the lion catches some of them, but many of them are able to escape because of the way Hashem created them. If Hashem has such care for a striped four legged creature, then certainly He has much love for us.

If we look at the world through the Torah, our eyes will pop out of our heads with excitement. We will clearly see this world is full of Hashem everywhere we turn.

Good Shabbos!
-yes
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