If you will go in My statutes. (Vayikra 26:3)
We see that if a person works on a certain detail in his avodas Hashem, or works on a certain mitzvah, he can eventually get it down. He can get a hold of it. Once he acquires it as a habit, he doesn’t need to constantly work on it.
It’s different with Torah learning. Here, he needs to always work on it and toil over it. Even after extended effort, he never gets to a place where he is used to learning already, and he doesn’t need to battle with himself in order to learn.
There is a reason for this. It is because Torah and Hakadosh Baruch Hu are one – תורה דא קוב''ה – as Sefer Nefesh Hachayim phrases it. Torah is infinite which is why one can never make an acquisition on it and get it down. A person always needs to put effort into learning, until the end of his life.
Chazal hinted to this when they said that the heritage of Yaakov is a נחלה בלי מצרים, a boundless heritage. Yaakov Avinu is the pillar of Torah, and Torah is boundless and limitless.
This is why, even when Yaakov Avinu wished to dwell in tranquility, Hashem did not grant it to him. It’s because Yaakov’s special quality is Torah, and it’s just not possible to have both Torah learning and a state of tranquility. Torah always needs work and effort because it’s infinite.
