Har'eini Na et Ruchaniyuti...

Finding one’s individual portion in Torah Despite the fact that the Torah speaks to each of us individually, addressing our every experience, every event to befall us, our every metamorphosis of being, not everyone is privileged to understand the Torah on such a personal level. Not everyone merits to recognize the way in which Torah speaks to his individual mind, heart and personality.

A person needs to recognize what belongs to him, which aspects of Torah are relevant to his life, which part he is to implement at any given moment. But not everyone knows this. Some individuals (even great ones) were said to have been told to concern themselves only with a aparticular aspect of the Torah and no other. It is told that following the death of Rabbi Moses Cordovero, Rabbi Joseph Karo went to learn Kabbalah from Rabbi Isaac Luria (the Holy Ari) and kept falling asleep when the Ari was speaking, until the latter told him that this was not his portion in the Torah, that the holy Ari’s kabbalah was not for him. The Ari is also said to have told Rabbi Moses Alshech that he should not involve himself in Kabbalah but in homiletic discourse, as this was his portion in the Torah, and Rabbi Alshech indeed wrote his book Torat Moshe in this genre of Torah learning.

Some explain the prayer, “grant us our portion in Torah,” as a request not only to be granted a portion in Torah but also to be granted the knowledge of which portion is ours. Every Jew can and must study Torah, but if he concerns himself with aspects of Torah that are not truly his, then, although he has certainly fulfilled the commandment to study Torah, he fails to realize the ultimate potential of his soul in regard to Torah study.

Rav Steinsaltz, Opening the Tanya, 28