Rav Lipschutz's Views on Education
MODERN
RABBINIC THOUGHT
Shiur
#02: Rav Lipschutz's Views on Education
By
Rav
R. Lipschutz's commentary on Avot includes important ideas about
education. He notes that R.
Yehoshua ben Perahya's maxim, Make yourself a Rav and acquire a friend
(Avot 1:6), leaves out the third possible educational relationship and
says nothing about seeking students.
R. Lipschutz explains that trying to acquire students may reflect a
defect in character.
This idea immediately raises a problem. Did not the Men of the Great Assembly
say that a person should in fact Establish many students (Avot 1:1)?
R. Lipschutz offers two answers.
a) Perhaps that earlier mishna
refers to a situation in which the students seek out the teacher; in such a
situation, the instructor should certainly help spread Torah to those thirsty
for it. b) Alternatively, the mishna may encourage looking for students when one
needs those students to support his family (Yakhin, Avot
1:28).
How does actively pursing students reveal a moral flaw? R. Lipschutz does not explain, but I
suggest that the role of the educator's ego in teaching is the key to
understanding this point. Teachers
can justifiably take pride in their work.
However, sometimes this justified pride transforms into something more
sinister. A teacher in search of an
ego-boost can neglect all other considerations and factors that constitute
proper instruction. This encourages
manipulative behavior and indifference toward the actual needs of the
student. Wanting to teach is a
wonderful thing; pursuit of students as a means of selfaggrandizement is not.
R. Lipschutz shows concern regarding the nature of the teacherstudent
relationship. Shemaya taught that a
person should hate the rabbinate (Avot 1:10). Some commentators think this refers to
avoiding leadership positions. R.
Lipschutz explains that a person should not lord over his constituents like a
master to a slave. Rather, he
should relate to them with the mercy of a parent for a child (Yakhin,
Avot 1:39). As R. Gamliel said
to two of his students who were nervous about accepting positions of authority:
Do you think I am giving you authority?
I am giving you servitude! (Horayot 10a).
According to R. Lipschutz, Hillel's statement, Love humanity and bring
them closer to Torah (Avot 1:12), addresses the educator. A teacher must love his students,
including those with less than stellar intelligence (Yakhin, Avot
1:46). Indeed, a genuine affection
for people is one of the pillars of good teaching. The teacher who dislikes his students
will have trouble faking it and no course in pedagogy can teach this
trait.
A teacher who loves his students will successfully avoid speaking to them
in a constant tone of anger and frustration; rather, he or she will convey
compassion and good will. Students
will respond to this much more positively than to anger because a person does
not listen to the counsel of the one he hates (Yakhin, Avot
1:12). Appropriately, this message comes from Hillel, whose positive interaction
with some difficult potential converts ultimately led them to an authentic
acceptance of Torah and mitzvot (Shabbat
31a).
R. Lipschutz returns to this point when commenting on another of Hillel's
maxims, A kapdan can not teach (Avot 2:5). An instructor who is too demanding or
who always gets angry will invariably fail as a teacher because he will not
think cogently or explain clearly when angry. Furthermore, his students will be
too intimidated to concentrate, and they will not want to pay attention to
someone who they think of as a nemesis (Yakhin, Avot
2:41).
The Gemara that suggests that a teacher should throw bitterness into the
students (Ketubot 103b) seems to contradict this theory. R. Lipschutz understands that Gemara as
referring to a situation in which the students are lazy, but maintains that,
even then, the teacher must not become fully angry. The Gemara employs the verb
throw because when a person throws something, they no longer hold that
item. The teacher should have a
brief burst of anger and then return to calm benevolence.
No doubt, R. Lipschutz does not adopt a shallow approach that assesses
teachers solely based on popularity with students. Students can like teachers for all kinds
of bad reasons. He simply affirms
that liking students and having a positive relationship with them aids the
educational process. Schools that
create a more adversarial interaction suffer.
One last quote from Hillel completes this theme. Hillel also said: Do not separate
yourself from the community (Avot 2:4). In his characteristically well-organized
fashion, R. Lipschutz lists several ways to identify with the community,
including keeping their customs, taking part in their councils, empathizing with
their pain, and praying for their welfare.
The final way of identifying with the community applies specifically to
the leadership. While a leader
cannot be overly integrated into the community, he should not entirely separate
himself either. This delicate
balancing act involves avoiding the two extremes of turning into everybody's
beer buddy or remaining aloof, arrogant and apart (Yakhin,
2:32).
R. Lipschutz also offers insightful advice to students. Commenting on R. Nehorai's teaching that
a person should exile himself to a place of Torah (Avot 4:14), R.
Lipschutz asks why R. Nehorai uses the verb exile rather than go or
travel. He explains that R.
Nehorai wishes to emphasize the personal growth that emerges from leaving one's
home, family, and friends to seek out a learning institution in another
area. Even if there is a good
yeshiva near home, a student should choose to exile himself to a yeshiva in
another town.
The benefits of such an approach are threefold. First, a change of
scenery encourages a break from old patterns of behavior and childhood
friendships. This need not assume
that the earlier patterns were bad, merely that they need to be outgrown and
transcended. Second, parents
continue to see their growing adolescents as children even when those children
are ripening into mature adults.
Moving away temporarily from the parental cocoon enables the child to
truly adopt a more mature posture.
Finally, true educational growth comes from within, from a student taking
responsibility and making free choices rather than from the constant supervision
of others. Leaving home opens up
this avenue of personal development (Boaz, Avot 4:2). We can appreciate R. Lipschutz's point
when we consider the immensely positive impact that learning in Israel has upon
post high school students from the Diaspora.
Educational philosophy impacts on R. Lipschutz's creative reading of
another mishna. Shimon the son of
R. Gamliel taught: I did not find anything better for the person than silence
(Avot 1:17). R. Ovadia of
Bartenura explains that the subject of Shimon's statement is a person who can
bear insults without reacting. This
certainly represents the simplest reading of this mishna, which praises
silence. It also accords with the
next two maxims of Shimon, which emphasize actions over words. Whoever increases speech, increases
sin.
Several
commentators mention another version of the text which substitutes
me-shtika for ela shtika. R. Lipschutz adopts this version and
explains Shimon as saying that I did not find that anything good comes from
silence. Shimon is thus
recommending that a student sitting before a master should not just passively
receive wisdom. Some observers may
think negatively of the silent student, judging him either too ignorant or too
arrogant to make a comment. More
importantly, silence hinders understanding, sharpness and memory. Understanding is forged in the
crucible of questions and answers and in the give and take with the
teacher. Active involvement also
helps a person remember the material (Yakhin, Avot 1:65). Tiferet Yisrael favors the
Socratic dialogue over monologue.
Not
only do the students benefit from give and take, but the teachers do as
well. R. Hanina famously said that
he learned more from his students than from his peers and mentors
(Ta'anit 7a). This statement
is counterintuitive; after all, how could students - who know less than and may
even be less intelligent than their instructor - teach him more than he learned
from his teachers and colleagues? A
simple explanation might focus on the preparation efforts demanded of a good
teacher. True insight comes from
those preparatory hours of clarifying the material so that one can both present
it clearly and respond to questions.
R.
Lipschutz, however, provides an insightful explanation for how this dynamic
works and focuses on the students' actual comments. Even a weaker student can make a
significant point which the teacher can then expand upon. The teacher can bring additional proofs
for the idea, sharpen and polish it, or place it into a broader cognitive
framework (Yakhin, 4:2, 67).
Learning from one's students does not mean that those students constantly
suggest innovative and fully developed theories on their own. While that may happen occasionally, the
more common model is the one presented by R. Lipschutz. An intelligent comment by a student
inspires the teacher to expand upon the point, thus enabling deeper
understanding.
Interestingly,
R. Lipschutz applies this principle to secular wisdom as well. Ben Zoma taught: Who is wise? He who
learns from everyone (Avot 4:1).
Here, too, the learned person stands to benefit from the intellectual
interaction with others, including weaker students. Most commentators would not feel
the need to comment on the broader world of wisdom. R. Lipschutz did so because he is
favorably inclined towards this wisdom, a theme we shall return to in later
shiurim.
R. Lipschutz also asks a fascinating question based upon an apparent
Talmudic contradiction. When is it
educationally legitimate to ask questions about hypothetical cases that could
never happen? Some Talmudic
passages see such questions as fully legitimate, while other passages criticize
them.
When
Pelimo asked on which head the two-headed man should place his tefillin,
Rebbe told him to either exile himself from the beit midrash or to
accept excommunication (Menachot 37a). R. Yirmiya received a similar reaction.
The halakha is that pigeons found within fifty cubic meters of a dovecote belong
to the dovecote's owner, while those found further away belong to the
finder. R. Yirmiya asked about a
pigeon standing with one leg on each side of the fifty-meter border, and they
expelled him from the beit midrash (Bava Batra 23b).
On
the other hand, the Gemara thought it perfectly legitimate to ask what happens
if a weasel enters a pregnant animal's womb, swallows the fetus, and then
emerges from the womb with the fetus still inside the weasel's mouth. The weasel then climbs back in to the
womb and spits out the fetus, which eventually emerges from the birth
canal. Is this newborn animal
considered to have come from the womb and therefore have the sanctity of a
firstborn? Another passage
(Yevamot 54a), analyzing the obligation of levirate marriage, raises the
following question: what if the surviving brother accidentally falls off a roof
and lands directly on his deceased brother's widow, intimately penetrating her
in the process. Does such an act
make them husband and wife according to the laws of yibbum, which require
(on the biblical level) only the physical act of marital relations, and not a
wedding ceremony? No sages in
either of these passages show any irritation about Talmudic analysis applied to
impossible scenarios.
R.
Lipschutz explains (Boaz, Avot 5:1) that a question about an
impossibly wild case is not deemed out of bounds, even if the case could never
happen, as long as some conceptual principle emerges from raising these
far-fetched scenarios. Rabbi
Yirmiya's picayune question of the chick straddling the fifty-amma line,
though possible, does not deepen our understanding of the underlying
concepts. On the other hand, the
case in Yevamot helps us clarify what role intent has in the forming of a
union between the brother and the widow; similarly, the case in Chullin
forces us to more carefully define the legal definition of "peter
rechem" (Shemot 13:12).
In instances like these, the Talmud does not object to these questions;
quite the contrary, it revels in them.
Students of secular law and philosophy will recognize the value of
unusual cases in sharpening legal principles. For example, Immanuel Kant claims that
acts that are wrong must be so universally ("the categorical imperative"). In a famous essay on truth-telling, he
raises the moral conundrum of a person with murderous intent who asks another
about the whereabouts of his potential victim. Clearly, the philosophy student who
objects at this point because such a case rarely occurs misses the point. Irrespective of whether or not such a
question is practical, it perfectly highlights the question of how far to take
the categorical imperative.
When should an educator object to these types of questions? According to Rav Lipschutz, this would
be appropriate when the question has no conceptual implications. The problem with such questions is
twofold: first of all, focusing on unusual cases that shed no light on central
concepts represents a waste of time and intellectual energy; furthermore, an
educator might justifiably begin to suspect that the student asking such
questions just wants to make trouble.
Indeed, Rashi explains that Rabbi reacts harshly to Pelimo's question
about the two-headed man because he assumes that Pelimo is simply mocking
Rabbi's halakhic discussion.
R. Lipschutz provides educators with plenty of food for thought. His concerns about teachers overly eager
for students, his emphasis on the need for teachers to genuinely love their
students, his noting the growth that comes from independent responsibility, and
his understanding of the value of a more active and discursive learning process
are all worth remembering in our batei medrash and our
classrooms.
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