There’s a famous Midrash that says that the reason Hashem didn’t reveal the value of each mitzvah is because if he did then everyone would just do that mitzvah and neglect the rest. The Midrash gives a moshul about a king who hired workers to work his orchard. He didn’t reveal the value of each work so that the workers wouldn’t neglect the entire orchard and just work on the most valuable part.
Hashem wants the Torah of the entire Jewish people. Every one of us has a special tafkid that we came down here to do. Part of that is our unique cheilek of the Torah. There’s a bracha we say when we see 600,000 Jews together. The Gemara explains that it is because each one’s mind is different than the other one’s. You can’t replace me and I can’t replace you.
The entire Torah should be accessible to everyone. The entire Torah includes every chiddush, kasha, teretz, ha’ara, moshul, pshat, etc. thought of by anyone, regardless of their level, as long as it is within the guidelines of our Mesora.
In the Yeshiva World, Torah grows. That means if someone came up with a chiddush it will spread among his chaveirim, and they will pass it on to others, eventually. There are countless ideas I heard from different Rabbeiyim and chaveirim that keep coming up, somewhere in my learning, or in a hashkafic discussion.
When we talk about publishing something, we are entering into a different world. We are entering into a world that is guided by different principles.
I think the example you brought about music is a great one. There’s an interview with Benny Friedman on Hidabroot with Meir K. where Benny bemoans the state of the current Jewish Music Industry. He recalls the “good old days” of Jewish Music where someone would write a nice song, they would record it, and people would take time to learn it, to let it grow on them. Now, he says, it’s an extremely aggressive business where the people in charge are only interested in boom boom bang bang, that’ll earn a lot of money fast.
I hope that the Jewish publishing industry hasn’t become like that.
What we need is a system that stores, organizes, and dispenses all of the Torah that’s out there. There are many websites that have made a huge start by publishing a vast amount of classic works and contemporary giants. Even sifting through that is a formidable task, if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for.
Imagine something like Amazon. You type in what you’re looking for and 10,000 results pop up. On the left side there are little buttons that you press that narrow down your choices until you’re down to a handful of items that you can look into.
It’s like once in a while, one of my friends will come over to me and say, “I’ve got a vort that you specifically would like”. And they’re right usually.
Imagine if we were all like that, all the time. Instead of getting emails about giraffes in Africa, you would get a notification every time someone somewhere came up with a new teretz on your kasha that you’ve had for 15 years. And imagine if it was all free.
I appreciate the time everyone took to address my question.
