A Spiritual Bond

By: Jonathan Seidel

The rebbe-talmid connection is so precious, but it's lost on so many levels. It's not necessarily because the rebbeim aren't there. That there are no gedolim in our generation. Or that there are not enough students learning. There are great rabbinic leaders. There are vast number students learning, and yet there's a disconnect. That disconnect is in adulthood. The issue of grand importance of the rebbe-talmid connection is not in youth, but in maturity.

The rebbe-talmid connection in youth is very separate than in adulthood. The young child is appointed a rebbe. The rebbe is in charge of many different students. He doesn't necessarily have time to speak personally or get to know the student on a deeper level. He may try, but he's the teacher. In some regard, Torah is a study. It's like a math teacher teaching you something. While to be differentiated and conceived differently, it is taught in a lecture type way. Just like in university, a teacher lectures in front of the audience in the auditorium. The teacher only knows who you are if you ask questions or if you send them an email after class. Similarly you're not going to meet with them on the weekend, so too you're not going to meet with your rebbe for a cup of coffee. It's weird, especially for a child, even a teenager. A classic response is why would I want to do that? That is my rebbe. 

The problem faced is aligning Torah and study, rebbe and teacher. Torah is just another class. Forced onto the student to sit and listen. Maybe that's the reason we have rebbeim and parents. Had your parents taught you Torah, you would resent them. Many people have told me that when their father would say we're learning Gemara now, it made them dislike Torah more, and in some cases, and it hurt the relationship because they weren't interested in being forced to do something they didn't want to do. Torah is a lot of effort. It is a bore, it feels like a job. The Torah commands a father to teach his son Torah. He can hire a rebbe if he is unable or incapable. The letter of the law is incumbent on the father but to avoid any rebellious childish rejection, the father hires a teacher to take the burden. Yet this may be due to the misconception of Torah. The Torah is not math. The student perceives it as such because it's been developed or established in the curriculum like math. A teacher is delegating. Yet, had a parent taught it as house rules and had been the norm to do so, it would be akin to any norm such as taking out the garbage.

Parental norms attempt to cultivate the childish mind. To become good principled people. The Torah is part of that education. Interweaving Torah and “secular ethics”. The Torah desires an individual to be a nice person, learn Torah. It's not just something that you know, like math. Do you know the quadratic formula? Do you know what a parabola is? but it's who you are. You're a nice person. You are Torah. Not that you necessarily know Torah, but are to some extent. Some proposed ideas  to rectify this disconnect is to bring in some of the ideal adult metrics or axioms into the youthful connection. That you do have a rebbe who cares and is sweet, and maybe wants to meet with you for a cup of coffee. Still, to the student, it it be a little too far. We have boundaries in the ignorant, innocent child’s mind. Your rebbe is still your rebbe and you are a student. Living in different worlds. Even with these modern ideas, there is still a distance. There are titles and functions for a reason. 

Rav Soloveitchik addressed that he and his father did not speak of love. His father never said “I love you” and vice versa. They rarely displayed affection. That was the way his father was (it can be argued that the unemotional display in halakhic man for his father and the emotional lonely man of faith for his wife had to do with his relation to each other). His father was his father, and his rebbe. In a way it seems that the rebbe persona was more evident that the fatherly aspect. Maybe that was something that many people did, just a normal way of being a parent back then or maybe that was his father being a rebbe. The rebbe-student connection overwhelmed his familial bond. It was not a sense of lacking liberal ideas, but lacking parental connection. Maybe I'm reading too much into this. Not intending to insinuate something about history or insinuate something about the Rav that he did not suggest. In my own experience, whether it's liberal, whether it's normal, whatever the case may be, it does feel like an infringement. The goal is not to try to make it more familiar, but to just let it be. And that will, hopefully lead to the student saying I will learn and that will be it.

Even if this worked well in the past, the surrounding or environmental factors made it possible. It was just the way life was. The same cannot be said of today. For better or worse the world is a different place. If we're going to define the lovely relationship as a liberal idea though the Rav’s experience may just have been his father, family or Brisk. Yet if it is liberal minded and liberal environmental factors then a response with liberal rabbinic mentality is necessary. If the goal is to relate to students, conforming to the current atmosphere is the best course of action. It does mean compromising one’s integrity or religious values but to change one's tone. To bring more robust joy to the study of learning than hardcore fear. Though if this is compensating for the adulthood problem then it is moot. There is a limit. Bringing joy to learning to entice the student is different than treating them as an equal. Yet it must be recognised that they are still students. They may hate math class but there is still a hierarchy and still work to do. 

The issue with adulthood is that the rebbe-student relation rarely exists. Maturing to adulthood and the rebbe ceases. He's doing something else. You're doing something else. He's not teaching you Torah on a daily basis. You are forced to be in his shuir anymore. It's your own choice. You must decide for yourself the next course of action. That mature decision is asymmetric to the child. That new mature mentor found cannot meet the immature child’s needs. The child isn’t receptive of these ideas. Even by making it sweeter and elevating his status, it doesn’t mean that the student will respond adequately. Children are the unknown factor. Whether or not it is has a little more pizzazz will not change that it is not fun. It is not basketball and never will be. It is reading and that is hard work. Most children don’t even read for kicks before they go to bed. It is not fun no matter the metric. Reading is boring and the child would rather do something active. The child will continue to reject Torah insofar as it is not something that catches their drift. It isn’t something that is enjoyable. The hope for some overzealous group to fall in love with learning is negligible even if the character of the teaching is changed.

It's the way you teach Torah. Maybe that's why, ideally, the father ought to teach Torah. That the mentor must teach Torah as a part of who you are. With the aggadic layer of love and compassion, or the biblical layer, to the halakha. The law needs its warm fuzzy coat to elevate its endurance and acceptance. What comes from a parent makes halakha, makes Torah, a part them. Even with these methods, children are still aloof, still unwilling, They're forced into it. Even if it was a parent, the parents directive to take out the garbage is still rejected. The child moans and groans. The parent sternly speaks to the child placing them in timeout. Getting in trouble does not derail the importance of the action. The task is annoying but it is critical. The child doesn’t want to do it now but when he gets older he will have to do it with some contempt. The duty to the immature is refuted but as an adult it is internalised. It is not a matter of enjoying but doing. A child hates reading but a parent recognises the power of reading. How it shapes the mind and develops skills. Learning Torah not only elevates the person’s knowledge but also provides them a better idea of how to perfect their duty. 

The child shrugs it off. For this teacher-Rebbe, to reach out on these 'modern methods' is questionable. The rebbe may have a connection with his students but it may also remain as a professional relationship. He need not adapt to the jolly deconstructed times just because society thinks this will benefit the children. They are children, they are ignorant, they do not know better. They ought to listen to the experts on the matter. The rebbe is such an expert and his teaching is important. The rebbe need not go overboard. The personal connection may not be necessary because the student himself isn't engaged. The student sits there twiddling his thumbs waiting for the bell to ring. He has zero interest in learning. It may be due to the tedious nature of the lecture or because it is school. He pays more attention in math because math has more importance in the school for college recognition. Torah is below that marker and is seen as a waste. Maybe the class ought to be more rigorous for students to be more attentive and attain more. The rebbe is imparting wisdom but the student is recoiling from his messages. He has zero interest and his passivity is showing. 

The student daydreams of shooting hoops after school. He cannot wait for the school day to end. He dreads the boredom of lecturing. At home he doesn’t wish to be interrupted by his mother to take out the trash. He is in the middle of video game. His mother’s increasing tone inspires him to complete the task. Lest she yell at him send him to his room and lose video game privileges. Fear works in order to maintain the fun things. The child responds faster to his mother because she has more power over his fun, the rebbe doesn’t have that reach, whether it would moral for him to possess such power is a different discussion. The student is unimpressed by the rebbe’s lecture. Thus, even with these modern methods, it's not necessarily clear that it's going to change, because it's just how children necessarily are. Maybe not due to human nature, but potentially a trans-generational motif. A reoccurring theme amongst human children. Children do whatever they want to have fun. This rebbe can sit down and lecture all he wants, without any reciprocation. 

Teach your lecture. I’ll do it if I want to. I’ll pay attention if I wish to get a good grade. In this light, it is more about maintaining children’s desire to learn in school than anything else. Torah becomes a part of that cirruclulm. It is not separate but linked to the other studies. How this translates after school is over is difficult. Looking back, as much as the tests were annoying, they forced you to learn, you're gaining something even though you didn't want to. There's something to be said of tests, whether it's for the curriculum or just the fact that it forces you to engage. As annoying as it is, you then have that background instead of learning it years later for the first time. Having some knowledge, at least in the recesses your mind, to ease the return to learning afterwards. As you mature, you become more interested in its worth (or you don’t). The Torah as an identity requires attention to it. Maturity looks at roots. Who am I? Looking at a familiar text reinvigorates a sense of harmony to the past elevating one’s purpose. It binds them to their ancestral tribe. Connecting with those around them. It is easier if immaturity had education. Just as taking out the trash is an intuitive duty so ought Torah be to the mature individual. It is a part of duty and identity. 

This ideal does not always match up with reality. The student for the most part, for most of his youth, is uninterested and unimpressed. When he comes to Israel something changes.This phenomenon is all too real. It is profound. Yeshiva in Israel changes him. A space and time away, just learning. Focusing on learning day and night. Many people spend that time in Israel having fun and chilling out. In time, the anything but learning becomes just learning as the reason for the gap year centres as the year winds down. Spending all that money might as well do something with it. Make the most of it. There is a principled effort involved. Some do, some don't. Yet, it is at this moment that this duty decides to be engaged. Okay, I'll take a chance. My curiosity has overtaken me. All right, I'll take a swing at it. The gap year is concentrated on Torah study. It is on the one hand classroom oriented but on the other is liberation. Away in a dorm room in a foreign country with freedom on the cusp of adulthood. These children are now adults in Israel with their Israeli counterparts joining the military. It is a time for oneself to grow and experience. What better way with Torah. 

Since the beginning of the year, the rebbe has nagged the student. You're here to learn Torah. Whether all the time or periodically. But the rebbe has a look that constantly pierces the student’s soul. Asking him to give it a chance. The student brushes it off. Enjoying his lackadaisical style. He is in sleep away camp once again. This time in a new country with a legal drinking age. He is happy and is chilling. Then one day after a long night the student decides to make a change. Whatever the reason he decides to attend shacharit the following morning and stay for morning seder. He signals to his rebbe that he is ready to learn. His rebbe smiles back at him. Happy to see him with little remarks about his previous absences. For that moment in time, whether it's a year or two years or however long, the student and the rebbe are both engaged in this personal connection, in this bond. We both want this. Every event has its ending. Eventually the student disembarks. He heads for university to begin the next chapter of his life. He has enjoyed learning with his rebbe but all things must end. The student returns to the states to continue his studies. 

He has not lost all connection with his rebbe. His rebbe calls him a few times a year. Maybe the student reaches out here and there, but he's moved on. There's no one breathing down his neck, forcing him to learn Torah. It's his choice now but he has other responsibilities. He's busy, and his rebbe is busy with other students. His rebbe has a new group of students to nag, to grow a connection with. The student is a success, or learned, at the end of day he's grown. You graduated yeshiva. But now where do you go? Now what? Now it's on the student. The student must search for the rebbe, for a new mentor. He must decide, do I want this? It's on me. Now I have graduated, but now I need someone. No one is going to come and look for you. It's on you to make that decision. So a talmid seeks a rebbe. Maybe his old rebbe or a new rebbe. Concerning R Lamm, in YU his rebbe was the Rav but once he graduated he found Rav Kook to be his new rebbe. It didn’t matter that he was the only person to receive smicha and a doctorate from the Rav. He realised who he was and found a rebbe that fit his calibre. Throughout his major works Rav Kook is quoted while the Rav is mentioned in the footnotes. Always appreciating the Rav but it was Rav Kook who inspired his all-inclusive philosophy. 

He ‘left’ his rebbe and found a new rebbe. Rav Kook had passed for some years, but it was his thought, his influence, that propelled Rabbi Lamm forward. The same goes for us. Though it presumably preferred to find a living rebbe. One who you can build a connection and grow from. It is irrelevant who you are. Even if you are a big rabbi for you to still have a rebbe to look to. No one is perfect. Everyone needs a mentor. Even the greats need a shining light in front of them. It is with great sorrow that the tzaddikim be trudging along the road with no guidance. Their rebbe assists them even if that be a contemporary. It is relying on others to assist in servitude of God. It is akin to the Israelite king who always had to carry a Sefer Torah and read it aloud on Hakel. Not only because God was above him but because he was the leader of the nation. He was just a part of the nation and still under the constitutional Torah.  The sense that the Torah, the law, stands above the people, above the president, above everyone. The prophet looked after the king to ensure he was devoting himself to God. A political and religious oversight. The king despite his stature was praised and ridiculed by the prophet whether it be Samuel to Saul, Natan to David or Isaiah to Hezekiah.  

The shift post-yeshiva is the student seeking a new teacher. The rebbe is no longer seeking and it is the mature student who must take the initiative. It's similar to a perpetuated Shir Hashirim story. The man knocks on women’s door repeatedly but she complains that she is tired. When she finally gets up to unlock the door he has  gone. So she knocks on his door, he complains and then when he's up she's gone. A back and forth race chasing each other’s tail. Repeating the cycle over and over again. A Rebbe teaching his students who then becomes a rebbe himself teaching students. Deja vu hits as he realises that the child in the corner was him all those years ago. The process recognises the nature of the classroom setting and the maturity needed to accept the teaching. The yeshiva experience is classified in the same way: the rebbe knocks on the talmid’s door, the talmid doesn’t answer or brushes the rebbe off. It is too early for shacharit not going to make it. Anyone who has been in yeshiva can attest to this. Sometimes the rebbe comes to wake him up sometimes he doesn’t. One day the rebbe comes and he only gets out of bed after he leaves missing his rebbe. His rebbe won’t know he made an effort.

He is fired up. The next day the rebbe comes knocks he is just getting up. When he hears his rebbe’s footsteps turning away growing fainter he jumps out of bed and races after him. He screams I am ready rebbe I am sorry. This time I will make it. Wait rebbe he bellows. He makes it to the end of the hallway and the rebbe is speaking with another student. He didn’t hear you. Either you take this as an insult and return to bed upset or you wait for him to finish and walk with him to prayer services. Alternatively, there is no student there, the student grabs the rebbe’s hand halting him in his tracks. The rebbe turns around and embraces him. Let’s go together so happy his student has made this leap. They are in sync. It is possible when the student reaches out the rebbe is busy and he will not respond right away. Do not be discouraged he is a rebbe he has other students. He will answer. You have put yourself out there maybe ask again. Take the initiative and wait for his reciprocation. You have failed him many a time but he has forgiven you just give it a few moments. Even if his response is lacklustre do not agonise. Do not expect too much, take it in stride. Build the relationship. Make the first move even if the rebbe is a little intimidating. The relationship begins from faith.  

In that space, there's an engagement from both sides. The year is finite and soon the student must advance to the next stage in his life. Congratulations, you graduated from yeshiva. You walk back home. The next morning your rebbe doesn't come to your door. He's not coming. You've left. He's at someone else's door. Now it's on you to go knock on another rebbe’s door. Hey, Rebbe, I'm interested. Maybe the rebbe will respond, maybe he won't. Don't be offended. Find a rebbe who responds to you, who listens to you. The goal of the adult, of the mature individual is to find a rebbe that suits you, that fills that hole in your heart. A rebbe who can guide you. Even though you learned in yeshiva you are still a novice, you still need help. Whether it's for holiday questions, whether it's hashkafa questions, he's there for you. Maybe you have a shaila on the Tosafot. Maybe you have a question about Rambam's principle on mashiach. It doesn't matter. The youth should be engaged too but realistic standards are necessary. The Rav praised haredi children for their knowledge of Torah content but failure to gage the emotional aspects. They learned it like math but failed to make a norm. 

That might just be a normative truth about children. Maybe it's possible to change, but the big part is at least getting them the knowledge. And then there being a space for maturity, the wonder of Yeshiva, of a gap year. For a long time I believed that more Torah ought have been lectured in youth. With more knowledge and devotion a gap year would be unnecessary. Yet such idealism does not match the sensitivities of children nor their hobbies. Even if your father teaches you Torah there is something about just Torah for a year away from everything. Additionally, there is something about being away on its own. Solely learning, engulfed in an experience. A talmid with his rebbe is so ever fruitful. There is a gap between the student and rebbe no matter how knowledgeable the student is. It's not just teaching, it's to have that rebbe bond. Even if you were interested in your youth, was interested in knowledge, it was still a course, still a study. And even if you're the exception to the rule and you love Torah, still critical in your own personal moment, away from everything, to have that bond with a rebbe.

I hope you have a rebbe who has a connection, that you're away from everything. Okay. We will focus on you, not just throwing Torah at you like you did in high school. Maybe that's a personal experience. My personal Rebbe and I had a chavruta while other friends had meetings. We rarely talked about life and spent time decoding the text we were reading. It was about the experience together not always the content. 

And when I left, I kept in touch, but periodically, rarely, and it's on me. Once I was gone I needed to find a rebbe. Maybe that's a local rabbi, maybe it's a rabbi who lives quite far. But you give him a call, say, I'm interested. It's not listening to a virtual shuir. That's amazing. You can learn Torah. It's not about Torah. It is about a rebbe, having a mentor you look up to, that you aspire to. If this one, that you're okay, it's a little out of my ballpark. So you settle for somewhere else, or you just want to go back to the old. It's quite irrelevant insofar as you find a mentor that suits you. 

A rebbe is a thing of the adolescence. A rebbe is someone who teaches you in a classroom. What does a mature adult need in a rebbe. The local rabbi can answer the inquiries. Yet this is precisely the issue at hand. Having a rebbe is not only about answering questions but providing guidance. Able to speak maturely with a rebbe. Able to humble oneself in front of their mentor. Recognising the limits and need for assistance in religious and practical life. It may sound absurd to the average modern orthodox individual but a rebbe can be of keen insight. A rebbe may be regulated to religious questions but still that is a special bond. Torah is the crux of Jewish life and therefore must be taken with incredible integrity. Choosing a rebbe is choosing a spiritual guide. Someone who can assist in serving God the clearest. The Jewish life is all-encompassing, a mentor is awfully critical. It is not childish nor insensitive to find a rebbe. It is if anything imperative. That bond is a spiritual bond of hope and development in one's spiritual life.  

Follow Rabbi Lamm or follow Rav Lichtenstein. It's the student's choice. But in both cases, you find a rebbe for you. At the end of the day, it's akin to parent-child relationship. Parents take care of their children in their youth and children repay the favour to their parents in their elder years. Same with the rebbe. Rebbe teaches the student, calls on student but then student call on rebbe. The students shift from the object of concern to the subject of concerning. You are now the one who makes that choice, not the one being taught, not the one being coerced. You're the one who's choosing to learn, who wishes and desires that. The connection is so strong, it's intimate. Find yourself someone to be mentor. It's Torah of who you are, of your heritage and your tradition.