From Crisis to Clarity: Why We Study Torah

From Crisis to Clarity: Why We Study Torah
By Rabbi Sivan Rotholz

As a teen, I almost walked away from Judaism when I encountered traditions that were not always kind to women. I discovered that, historically, women had often been excluded from Jewish study and leadership, relegated to the home, sometimes even controlled and subjugated. “If this is the case,” I wondered, “why am I here?” But instead of giving in to despair or apathy, I turned to Torah. I read the stories of every woman in the Hebrew Bible, and while I found plenty to ruffle my young feminist feathers, I also found stories of inspiration and strength. I learned that Hagar was the first to name God. That Rebecca introduced us to the concept of consent. That the women of Exodus risked their lives to defy Pharoah. That Miriam and Deborah were renowned leaders and prophets. I read Judith Plaskow, Rachel Adler, Tamar Ross, Miki Raver, and Tikva Frymer-Kensky, and instead of finding easy answers to the question of women’s place in Judaism, I discovered deeper truths about myself.

In this week's Torah portion, Parshat Toldot, Rebecca is pregnant with twins. "The children struggled in her womb," our parsha says, "and she asked, 'If this is so, why do I exist?' She went to inquire of God."

What does it mean that Rebecca "went to inquire of God"?

Our Rabbis taught that this meant she went to the beit midrash — the house of study.^[1] When Rebecca questioned her very existence, she turned to Jewish learning, to Torah – just like I did.

Many of us today are experiencing a personal sense of crisis. Whether struggling in our careers or relationships, with family dynamics or community tensions, with public discourse or questions of identity, sometimes it's simply hard to get up and face another day. Maybe you find yourself careening between flashes of faith and overwhelm. Maybe your heart is shattered like the glass under the chuppah, a glass once forged in the fires of hope and beauty, but now crushed as a reminder that we carry not only joy, but grief. When we really feel the weight of something, when we have to confront the fragility of our lives, we ask, as Rebecca did: "If this is so, why do I exist?"

But we can also follow her lead and turn to Torah. It doesn't always provide easy answers, but it always contains insight. Sometimes, unexpected insight. As Mary Oliver writes: "Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift."

When Rebecca struggled, God told her: "Two nations are in your womb, two separate peoples shall issue from your body. One people shall be mightier than the other, and the older shall serve the younger."

God doesn’t sugarcoat what’s coming. Rebecca is offered only truth. As Rav Avigayil Halpern teaches, “Our sacred texts aren't here to soothe us; they're here to tell us the truth and make us look more deeply at the truths within ourselves."^[2]

The word "Rabbi" means "my teacher." But one of the greatest joys I find in this work is that I never stop learning — from my research, from my students, from tradition. To be a teacher and a rabbi is to be a lifelong learner. And this is also what it means to be a Jew.

The Rabbis identified essential elements of Jewish living: honoring parents, performing kindness, embodying hospitality, visiting the sick, accompanying the dead, praying, pursuing justice, pursuing peace. Yet they taught that "the study of Torah is greater than them all."^[3]

Why?

Rabbi Akiva taught that the purpose of study is "lilmod al menat la'asot"—"to learn in order to act."^[4] Study, our tradition teaches, is most important because it leads to action.^[5]

If you feel helpless to heal what is broken, Torah reminds us what each of us can do. Even Rebecca, after asking "why am I here," went on to ensure that God's plan unfolded, that Judaism continued lador vador — from generation to generation. Thousands of years later, we exist because she didn't succumb to apathy or fear; she turned to Torah. Rabbi Elliot Kukla says, "Finding ourselves in sacred texts is an act of survival."^[6] This was true for Rebecca. And it can be true for us.

What do we learn when we engage and wrestle with our sacred texts and traditions? We learn that we “are not required to complete the work, but neither are [we] free to desist from it."^[7] Jewish study reminds us that we must do our part — that we cannot surrender to apathy — and that we need not do it all.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t walk away from Judaism in my teens. Instead, through study, I discovered how we overcome hardship. And, well, you know where Torah led me. I wonder where it might lead you.

Torah study cultivates the ability to hold multiple truths and contradictory interpretations simultaneously — an essential muscle for contributing nuance to our world. Jewish learning — as I know many in this congregation have already discovered— fosters within us resilience, and a constant reminder that our story and our people are still here – strong, and proud – thousands of years after the first destruction that might have ended us, and after every hardship that has befallen us since. Our Torah, our Talmud, our debates have withstood unimaginable tests — and endured — and so have we.

This is why study stands above all else. It doesn't just tell us what to do — it transforms who we are. It turns overload into agency, helplessness into purpose, existential crisis into sacred direction.

So if there are moments when you ask, like Rebecca, "What am I here for?" — know that Torah won't erase the question or the struggle. But it just might give you what it gave her: clarity about the truth of where you are, wisdom to guide your choices, and the fortitude to act even when the path forward isn't certain. Like Rebecca, you may not find solace, but you will discover something more valuable — the capacity to shape what comes next.

Torah study is not an escape from the world — it’s the workshop where moral courage is forged. It's a reckoning with the world as it is — and as it could be. It empowers us to discover not just why we are here, but how to live with purpose, meaning, and one another.

Shabbat Shalom.

^[1] Genesis Rabbah 63:6

^[2] https://www.myjewishlearning.c...

^[3] Mishneh Peah 1:1, Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 127a

^[4] Berakhot 17a

^[5] Kiddushin 40b

^[6] “Creating a Trans-Friendly Mikveh”

^[7] Pirkei Avot