"The study of Torah is weighed against all the commandments"

“It is possible for all men to study Torah and practice the mitzvot.

The mitzvot are practical actions that can be carried out in a definite time and place.

And this, in turn, fills all that is lacking in a person.

One can cultivate the well-tried habit of using all of one’s free time to study Torah.

As it is written, Talmud Torah, the study of Torah, is weighed against all the other commandments in that it fills all the empty and unoccupied places, and it does not allow a person to be in a vacuum.

For there is no neutral territory.

Either one is in the domain of the holy or one is abandoned to the other side.

Even when one is idle, walking in the field or whatever, the mind and heart are occupied with something or other.

This can be connected with Torah and things of the spirit, or it can be a surrender to temptation.”

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From Pebbles of Wisdom from Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz