How the Rebbi-Talmid
Relationship Affects Every Jew’s Dveikus and Ahavas Hashem, as Explained by Rav
Yitzchok Hutner – An Adaptation of Pachad Yitzchok, Shavuous Maamar 18.2.
By Eliakim Willner
Eliakim Willner is author of “Nesivos Olam – Nesiv HaTorah: An
Appreciation of Torah Study”, a translation with commentary of a work by the
Maharal of Prague, published by Artscroll/Mesorah. This article is adapted from
his forthcoming continuation of the Nesivos Olam series, “Nesivos Olam – Nesiv
HaAvodah: The Philosophy and Practice of Prayer”.
Introduction
Our institutions of
chinuch, and therefore our mesorah itself, are under unprecedented attack. It
is obvious that outside interference in what our Yeshivos teach and how they
teach it will affect our ability to transmit our values to our children.
Less obvious, but just as
important, is the fact that tampering with our mesorah has the potential to
negatively impact every individual’s personal avodas Hashem, dampening our
dveikus and attenuating our love for Hashem. It is important that we understand
these dangers as well. In the following excerpt, Rav Yitzchok Hutner zt’l
explains the relationship between the Rebbi-Talmid bond, and these mitzvos
temidios.
1 – The Chain Effect, As a Means of Cleaving to the Shechina
“‘…And to cleave to Him’ (Devarim 11:22). But is it possible
to cleave to the Shechina, the Divine Presence? Does not the verse say
of Him that He is ‘a consuming fire’? (Devarim 4:24) Rather, cleave to
Torah Sages and their students.” (Yalkut, Eikev 873)
The fact that this Medrash provides an alternative mode of
fulfilling the command to cleave to the Shechina – teaching us that besides cleaving to Sages
themselves, one may also achieve closeness with the Shechina by cleaving
to their students – reveals an novel aspect of this mitzva: even though
the student is not directly connected to the Shechina, still, cleaving
to him is considered cleaving to the Shechina, by virtue of the
student’s association with the Sage, his teacher.
This is a powerful statement about the closeness of the Rebbi-talmid
relationship. Not only is cleaving to the student the equivalent of cleaving to
the teacher, but it even extends to transitively creating a connection to the Shechina,
with whom the teacher is connected.
2 – Another Interpretation of the Advice to Cleave to the Shechina
But there is another way to understand the “cleave to Torah Sages and
their students” advice, and that is to view it not as two separate approaches
to cleaving to the Shechina – either via the Sages or their
students – but rather as an instruction to cleave to Torah Sages and their
students together, as a single unit. What is the benefit of understanding the Yalkut’s
method of cleaving to the Shechina in this way?
3 – Loving Hashem Through Teaching Torah
“…And you should love Hashem, your G-d…” (Devarim 6:5). The Sifri (Devarim
6:7) comments on this
verse, “But this verse does not specify how one goes about loving Hashem. The
“how” answer, however, is supplied in the next verse, ‘And these words (a
reference to words of Torah)… shall be upon your heart’.”
This Sifri is the source for the well-known view that the path to
achieving love of Hashem is through study of Torah, and, more forcefully, that
without Torah study it is impossible to achieve love of Hashem. This is very
clear from the wording of the Sifri, which states that without the
answer to the “how” question in the next verse, we would be at a loss to know
how to go about loving Hashem.
So, the well-known view that the path to achieving love of Hashem is
through Torah study originates in the Sifri, but the point we wish to make
is that the lesson of the Sifri cuts deeper than that well-known view.
Consider that when the Torah-study mitzva is specified in the
next verse in the “And you should love Hashem” chapter, it is not the general mitzva
to study Torah that is mentioned but rather the specific mitzva to teach
Torah. The verse we are referring to is, “And you shall teach them to your sons”
(Devarim 6:7), which is understood as referring to the mitzva, incumbent on every
Torah Sage, to transmit their Torah knowledge to students. (“Sons” is a
reference to students, not to biological offspring, as will be discussed
shortly.)
It follows, then, that if we interpret the Sifri as saying merely
that the path to loving Hashem is through Torah study, we are missing a major
point. In fact, the Sifri is teaching us that the power of Torah study
to create love of Hashem is centered around the pinnacle level of Torah study,
which is disseminating Torah to students.
Obviously, we are not claiming that personal Torah study alone does not
lead to love of Hashem; the fact is that Torah is Torah and love of Hashem will
follow from any avenue of Torah study. Our point, however, is that the power of
Torah to bring about love of Hashem comes into full bloom only through the
vehicle of teaching Torah.
The Sifri makes it very clear, then, that that the purpose of the
“And you should love Hashem” chapter is to set forth the mitzva to love
Hashem and explain how to do it, and the flow of the verses plainly indicates
that the optimum method is through teaching Torah. Why is this so?
4 – Teaching Torah Should Create Sons
The mitzva to disseminate Torah is couched in terms of “And you
shall teach them to your sons”. If we reflect carefully on this verse we will see
that what it is actually teaching us about what it means to teach Torah, is
much deeper than would appear on the surface. The common understanding is that
there are two independent elements in the act of teaching Torah. The first is
the act of teaching itself. The second is that students are referred to as
“sons”. Thus, when one teaches Torah he is teaching “sons”, and the verse
refers to Torah teaching using the “And you shall teach them to your sons”
terminology for this reason.
This is the common understanding. But upon reflection, it seems to us
that there is more to the use of “sons” in this verse than a poetic reference
to students as “sons”. Rather, the verse is teaching us that teaching Torah and
labeling students as “sons” are two sides of the same coin. The point of Torah
dissemination is not to teach Torah to students who happened to be called
“sons”. Rather, it is to enlist the power of Torah teaching to create
sons.
We illustrate with an example. A person can acquire any possession,
purchase any object his heart desires, from anyone he pleases. There is just
one thing a person cannot acquire in the open market, and that is life itself.
Life is acquired from a father and only from a father. The sole way to impart
existence to another being is through fatherhood.
This is exactly how the Rebbi-talmid relationship is supposed to
work. Students are only truly called “sons” when they value the Torah that has
been imparted to them as they value life itself – not as a non-essential
possession that they can either live with or do without, but as something
crucial to their existence.
What the Torah wants us to understand, with the verse “And you shall
teach them to your sons”, is that Torah dissemination can only have a lasting
effect if it is done with an eye to creating “sons”; that is, if the Torah is
valued as one would value life itself, when it is transmitted; when it is
passed on as a father passes on life to the next biological generation.
This is what we mean when we say that that teaching Torah and labeling
students as “sons” are two sides of the same coin. One side is the Torah
transmission itself. The other side – the resultant side – is the creation of
sons. There is much more to the verse, “And you shall teach them to your sons”
than an enumeration of two independent elements in the act of teaching Torah.
5 – Love Creates Sons; Creating Sons Engenders Love of Hashem
We return to the idea we developed in section 3, that the power of Torah
to bring about love of Hashem comes into full bloom only through the vehicle of
teaching Torah; through fulfillment of the mitzva, “And you shall
teach them to your sons”, which refers to transmitting Torah knowledge to
students.
There are numerous sources (see the end of the second chapter of Nedarim)
that detail the many hardships and travails that are the unfortunate lot of
the child of “the hated wife”, and from the terrible consequences of hatred one
can infer the extraordinary consequences of love. To get the full measure of a
thing, look at its opposite; doing so in this case tells us that when love, not
hate, is injected into the process of producing life, it has an incredible power.
The Sifri we discussed in section 3 made us aware that the reason
for the juxtaposition between Torah study and the mitzva to love Hashem
was to teach us that Torah study is the one and only path to achieving love of
Hashem, and that ideally, the form that Torah study should take is the teaching
of Torah, or, in the terminology of the previous section, the spiritual birthing
of “sons” via the transmission of Torah.
We now know that for the spiritual birthing of sons to be worthy of the name it must be suffused with love. And that is the basis for the linkage between “And you shall teach them to your sons” and “You should love Hashem, your G-d”.
For the Rebbi-talmid
relationship to be most effective – to the point where the analogy to giving
life to a son is more than just a flight of fancy – the Torah transmission must
be delivered on wings of love. If it is, then passing on Torah to the next
generation is passing on life to the next generation and the students
appreciate the Torah they learn as vital, just as their teachers do. The ideal
described in section 4 is achieved.
Can there be a better
way to both achieve and pass on love of Hashem than for a teacher of Torah to
accomplish this level of Torah transmission with his students? This is what we
mean when we say that the Sifri is teaching us that the power of Torah
to bring about love of Hashem comes into full bloom only through the vehicle of
teaching Torah; through fulfillment of the mitzva, “And you shall teach
them to your sons”.
6 – Using the Rebbi-Talmid Nexus to Become Close to the Shechina
We are now ready to delve deeper into the second way of understanding
the meaning of cleaving to Torah Sages and to their students, as mentioned in
section 2. In the first way of understanding this directive, two alternatives
to cleaving to the Shechina are being presented – cleave either to Torah
Sages or to their students. It is hard, however, as we pointed out, to
understand the justification for equating an attachment to a student with an
attachment to the Shechina; the student may not have any personal merit
that connects him directly with the Shechina.
In the second way of understanding this directive, however, the desired
result of cleaving to Hashem is accomplished by cleaving not to either Sages or
students, but rather, to a single aggregate consisting of both Sages and their
students. The benefit of associating with this aggregate, in contrast to
associating with one or the other of its components, is that only when Sages
and their students are together is the birthing power of the Torah that emerges
from, “‘And you shall teach them to your sons’ – this refers to students”,
evident.
As we discussed earlier, this power to create “sons” is effective only
when the Rebbi-talmid relationship glows with the light of love; when
the Torah is valued as one would value life itself. This is when the teachers
themselves are most connected with the Torah, and it is only on the strength of
the teachers’ connection with Torah that one can connect to the Shechina
via a connection to a Torah teacher.
The most effective setting, then, for achieving a connection with the Shechina
by connecting to a Torah Sage who is connected to the Shechina is when
the Sage’s connection is at its peak, when his connection to his Torah is in
full force, and that only happens when the Torah Sages are mingled with their
students – with their “sons”.
And that is why the Yalkut advises us, as we learned in section
1, that if we wish to become close to the Shechina we should “cleave to
Torah Sages and their students”. The wording is precise. To get as close as
possible to the Shechina, latch onto the teachers when they are with
their students.
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