How To Learn Torah

1:1 Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and gave it over to Yehoshua, Yehoshua to the Elders, the Elders to the Prophets, and the Prophets gave it over to the Men of the Great Assembly. They said three things. 

Why does the Mishnah go through the trouble of mentioning all these five, Moshe, Yehoshua, the Elders, the Prophets, and the Men of the Great Assembly? It could have said simply that Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and gave it to the generations that followed until the Men of the Great Assembly. Why specifically Moshe, Yehoshua, the Elders, the Prophets, and the Men of the Great Assembly? 

Another question. The commentaries tell us that the Elders are the Judges who led the Jewish people from after the time of Yehoshua until the first prophet, Shmuel. Why does the Mishnah change their name from Judges to Elders? By changing Judges to Elders, the Mishnah is telling us that these names are not arbitrary, rather it's trying to teach us something. And being that our Mishnah is talking about the establishment and the strengthening of Torah, we have to conclude that it has something to do with the establishment and strengthening of Torah. What are we meant to learn from them? 

The Mishnah is trying to teach us the traits that are necessary in order to ensure proper Torah study and that we reach Hashem's true intention. 

Moshe. The Torah tells us about Moshe that he was "the humblest of all men." And our sages say that because he made himself small, the Torah is called in his name. The trait of humility readies one to study Torah. 

Yehoshua. The Torah tells us about Yehoshua that "he didn't move from within the tent," where Moshe taught Torah. This means that one has to be totally given over to the study of Torah. Even a person who works every day, when he studies Torah, it should be as if Torah is his whole life. 

After the Tanna tells us the two traits that are necessary as an approach to Torah study, he now tells us three traits that are necessary for the study of Torah itself. 

Elders. Our sages say, "(Who is an) Elder? One who acquires wisdom." In order to acquire Torah, in order that you gain an essential bond with the Torah you learn, you have to be diligent and put toil and effort into it. This is why the Tanna changed the name from Judges to Elders, because we wouldn't learn much from Judges. 

Prophets. When one learns Torah in order to derive the law, he needs help from above to come to the true law. This is akin to prophecy. 

Men of the Great Assembly. Their purpose was to establish the bottom line law, what we should actually do. On top of that, they set up precautions to distance us from breaking the laws. When one learns Torah in order to derive the law, he will delve deeper into the subject, because of the fear that he will not realize Hashem's intention and therefore he will come to the true law. 

This will explain another difficulty in our Mishnah. It says, "They said three things." Why is it important to tell us that they said three things, can't we count? When the other Tannaim say three things, which is quite often in Pirkei Avos, it doesn't say that they said three things. 

There are different opinions as to who said the three things. If we go with the opinion that it's the Men of the Great Assembly, we can say that until this point, when learning Torah, there were only two in play, the Giver of the Torah and the one learning the Torah. Then came the Men of the Great Assembly, whose purpose was to establish the bottom line of the law, in order to know what to do in the real world, in order to refine and purify it, to turn it into a home for Hashem, because that is the reason that He created this world in the first place. So now there are three, Hashem, the one learning and the world. The purpose of creation was finally realized. Before it was understood that there were two things, but "they said (there were) three things."