The resentment of the Torah scholar is no modern invention—it is as ancient as the Torah itself, etched into the very moment of our birth as a nation. On the day God gave us the Torah at Sinai, a mountain whose very name sounds like the root of the Hebrew word for “hatred,” (see Tractate Shabbat 89a/b), the world changed forever. At Sinai, antisemitism beyond that of Egypt was born, the gentile’s venom against the Jew who dares to carry God’s truth.

But it was not only the nations who turned against us that day. No, at Sinai, the Jew who did not want to learn Torah—the Jew too lazy, too cowardly, too assimilated to grasp the Torah’s weight—first bared his teeth at the scholar who lives it. Antisemitism, Jewish self-hatred, and resentment of Torah scholars are not separate phenomenona; they are one and the same, rooted in a single truth, a bitter one for those who reject it: the Torah is the key to the divine, and the world resents those who hold it.

Sinai: The Birth of Hatred

Think about it. Sinai sounds like the root word “Sinah”—hatred. The Sages teach us this is no coincidence. When God chose us, when He handed us the Torah on that trembling mountain, He set us apart. The nations saw it and seethed. They recognized the Torah as the bridge to the Infinite, the blueprint of creation, the voice of God Himself. But it’s a key that demands everything—devotion, study, the rejection of the animalistic within us, the stubborn will to rise above the detritus of this world.

The gentile looked at that key and said, “The price is too high.” But he hates us for accepting it. He envies us, the people chosen to bear it, and his jealousy festers into murder—Amalek (in the person of Haman), Rome, Hitler, Hamas. Antisemitism was born at Sinai, and it has never died.

But the tragedy doesn’t end there. On that same day, the uninterested Jew—the one who stood at the foot of the mountain but never climbed it—looked at the scholar, the one who would wrestle with God’s Words, and hated him too. Why? Because the Torah scholar shames him. The scholar’s commitment exposes his laziness; his sacrifice mocks the uncommitted Jew's surrender. The Jew who won’t study, who won’t fight for the key, turns his envy inward. He becomes the self-hating Jew, despising his own Jewishness because it reminds him of what he’s too weak to claim. And he turns outward, despising the Haredi and Religious Zionist Jews who dares to live what he abandons. Sinai birthed this hatred too, and, sadly, it burns in our midst today.

The Torah: The Key They Envy

What is this key that sparks such rage? The Torah is no mere book—it is the divine code, the path to God, the fire that purifies the soul. But it’s not free. To hold it, you must study it, breathe it, wrestle with it day and night. You must reject the animalistic drives or purify and elevate them— lust, greed, ease—that chain most men to the earth. You must be stubborn, relentless, willing to stand alone against a world that mocks you. The Torah scholar, the observant Jew with his Gemara, embodies this. He fights for the key. He climbs Sinai every day.

The world sees this and knows it’s true. Deep down, the gentile knows the Torah is divine—he senses its power, its eternity. But he won’t pay the price. He’d rather stay with his idols, his materialism, his “freedom,” than bow to the discipline a Torah life demands. So he envies the Jew who does. He hates us for pursuing what he rejected.

The self-hating Jew is no different. He too knows the Torah is the key—how could he not, with its echo in his blood? But he’s too assimilated, too comfortable, too desirous of "belonging" in the gentile’s world, to reach for it. He parrots their liberalism and calls it “progress.” Yet the Torah haunts him. He sees it in the scholar’s eyes, in the Religious Zionist and Haredi refusal to bend, and it drives him mad. He hates himself for failing to claim it, and he hates the scholar for succeeding where he won’t even try.

The Torah itself testifies to this ancient envy. Korach (Numbers 16) was the first self-hating Jew, the man who envied Moses and Aaron. He saw their closeness to God, their grip on the key, and couldn’t stand it. “Why them and not me?” he cried, rallying the rabble against the scholars. God swallowed him whole, but his spirit lingers in every Jew who despises the Torah-true Jews today.

Rabbi Akiva, before he became the Sage, admitted the same hatred. “When I was unlearned," he said, “I would see a Torah scholar and want to bite him like a donkey!” (Pesachim 49b). Why? Envy. The unlearned Jew sees the scholar’s devotion and feels small. He knows the key is there, but he won’t climb Sinai to take it. So he bites instead.

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan saw this in The Handbook of Jewish Thought: “If one does not study our religious teachings, he may find himself not observing the commandments. This will lead him to look down upon those who do observe and even hate our religious teachers.” And the Torah warns us in Leviticus 26:15: “If you do not listen to Me, and do not keep My commandments: You will come to denigrate My decrees and grow tired of My laws.” This is the progression—ignorance to envy to hatred to denial of God. It began at Sinai, and it haunts us still.

The resentment of the scholar, the self-hatred of the Jew, the antisemitism of the nations—all are one. They are the world’s tantrum against the Torah, the key it knows is divine but refuses to claim. The gentile kills us for it. The anti-religious Jew mocks us for it. But the scholar—the Religious Zionist, the Haredi, including the one who studies Torah day and night—holds it high. He is our pride, our defiance, our future.

Wake up, Am Yisrael! Stop envying the key and start fighting for it. Cast off the gentile’s chains, the self-hater’s shame, and climb Sinai again.

The Haredim and Religious Zionists are not your enemy- they are your brothers.

The Torah is not your burden—it is your crown.

Reject it, and you reject God. Embrace it, and you silence the hatred that began at Sinai. The choice is yours—the path to eternal life or death, blessing or curse, as the Torah writes.

The Torah is a tree of life for all those who grasp it. Grasp it...It's within your reach.