The Greatest Benefactors
And not that he’s just saying it because it sounds frum. An ordinary Jew has to be convinced that when the people in Bnei Brak or in Yerushalayim or in the Mirrer Yeshivah or wherever they are sitting all day and laboring in the sugyos hashas, laboring in Gemara, they are the greatest public benefactors; that the yeshivah man in Lakewood is saving the entire Jewish nation and protecting them against their enemies.
And that's why when the nasi in Eretz Yisroel needed people to help rebuild the broken walls of the city, and he summoned everyone to help – he announced that the talmidei chachamim must come out of the beis hamedrash and like everyone else they have to take a spade and a pickaxe and help dig. “We have to make earthworks and throw up fortifications,” he said, “and everybody has to help. What do you mean you'll sit at home and study Torah? It's for your benefit too!” So along came Reish Lakish and he defied the nasi. Reish Lakish said רבנן לא צריכי נטירותא – “Nothing doing! The Torah students don't need any shemirah. They don't need anybody to watch them. On the contrary! They protect the city and they shouldn't be disturbed. They should continue their studies because that is what keeps us safe.” (Bava Basra 7b).
Now Reish Lakish certainly understood that we have to build fortifications but he said that we have to know that the fortifications are worthless if not for those people who are sitting in the beis hamedrash and laboring in Torah. ה' עוז לעמו יתן – When Hashem is giving this strength to His people – the Gemara says that it means the Torah, that’s our strength – עמו בשלום ה' יברך את – then He blesses His people with peace.
