Pirkei Avos, chapter 6, mishnah 2. Here we meet Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, who was either a late Tanna or an early Amora - he may well have been a student of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, which places him at the very end of the period of the Mishnah or at the beginning of the period of the Amoraim. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi was one of the great tzaddikim of his generation, and the Gemara in Kesubos (77) says that a rainbow was never seen in his lifetime because of his righteousness, since his merit protected everyone in his generation.
His words in this mishnah are two sides of one coin: on the one hand, someone who is able to learn Torah and does not learn commits a truly disgraceful act and insults the Torah; on the other hand, those who occupy themselves with Torah are lifted up and elevated. From here we learn that a person must seize the opportunity and learn as much Torah as he possibly can.
"Bechol yom vayom bas kol yotzeis mei'har Chorev":
The mishnah opens: "Amar Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, bechol yom vayom bas kol yotzeis mei'har Chorev umachrezes ve'omeres" - Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said, every single day a bas kol goes forth from Mount Chorev and proclaims and says. A bas kol is a kind of heavenly voice, but it is not prophecy. Prophecy itself is called a "voice," as the verse says: "and he heard the voice speaking to him" - Moshe Rabbeinu heard the voice speaking to him. A bas kol is, so to speak, a daughter of that voice, an offshoot of the heavenly voice and of the prophetic message, a kind of echo of it. It is the tzaddikim who hear it, and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi reports what he heard.
This proclamation goes forth from Mount Chorev, which is Mount Sinai; Chorev is another name for the mountain. The Gemara in Shabbos (89) asks why it is called Chorev, and answers: "shey'rdah churbah le'ovdei kochavim" - that destruction went down from there to the idolaters. A similar idea emerges here as well: from Mount Chorev goes forth an indictment against those who do not accept the Torah and do not learn it. The difference is that the Gemara there is speaking about the nations of the world, while here we are speaking about Jews who are able to learn Torah and do not do so.
And what is the proclamation? "Oy lahem labriyos mei'elbonah shel Torah" - woe to people because of the insult and the injury that the Torah suffers: people could have been learning, and they are not learning.
"Shekol mi she'eino oseik baTorah nikra nazuf" - anyone who is able to learn Torah and chooses not to learn is called nazuf, rebuked. A nezifah is a rebuke and a punishment, like a person who says to his friend: I do not even want to look at you, go to your room and stay there with no dinner. It is a kind of distancing on a low level - not full excommunication, but on the threshold of the lowest degree of a ban. The one who is nazuf is the one pushed away, whom the Holy One, Blessed is He, distances, and this is a direct consequence of his own actions: he brought it upon himself. He had it in his power to learn the Torah that elevates him, and by not learning he effectively chose to distance himself from closeness to the Holy One, Blessed is He, as it were.
Why is this considered an insult to the Torah?
Two approaches emerge in the words of the commentators, and two parables illustrate them:
The Torah as a precious gift that was rejected: A young man becomes engaged to a young woman and gives her a beautiful, expensive ring that he invested a great deal in purchasing, and she has no interest in wearing it - he is hurt: I bought you this beautiful ring, so why aren't you wearing it? So too the Torah, as it were: it is the instrument the Holy One, Blessed is He, used to create the world as the pinnacle of existence, and everything that is close and beloved to Him, so to speak, is contained within it. The Holy One, Blessed is He, gave us something utterly unique, and a lack of interest in it is a tremendous insult.
The Torah as the ticket to the World to Come: The Torah is the way to leave this world and reach the World to Come, to realize one's potential and build a real and lasting connection with the Holy One, Blessed is He, a connection that grants eternity. This is the reward: the ability to transform ourselves from mere flesh and blood into a person who used the physical world in order to cling to the Holy One, Blessed is He, and all the instructions and pathways for doing so are contained in the Torah. Someone who has no interest in learning Torah, in being changed by it, in understanding it and connecting through it to the Holy One, Blessed is He, is like someone who has no interest in doing anything with his life: he chooses to wallow in this world and be imprisoned in it, and he undermines the very purpose of his creation. This too is an insult to the Torah, which is his ticket out, and therefore he is called nazuf.
The verse the mishnah brings as its source is a surprising one, since it does not prove the point about rebuke but rather serves as an analogy. It says in Mishlei: "Nezem zahav be'af chazir, ishah yafah vesaras ta'am" - a gold ring in a pig's snout, and a beautiful woman who has lost her good sense. The idea is that something beautiful by its very nature - in the verse, the gold ring or the beautiful woman, and in the analogy, the Torah scholar.
"Charus al haluchos":
From here emerges a further point, focusing on that second idea - the missed opportunity: the Torah is our means of transforming ourselves and connecting to Hashem, and yet a person ignores it. The verse speaks of the Tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written - the first set of the Ten Commandments, inscribed on the first Tablets that Moshe Rabbeinu brought down from Mount Sinai the first time. The Tablets were made by Hashem Himself, and the writing on them was, as it were, in His own handwriting. The Gemara describes a miraculous, wondrous aspect of it: it could be read from all four directions. This writing was engraved into the Tablets.
Seemingly it should have said that the writing was engraved into the Tablets, so why does the verse say "engraved upon the Tablets"? That extra word - "upon" - opens the door to a derashah, in which the Sages find a second meaning in the verse. And since there are no vowels in the Torah, instead of reading "charus" - engraved, one may read "cheirus" - freedom. Hence the famous derashah: do not read charus but cheirus. There is a freedom, an existential freedom, that becomes available to a person through the Tablets - that is, through his attachment to and investment in Torah, symbolized by the Tablets of the Ten Commandments. As the Mishnah puts it: "ein lecha ben chorin ela mi she'osek b'talmud Torah" - there is no truly free man, free in a spiritual and existential sense, other than one who occupies himself with the study of Torah.
There are two basic approaches to this freedom:
Rising above the challenges of the world: Torah study lifts a person above the difficulties and challenges of this world. We already learned this in the Mishnah in chapter 3, mishnah 5: "Whoever accepts upon himself the yoke of Torah, they remove from him the yoke of government and the yoke of worldly affairs" - the yoke of government and the yoke of worldly affairs, meaning earning a living, are lifted off him. The physical, material and worldly worries are removed from one who is committed to Torah study, and he becomes a free man because he has been released from these yokes.
Release from the yetzer: It is not necessarily external forces, the nations of the world, that enslave us, but rather the yetzer hara within us, our shortcomings and character flaws. The way to overcome them, to acquire the right values and to rise above jealousy, desire, the pursuit of honor and preoccupation with material things - is Torah study. By occupying himself with Torah, a person frees himself from the deficiencies that enslave him spiritually, and becomes enlightened and elevated. The ticket to freedom, then, is the Torah - the freedom that comes through the Tablets, which a person acquires through Torah study.
The other side of the coin - "and whoever occupies himself with the study of Torah is elevated":
The first half of the coin dealt with one who is able to learn Torah and does not learn. Now the Mishnah says: "v'chol mi she'osek b'talmud Torah harei zeh mis'aleh" - one who occupies himself with Torah lifts and elevates himself. Here too a verse is brought by way of derashah, from a poetic passage in Parashas Chukas (Bamidbar 21:18-19): "umimidbar mattanah, umimattanah Nachaliel, umiNachaliel Bamos".
According to the plain meaning of the verse: Israel received the gift - Miriam's well - which traveled with them in the wilderness and accompanied them as far as Nachaliel. A 'nachal' is a kind of wadi, a riverbed, and 'Nachaliel' means the riverbed of Hashem; the gift accompanied them to the valleys, and from the valleys - "umiNachaliel Bamos" - to the high places on the hills.
The derashah, however, interprets the gift as the gift of the Torah that comes from the wilderness, at Mount Sinai, and 'Nachaliel' from the word nachalah, an inheritance - the inheritance of Hashem, the legacy that He bequeathed and transmitted to us. First one receives the gift from Hashem in the wilderness; and from the gift - 'Nachaliel': one who invests in Torah merits the legacy that Hashem wishes to bequeath; and from Nachaliel - 'Bamos': a person rises to the high places, having lifted himself up to be elevated above all of creation.
In summary: In this mishnah Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi presented two sides of a single coin. Every day a heavenly voice goes forth from Mount Chorev and proclaims the insult done to the Torah: one who is able to learn and does not learn is called rebuked, for he has rejected the precious gift that Hashem gave us and the ticket in his hand to rise out of this world. On the other side, "charus al haluchos" is expounded as cheirus - there is no free man other than one who occupies himself with Torah study, whether because the Torah removes from him the yoke of government and the yoke of worldly affairs, or because it frees him from the chains of his yetzer and his shortcomings. And from here the continuation: one who occupies himself with Torah study is elevated, and from the gift to the inheritance to the high places - he lifts himself above all of creation.