Of rabbis and realities

Two separate mishnayot in Avot (1:6, per Yehoshua ben Perachya, and 1:16, per Rabban Gamliel) urge us to take for ourselves a rav, a rabbi or teacher. Both these teachings have been extensively analysed, from the days of the earliest sages and up till today, and many different strands of advice have been teased out of them. This advice usually focuses on why a person needs a Torah teacher and/or spiritual adviser, what that person needs and how the relationship between them might function to best effect.

The implications of this mishnah run wider than one might initially imagine. Just as the instruction “get yourself a wife” clearly has more immediate meaning and relevance to the person seeking a wife than it does to the prospective wife, so too does “take for yourself a rav” speak more to the needs and interests of the person who lacks one than to anyone who might be that rav. Perhaps this is why commentaries on Avot so rarely examine this guidance from the rav’s point of view.

The role of the teacher, his aspirations and abilities, should not be overlooked. Rabbis and teachers are not like a line of taxis at a railway station, offering highly similar services at broadly similar prices. They have needs, feelings, anxieties and personalised skill sets which, even if they are sometimes shared with others, are not replicated uniformly through their ranks. It is good sometimes to stop and think about our rabbis, and about what their education, status and perceived duties mean to them.

With this in mind, here are two contrasting passages that reflect huge differences in perspective between two eminent rabbinical authors. The first, published in 1999, reads like this:

…As a youngster, my aspiration had been to follow in my father’s footsteps. His study was regularly frequented by people who sought his counsel. … I soon realized that people were not seeking my services as a counselor or as a teacher of Torah. Rather, I was expected to officiate at rituals: bar-mitzvahs, weddings, funerals, unveilings, and whatever other ceremonial events there might be. I was not satisfied with this superficial role, and in order to be the counsellor I had aspired to be, I became a psychiatrist (Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, Visions of the Fathers, p 336.).

And here’s the second, from 2002:

The deepest insight I received into what makes life worth living was … when I began my career as a rabbi and had, for the first time, to officiate at funerals. They were distressing moments, trying to comfort a family in the midst of grief, and I never found them easy, but they were extraordinarily instructive. In my address I had to paint a portrait of the deceased, whom I might not have known personally, so I would talk first to the family and friends to try to understand what he or she meant to them. Almost always they spoke of similar things. The person who had died had been a supportive marriage partner, a caring parent. He or she had been a loyal friend, ready to help when help was needed. No-one ever mentioned what they earned or bought, what car they drove, where they spent their holidays. The people most mourned were not the most rich or successful. They were people who enhanced the lives of others. They were kind. You could rely on them. They had a sense of responsibility. They gave time as well as money to voluntary causes... As this pattern repeated itself time and again, I realized that I was learning about more than the deceased. I was being educated into what makes a life well lived (Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference, p 80).

Neither of these statements can be marked “right” or “wrong”. They both deal with the experiences and responses of rabbis who were called upon to be the rav in a sense where the skills and services demanded of them were not those they were hoping to deliver. Rabbi Twerski’s response was to go back to the drawing board, as it were, and re-craft himself as the effective counsellor he sought to be, while that of Rabbi Sacks was to identify his inexperience and initial struggle to satisfy congregational demand as the gateway to a unique learning experience. Both rabbis clearly benefited from their respective responses and, in doing so, were able to confer even greater on their respective publics.

In an age of increasing specialisation, rabbis are no different to medical or legal practitioners in that they cannot be expected to master entirely the discipline of their calling. While the call in Avot to take for oneself a rav has not changed, I believe that it has become a little less unusual for a rabbi to suggest gently to a congregant in need of advice, assistance and support that he or she should try instead another rav whose knowledge or expertise is greater than their own. I’d be curious to know if members of this Facebook group have any knowledge or experience of this.