"Where there is Torah it sustains the world"
About this Quote
A spare sentence with a maximal claim: Torah is not just a book or a practice, but an infrastructure. Ovadia Yosef frames Jewish learning as world-sustaining labor, a moral ecology without which society frays. The line works because it refuses to argue on modern terms (utility, productivity, individual fulfillment) and instead asserts a different metric of value: spiritual seriousness as public good.
The intent is pastoral and political at once. As a preeminent Sephardi rabbi and a builder of Shas, Yosef spoke to communities often treated as peripheral in Israeli life. “Where there is Torah” is a location marker as much as a metaphor: in the yeshiva, in the synagogue, in homes disciplined by halakha, there is stability. Torah becomes a claim to dignity and centrality for religious Jews, especially Mizrahi and Sephardi populations whose tradition he elevated against an Ashkenazi establishment.
The subtext is also a defense against the modern state’s priorities. Israel’s debates over conscription, secular education, and public funding for religious institutions lurk behind the aphorism. By describing Torah as sustaining “the world,” Yosef implies that the student with a gemara is not exempt from civic responsibility but carrying a different kind of burden. It’s a counter-narrative to the soldier-as-default-hero: the scholar is doing metaphysical national service.
In Jewish tradition, the idea echoes rabbinic teachings that creation endures by merit of Torah. Yosef compresses that theology into a slogan fit for contemporary argument: if you want a livable society, you don’t merely tolerate Torah; you invest in it.
The intent is pastoral and political at once. As a preeminent Sephardi rabbi and a builder of Shas, Yosef spoke to communities often treated as peripheral in Israeli life. “Where there is Torah” is a location marker as much as a metaphor: in the yeshiva, in the synagogue, in homes disciplined by halakha, there is stability. Torah becomes a claim to dignity and centrality for religious Jews, especially Mizrahi and Sephardi populations whose tradition he elevated against an Ashkenazi establishment.
The subtext is also a defense against the modern state’s priorities. Israel’s debates over conscription, secular education, and public funding for religious institutions lurk behind the aphorism. By describing Torah as sustaining “the world,” Yosef implies that the student with a gemara is not exempt from civic responsibility but carrying a different kind of burden. It’s a counter-narrative to the soldier-as-default-hero: the scholar is doing metaphysical national service.
In Jewish tradition, the idea echoes rabbinic teachings that creation endures by merit of Torah. Yosef compresses that theology into a slogan fit for contemporary argument: if you want a livable society, you don’t merely tolerate Torah; you invest in it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Faith |
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