Before us is Mishnah 12 in chapter 3, and it is a direct continuation of the previous mishnah. According to the Bartenura, our mishnah presents the counterpart to the first half of the previous mishnah, where we learned: "Kol she'yiras chet'o kodemes lechochmaso chochmaso miskayemes" - anyone whose fear of sin precedes his wisdom, whether chronologically or in terms of priority, his wisdom endures.
The text of the mishnah:
"He used to say: Kol shema'asav merubin mechochmaso - chochmaso miskayemes; vechol shechochmaso merubah mima'asav - ein chochmaso miskayemes". That is: one whose deeds exceed his wisdom, his wisdom will endure and be preserved; and one whose wisdom exceeds his deeds, his wisdom does not endure.
The connection between the mishnayos according to the Bartenura:
The previous mishnah dealt with fear of sin, which focuses on the negative commandments - the Torah's prohibitions, which a person must be afraid to transgress. Our mishnah deals with the positive commandments, the things a person is commanded to do. A person's deeds, his performance of the mitzvos, must exceed his Torah learning, and this is the guarantee that his Torah will endure and be preserved over time.
The purpose of learning - the deed:
Other commentators broaden this idea and generalize it: the purpose of Torah study is inseparably bound up with the performance of the mitzvos. The verse says: "Ulmadtem osam ushmartem la'asosam" - you shall learn the words of the Torah, and you shall take care to fulfill them. In other words, Torah, which means instruction, is instruction for living: these are the ways in which a person is to live his life, and so action is necessarily bound up with it.
Therefore, one for whom action is not at the center of his learning, who does not connect what he has learned to the deed that must be carried out in the real world - "his wisdom does not endure", and that is a terrible failure.
The parable of one who sows and does not reap:
Rashi, and other commentators on the words of Chazal along with him, explains that the proper deed is the fruit that grows out of the toil of learning: the process of learning is the source, it is the tree, and the proper deed is the fruit that grows on it. One who studies the sugya but never arrives at the practical halachah and does not fulfill it, is like a man who sows his seed in his field and never harvests his crop: he invests all the labor so that he will have a field full of wheat, but he does not trouble himself to gather in the grain that has grown. So too the one who learns: he does all the work, and yet he does not hold the proper deed in his hands.
From here we learn that a person must at the very least ask himself: what is the practical halachah? What emerges from this mishnah, from this halachah or from this sugya as the bottom line, and how should he actually conduct himself. This perspective he must never lose.
And what about "Torah lishmah"?
Some will ask: surely one should learn Torah lishmah, for the sake of the Torah itself. That is not what "lishmah" means. The Rambam writes in Hilchos Teshuvah (chapter 10, halachah 5):
"Anyone who engages in Torah in order to receive reward, or so that misfortune should not come upon him - this is one who engages in it not for its own sake" - one who learns in order to receive reward, or in order not to be punished, his learning is called not for its own sake.
"And anyone who engages in it not out of fear and not to receive reward, but out of love for the Master of all the earth who commanded it - this is one who engages in it for its own sake" - the motive for his learning is love of the Holy One, blessed is He, and its subject is Hashem's will and His command, and this is the learning that is called lishmah.
This does not mean that the halachah and its observance are unimportant, or that there is no value in remembering it, learning it, knowing it and understanding it. Certainly not. It means that a person is driven to learn out of love of Hashem, but always with his eye on the deed. Chazal stress the importance of this principle in countless places, and our mishnah is one of them. Therefore a person must make this his concern and his effort: to know what emerges from his learning in practical halachah, and what he is actually supposed to do.
In summary: this is not a philosophy class, and we are not a group of Greeks contemplating lofty ideas. The subject of Torah is the correct deed, and a person must always ask that question, carry out the deeds and stay focused on them, and consider how to translate his learning into action. That is what will guarantee that "chochmaso miskayemes" - that his learning will be precious to him, will endure within him, and the Holy One, blessed is He, will preserve it for him. And if not, says the mishnah: "ein chochmaso miskayemes" - his wisdom will not endure, and he is destined to lose it.