The Meaning of Leshma
This chapter reflects on the term leshma and what the word means. During the author's time at the yeshiva, the term has thus become a way to gather together and ponder on a range of moments that display the productive and agonizing tension between goal-oriented behavior and actions that are devoted to their own moment. The chapter suggests that the focus on leshma was fostered by a passage of Talmud, which the author happened to encounter just a couple of weeks into his kollel year. It explains that the notion of leshma — in the “larger” sense of studying or doing anything for its own sake, and not as a means to an end — also echoes the threatened and perhaps vanishing understanding of a “liberal education” as worthwhile in its own right. Ultimately, the chapter shares a set of anecdotes and musings that the word continues to evoke, and perhaps that will serve better than any definition could.