The reason why we learn is not because it is an obligation - if that were so, you'd be right. We could discharge our obligation with a bit of learning in the day and another bit in the night. We learn because it is an opportunity, because becoming a Talmid Chacham - and by that I mean the biggest Talmid Chacham you can possibly be - is the best thing you can do for yourself, your family, and the world. There is no obligation for a person to make a billion dollars. But if he could, he would. Learning more is is spiritually making more. A lot more. This is something I wrote about about this topic many years ago:
The overwhelmingly most important advantage of learning full time is that you are learning more than if you learn not to full time. Simple as that. Torah learning is the highest, greatest, most glorious form of avodas Hashem, which will get for you the greatest share in Olam Habah possible, much much more and much much greater than any other thing you can do for Hashem, including any other type of Mitzvos. Learning Torah brings by far the greatest Nachas to Hashem, the greatest benefits to Klall yisroel, and the greatest benefits to those who do the learning, than anything else you can possibly do.
As an example: A man once came to the Chazon Ish asking him advice. he got 2 job offers, and he wants to know which to take. The first is Kashrus administrator of the rabbanut, a position in which he is confident that he would be able to chnage the kashrus standards in all of eretz yisroel, causing the public to eat only kosher food. If he does not take this job, they will hire someone who does not have his standards and the public who rely on this hesher will not eat kosher (note: I do not know what the issues with the hechsher were, or how severe). His other choice is to be a rebbi in a yeshiva. If he does not take that job, the Yeshiva will hire a different ben torah, on the same level as him, so its not as if the kids are going to be less frum.
Which job should he take, he asked.
The Chazon Ish asked him, "Do you think, if you take the job as a Rebbi, that you could perhaps convince 2 of your students to learn during a Bain Hazemanim?"
"Yes," he said. "Ithink I can do that."
"Then you should know," said the Chazon Ish, "that two kids learning Torah bain hazemanim as if it were the zman, is much more valuable to Hashem than making the entire Eretz Yisroel eat kosher!"
This is the kind of material that boys are taught in yeshiva. This is the main motivation for learning in Kollel.
The situation these days in Eretz Yisroel is terrible. We need to help our brothers there. What can we do - spiritually, I am talking about now - to help?
Well, the Chazon Ish said that learning one single Tosfos has the power to nullify many evil decrees on Klall Yisroel."
It can take any where from a few minutes to much longer to learn a Tosfos. One single Tosfos -- perhaps a few minutes of Torah learning - can nullify many Gezeiros against Klall Yisroel.
We say it every day: Talmud Torah Kneged Kulam. This means, say Chazal, that learning one word of Torah - one! word! - imparts more holiness than a lifetime of doing Mitzvos!
The Vilna Gaon comments: So when somoene learns just one page of gemora, he covers hundreds of words, each of which gives him more Kedusha than a lifetime of doing Mitzvos.
In Yeshiva, they teach this, that Torah learning - as opposed to any othe form of Avodas Hashem - is by far, by very, very far, the highest and greatest act of Avodah that a person can be invovled in, and through it, one merits by far, by very very far, the greatest measure of Olam Habah; and through it, one releases, by far, by very very far, the very greatest measure of Hashem's influence and Goodness into this world.
Nothing compares. Nothing comes close. Not Kiruv, not Tzedakah, not Hatzalah, nothing.
