Torah as the Penultimate Value?

The Mishna in masechet avot speaks multiple times about competing values. Many of us are familiar with the Mishna that describes the salient characteristics of Raban Yochanan ben Zakai’s five students. Other mishnas describe the relative role of work vs. study or study vs. action. But towards the end of Avot, one Mishna stands out as it compares three values: Torah study, government (Kingship) and Worship (Kehuna). The lecture will begin by distinguishing btewen these three poles of life and then describe my personal experience in the world of Torah study, focusing particularly on the event that led up to the first international women’s Siyum hashas this past January.