The Gemara (on top of Amud Beis) describes Yiras Shamayim as the ‘gateway’ to Torah. However, from Rav Yanai announcement (following the above Gemara) it would seem that Torah is considered the ‘gateway’ to Yiras Shamayim – is there a contradiction here?
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There is no contradiction because it is a different Mashal, from a different perspective. One is speaking about the his achievement and one is about his Torah.
Learning Torah without Yiras Shamayim is skipping the first, and most important, step. Therefore, by skipping the first step, it never gets to the core and remains external. Likewise, we say that he never accessed the Torah that he learned