Educational Insights from Parashat Vayigash — “Inner Building or Copying and Imitation? A Critical Question”

One of the topics that ought to serve as a cornerstone in the methods of education and in transmitting the path to our students and to the future generation is the discussion of the question: where is the main focus of my investment as an educator — in the inner building of a person’s soul through self-work, or in creating copying and imitation?

Let us explain.

When we face the essential question: is our goal to create a state of automatic functioning among our students and charges through maintaining the framework and instilling rules, or do we wish to see them being built through inner construction, through self-work, while acquiring tools and values that will support the foundations that generate change in a process that will accompany them now and, in truth, throughout all the days of their lives?

And essentially, we must ask: what is more important for an educator to see before him? A student who is “smooth” behaviorally, who has no disciplinary problems at all, but who is not progressing satisfactorily in his studies and in the building of his personality; or a student who indeed demands energy from him in discipline and conduct, yet at the same time the educator succeeds in giving him tools in Torah knowledge and in building his inner world — and, in fact, merits to transmit a path to him?!

This is an essential question that every educator who senses the magnitude of the responsibility must confront.

Transition from Yeshiva Ketanah to Yeshiva Gedolah

Standing before myself!

One of the great periods in a young man’s life is when he enters yeshiva gedolah (of course, this also depends on the style of the yeshiva he is entering, but in general this is a significant stage). And why?

Because suddenly the young man faces a personal challenge in preparing a sugya; he tests his own understanding and abilities, conducts a social life without detailed guidance, receives independence, is far from home, must cope with dormitory conditions, and more. These are things which, when he succeeds in them, will create within him satisfaction and genuine inner building.

All the above areas, based on considerable experience with young men, require significant preparation — and not only explaining the situation and normalizing things, meaning that he should understand that what he is experiencing and going through is entirely proper and normal. This must be said, because many become confused, embarrassed, and feel a lack of confidence at the beginning of their path in yeshiva.

But for one who reflects, the matter is broader and does not begin with guidance before the transition to one framework or another. In essence, an educational process must be built from a young age — during childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood — in such a way that the values are internalized and embedded as part of a process that will bring him to become the living being who carries himself , from a place of connection and inner will... Of course, slowly and with moderation, so that we do not find ourselves, at such a significant age, occupied mainly with activation, instructions, and a bit of “training.”

The goal: to know “Nashim–Nezikin”

Let us illustrate with one example among many. How would we respond to a young man in yeshiva gedolah who is asked: what is his goal in yeshiva life? And his answer is: “To know Nashim and Nezikin”!

Seemingly, he is a wonderful young man with serious aspirations.

But when we examine the matter more deeply, we see that something here has failed, and there is even a deficiency on the level of essence.

A young man’s basic understanding should be that he comes to yeshiva gedolah in order to build his personality — the “person” and the “talmid chacham” within him — by building deep and firm foundations in his soul for his entire life.

Among other things, one can say that he also has learning challenges, such as knowing the orders of “Nashim” and “Nezikin.”

But it does not begin here!

And this is truly a significant practical difference in what we, as transmitters of a path and as influencers, convey to our students.

And the more precise we are, the more we will succeed in being “ educators ” and not merely “ programmers ”!!!

An animal knows a great deal of lomdus — is that really so?

Let us sharpen the point somewhat for the sake of understanding:

How would we respond to a reality in which we saw an animal that had mastered all of “Nashim–Nezikin” by heart? What kind of appreciation would we attribute to it?

There is no need to answer. In any case, the purpose of the question is to awaken thought: when one wants to define the purpose and essence of a life’s aspiration, does one do so by expressing the desire merely to know “Nashim–Nezikin,” or is the story of building a young man in the world of yeshiva something more essential, internal, and deep? For the yeshiva is not merely a studio for acquiring knowledge, but a workshop for building the foundations and the stature of a Jew.

Goals and aspirations — means or end?

Let us try to examine ourselves: are a young man’s aspirations and the setting of objectives goals in life, or are they a means through which the talents hidden within him can be brought from potential into actuality?

And this is a question that every guide and mentor ought to ask himself: toward what is he educating, and what is he transmitting to his students?

Each of us, as a parent or educator, grew up under different educators, and certainly has quite a few memories of them — both for the good and for the opposite — in order to know what to draw close and what to distance, what to practice and what to be careful of. I often hear from those who bring up memories from the past and tell of feelings of frustration they experienced as a result of improper conduct, in their view, on the part of their educator. But seemingly, one can leverage that feeling toward the positive — toward a place of learning how to conduct oneself in daily life, how those events strengthened him, what test I withstood, and so on. As we learned from Yosef HaTzaddik, who named his sons after the events of his life.

Giving grades to all kinds of figures in our world, from the past or the present, is easy, but it is also not serious. We want to be transmitters of a path and builders of our students’ world through inner building. Even if in our own world not everyone was like that, the strength and ability are in our hands — with proper reflection — to understand that, in essence, even things that were not good which happened to us or were done to us ultimately built a structure in our inner world, toughened and strengthened us, and gave us the strength to continue onward until the place where we stand today.

Rabbi Michael Zacharyahu

Spiritual director at the Torat David Yeshiva Gedolah and chairman of the Legiono Shel Melech organization