Well, that was a surprise!
I was talking to an acquaintance the other day and we started discussing his family. When I asked him where his kids go to school, he told me that, at this point in time, he only has a first grader in school.
I asked him which school, and he told me the name of a very good, established, yeshivish/Litvishe cheder in Lakewood.
“And who is his rebbi?” I asked.
“Reb Shloime,” was his answer.
“You mean Reb Shloime who comes from a prominent Chassidishe family?” I asked, surprised.
“Yup!” he said.
“But isn’t he Chassidish?”
“Yes, he is.”
He then explained how, in the past, many Litvishe chadorim had difficulty hiring rabbeim to teach the younger classes because most aspiring rabbeim at that time only wanted to teach older classes. There was no stigma among the Chassidim about teaching young children, so there were Chassidish rabbeim for younger classes in yeshivishe chadorim.
Nowadays, that is no longer the case, because there are so many yungeleit looking for positions that the chadorim don’t have difficulty filling any positions. “This Reb Shloime was hired back then and is still teaching in that Litvishe mosad,” he said.
Why People Want to Teach Older Talmidim
Boruch Hashem, chadorim are not having difficulty getting rabbeim for younger classes, but there are still so many more people who, when they want to enter the world of chinuch, are seeking older classes where they will be able to teach Gemara or even some Tosafos and meforshim, than those who are seeking younger classes.
I wondered: Why? Why would people look askance at teaching Torah to young, pure Yiddishe children? Teaching at an age-appropriate level to children who are not yet learning Gemara is still considered teaching Torah to Yiddishe kinder, is it not?
Then I remembered a thought that I once heard on this week’s parsha, a thought that is applicable to this topic.
Yisro’s Eitzah
Moshe Rabbeinu came back after having been up in Shomayim to receive the second luchos and what greets him? A massive line outside his tent. There were so many people with shailos, dinei Torah and arguments that needed to be resolved. From morning until night, Moshe Rabbeinu sat, helping, advising, and paskening.
When his father-in-law, Yisro, saw what was going on, he was flabbergasted. “How can you sit all day listening to people’s problems and paskening about everyone’s arguments, squabbles, and shailos? If you continue this way, you will not last. You will have no koach, your nerves will be shattered, and you will shrivel away. We must do something! We must find an eitzah!”
Yisro continued, “I have an eitzah: You shall see from among the entire people, men of means, G-d-fearing people, men of truth, people who despise money, and you shall appoint them leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties, leaders of tens…”
The eitzah was simple: Appoint a whole hierarchy of rabbonim, dayonim, and advisors who will take care of the smaller cases, and this way, only the hardest cases will come to the top.
Sounds simple, right? However, we know that with us Yidden, even simple eitzos are often not so simple…
The Most Important Aspect of the Eitzah
The Kotzker Rebbe asks a penetrating question: If all those appointed fit the prerequisites of G-d-fearing, people of truth who despise money, etc., who then was chosen to rule over a thousand, who over a hundred, and who over ten? Why was Moshe not afraid that the person who was appointed to oversee ten would not be jealous of the one appointed to oversee a hundred, and the one appointed to oversee a hundred wouldn’t be jealous of the one overseeing a thousand?
The Kotzker gave a profound answer. He said that one of the prerequisites for being a shofet, a judge, was anshei emes, men of truth. A true ish emes is not makpid on his kavod and standing. A true ish emes knows that titles and jobs have nothing to do with who you are and what your value is. Titles and jobs are just that – titles and jobs. Nothing more. Titles and tasks say absolutely nothing about your value as a person.
Indeed, when no one is particular about his own kavod, that is the best preparation for Mattan Torah. Perhaps that was the whole point of coming together at Har Sinai. Chazal tell us that when the posuk says that they “encamped on the mountain,” Chazal explain it to mean as “one man with one heart, in complete achdus,” undivided by thoughts of one’s kavod, status, etc.
Yisro’s eitzah and the acceptance by each of the different leaders that one would only have ten people under his jurisdiction while his friend might have a thousand was the key and the hachanah, the proper preparation, for Kabbolas HaTorah.
Society’s Definition of “Making It”
In light of this, perhaps we should be asking ourselves: Why do so many of us get swept up with titles, positions, and our place in the hierarchy? I am the CEO of my company. I am executive vice-president. I have this shteller or that shteller. I am a mesivta rebbi or an upper elementary school rebbi. I am a menaheles, a high school teacher, or a kallah teacher…
All these titles and the associated “prestige” make many of us think that the positions and titles are the barometer of whether one made it or not.
Why?
The answer is that, often, we are not anshei emes. Having this title or that title does not make you a better or worse person. It says nothing about you as a person. It says nothing about your neshomah, nothing about what Hashem thinks about you and your own unique qualities. All it says is what false expectations society has of you and us. Most of the expectations of society are false and wrong, and often have a bit of bad middos mixed in as well. (And let’s not even get started about what happens when those expectations are superimposed on what people want, “need,” or describe when seeking shidduchim for their children or when seeking information about shidduchim.)
What we have to try to do is look at the world of sheker with a smidgen of emes. We have to try to recognize that society’s definition of success often has nothing to do with real success. Rather, society’s definition of success is often a product of what Rav Shalom Schwadron would quip: The three horses shlepping an aron to the bais hakevaros, he would say, are called kinah, taavah, and kavod.
Pure Chesed, Real Emes…Or Not?
There are a few fascinating lines that Rav Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler writes in his sefer Michtav M’Eliyahu. The background behind the letter is that Rav Dessler had been living in London, where he taught a group of very bright young budding talmidei chachomim. He was asked to move to Gateshead, where he would not be able to spend his time teaching such gifted talmidim. Even though it was difficult, he left London and moved to Gateshead. One reason, he writes, was that “A person whose desire to teach Torah comes from an inner desire to perform chesed realizes that the lower the level of his talmidim, the more value there is in the chesed that he is doing, and thus his dveikus in his Master is even greater.
“When, however, a person is deficient in the depth of his level of chesed and his desire to teach is mixed with shelo lishmah, he desires older talmidim because he wants to build himself through his talmidim and he thinks the lower level talmidim will bring him down” (introduction to first volume of Michtav M’Eliyahu).
Look at Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch, the heroic rabbinic leader who saved German Jewry from the Reform. He was chief rabbi of Moravia, a prestigious rabbinic position. He was teaching Torah, learning Torah, and leading a prominent kehillah, but that didn’t stop him from leaving. When a small group of baalei batim from Frankfurt broke away from the general kehillah and invited him to serve as their rov, a position that was far less prestigious in the eyes of society than being chief rabbi of Moravia, he said yes. That is the power of anshei emes.
It is our task to remember that what society calls “making it,” whether it is in the world of chinuch and rabbonus, or the world of business and commerce, usually has nothing to do with emes. Really making it depends on penimiyus and cannot be measured by titles or dollars and cents.
Think about it.
