DEUT393 Ben Bag-Bag said: Turn and turn about in it [the Torah] for everything is in it; and within it shall you look, and grow old and gray over it; and o not stir from it; for there is no better portion for you than this. Pirkei Avot, Perek V, mishnah 25. At the very least, this is a promise of longevity: If Torah is your main concern, you will be blessed with a long life. This was already implied by Solomon, when he said of Torah, "Long life is in her right hand" (Proverbs 3:16). But note that uv'leh (turn gray), actually means to fall apart, disintegrate. Torah study does weaken a person in a certain sense, or cause him to "fall apart." People who acknowledge no Creator develop an attitude of self-sufficiency and arrogance, and claim (as Scripture puts it), "My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth" [this verse]. But serious, penetrating Torah study evokes an inner struggle against the slightest trace of such arrogance or notion of self-sufficiency, and it becomes a lifelong battle. So the Talmud itself attests that "Torah weakens the strength of a man" (T.B. Sanhedrin 26b). The more he learns and absorbs, the more does the Torah demand surrender of arrogance and obedience to the Divinity that permeates human existence. In this sense, Torah breaks a man's strength until uv'leh, he falls apart. ... All grow old in time. But the person whose life centers about the golf course or the night club is truly lost when, at eighty, he can no longer indulge in his pastimes. If the student immersed a lifetime in Torah is aged and enfeebled by his study, not only is his strength replaced with a spiritual supplement, but (as R. Abraham Azulai notes) his Torah makes a venerated stage of him. Growing old in his study, he can say with David the Psalmist, "If Thy Torah had not been my delight, I would have been lost in my affliction" (Psalms 119:92)--in the affliction of old age.