Maharal on Study vs. Practice

In classical rabbinic sources, one can find a tension between the value of the study of Torah vs. the value of practice - i.e. the observance of commandments. The Talmud (Moed Katan 9b) discusses the question of whether a person should interrupt the study of Torah in order to perform one of the commandments, if such an opportunity presents itself. The Talmud concludes that in general, one should only pause his study for the performance of a religious obligation that he can only do himself, but not for an obligation which can be done by others. So you shouldn't interrupt your Torah study to run outside and help an old lady cross the street if there are other people around, but if you're the only one there then you are obligated to get up from your desk and go outside.

The reason for this, Maharal writes, is that - on the one hand - engagement with the Torah is an encounter with the intellectual/eternal/divine, which is far superior to any sort of interaction in the temporal physical world. On the other hand, when a person is faced with an obligation that only he can fulfill, he must fulfill it, otherwise he is lacking in something basic to his humanity. Here Maharal references the Talmudic maxim that the 248 positive commandments correspond to the "248 limbs of the human body". Failure to fulfill one's obligation is tantamount to missing a limb, which is something that a person has to rectify before they engage with higher spiritual realms through the study of Torah.

Maharal cites another passage about the tension between study and practice, this time from Kiddushin 30b. The Talmud relates three views pertaining to the question: "which is greater, study or practice"?

Rabbi Tarfon: Practice is greater.
Rabbi Akiva: Study is greater.
The sages: Study is greater, because study leads to practice.

The Talmud then cites the view of Rabbi Yossi, who seemingly agrees with Rabbi Akiva:

"Rabbi Yossi said: Great is the value of Torah, because the Torah was given 40 years before [the relevance of the commandment of] separating challah (a portion of the dough that is set aside and given to a priest when baking bread), 54 years before the commandment of taking tithes (portions of raw grain that need to be given to the priest, Levite, or poor people), and 104 years before  the Jubilee year (the 50th year after 7 cycles of 7 sabbatical years, at which point slaves are freed and land returns to its ancestral owners)." 

In other words, the Torah was given in the dessert, long before many of the commandments were relevant from the standpoint of practical observance, because many commandments assume the presence of the agriculture economy in the land of Israel, which wasn't in full swing until many years after the people of Israel left the dessert and entered Canaan.

Maharal explains each of the views presented, starting with Rabbi Tarfon. Similar to his comment before, Maharal explains Rabbi Tarfon's view as relating to the fact that the observance of commandments is a basic need; something man needs to do in order to attain completion as a human being. What about Torah study? Maharal here gives an analogy, comparing the observance of commandments to bread and Torah to wine. Even though wine is the more expensive and a more highly-prized product, says the Maharal, bread is still the basic staple of human sustenance. In the same way, even though Torah study may be more valuable in that it allows man to attain intellectual heights, the observance of commandments is more essential. Rabbi Akiva, on the other hand, thought to attribute  more importance to the "wine" - the study of Torah - which connects man to the world of the eternal.

The view of the sages, in the Maharal's interpretation, is simply that the Torah has two benefits: not only does it connect man to the spiritual/intellectual plane, it also teaches him the proper way to act in terms of the observance  of the commandments. So in this sense Torah study isn't just "wine", it has elements of the "bread" as well.

Finally we arrive at the view of Rabbi Yossi, which the Maharal elaborates upon in greater detail. Maharal first notes that all the commandments mentioned by Rabbi Yossi have the element of "sanctity", that is, challah, tithes, and the Jubilee year are all called "holy" at various points in the written Torah. Maharal claims that these commandments are exemplars of different aspects of the physical world that can attain sanctity.

Challah, which is an obligation that pertains to flour and water that have mixed together to become dough, is analogous to the matter we encounter on a regular basis - that is, complex matter, combined of multiple atomic parts. Food, paper, trees, humans, etc. all consist of multiple "simples" combined together, just like dough consists  of flour and water. The Midrash explicitly compares man to dough, in fact; God's making of man from the earth in Genesis is seen by Bereishit Rabbah as akin to a woman kneading flour and water together to make dough. However, man is more than just a complex object; he is a sanctified complex object, comparable to the challah which is separated from the dough after it is kneaded and declared holy.

Tithing, which is an obligation pertaining to raw grain, corresponds to simple, atomic objects, just like raw grain. The commandment to separate tithes demonstrates the ability of atomic objects to also become sanctified.

Finally, the Jubilee year is an example of temporal - as opposed to material - sanctification. The Jubilee comes as the 50th year after 7 of the 7-year sabbatical cycles, the sabbatical cycles representing temporal existence and the 50th year representing something that connects to temporal existence but also surpasses it, as the Jubilee year is not considered part of the 7-year cycle. So the Jubilee year has one foot inside of time and one foot outside of time, so to speak.

According to Maharal, Rabbi Yossi has moved from complex objects (challah) to simple\atomic objects (tithes) to the edge of temporal existence itself (the Jubilee year). However, Torah precedes all of these things, because it exists entirely in the intellectual domain, and is thus superior to anything that is constrained by matter and time.