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Noam Elimelech · Parshas Lech Lecha · Maamar יד From the Torah ofRebbe Elimelech of Lizhenskרבי אלימלך מליז'נסקProfile ›

I Am Your Shield: Torah Protects, Learning Earns

“I am a shield for you; your reward is very great.” If Hashem is already shielding Avram, what is the great reward for? And why should shielding and reward be spoken of in one breath, as if the one explained the other?

Bereishis 15:1
אַחַר הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה הָיָה דְבַר־יְהוָה אֶל־אַבְרָם בַּמַּחֲזֶה לֵאמֹר אַל־תִּירָא אַבְרָם אָנֹכִי מָגֵן לָךְ שְׂכָרְךָ הַרְבֵּה מְאֹד
After these things the word of Hashem came to Avram in a vision, saying, “Do not fear, Avram; I am a shield for you; your reward is very great.”
44“I am a shield for you …” can be explained another way as well, as a word about the Torah a person has learned, in the spirit of the Gemara: “A mitzvah, while one is engaged in it, shields and saves; Torah, both while one is engaged in it and while one is not, shields and saves.”1 So once a person has learned Torah, the Torah shields him even at times when he is not learning. When he learns again, he earns a reward for this new learning, because what he learned before already shields him, and the second learning is not needed for his protection. This is Anochi, “I” [which opens the Ten Commandments]: it hints at the holy Torah. The Torah “is a shield for you,” and that is why “your reward is very great”: as we have just seen, for every single time you learn, a reward is yours. This is easy to understand.
עוֹד יֵשׁ לְפָרֵשׁ "אָנֹכִי מָגֵן לָךְ כּוּ׳", פֵּירוּשׁוֹ ע"ד דְּאִיתָא בַּגְּמָרָא 'מִצְוָה בְּעִידָּנָא דְּעָסֵיק בָּהּ מַגְּנָא וּמַצְּלָא, תּוֹרָה בֵּין בְּעִידָּנָא דְּעָסֵיק בָּהּ וּבֵין בְּעִידָּנָא דְּלָא עָסֵיק בָּהּ מַגְּנָא וּמַצְּלָא', וְנִמְצָא כְּשֶׁלּוֹמֵד תּוֹרָה פַּעַם אַחַת הַתּוֹרָה מְגִינָּה עָלָיו גַּם בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁאֵינוֹ לוֹמֵד, וּכְשֶׁלּוֹמֵד שׁוּב אֲזַי מַגִּיעַ לוֹ שָׂכָר בְּעַד הַלִּימּוּד הַזֶּה, כִּי מַה שֶׁלָּמַד כְּבָר הוּא מֵגִין עָלָיו וְאֵין צָרִיךְ הַלִּימּוּד הַשֵּׁנִי לְהָגֵן עָלָיו. וְזֶהוּ "אָנֹכִי", רֶמֶז לְהַתּוֹרָה הַקְּדוֹשָׁה, הוּא "מָגֵן לָךְ" וְלָכֵן "שְׂכָרְךָ הַרְבֵּה מְאוֹד" כנ"ל עֲבוּר כָּל לִימּוּד וְלִימּוּד שֶׁמַּגִּיעַ לְךָ שָׂכָר. וק"ל.
  1. Sotah 21a, the words of Rav Yosef. ↩

Sources here

In shortTorah once learned goes on shielding a person, so each new session of learning earns its own reward: “I am a shield for you; your reward is very great.”
The maamar as a whole

R’ Elimelech offers another reading of “I am a shield for you,” built on the Gemara’s teaching that a mitzvah shields and saves while one is engaged in it, but Torah shields and saves both while one learns and when one does not. So once a person has learned Torah, it goes on protecting him even when he is not learning, and when he learns again, that new learning is not needed for his protection: it earns its own reward. Anochi, the word that opens the Ten Commandments, hints at the Torah. The Torah “is a shield for you,” and therefore “your reward is very great”: for every single time you learn, a reward is yours.

Takeaway

The Torah we have learned does not leave us when we close the sefer; it goes on guarding us through the day. So we can return to learning again and again: yesterday's learning already protects us, and today's earns a reward of its own, “very great.”

Related learning

Sources he cites

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Translated with AI assistance. Sources and summaries were checked by a separate AI review; not yet reviewed by a human editor.

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