What Does it Mean That the Torah Is Given for Sinners? If I Don’t Feel Like a Sinner, Does it Mean I Cannot Study the Torah?

You can study the Torah, but for the Torah to teach you, you need to feel a little like a sinner. That is why the Torah is given.

We do not need the Torah for knowledge. We should feel like we need the Torah to correct ourselves, i.e., to uproot our egoistic quality, which is the desire to benefit ourselves at the expense of others. We will then be able to stand directly before the Creator, which is the quality of love and bestowal.

Therefore, the path we take through the Torah is our path to the Creator.

Essentially, we are born sinners. Then, as we gradually recognize ourselves as sinners, we can appreciate the Torah’s depth, power and ability to correct us.

Studying the Torah means acting so that the Torah penetrates us and gaining the ability to absorb its words, strength and convictions so that it becomes an unshakable part of us. It means thinking solely about how to implement what is written in the Torah.

If I try to reduce it to something very simple and concise, the Torah writes all about love — not the love we know in our usual sense, but the unconditional love of the Creator, and how we can learn to love in the same way.