filling the barrels of our minds

So I'm starting to get slightly frustrated with Daf Yomi. I'm certainly not giving it up, but I'm feeling like I'm definitely not getting enough out of each day's learning. Then today, I found this story/parable online and it helped me see the purposes of what I'm doing....

A distraught man once came to the famous preacher, the Maggid of Dubno.

"What's the good of my Torah study?" he complained. "I study Torah every day, but quickly forget today what I studied yesterday!"

The Dubner Maggid responded with the following parable:

A king once assigned one of his subjects the task of pouring water into the royal barrels each day. But on one of his first days at work, the man noticed the barrels were cracked in the bottom, so that water dripped out, steadily, completely. Naturally, he stopped filling the barrels.

Six months later the king discovered that the barrels were dry inside. He grew enraged, threatening to severely punish the subject. Pleading for his life, the man explained that since the barrels were cracked, and couldn't hold the water, he saw no purpose in simply pouring in what would soon empty out of its own accord.

"Idiot!" roared the king. "Who told you I wanted the barrels filled? What I needed for you to do was to pour water on the inside where a growth had gathered on the inside of the wood..."

Gently smiling at the man who had come to speak with him, the Dubner Maggid offered, "Who says the sole purpose of Torah study is to fill our minds with vast stores of knowledge? The very process and the efforts involved may uplift our souls..."

Come, then, let us study Torah.

Reworked by Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub, CSW, (C) 1997