The commandments of God are not an unreachable goal requiring impossible physical or spiritual journeys. Their accessibility is absolute, making them available to every person, in any place, and under any circumstance. The law is never separated from humanity by vast oceans or impossible distances [מלבי״ם]. If it were located in some distant land, people would be forced to find someone to retrieve it and bring it back to them [בכור שור, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Some commentators specify that this distance refers to the great, dark ocean, an expanse naturally impossible for a person to cross [אבן עזרא, חזקוני].
This profound accessibility means that observing the commandments does not depend on the specific climate or social conditions of faraway regions. A person never needs to sail to foreign countries to study their local environments just to understand and fulfill God's laws [רש״ר הירש]. Furthermore, there is no need to seek out distant scholars to resolve practical doubts, nor is observance restricted solely to the Land of Israel; it can be maintained anywhere in the world without difficulty [ספורנו].
On a conceptual level, fulfilling the commandments is something easily expressed with the mouth and felt in the heart. God does not demand deep philosophical investigations from every individual to understand the underlying intentions of the law, as the people can rely on the reliable guidance of the Priests and Levites [רלב״ג]. Nevertheless, truly understanding the law sometimes requires clear instruction from a teacher. The sages point out that if the law actually were separated from us by an ocean, there would be an absolute obligation to make the difficult journey to learn it. However, because such an undertaking would be an immense and often impossible burden, the necessary knowledge is made available through more accessible channels [העמק דבר, תורה תמימה]. In a more poetic sense, the challenge of crossing a vast sea is also seen as a metaphor for navigating the deep, complex waters of Talmudic study and Jewish law, which indeed requires significant effort to master [קונטרס חיבה יתירה].
Beyond physical location, acquiring this wisdom requires specific character traits and a certain lifestyle. The law cannot take root in a person who lives a life of excessive luxury, pleasure, and ease. It also avoids the arrogant individual who proudly picks and chooses which parts of the law to accept based on personal preference. Additionally, deep understanding is rarely found among traveling merchants, as their minds are constantly preoccupied with their journeys and they lack dedicated free time. This stands in sharp contrast to someone who works a steady job in a fixed location, who can successfully balance making a living with spiritual growth by setting aside regular, fixed times for study [תורה תמימה].