We should accept this study upon ourselves b’li neder (without making it a binding commitment). At the same time, however, we should approach our study with a most powerful resolve that must be realized—to the extent that studying Rambam is part of our regular routine.
We should begin the new cycle with such an extremely enhanced quality of study, that despite having just completed the entire work, the material will now appear completely new to us.
Our Sages teach that we should approach the study of Torah each day as if it were brand new material, just delivered to us today. Matan Torah (Giving of the Torah) is a daily occurrence. If this is true of any Torah study, it is all the more applicable to our completing the entire body of Torah laws, i.e., all the laws of the Oral Torah as they are compiled and organized in Mishneh Torah.
For the essence of matan Torah was the tangible revelation in earthly realms of most transcendent divinity (gilui Havaye). While all Torah study reveals Godliness in the world, it is specifically its laws (halachos) that conduct this highest revelation akin to matan Torah. Rambam, in the opening words to his compendium embracing all of the Torah’s laws, alluded to the spiritual potency of halachos. He began: yesod hayesodos v’amud hachochmos—the initial letters of which spell the name Havaye. Certainly, then, our beginning the study of Mishneh Torah again may be considered matan Torah.
Adding layer upon layer: However, now that we have the experience of “learning the entire Torah” behind us—and all the more so if we are the veterans of a good few cycles—our present study takes on an infinitely greater quality. Our current topic of study, Mishneh Torah’s opening theme of knowledge of the Creator, “the ultimate foundation and pillar of all wisdom,” is greatly enhanced due to our most recent familiarity of its closing theme—“knowledge of God filling the earth as the waters cover the ocean.” And by the end of this year’s cycle, our perception of the closing theme will be far beyond what it is at present… This way, we continue spiraling upwards in ever more profound study, achieving ever greater perception, on and on, forever.
