In the previous section we worked through the Alter Rebbe's words about studying the wisdom of the nations, and the expression of our Sages that one must not make of them a "kardom," an axe. In this section we will look closely at the expression itself, point out the danger built into this path, and then clarify the Alter Rebbe's words about one who knows how to use these wisdoms in the service of Hashem.
Why specifically the example of an axe:
Why did the Alter Rebbe choose precisely the image of an axe? There are two ways to explain it. The first: the axe is the perfect illustration of earning "comfortably," with a margin. Among the tools a person works with, there are some that wear out quickly, and their depreciation eats into the profit, since they must constantly be replaced. The axe, by contrast, is a massive, unrefined tool; its wear is minimal and the work with it goes on without interruption. That is why it is the model for "to earn a comfortable living from them," for with a tool that is not axe-like there is loss, and then the living is not comfortable.
A second approach: the Alter Rebbe writes "an axe to cut with them," while the Mishnah has the expression "an axe to dig with it." The difference depends on how one understands the word kardom: some explain it as a digging tool and some as a cutting tool, and several meanings have been given for it. In any case, in both places the expression is brought for the very same reason.
There is another interesting point in the choice of the axe. A man working with an axe does not take pride in it and sees no value in it for its own sake. The axe itself gives him nothing; his whole grip on it and involvement with it are only for the result it will produce. There are means from which a person derives pleasure along the way as well; the axe is purely a means, and beyond its purpose there is nothing in it at all.
Accordingly, the permission applies to a person who is capable of studying the wisdom of the nations while it remains in his eyes nothing more than an axe: without being impressed by it and without enjoying it for its own sake. The moment a person takes pleasure in the wisdom itself, and not because of the purpose for which he studied it, there is already a matter of tumah, impurity, here. But for one who knows how to relate to it as an axe, there is no flaw in it.
A path with danger in it:
As long as a person does not stand in this relationship to it, the path is extremely dangerous. The Haskalah movement is well known; it wreaked havoc among the Jewish people and sought to uproot many from the proper path of clinging to Torah and mitzvos, with the claim that one must follow enlightenment. The Tzemach Tzedek, the third Rebbe, fought it with all his strength, and there is a booklet that tells the whole story: "The Tzemach Tzedek and the Haskalah Movement."
In that same period, one of the great leaders of Israel, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, also sought to fight the Haskalah. He took one of his most gifted students and said to him: "I am sending you to study all the wisdoms of the Haskalah, and you will show them that it is possible to study all of the Haskalah and remain a Jew who fears Heaven. They claim one must abandon religion for the sake of enlightenment; you will show them that one can have both." The end of the story is that the student stayed there. So this path carries a presumption of danger, and it is not simple at all.
Studying the sciences for the service of Hashem:
The Alter Rebbe adds a further possibility: "או שיודע להשתמש בהן לעבודת ה' או לתורתו, וזהו טעמו של הרמב"ם והרמב"ן ז"ל וסיעתן שעסקו בהן" - "or if he knows how to use them in the service of Hashem or for His Torah; and this was the reasoning of the Rambam and the Ramban, of blessed memory, and their school, who occupied themselves with them." That is, a person who knows how to use the wisdom itself for the service of Hashem or for His Torah. The Rambam, as is well known, occupied himself a great deal with many sciences, and so did the Ramban, and both of them did so for this reason.
Here we need to put the whole matter in order and understand why the Alter Rebbe cited specifically the Rambam, when there are many Tannaim and Amoraim about whom it is told that they knew the sciences and were great scholars in them.
As it appears in one of the Rebbe's letters, one can lay out all the possible levels in the study and knowledge of the wisdom of the nations. Broadly speaking there were five levels before the Rambam, and the Rambam added a sixth. Let us count them from the top down.
The first level - knowing the sciences from the Torah itself:
This is the highest level, and the rarest; only unique individuals belong to it. These are people who know all the wisdoms of the world from the Torah itself and have no need to open any outside book. They open the Torah and find everything in it, for "leis midi delo remiza b'Oraisa," there is nothing that is not hinted at in the Torah. Every wisdom in the world is found in the Torah; it is only that not every person has the clear eyes to open the Torah and find it all there.
An interesting example of this is brought in the Gemara. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya was able to establish that the gestation of a snake lasts seven years. The Sages tried to argue with him, and in the end, after repeated examinations, they too reached the conclusion that he was right, while he had needed no examination at all. They asked him how he knew this, and he answered that it is written in the Torah.
This was his reckoning: of the snake it says, "You are cursed more than all the cattle and more than every beast of the field." One must understand why both are mentioned, for if he is cursed more than the cattle, he is certainly cursed more than the beast. Rather, from here he derived the ratio: the cat, which is among the beasts, has a gestation of fifty two days; the donkey, which is among the cattle, has a gestation seven times that, about a year. And the same distance that lies between cattle and beast, by that distance the snake is removed from the cattle, so its gestation is seven times that of the donkey, which is seven years. It is all written in the verse; one only has to know how to read it.
The second level - sciences that the Torah commands one to learn:
Sometimes the Torah itself obligates a Jew to open the wisdoms of the nations and study them:
Establishing the month and the year: A beis din that examines the witnesses who come before it must be expert in all the calculations of the courses of the sun, the moon and the spheres, to the point that there are authorities who count the mitzvos who hold that this is one of the six hundred and thirteen mitzvos.
The laws of idolatry: In the time when idolatry was widespread, and testimony about its worshippers was brought before the court in order to punish them, a judge sitting on the Sanhedrin had to be expert in all the practices of idolatry; otherwise how would he know whether the act in question counted as idolatry or not?
Knowledge of languages: A judge has to hear the testimony directly from the person's own mouth and not through a translator, since a translation can distort. Hence a judge needs to know many languages.
Greek wisdom: At the end of Maseches Sotah it is related that the family of Rabban Gamliel, who were close to the government, were told to study Greek wisdom, so that they would be fluent in it and have a common language with the rulers, and be able to serve as advocates for the good of the Jewish people.
A person who studies the sciences in this way has no impurity at all in his study, and it is not a matter of the three impure kelipos; it is literally holiness, since he is doing exactly what is required of him.
The third level - studying at a time when one is free from Torah:
The Midrash relates that Shmuel was a great expert in astrology. Shmuel himself expounded the verse "It is not in heaven": all those whose occupation is with heavenly matters, the Torah is not found among them. They said to him: but you are a great astrologer, expert in all the wisdom of astrology, and at the same time you are great in Torah. How does that fit together? He answered them that he studied astrology in the bathhouse; in his words, "at a time when I was free from Torah, when I would enter the bathhouse." In a place where one is forbidden to study Torah and even to think about it, he used the time to study astrology. He was not commanded in this study, but since he learned it precisely at a time when it is forbidden to think words of Torah, seemingly there is no matter of kelipah in it.
The fourth level - study for the sake of understanding Torah:
A person who goes to study the wisdom of the nations not because he was commanded to, and not at a time when he is free from Torah, but because without them he will not understand a particular matter in Torah.
An example: it is told of Rav that he left the yeshivah for a year and a half and went to stay out in the field with shepherds, so that they would teach him the entire structure of an animal's body, its internal and external organs. What made him invest a year and a half in this study? In order to understand the laws of the firstborn animal: to permit a firstborn for ordinary slaughter it must have a blemish that does not pass, an irreversible defect; but if the blemish is temporary and the firstborn may return to its sound state, it is forbidden to treat it as ordinary meat. And who decides whether the blemish is temporary or permanent? Only an expert. Rav wanted to be an expert in firstborn animals, so that he would know how to rule for whoever came before him.
There can be a situation where a chicken is brought before the rav with a needle found in it after slaughter, to determine whether it is treif. And the rav says: if this organ is the gizzard, then the halachah is such and such, and if this organ is the windpipe, then the halachah is such and such... In other words, the rav does not know what a gizzard looks like and what a windpipe looks like; he only knows that the poskim say this and that about the windpipe and the gizzard... Therefore the rav must devote part of his time and go to the slaughterhouse to learn what the gizzard and the lungs look like, for otherwise he will not understand the halachah. It emerges that a person who goes to study the sciences because he needs them in order to understand matters of Torah, his study too is legitimate.
In summary: In this section we learned that the axe was chosen as the example because it is purely a means, with no pride in it and no pleasure from it for its own sake, and that is how a person must relate to the wisdom of the nations. The moment he takes pleasure in the wisdom itself, the matter of impurity has already entered, and that is why this path carries a presumption of danger. We also learned the Alter Rebbe's words about one who knows how to use these wisdoms for the service of Hashem and for His Torah, which was the reasoning of the Rambam and the Ramban, and we began counting the levels in the study of the wisdom of the nations: knowing them from the Torah itself, studying them because the Torah commands it, studying them at a time when one is free from Torah, and studying them in order to understand matters of Torah.
In the next section we will continue with the fifth level and arrive at the sixth, the Rambam's own innovation, from which it will become clear why the Alter Rebbe cited specifically the Rambam and the Ramban and their school.