Parshas Vayikra

by Rabbi Shlomo Goldberg

"Why Can't Johnny Read?" was the title of a critical analysis of American public education that sparked a reevaluation of public school curricula, pedagogy and didactics. Some two thousand years ago, our sages asked the question "Why can't Yochanan read?" Our question today is whether we as Torah educators are willing to listen to our sages' answer with at least the same level of interest shown by our secular counterparts.

The Talmud in the tractate Taanis quotes Reish Lakish, himself a late comer to Torah study, as stating that "if you see a student whose studies are as difficult for him as cold, hard steel, it is because his previous learning is not ordered and structured in his mind." If there are holes in a student's learning process, or he has not been given an organized structure upon which to ""hang" so to speak, the myriad facts that he has learned, then his studies will be confused, forgetful, and difficult. This is hardly the prescription for developing learned Torah scholars or even Jews who will value Torah study as an integral part of their life.

The cure, according to Reish Lakish, is that the student must prepare himself for a lengthy return to his studies. Rashi explains that back at the yeshiva his teachers and friends must now help him to fill in the gaps and properly structure his learning. Then he will be able remember what he has learned accurately and be able to analyze the Torah's teachings effectively.

Unfortunately, perhaps due to secular influences on our world, students are often rushed into higher levels of Torah scholarship before they have fully mastered the rudimentary skills or developed the database of knowledge required for success at this level. Whereas Pirkei Avos suggests the age of fifteen as the age at which study of the Talmud should be introduced, a school today which waits past fifth grade is running of the risk of being labeled "not Yeshivaish." However, my friend Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz, director of Project Y.E.S. in New York, says that the common thread in the Yeshiva drop outs that he works with is that they have difficulty reading and that their troubles began when they starting learning Talmud!

The study of halacha, Jewish law, provides another example of the perils of too much too fast. In the study of the laws pertaining to daily Jewish life, the Misha Berura is the final word on most issues. However, that does not mean that it can be or should be learned by every junior high school Yeshiva student. A noted scholar in Yerushalayim recommends to his students that they first learn the Kitzur Shulchon Orech once, the sefer Chayai Adam five times, the Shulchon Aruch with the commentary of the Be'er HayTaiv once, and then one can begin the study of the Mishna Berura. If not, his halachic studies are likely to disorganized and hard as steel. Rav Chaim Kaniefsky, shlita, one of the Torah giants in B'nei Brak, writes of this problem in a sharp manner in the introduction to his classic condensation of the Mishna Berura. He writes that if someone tied his shoes on Shabbos and wants to know if it is permissible to untie them on Shabbos, if he tries to look up the answer in the Mishna Berura, it will be Tuesday before he comes to a conclusion! Yet, a yeshiva boy today feels like a baby if he is not learning Mishna Berura.

A century and a half ago, Rabbi Yisroel Salanter, ztz"l explained that when the Torah education system is going in a certain direction, it is very hard to change it. It is comparable to a poor man who must go door to door to beg food for his sustenance. Although he may not have eaten an appetizer or main course, if the house he arrives at is currently serving dessert, then that is what he will eat. We are poor in Torah, Rav Yisroel said, and we have to be satisfied to eat what the Torah world is serving. That being said, perhaps a look at a penetrating insight from the Midrash in this week's parsha will inspire us to make whatever small changes we can for ourselves, even if we do not change the entire system.

Parashas Vayikra describes the various offerings brought to the altar. The most humble of the offerings mentioned in this week's parsha, is that of the flour offering, the korban mincha. Although simple in content and low in value, the Torah states that one who brings even this simple offering is considered as if he has offered his soul. In addition, his gift is more pleasing to Hashem than even the incense offering of Yom Kippur, offered by the Cohen Gadol on behalf of the entire Jewish people. To substantiate this claim, the midrash quotes the words of King Solomon in Ecclesiastes, (Chap. 4, v. 5) "One handful of pleasantness is worth more than two handfuls that come with toil and vexation of spirit." Better to give a small voluntary offering that emanates from one's generosity of soul, than a large fragrant offering that comes as a result of needing atonement for sin.

Once on the subject of good things that come in small packages and the problems of being "penny wise and pound foolish," the Midrash cites several other examples. "It is better to be one who has mastered two sections of the Mishna and knows them well, than one who learns mishnayos and braissos but does not know them well. But people do not do so because they want to be known as 'Masters of the Halacha.' It is better to study mishnayos and braissos and know them well than to study Talmud and not know it well. But people do not do so because they want to be known as 'Masters of the Talmud.'"

Businessmen do not escape the sharp eye of the Midrash. "It is better to have ten gold coins and make a living from them, than to be one who borrows money at interest. But people do not do so because they want to be known as entrepreneurs. Even in terms of mitzvos the advice is the same. "Better to work one's field and give charity according to his wealth, than to act dishonestly in business in order to give more. But people do not do so because they want to known as 'Baalei Tzedaka, generously charitable people.'"

The common thread in the mistakes of those in the midrash is that people "want to be known as." In business as in mitzvos as in Torah study, the key to success is to do what is emmes--true. When superficialities and artificial impressions become the motivating factors in our material and spiritual life, then we are trading-in nachas for a life of toil and vexation of spirit.

In the education of our children, if Torah is seen as burdensome and vexatious, then we stand a good chance of ruining a child's hope for success in learning. The Eitz Yosef in his explanation of the midrash explains that if a child has gaps in his learning, then "the process of review will be one which is hard and painful."

The Torah is not opposed to hard work as part of the learning process. However, Torah study is also the only mitzva we perform for which we ask HaShem to please make it "sweet in our mouths and in the mouths of all of the Jewish people." Rav Wolbe shlita, explains that the word used for sweetness, arev, connotes things which mixed together. Only when the words of Torah are sweet do they become mixed in as a part of us. For this reason the Talmud says that a student can only learn in a place where his heart desires to be.

Those realms of knowledge which are pure intellectual disciplines can be learned whether one like them or not, e.g. state capitals and multiplication facts. But Torah needs to be a part of our lives and us. Therefore, the process of learning must be sweet and we must strive to minimize the inherent pain.

By not taking the time to be sure that our students can read before they attack chumash (the 5 Books of Moses), and know the process of learning chumash before they start mishna, and know many mishnayos well before they start the Talmud, and have an strong overview of halacha before they attack the important minutia of the detailed halachic texts, we are making their learning unnecessarily hard as steel. In addition, children need to be encouraged to think on their own as opposed to being fed a singular diet of rote memorization. The process of thinking is pleasurable and fun and makes the student want to learn and do more.

Children who are not geniuses, who need to learn because of us, not despite us, need a systematic structured approach. If not, unless they gain the fortitude to return to Yeshiva and start over again on their own, we will have lost them from the world of Torah learning. In the days of the ghetto, when the Jewish world was the only place that one could be accepted, lack of success in Yeshiva was not such a total loss. But today, with the attraction of a very enticing and accepting street, a step out of learning can, G-d forbid, be a step out of Yidishkeit entirely. Not to mention, that in our efforts to reach and teach as many Jews as we can, we need everyone on board to serve this noble cause in any way that they can.

It may be that the world is serving "compot." But we can still strive to encourage our schools to slow down, fill in the gaps, and encourage children to think. The goal is to turn from the toil and trouble side of learning, and rediscover the nachas that comes from true systematic understanding of the beauty of HaShem's Torah.

Parsha-Parenting, Copyright (c) 1999 by Rabbi Shlomo Goldberg andProject Genesis, Inc. Rabbi Goldberg is the menahel (spiritual advisor) ofYeshivas Ohr Eliyahu, and a highly acclaimed and popular speaker inLos Angeles.