GEN1511 Said R. Joshua b. Levi: Every single day a heavenly echo emanates from Mount Horeb, proclaiming these words: Woe to the people for the Torah’s humiliation!” For whoever does not busy himself with the Torah is called reprehensible… Pirkei Avot VI:2   Some activities are so basic to our existence that they must go on just about every day. For example, earning a living is so essential in human society, and so time consuming, that all but a fortunate few must be busy with it every day. Scripture itself intimates it: When the Israelites in the wilderness were to live on the manna they would find every morning, the Almighty told Moses, “The people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day (yom b’yomo). Exodus 16:4.  There is an element in the human being too which, never at rest, daily renews its demands and pressures: the yetzer ha-ra, the evil inclination that would tempt us to sin. This also is hinted in the Written Torah: When Potiphar’s wife began her determined effort to seduce Joseph, we read that “she spoke to Joseph day after day (yom yom).” [this verse]   As the Sages put it, the Almighty states, “I have created the yetzer ha-ra; I have created the Torah to temper it.” Talmud, Kiddushin 30b (Baba Bathra 16a); Midrash Sifre, Deuteronomy §45 If Torah is the antidote to the evil inclination, we must surely take an adequate does with the same frequency and perseverance as the yetzer ha-ra; otherwise, how can Torah be effective? So, in the words of Solomon the wise, the Torah says, “Happy is the man who hearkens to me, watching at my gates day by day (Yom Yom)”; and the prophet, speaking for the Almighty, envisions how the people Israel “will seek Me day after day (yom yom). Proverbs 8:34; Isaiah 58:2.   Perhaps our text connotes that for anything that must occur every day, b’chol yom vayom, the Heavenly echo from Sinai exhorts us and reminds us that we need a corresponding daily dose of Torah. The business-world is often described as a jungle. We need Torah to teach us how to be more than jungle animals in blue serge suits successfully stalking our monetary preys. Torah gives us a nobler purpose in life, lifting us above the jungle of the “mighty dollar”; And instead of living in order to “make money,” we earn our livelihood for the sake of Torah – that we and our children may learn its immortal wisdom and truth; that we may support the schools where its study thrives, pure and holy. Thus Torah can sanctify every necessity in our daily life, b’chol yom vayom—not only earning a living but eating, sleeping etc. in which, as the Sages note, we are akin to the animal. With Torah at the luminous center of our being, we live every day for its sake, and it hallows and exalts us. Then we can hear Sinai’s plaintive echo every day without anxiety or distress. Our years do not put the Torah to shame, for we live by its radiance. We can affirm with the Psalmist, “Blessed in the Lord: yom yom, day after day He provides for us.” Psalms 68:20; Talmud, Hagigah 16a; Avoth d’R. Nathan A37; Genesis Rabbah viii 11, xiv 3.   SINAI3 293-4