Moreshet Shaul: Responsible Innovation in the Oral Law To Learn and to Be Happy | Various Rabbis | Beit Midrash

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"You shall rise and go up to the place that Hashem shall choose for you" (Devarim 17:8). "Three times a year your males will be seen before the ‘face’ of Hashem, your Lord" (Shemot 23:17). "You will be happy before Hashem" (Devarim 16:11). We need to learn how to learn, and we need to learn how to be happy. Not only are these two things that need to be learned, but also both have a place to do them – in the Holy Temple.
Torah is study, and study is a matter of intellect – what does intellect have to do with a specific place? A halachic decision is always made according to intellect, as we see from the following sources: "These are nothing but words of prophecy" (Eruvin 60b; this is a criticism); "[Torah decisions] are not in the heavens" (Bava Metzia 59b); "From this point a prophet is unable to bring us any new ideas" (Yoma 80a); "We do not pay attention to that which is heard from a heavenly voice" (Berachot 52a), etc. If so, why should an intellectual decision be connected to a specific place? Yet, it is!
If someone tells you there is wisdom in Edom, believe him, but if he tells you there is Torah in Edom, do not believe him (based on Eicha Rabba 2:13). Wisdom teaches how to do things, but Torah teaches what to do. Wisdom does not tell one what to want, but its job is to show how to bring the desired matter to fruition. Thousands of years of scientific development changed how war is waged, but it has not changed the purpose of waging it.
Who is a gibbor (brave and/or strong person)? Wisdom does not have the answer to this question. Therefore, the answer that existed thousands of years ago, "one who captures a city" (see juxtaposition in Mishlei 16:32) still exists. It is just that once, they used primitive actions, and now they have become more sophisticated. The purpose has not changed, as the point of departure is still to seek personal pleasure. Moral development has not fully kept up with the development of wisdom, and therefore, not only has wisdom not improved matters but it has, to the contrary, improved the means of causing destruction compared to that which primitive man used, and turned it into something that can destroy the world.
The Torah came to change the point of departure – "Who is a gibbor? One who subdues his inclinations" (Avot 4:1), and, actually, himself. This is a "Copernican revolution," which the Torah invented.
The nations of the world claimed: "What is written [in the Torah, that we may decide to accept or reject it]?" (Mechilta, Yitro 5). Interestingly, those things that prevented them from accepting the Torah (the prohibitions of stealing, adultery, and murder, respectively) are laws based on logic. The nations of the world, especially pagans, have "ritual laws," and our commentaries connect some of our mitzvot to an attempt to distance us from their "religious practices." Thus, even some of our chukim (mitzvot that defy logic) actually have reasons, but the chukim of the pagans, who started the practices we need to counter, have no reasons. People are happy to accept chukim providing that it does not force them to change their plans. A murderer is willing to accept anything, even to be killed himself, as long as he is not prevented from murdering others. Everything else is fine for him.
His mistake is that Torah is truly Torah only when it leads him in a way that includes changing his essence. Only Israel understood the value of the Torah and accepted it, which is why we have Torah and Edom does not. The more we see the results of wisdom (ed. note- the address was in the midst of WW II), the better we will understand the value of the Torah and the more we will thank the Master of the Universe for his good present and the eternal life He has planted in our midst.