Shem Olam / Appendix – 58

We see that the rarer a thing is, the higher its price. Even useless rocks that are very hard to find are sold for large sums of money. Although this world is infinitesimally insignificant compared to all the spiritual worlds, it has one advantage – after a person leaves this world, he can no longer achieve any spiritual stature he did not achieve in this world. Even if he gives away all his reward in the world to come, he cannot buy even one Mishna he didn’t learn. Since our opportunity to achieve is so short, a person must do his utmost to acquire as much Torah as he possibly can.