"Therefore, I applied my heart, and in view of the ability that the living G-d granted me, to understand and become wise in the depth of the secrets of Torah, it is clear that this is my fate - it comes from HaShem, and I will not let Him go (Shir HaShirim 3:4). And I will leave the straw that suits animals - to the animals. What is fitting to man - let be for man, as Rashbi said. I serve G-d, eating from the tree of life, according to the blessing of HaShem, Who gives me a daily portion, day by day."
This is a fragment of Ramchal"s Iggeret 89. What animals is Ramchal writing about, Rashbi really? They are not real animals. They are human. They are Jewish. They are Yeshivisch, meaning that they go to Yeshiva, an Ashkenazi black-hat Yeshiva, a Sephardi black-hat Yeshiva, or a Dati-Leumi Yeshiva. Maybe they are Rabbanim. Maybe they are Rosh Yeshiva. Maybe they are not Yeshivish, and they do not go to Yeshiva. Maybe they are learning at night, alone or with a Chavruta. What they have in common is that the bulk of their learning is in Halacha: Mishna, Gemara, Rashi, Tosefot, Rambam, Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim, Yoreh Deah, Poskim, Mishna Berura, Yalkut Yosef, et cetera, et cetera. These are the animals, as they eat straw. They want to eat straw. Let them.
But there is a higher level of being, as elevated from the straw-eaters as man is from animals: "to understand and become wise in the depth of the secrets of Torah..." Says Ramchal. We can only guess what was achieved in the Yeshiva of the Ramchal, the Yeshiva of 5493, as we have no documents.
