“She is like the merchant ships” (Mishlei 31:14): it is not written “like a ship,” but “like ships”; for any Torah scholar who does not know how to answer wherever he is asked is not fit to sit in the Sanhedrin or [to be] the head of a yeshivah. “She brings her bread from afar” (ibid.): for he knows how to bring a proof from one Maseches to another. What brought this about? “She rises while it is still night” (Mishlei 31:15), and “Her lamp does not go out at night” (Mishlei 31:18): all night he sits and occupies himself with Torah. “Like the merchant ships”: so HaKadosh Baruch Hu arranges all their needs for those who occupy themselves with Torah day and night. Just as for the merchant whom the hour favors, HaKadosh Baruch Hu arranges the angels appointed over him; they enter the hearts of others to bring [their goods] to the place where this merchant is, and He directs the heart of the merchant to buy, and afterward directs the hearts of others to come there to the merchant, or the merchant to them, to buy: so whoever occupies himself with Torah constantly, HaKadosh Baruch Hu sends him angels from afar to bring him all his needs. That is why the Torah is called bread.