Musar for Bava Metzia 169:13

To have mercy upon all of the creatures: He must also have his mercy extend to all the creatures. He [should] not disgrace them nor destroy them. As behold, the Highest Wisdom is spread over all the creatures - the inanimate, the growing (plants), the living (animals) and the speaking (people). And we are warned about disgracing food for this reason. And about this thing it is fitting that [just] like the Highest Wisdom does not disgrace anything in existence and everything was made from There, as it is written, "You made all of them with wisdom" - so [too, should] the mercy of a person be over all of His creations, may He be blessed. And for this reason was the holy Rebbe punished: Since he did not pity the young calf that was hiding with him and said to it, "Go, you were created for this," afflictions came upon him (Bava Metzia 85a). As they were from the side of judgement; since behold, mercy protects from judgement. And when he had mercy on a weasel and said, "It is written (Psalms 145:9), 'and His mercies are over all of His creatures,'" he was saved from the judgement - since the light of Wisdom was spread over him and the afflictions withdrew. And upon this way, he [should] not disgrace anything in existence from that which exists, as all of them are with Wisdom. And [so] he [should] not uproot a plant except for a need nor kill an animal except for a need. And [then] he [should] chose a nice death, with a checked knife, to have mercy in as much as is possible.

And thus if a man has any kind of troubles he must rejoice even so. And thus said the Sages : "Beloved are troubles" (Berakoth 5b). And the Sages said also : "He who rejoices in his pain brings salvation to the world" (Ta'anith 8a). And a man should accustom his mouth to say : "This too is for good" (Ta'anith 21a), or "All that the merciful God has done He has done for good" (Berachot 60b). For there are many apparent evils whose end is good, and thus did our Rabbis teach and interpret this portion of Scripture, "I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord; for thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me" (Is. 12:1). They explained it with a parable of two men who walked, intending to board a boat. One of them had a thorn stuck into his foot so that he could not board the boat and when his companion boarded the boat the man bruised by the thorn began to curse his "evil fortune". After a time he heard that the boat had sunk and all the people in it had died. Then did he begin to praise the Creator, may He be Blessed, for he realized that the incident with the thorn had saved his life (Niddah 31a). Therefore, should a man rejoice with troubles and with other injuries that may befall him, for he does not know what good will be derived from them in the future. And thus did Nahum the man of Gamzu conduct himself (Ta'anith 21a).

From all the above we arrive at the rule that there are two blessings represented by the two luminaries. One is the blessing of the Torah which comprises the letters of the Holy name of G–d, the written Torah, the light of which has largely been hidden; the other is the blessing which accrues to us through the expansion of Torah knowledge by means of the study of the oral Torah which has itself been blessed by the written Torah. This thought helps us to understand the two benedictions we recite when reading from the Torah. We read in Baba Metzia 85 that Rabbi Yehudah stated in the name of Rav that the sages had left the following verse (Jeremiah 9,11) unexplained. The prophet asks: "What man is so wise that he understands this? To whom has the Lord's mouth spoken so that he may explain it? Why is the land in ruins, laid waste like a wilderness with none passing through?" The prophets did not explain this verse either until G–d Himself provided the explanation when He said in the verse following: "Because they forsook the Teaching I had set before them." Rabbi Yehudah, quoting Rav, said that the sin the Jewish people were guilty of was their failure to pronounce a benediction before they commenced their Torah studies. Rashi comments that Rav deduced this from the apparently superfluous words: "which I set before them." The benediction that this Rabbi refers to is: אשר נתן לנו תורת אמת, "who has given us a true Teaching," which is part of the benediction everyone recites when he is called up to the Torah. The failure to introduce Torah study by a benediction is tantamount to declaring that the gift of Torah is not of much value. Thus far the Rashi on the subject.

And they said, in the chapter entitled "The hiring of workers" (Baba Mezi'a 85a and see Rashi) : When R. Zera emigrated to Palestine he fasted forty days (some texts read 100 fasts) to forget the Babylonian Talmud, that it should not trouble him. And they said : If a man stumbled by committing a sin for which the penalty is death by the decree of Heaven, what should he do so that he may live? If he was accustomed to read one page of the Talmud let him read two pages, if he was accustomed to repeat a chapter once let him repeat it twice, if he was accustomed to study one chapter let him study two chapters (Lev. Rabbah 25:1). We thus see that study is the principal thing, for if sharp debate were the principal thing, to cry out and to raise one's voice half a day over one statement, then he should have said, "If previously he was accustomed to raise one objection let him raise two objections."