The Torah’s answer to this person is that Hashem, who is considered the father of the girl and the community of Klal Yisroel, will demand the honor of Torah in front of the great Beis Din. The Zohar says that Hashem is destined to demand the embarrassment of the Torah, and the Mishnah (Avos Chap. 6) says that each day, an echo emerges from Har Sinai, announcing ‘woe is to those characters because of the denigration of Torah.’ Hashem will grab these people and show them the great benefits and lofty understanding Torah grants a person.
A father who marries off his daughter, and gives her over as wife, expects her to be placed on a pedestal as a central part of the house. She isn’t supposed to be pushed into a corner. When a person gets married, he owes his wife שְאֵרָהּ כְסותָהּ וְעֹנָתָהּ - food, clothing and cohabitation. The Zohar (Tikunei Zohar 6) explains how all three are connected to Torah learning. The first one שאר – is referring to getting close to the shechina. The second one כסות – which literally means clothing, is referring to Tzitzis and the Tefillin of the arm. The third one עונה – literally ‘time’, is referring to the daily obligation to read Shema at its proscribed time. A person who wishes to be attached to the Torah, must treat it like a complete wife and provide the Torah with its needs. He must treat it well, just like we understand that a husband cannot ignore his wife, and just pop in to visit her once every two weeks for a few minutes, the Torah is no different. If someone opens a Sefer once a week, and casually leafs through it, he is like the person who visits his wife and looks at something else while he is visiting. When a person learns Torah with a lazy attitude, or does not attempt to recollect that which he learns, he is like the husband who reads his newspaper while his wife is talking to him. A person has to treat the Torah with a sense of responsibility like a man to his wife.
The real reason this person fails to see the benefits of Torah is because he hates it. The evil inclination is the power called hatred and this person misused it and directed against Torah, claiming that the Torah cannot support him and take care of the world as he wishes it to.
The ‘father’ of the Torah continues וְהִנֵה הוא שָם עֲלִילֹת דְבָרִ ים – and behold he has libeled her with shameful things. The word וְהִּנֵּה - and behold, tells us that the person made up the story right then, he is not telling them a story that happened. He does not wish to learn Torah and he announced that the Torah will disturb his ability to live life as he wishes, and he cannot rely on the Torah to provide him with sustenance in this world. The Yetzer Hara inside him made up this story in order to keep him away from the Torah, and he is the one distorting the facts.
Hashem will then ופָרְ שו הַּשִמְלָה לִפְנֵי זִקְנֵי הָעִיר – spread out the cloth in front of the elders of the city. He will show and prove that the libel is totally untrue. Hashem shows the Beis Din how the entire universe was created through the Torah. How is it possible that the Torah cannot take care of everything the Torah requires? The world was created for the Torah, how could Torah and life be incompatible? The world survives based on the Torah that is learned, how could anyone say that stopping learning will make the world better? All of the rewards and positive influence, in this world and the next, is included in the Torah and acquired through it, how could it cause any problems?
A person with a simplistic view on life, sees the Talmidei Chachamim of the world suffering privation, whereas those that invest strongly in this world, are rewarded with an easy comfortable life. This person will be fooled by the evil inclination that learning Torah will take away his ability to survive. He needs to ‘spread out the cloth’ and investigate fully, finding out how the Talmidei Chachamim live and survive, how many people invest their lives to acquire riches and end up with neither. He needs to see the quality of life of the Talmid Chacham, and how he survives under the most difficult of situations, situations that would break the comfortable person completely.
