My Soul Yearns for Torah
When his colleagues challenged him for not marrying, Ben Azzai answered with the deepest truth of his life: his soul longed only for Torah.
It is told that the sages once discussed the great mitzvah of having children. Each one spoke of how serious it is to neglect it. Ben Azzai spoke most strongly of all. A person who does not fulfill this mitzvah, he said, is as though he sheds blood and diminishes the image of Hashem in the world.
His colleagues turned to him. There are those who teach well and do well, they said, and there are those who do well but do not teach well. But you teach well and do not do well. You speak so beautifully about this mitzvah, yet you yourself have never married.
Ben Azzai did not argue with them, and he did not make light of the mitzvah. He simply told them the truth of his heart. What can I do? he said. My soul yearns for Torah. Let the world be kept going by others.
Ben Azzai never made light of the mitzvah; a moment before, he had taught its importance more forcefully than anyone. His answer was simply the truth of his own heart, a soul so bound up with Torah that it could not turn to anything else. When he passed away, the Mishnah said, the diligent ceased from the world.
Ben Azzai's honesty is part of his greatness. He did not pretend to be what he was not, and he did not lower the mitzvah to excuse himself. He named his longing plainly, and he spent his whole life fulfilling it.
Source: Gemara, Yevamos 63b (Talmud Bavli), the exchange also in Tosefta Yevamos 8:5 (Sefaria numbering), where the challenge comes from Rebbi Elazar ben Azarya; English: The William Davidson Talmud (Koren–Steinsaltz translation), Yevamos 63b. 'The diligent ceased': Mishnah Sotah 9:15.
Ask yourself honestly which part of Torah makes your heart beat faster: a certain sefer, a parsha, a halacha topic, mussar or Tehillim. This week, give that longing a fixed place in your day, even ten minutes, at a time when nothing will interrupt you. Put your phone in another room for those minutes. A small seder learned with real yearning can become the most alive part of your day.