Confluence
ACADEMIC INTEREST
The student knowing, or knowing the student?
By: Rabbi Dr David Fox
“In Europe before the war, no one would have let food go to waste. The affluence of America allowed disregard for such things.”
Having graduated yeshiva high school in LA, I went east to study Torah in a higher-level Torah institution. I had spent my youth at the feet of my rebbe, my mentor and guide, Rabbi Simcha Wasserman, ztz”l, who was a luminary Torah leader and teacher. He considered his students to be his children in that he and his rebbetzin had not merited children of their own. His warmth and affection were always present and the example he set of maintaining integrity as well as scholarship have always stayed with me.
It was a late Brooklyn night. I had traveled from the yeshiva to attend the wedding of an older classmate. To my surprise the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Wasserman, had flown in for the wedding of this former student. Because of his fame and his sparkling character, many crowded around him, so it was difficult for me to catch his attention. The hour was nearing midnight, and the waiters were cleaning up the emptying hall. I waited to greet my rebbe. He noticed me standing in the corner and beamed, walking towards me. I noticed that he suddenly bent down to pick something off the floor. It was a roll which had fallen to the ground, and I rushed to save him from the task of retrieving it, but he beat me to it. He then recited the Talmudic rule that one does not bypass or step on food. I naively said to him that no one would eat it now anyway, nor were any dining guests left. It was going into the garbage regardless! He winced and lamented that this was true but that when he was a child growing up in Europe before the war, no one would have let food go to waste. The affluence of America allowed disregard for such things. He acknowledged that the roll would be thrown out, yet it was still wrong to walk over or around intact food. This was my halacha lesson on Jewish law for that late night.
He then took a chair and invited me to sit down, asking me what tractate of the Talmud I was currently learning. I demurred, replying that it was very late and that I did not want to keep my venerable teacher up, especially when he had a flight to catch early the next morning. He insisted. I hesitated. He asked again. I made an excuse. He then smiled and said to me that back in LA he would be seeing my parents. They would ask how I was. “How can I tell them how you are without first sharing some words of Torah with you?!” He saw that I was reluctant to engage in a Talmudic discussion so late at night. He then said to me, “Tell me what tractate you are studying.” I told him. “Tell me what page you are up to”. I told him. He then looked into my eyes with his warm but penetrating gaze and was quiet for a few seconds. He then said, “You probably had a question on the comment of Rashi (an 11th century scholar) on this line (he recited that line from memory)”. Stunned, I said that yes indeed, that morning I had been puzzled by the commentary of Rashi there. “You probably asked the following question…”, and he proceeded to pose a question on the Rashi. Shocked, I nodded my head in partial disbelief and in partial humility. “Yes, that was the very question which I posed this morning during our class”. “And you probably suggested the following answer…”, he went on, outlining precisely the way in which I had posed a possible solution for the problem I had raised. I stammered that indeed, this answer had been the one which I had offered during our Talmud class. He smiled, sat back, and said, “Well, that answer is possible. Could be. If you look in another tractate on this specific page a few lines from the top, you will find that Tosafos (the Talmudic school which succeeded that of Rashi in medieval France) says something very similar. Very good. All right then. We have discussed Torah together and I will report this to your parents.”
And with that, The Rosh Yeshiva bid me a good night.
Teaching is not only about giving over our ideas or imparting educational skills. It is about getting to know the individual thought processes of your students and their capabilities. The interest which my great teacher took in his students was profound, as was his grasp of each one’s ability. This has remained my model to aim for with my own students and talmidim.
