...And you who looks into this book, understand this parable that I am drawing for you and then prepare your heart and listen to my words about all of this.
Place it in your mind that when a they bring a young boy to a teacher to teach him Torah - and that is the greatest good for him as to what he can attain of wholeness - but due to his few years and the weakness of his intellect, he does not understand the level of this good and that which will come to him of wholeness from it. And therefore it is necessary perforce for the teacher who is more whole than he to encourage the study with things that are beloved to him due to the smallness of his years. And [so] he says to him, "Read and I will give you nuts or figs; and I will give you a little honey." And through this he will read and exert himself; not for the actual reading - as he does not know its value - but rather so that they will give him that food. And the eating of these delights is more precious in his eyes than the reading and great good - without a doubt. And so he thinks of the study as labor and effort; and he labors in it so that he will receive through this labor the objective that is beloved to him, and that is a nut or a portion of honey. And when he grows and his intellect becomes stronger, and that thing that was (that will be) weighty for him before becomes light in his eyes and he goes to loving something else, they encourage him and arouse his desire for that thing that is beloved to him. And his teacher says to him, "Read and I will buy you fine shoes or lovely clothes." And through this, he makes efforts to read, not for the actual study, but rather for that garment; and that clothing is more weighty in his eyes than the Torah. And that is for him the objective of its reading. And when he becomes more whole in his intellect and this thing becomes negligible in his eyes, [his teacher] will also place his mind on that which is greater than this. And then his master will tell him, "Learn this section or this chapter and I will give you a dinar or two dinars" And through this, he reads and exerts himself to get that money - and for him, that money is more weighty than the study, since the objective of the study for him is that he get the gold that they promised him for it. And when his intellect is greater and this amount becomes light in his eyes and he knows that this is something insignificant, he will desire that which is weightier this this. And his master will tell him, "Study so that you will be a leader and judge, and people will honor you and rise in front of you - like with so and so and so and so." And he will read and exert himself in order to achieve this stature and the objective will be the honor; that people will honor him and raise him up and praise him. And all of this is despicable. And, nonetheless, it is necessary because of the smallness of the human intellect that he make the objective of wisdom something else besides wisdom, and say for what thing he is learning, and that is that honor will come to him. And this is [making] a laughingstock of the truth. And about such study the sages say it is not for its sake, meaning that he does the commandments and studies and exerts himself in Torah, not for that thing itself, but rather for the sake of something else. And the sages warned us about this and said, (Avot 4:5), "Do not make it [the Torah] into a crown with which to aggrandize yourself, and not into a spade with which to dig into them." And they are hinting to that which I have explained to you; that there is no [ulterior] objective to wisdom - not to receive honor from people and not to earn money - and [so,] one should not be involved in the Torah of God, may He be blessed, to earn money, and there should not be an [ulterior] objective for him in the study of wisdom, except only to know it. And so [too,] there is no objective to the truth except that he knows it is the truth, and that the Torah is the truth; and the objective of its knowledge is to do [what is in] it. And it is forbidden for a whole person to say, "When I do these commandments, which are good character traits; and I distance myself form sins, which are bad character traits - that God, may He be blessed, commanded not to do - what is the reward that I will receive for it?" As this is like that which the child will say, "When I read this, what will they give to me?" And they will say, "Such and such a thing." As when we see the smallness of his intellect that he doesn't understand the size [of what he is involved in], and we see that he asks for another objective, we answer him according to his foolishness; as it is stated (Proverbs 26:5), "Answer a fool according to his foolishness." And the sages have already warned about this as well; that is to say that a person should not render any thing of the [various] things to be the objective of his service to God, may He be blessed, and the performance of the commandments. And this is what the whole man who grasped the truth of [these] things, Antigonos, the man of Sokho, said (Avot 1:3), "Do not be as servants who are serving the master in order to receive a reward, rather be as servants who are serving the master not in order to receive a reward." And indeed he wanted to say with this that one should believe in the truth for the sake of the truth; and this is the matter they call, 'one who serves from love.' And they said, may their memory be blessed (Avodah Zarah 19a), "'His commandments desire greatly' (Psalms 112:1) - Rabbi Eliezer said, 'His commandments; and not the reward of His commandments.'" And how lucid is this and it is a clear proof for that which we have [written] above in the essay. And even greater than this is what they said in the Sifrei on Deuteronomy 11:13, "Lest you say, 'Behold, I am learning Torah so that I will be rich; so that I will be called, rabbi; so that I will receive reward in the World to Come'; [for this reason] does the statement teach, 'to love the Lord, your God' - everything that you do, only do it out of love."
Behold, this matter has been clarified to you, and it has become clear that it is the intention of the Torah and the foundation of the intention of the sages, peace be upon them. And only a crazed fool will ignore this, because silly thoughts and bad ideas have corrupted him and mixed him up. And this is the level of Avraham, our father - peace be upon him (Sotah 31a) - as he served from love. And towards this path, it is fitting that there be arousal. And since the sages, may their memory be blessed, knew that this is a very difficult matter - and not every person can grasp it, and if he grasps it, he doesn't agree with it at the beginning of the matter, and reasons that it is not a clear belief - since a person will only do an act in order to achieve a goal or to prevent a loss, and if it is not so, that matter will be futile and empty for him; [if so] how can you say to one who follows the Torah, "Do these acts and don't do [other] ones," [but] not for the fear of punishment from God, may He be blessed, and not to inherit a goodly reward. This is a very difficult thing, since not all people grasp the truth, to the point that they [reach the understanding of] Avraham, our father - peace be upon him. And therefore they permitted the masses - so that their faith will sit well - to do the commandments with the hope of reward, and to separate from the sins from the fear of punishment. And we encourage them about this and strengthen their intentions [to do the commandments out of ulterior motives], until he grasps and knows what is the truth and the complete way; as we do with a child at the time that he studies, as we have brought in the parable. And they blamed Antigonos, the man of Sokho, about his explaining what he explained to the masses, and they said about this, "Be careful with your words," as is explained in Avot 1:11.
And the masses do not lose everything by their doing the commandments out of fear of punishment and hope for reward, except that [their performance] will not be complete. And nonetheless it is good for them, so that they have the ability and habit and effort of fulfilling the Torah. And from this they will be aroused to know the truth, and they will turn into those that serve from love. And this is what they said, may their memory be blessed (Sanhedrin 105b), "Truly, a person should be involved in Torah and even not for its sake, as from 'not for its sake,' comes 'for its sake."...

Ben He He said: According to the labor is the reward.

...according to that which you are in pain with Torah will be your reward...only that which you study with exertion, labor and fear from the teacher will endure; but reading of enjoyment and leisure has no endurance to it and [so] no point in it...And because of this, they commanded to place fear upon the students...

After his prayer, Rav Safra said the following: May it be Your will, Lord our God, that You establish peacein the heavenly entourage [pamalia] of angels each of whom ministers to a specific nation (see Daniel 10), and whose infighting causes war on earth; and in the earthly entourage, the Sages, and among the disciples engaged in the study of Your Torah,whether they engage in its study for its own sake or not for its own sake.And all those engaged in Torah study not for its own sake,may it be Your will that they will come to engage in its study for its own sake.

After his prayer, Rava said the following: My God, before I was created I was worthless, and now that I have been created it is as if I had not been created, I am no more significant. I am dust in life, all the more so in my death. I am before You as a vessel filled with shame and humiliation. Therefore, may it be Your will, Lord my God, that I will sin no more, and that those transgressions that I have committed, cleanse in Your abundant mercy; but may this cleansing not be by means of suffering and serious illness, but rather in a manner I will be able to easily endure. And this is the confession of Rav Hamnuna Zuti on Yom Kippur...Rava was wont to say: The objective of Torah wisdom is to achieve repentance and good deeds; that one should not read the Torah and study mishna and become arrogant and spurn his father and his mother and his teacherand one who is greater than he in wisdom or in the number of students who study before him, as it is stated: “The beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord, a good understanding have all who fulfill them” (Psalms 111:10). It is not stated simply: All who fulfill, but rather: All who fulfill them, those who perform these actions as they ought to be performed, meaning those who do such deeds for their own sake, for the sake of the deeds themselves, not those who do them not for their own sake. Rava continued: One who does them not for their own sake, it would have been preferable for him had he not been created.

(5)Rabbi Ishmael his son said: He who learns in order to teach, it is granted to him to study and to teach; But he who learns in order to practice, it is granted to him to learn and to teach and to practice. Rabbi Zadok said: do not make them a crown for self-exaltation, nor a spade with which to dig. So too Hillel used to say, “And he that puts the crown to his own use shall perish.” Thus you have learned, anyone who derives worldly benefit from the words of the Torah, removes his life from the world.

The Gemara relates another incident: A certain man found Rabbi Tarfon eating figs from his field at the time when most of the knives had been set aside. He placedRabbi Tarfonin a sack, lifted him up, and carried him to throw him into the river.Rabbi Tarfonsaid to him: Woe to Tarfon, for this man is killing him. When that man heard that he was carrying the great Rabbi Tarfon, he left him and fled. Rabbi Abbahu said in the name of Rabbi Ḥananya ben Gamliel: All the days of that righteous man,Rabbi Tarfon, he was distressed over this matter, saying: Woe is me, for I made use of the crown of Torah, as Rabbi Tarfon was only released out of respect for his Torah learning. And with regard to this statement, Rabba bar bar Ḥana said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Whoever makes use of the crown of Torah is uprooted from the world...The Gemara returns to the incident involving Rabbi Tarfon. And in the case of Rabbi Tarfon, since he was eating during the time when most of the knives had been set aside, why did that man trouble him? The Gemara explains: It was because someone had been stealing grapes from that man all year, and when he found Rabbi Tarfon he thought: This is the one who stole from me the entire year. The Gemara asks: If so, why did Rabbi Tarfon berate himself? Clearly he was justified in saving himself. The Gemara answers: Since Rabbi Tarfon was very wealthy, he should have sought to appease him with money in order to save himself, rather than relying on his status as a Torah scholar.

What is the proper [degree] of love? That a person should love God with a very great and exceeding love until his soul is bound up in the love of God. Thus, he will always be obsessed with this love as if he is lovesick. [A lovesick person's] thoughts are never diverted from the love of that woman. He is always obsessed with her; when he sits down, when he gets up, when he eats and drinks. With an even greater [love], the love for God should be [implanted] in the hearts of those who love Him...

But you, Israel, My servant,Jacob, whom I have chosen,Seed of Abraham My friend—

R. Meir said: Whoever occupies himself with the Torah for its own sake merits many things; nay more, the whole world is beholden to him. He is called friend, beloved, a lover of the All-present and a lover of his fellow-creatures...