Torah in Your Innards

The Tshortkover Rebbe told of a Jew who came to the holy Rizhiner with a complaint. He felt that the light and warmth of Torah gave him life only while he was actively learning. As soon as he finished and closed the sefer, he felt nothing. The Rizhiner answered with a mashal. When a person walks at night through a storm, each flash of lightning lights up the sky and his surroundings for only a moment, and then the darkness returns. But if he carries a candle or a torch, it lights his way and drives away the darkness for the whole journey. So it is with learning Torah. If a person's learning is fleeting, momentary, fragmented and by rote, it can give him light and life only while he is actively studying. But if he learns with true kavanah, until the verse “Your Torah is in my innards” (Tehillim 40:9) is fulfilled in him, his body is purified and sanctified, and he feels the Torah at every moment.