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KMTT - the Torah Podcast


May 4, 2010

Talmud Torah #04, by Rav Moshe Taragin - Ameilut baTorah


Steven Weiner
almost fourteen years ago

I enjoyed the shiur very much.

At one point, the shiur cites the gemara/midrash about the verse in mishlei "mitz chalav yotzi chem'ah" and reads it as demanding extreme, total rejection of material comforts as a condition for chem'ah shel torah. One of my rebbe's years ago used to like quoting this midrash, but it left a somewhat different impression on me. I understood from him that to "spit out mother's milk" means to grow out of *dependency* on material comfort the way a baby depends utterly on its mother's milk. In other words, one is not necessarily expected to embrace pain and discomfort -- who would? -- but rather to "spit out" childlike dependence and craving for material comforts and instead to put higher things first.