Education from the Parashah, Parashat Va’era 5784 — Feeling the Other/the Different One

Feeling the other/the different one

Against all expectations
At the opening of our article, let us cite a letter written by a dear and important avrech, in which he shares with the reader a look back at his childhood and youth. The letter reads, with necessary stylistic adjustments:
Since I was eight or nine years old — in fact, almost as far back as I can remember — I felt different, rejected, and unsuccessful. At that time I did not even know how to define myself. I only noticed that everyone laughed at me and looked down on me. When I say “everyone,” I mean that word precisely, without naming figures, titles, or positions — but I mean everyone. My classmates, and also my brothers and sisters, did it openly. They laughed at my every step, harassed me, and humiliated me. Others did not do it intentionally, and certainly not maliciously, but in practice I felt that they despised me. I received poor treatment everywhere. No one ever listened to me or treated me as an equal among equals.
In those difficult years I did not know how to define my problem, but as I grew older I began to understand what people wanted from me. I was a “spacey child.” Anyone who has encountered such a personality knows exactly what I mean. As a young child I was not interested in my appearance. My clothes always hung on me carelessly. Naturally, I also did not observe basic rules of hygiene; they were never at the top of my concerns, nor even at the bottom.
Beyond that, I was absorbed in myself. I could find some marginal activity and be busy with it for hours. For example, I liked splitting wooden toothpicks into long thin slivers. Try explaining what pleasure there is in such an act, or how an eleven-year-old child is not embarrassed to sit and peel toothpicks for several hours. Apparently my nature also caused problems in my friendships. I always had a dreamy expression, and my friends felt they were talking to a wall. In part, they were right: I really was not very focused on their words.
Hashem blessed me with gifted abilities. Although I daydreamed in most of the classes in the cheder, I knew the entire Gemara thoroughly. The examiner was always amazed by my knowledge, though it never made any impression on the teachers, because from their point of view I had invested nothing in it. When I reached yeshivah, my situation improved somewhat. After I came to know my problems, I worked on myself a great deal, but the essence remained the same. I suffered very severe harassment, which I will not describe, because I have no desire to preserve it in writing.
Yet from all my difficult and stormy life, I remember one person not for the good, and because of him I am writing this letter now. I must note that he did everything out of sincere and genuine concern for my future, but in practice he caused me the greatest wrong of my life. He was attached to me for three years — 1,095 days. As the number of days, so the number of times I heard from him the same sentence: “You had better change. If you do not change now, you have no idea what miserable life awaits you. You will be rejected, you will not succeed in building a home, no kollel will accept you, and you will not succeed at any job. You must take yourself in hand.”
It was simply terrible. Words of despair, words that crush a person. Only by a miracle did I emerge sane from it.
For that worrier — and others like him — I have several pieces of good news:

a. I established a splendid home. b. Hashem blessed me with three sweet, healthy children. c. I was accepted to one of the outstanding kollelim in the country. d. I divide my afternoon and evening hours between writing STaM and editing books. In both professions I am considered an expert, and thus I support my family honorably, Baruch Hashem.
I learned that when a person directs himself to places suitable for him, with Hashem’s help he accomplishes great things.
This is the content of the letter.
This subject deserves lengthy treatment, but we will try to touch its edges. A person struggles, yet he must know that in the very place where he struggles, the Holy One, blessed be He, is present, and he has the choice to decide where to take matters.
Many insights arise from the facts described in the moving letter above.

“Feeling like a victim” depends on choice

In every interpersonal relationship there are two sides. Every dynamic communication requires two partners. The rule is that responsibility for the conduct lies with the more mature party — mature either in wisdom or in age. Poor relationships deteriorate into hurt. The hurt need not be verbal; sometimes it is expressed in attitude, criticism, and more. Usually there is an active side that harms, and a passive side that is harmed unjustly.
Clearly, the obligation to change and improve lies first with the one who causes harm — both from the perspective of the Torah path and middot, and also from logic. But the sad fact is that a person does not see obligation for himself. The harming side is usually well entrenched in his behavior. If we truly wish to change the dynamic, it is wise and practical to turn to the hurt side. Fair or not, that is the effective way to act.
The Mashgiach, HaGaon HaTzaddik Rabbi Yerucham Leibowitz of Mir, said: “Just as there is a Shulchan Aruch for those who hurt others, so there is a Shulchan Aruch for those who are hurt.” This sounds novel. Is it not enough that I am the victim — now people come with claims against me? Yet this is not criticism; it is guidance and direction toward better places in life. If you have the ability, then this is not optional work but an obligation to act.
When you are hurt, when you place yourself in the niche of the injured party, you project that feeling outward and inward. You draw hurts toward yourself and then become convinced that you are indeed a tragic victim of circumstances — a passive unfortunate person whom others toss about as they please, without your having control over your life.
The very entrenchment in the victim position raises the question: if it is such an unpleasant place, why do people enter it and find it hard to leave? It must be that they gain something from it — without generalizing, of course. As bad as the victim position is, it exempts one from responsibility for the situation: everyone hurts me, everyone insults me, everyone is guilty. I can only humbly accept all the arrows of criticism thrown at me. Moreover, I am owed compensation for the destruction of my life.
Sometimes, in more extreme cases, it is not even certain that I am being harmed; rather, I have conquered the role of scapegoat. We have already said that no guilty party here will necessarily change, and certainly will not compensate you. Here you must take responsibility for your life, and the first duty is to free yourself from the feeling of being a victim. One should involve an outside person — not necessarily a professional psychologist, but certainly a Torah-oriented person. It may be a good friend, a rabbi and mentor, an educator, or even a close family member, who will help raise your self-worth and develop a positive approach.
When someone feels that others pity him as miserable, he broadcasts that and causes his value to be diminished. Conversely, the moment you see goodness and strength in yourself, you broadcast that outward. First of all: I am not a victim. I am not anyone’s doormat. You have no right to mistreat me, and I will stand by that. This does not mean aggression — “if you hurt me, I will show you” — but a sense of self-worth that arouses respect in those around you.
People around absorb such nuances into their subconscious, and their approach already changes for the better. Of course, one should remain attached to mussar works and to da’at Torah, to distinguish between proper restraint that comes from good middot and adds inner strength, and improper lowliness that brings sadness and bitterness, in which a person nullifies his own value entirely; and likewise to distinguish pride and stubbornness from firm adherence to principles and a value-based life of faith.

Shine your face toward another

“כַּמַּיִם הַפָּנִים לַפָּנִים כֵּן לֵב הָאָדָם” — “As water reflects face to face, so does the heart of man to man” (Mishlei 27:19). The Gaon of Vilna and the holy Or HaChaim explain that souls speak to one another through hidden threads. You think thoughts, and the other person senses them without understanding how it works.
After we have learned to broadcast a positive message about ourselves, we reach the next stage: to think, broadcast, and say positive things about others. When we show a pleasant countenance, warmth, and genuine interest, we become active — no longer passive and pitiable, but dynamic and creative. A person who radiates dynamism spreads a good spirit around him. When we turn to another with warmth and interest, he will usually respond in kind. And even if not — even if the other person does not respond to the hand extended to him — the gain remains a gain. Even if the relationship does not change, our own lives change for the better.
In education this has added force. We must create strengths in students through which they will be able to cope with all kinds of situations that arise and develop in their lives.

Patience — the first rule

First and foremost, a person engaged in educating his children or students must repeatedly review and sharpen the matter of judging favorably and patience in their education and growth; otherwise he will find himself failing again and again, sometimes without noticing at all.
The depth of patience is trust: trust in the good that exists in my child or student, in the path, in the process; faith that everything is for the good, directed toward good, and that the complete good will yet be revealed at the most correct time.
Impatience, by contrast, describes disappointment, lack of trust, fear, and difficulty accepting present reality. It often appears as anger, nervousness, and faulty communication, because we have difficulty accepting and containing the gap between what we want to happen and what actually happens.
One might think that patience is merely a method, an emotional practice, for dealing with a situation into which one has been forced — perhaps a medicine against irritability, or even a healthy channeling of despair: instead of getting angry and exploding, be patient, since in any case there is nothing to do. But in truth the opposite is correct. Patience is certainly a healthy emotional practice in itself, but its foundation is not despair, Heaven forbid, nor the decision that there is nothing to do. On the contrary, patience comes from deep faith: faith in “ואתה מחיה את כולם” — “and You give life to them all,” faith in Hashem’s providence, faith in the hidden good within events that will ultimately be revealed, faith in a Jew, in a Jewish child, in the sanctity of his soul and the inner good hidden within him.
This is the way that certainly brings great benefit. When one draws the student close, he can receive far more than by going with force.

“Acquisition by drawing” is more effective than “acquisition by forceful possession”
Rabbeinu Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman, zatzal, once said in an address on education: “They say in the name of Maran the Chazon Ish that ‘kinyan meshichah’ is a better acquisition than ‘kinyan chazakah,’ meaning that guidance in a softer way is better than guidance in a hard way. If so, one must examine when it is necessary to instill severity in students. As far as I remember, I never did harm to a student, never said a harsh word, and Heaven forbid never hurt one of the students. In practice, knowing when to give and when not to give, when to shout and when not to shout, is very difficult. But what is important is that if the rebbe comes prepared to the class, delivers the lesson with geshmak, and the children have satisfaction and enjoy the learning, they are calmer and discipline is calmer.”
He further taught that an institution that has accepted a child cannot simply throw him out; it must care for him as much as possible.

Think of him as your own child!
A certain mashgiach once said, “I pray that the students who are not suitable should leave the yeshivah on their own,” meaning that he would not have to expel them. It is astonishing to hear such words from one entrusted with educating Jewish boys. Better that he pray they return to the straight path and arm himself with the patience needed to educate them properly, as the Gemara says: “יתמו חטאים ולא חוטאים” — “Let sins cease, but not sinners” (Berachot 10a).
Rabbi Shteinman, zatzal, was asked: how much corruption must there be in a child before he may be expelled? He answered: “It is hard to give a definition. We must make every possible effort. When a decision-maker comes to throw out a child, he must remember that this is a matter of life and death. If this child were truly his own, would he immediately rush to throw him out? Certainly not. He would stretch every rope of strategy, mercy, and advocacy before having to throw him out. If so, why should he not act that way with another person’s child? He is a Jewish child, a Jewish soul. Think of him as your own child. A mechanech must think of every child as his own.”
If the child corrupts others, the matter is different, but even then one must weigh whether the situation is so severe that one would expel one’s own son for such corruption. About Esav it is written that already in his mother’s womb he wanted to go to idolatry; Esav was exceptional. Usually, a child initially wants to be good. Most can be saved.

The power of a candy
As amusing as it may sound, I testify that I once kept a boy functioning successfully in yeshivah for an entire period with a toffee candy. He was capable of going far, but in practice invested very little. After many conversations and attempts at motivation, I stopped commenting on all the matters that needed correction: order, accepting authority, keeping times, and more. A week passed, and I noticed that something was beginning to move, very slightly. At the end of the day I told him I appreciated the change, placed a toffee in his hand, shook it warmly, and said, “I greatly appreciate your effort.” I wished him a good and sweet evening.
The next day the change was far greater. Again I repeated it. After several days, the unbelievable occurred: the boy began to change from one extreme to the other, while every evening I placed a toffee in his hand. At the end of the week he said, “Rabbi, thank you for all the toffees!” This is only a model for educational action: every educator, according to his students, must create a motivating idea that encourages and uplifts, and of course pray that it succeed.

The light within it brings him back — a moving life story
The following story, told by its subject himself, helps us understand. A soft heart turns away anger, and a gentle, reasoned request can save worlds. Sometimes, when everything seems lost, salvation appears — through timing, people, siyata diShmaya, or simply daily study together in a good atmosphere.
Nothing in my childhood prepared my parents for what they would face in my adolescence. I was a pleasant, smiling, sociable, happy child. The difficulty began when my studies in the Talmud Torah became demanding. At age six, with the beginning of Mishnah, I struggled. With the beginning of Gemara, things became complicated. The Gemara and I did not have warm relations. I studied against my will, only not to be thrown out. I was not slow; today I can discuss and analyze with many fine scholars. But then, before the Gemara, for some unknown reason, I became foolish, unable to grasp or understand.
My father sat with me daily after exhausting workdays to review what had been taught. Both of us were tired; both of us wanted the same good goal — that I become a talmid chacham and enter yeshivah — yet the learning became tense and painful. “I don’t understand,” I would say. “You are not trying,” my father would answer, hurt. I remained silent, for to say that I did not want to learn Gemara or did not like it would hurt him even more. He saw my silence as evasion, raised his voice, I was insulted, and every evening became a nightmare.
Eventually an avrech was hired to learn with me, and I advanced more in one year than in the previous three, but it was too late: the Gemara and I were not friends. I entered yeshivah, apparently with a clean slate, but my emotional connection to Gemara had no chance. The staff decided the problem was lack of motivation. They tried prizes, programs, promises, and leniencies, and afterward pressure. For three years I lived under an unbearable press of expectations from yeshivah, home, professionals, and family.
At seventeen, after another conversation with the mashgiach, I packed my belongings and left the yeshivah, intending never to return. My parents’ grief was beyond description. I immediately sought work that would take me out of the house from early morning until late at night. I found hard, empty, physical work, but at least there was no pressure about what I had learned.
Yet a young man working among an entire staff learns from them and tries to blend in. I had come with a black suit, large kippah, and pe’ot; slowly the suit disappeared, then the hat, and the kippah grew smaller. Prayer became rare and rushed. I did not rebel against my family or Judaism, but I was sliding slowly and steadily.
Then “Nun” entered my life. He was the first truly charedi employee at that workplace. He had an office in the administration building. One day I was called to him. He told me that he was happy to discover another religious Jew there and that he badly missed a chavruta. Seeing me, he said, was like finding a treasure from Heaven.
I said immediately, “You surely did not mean a partner like me. I do not open a Gemara on principle.” He smiled: “What did the Gemara do to you that you are so angry with it?” I told him about the lifelong pressure. He answered gently, “I understand. But I did not mean Gemara, and I did not mean that you should learn because the mashgiach wants. Only because the Holy One, blessed be He, wants.”
He proposed that we learn Mishnah Berurah daily for fifteen minutes: not because anyone pressured us, but because Hashem gave us instructions for how to live, and if we do not learn them we will not know what to do. “To work here,” he said, “I had to learn the rules of the place. Lehavdil, so too I learn Mishnah Berurah to know the instructions well. Will you join me for fifteen minutes a day?”
I agreed, at first because his air-conditioned room, coffee, and cookies were tempting. But the study was clear, light, and surprisingly interesting. We began from Siman 1, the order of rising in the morning, washing hands by the bed, which shoe is put on first. Suddenly I woke up differently and began acting from my own choice. Nun never asked what I was actually doing from what we learned.
One day, to clarify a point in Mishnah Berurah, we opened a Gemara. It had been so long since I had lifted one. Nun’s office contained the basic sefarim of a Jewish home. I gradually found myself taking books from the shelf willingly. They no longer seemed threatening.
After a year, the fifteen minutes had expanded. I received a better office position, more time opened, and I decided to fill in what I lacked in Jewish knowledge. I wanted to become like Nun — at home in the books, able to say, “Bring the Mishnah Berurah; I will show you what is ruled in halachah.” I discovered that I was not as foolish as I had thought, and that Gemara was not closed to me. The learning filled the empty space inside me with Jewish content and thought. Mitzvot gained meaning: tefillin, prayer, berachot, even tying shoelaces — everything had halachah and value.
In time, my suit returned, and my kippah grew. One day I approached my father, from whom I had become distant, and suggested that we learn the daily Mishnah together for fifteen minutes. He was stunned and then moved to tears. The whole family eventually joined. I was no longer the ignorant one who could not open a Gemara; I was giving a shiur. My father cried and said, “This is for all those years.”
I continue learning with Nun. He says that without it he would not have enough oxygen for the day. It is my oxygen too. At twenty-one I became engaged, and soon stood under the chuppah. At seventeen I had left yeshivah angry and bitter, intending never again to learn from any Jewish book. Through the daily Mishnah Berurah, I returned to being the son of my Father in Heaven. Now I am determined to make up what I lack — willingly, without pressure, only because He, blessed be He, commanded me to learn the operating instructions for a calm and true life.
Many insights emerge from this story. As parents and educators, our task is not necessarily to bring success, but to create the climate for success, provide tools and motivation, and the successes will come on their own, with Hashem’s help.

Motivation — willpower and its causes
Briefly, motivation is explained by various theories: instinct, external rewards, biological or emotional needs, and, for us as Jews, recognition and faith. When a person understands the meaning of something or believes it is true, a driving mechanism awakens within him. Yet motivation is composed of many elements: internal drive, incentives, need for balance, understanding, environment, skills, and above all faith in the Creator and in the immense tools He has given each person.
As believing Jews, and especially as bnei Torah, we know that no limitation or barrier can stand before a believing Jew who prays to the Holy One, blessed be He, for what he strives toward. Every person, boy, or child who binds his soul to a God-fearing talmid chacham as a guide will certainly arrive — and arrive high.
We are not contractors of success.
But we are certainly contractors of effort.

To sense, feel, and live the other
The foundations of these matters are explicit in our parashah, Parashat Va’era.
The verse states: “וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל-אַהֲרֹן, וַיְצַוֵּם אֶל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְאֶל-פַּרְעֹה מֶלֶךְ מִצְרָיִם--לְהוֹצִיא אֶת-בְּנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל, מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם” (Shemot 6:13) — “Hashem spoke to Moshe and to Aharon, and commanded them concerning the children of Israel and concerning Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.”
The Jerusalem Talmud says (Rosh Hashanah 3:5): “About what did He command them? About the section of slaves.” That is, when they would come to the Land and have slaves, they must release them at the end of six years. Contrary to the common understanding that the first mitzvah commanded to Israel was “החדש הזה לכם” — “This month shall be for you,” the Jerusalem Talmud teaches that they were first commanded regarding the release of slaves.
Why was this command given while they were still in Egypt, before receiving the Torah, and why did it precede other mitzvot? Because only after they had experienced in their own flesh and soul what it means to be a slave could they understand a slave’s feelings, suffering, nature, and longing for freedom. The Torah teaches a great principle: to know how to act toward another, one must feel him — come from the place where he is, and sometimes descend to him in order to sense him. One must adjust expectations and examine not only successes but also, and perhaps mainly, efforts.
The Alter of Kelm, in Chochmah U’Mussar, explains the trait of bearing another’s burden. One can feel another’s pain only through repeated vivid imagination: as if what happened to the other happened to oneself, Heaven forbid; and what one would ask another to do for him, or at least to bear with him, he should demand of himself toward the other.
This was the way of Moshe Rabbeinu. When Israel was enslaved in Egypt, “ויצא משה אל אחיו וירא בסבלותם” — “Moshe went out to his brothers and saw their burdens” (Shemot 2:11). Rashi explains: he set his eyes and heart to be distressed over them. He trained himself to picture it as if it had happened to him, and therefore he felt their pain.
We conclude with the words of Maran Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman, zatzal: “From the outstanding students in class, the teacher has this world, for he feels pleasure in teaching them. For the average students, he receives a salary. And in the merit of the weak, struggling, and difficult students, he will receive the World to Come.”

By Rabbi Michael Zechariah

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