When God copies us

On Shabbat afternoon I attended the Shabbat Shuvah derashah given by Rabbi Berel Wein at the Beit Knesset Hanassi. One might imagine that there are two Rabbis Wein. One is the author of highly attractive and infinitely readable English-language coffee-table books on Jewish history and tradition. The other is a stone hewn from the uncompromising rock-face of Lithuanian mussar, ethics and Torah-driven character development.  Just two days before Yom Kippur, the most awesome day in the Jewish calendar, there was no doubt which Rabbi Wein would be addressing us.

The atmosphere was tense as this frail old man of nearly 90, perched on a stool and clutching a lectern for support, began to speak. The Beit Knesset, packed to the rafters and beyond, listened in rapt attention, necks craned so as not to miss his words. We all wondered, what was his message for the coming days—and for the year ahead?

The main theme of Rabbi Wein’s derashah was that of attitude. It is our attitudes that shape our thoughts, guide our feelings and steer our actions. Without the right attitudes towards God and our fellow humans, we cannot begin to change ourselves to be the sort of person we would in theory want to be. But we cannot even begin to identify our own attitudes without great and patient effort. Who we are and what we are, as humans, may be apparent to others who view us from the outside, but we are generally blinded to the truth because we cannot objectively construe our own psyche.

Our inability to recognise our attitudes with pinpoint accuracy from the inside does not however mean that we cannot shape them from the outside. Here Rabbi Wein turned to Pirkei Avot. This is not a book of commandments, he argued, but a book designed to shape one’s attitudes. By way of example he discussed the character-improving effect of being don lekaf zechut (judging others in a favourable light: see Avot 1:6).

Having related the famous tale of the worker from the South, believed to have been Rabbi Akiva, who gave his employer the benefit of the doubt even after receiving no pay for three years’ labour (Shabbat 127b), Rabbi Wein sought to show that, if we give others the benefit of the doubt, God will copy our example, as it were.  Here he cited an aggadic episode in which the Heavenly yeshivah spent its time discussing the teachings of all the Tannaim except Rabbi Meir: this was because Rabbi Meir learned Torah from Elisha ben Avuyah, who turned away from Torah, and Rabbi Meir was referred to as acherim (“other people”). But it was explained that Rabbi Meir accepted only the Torah from his teacher, not his heretical beliefs (“he ate the fruit of the pomegranate but threw away the peel”: Chagigah 15a). When this explanation was accepted and real-world rabbis cited Rabbi Meir’s teachings by name, the Heavenly yeshivah followed their lead with God himself giving Rabbi Meir a name-check.

Tying this all together, Rabbi Wein urged us to improve our attitude towards others and judge them favourably—even if we don’t agree with them. If we do this, God will follow our example and judge us favourably too.

May we all be judged favourably for the coming year. Judging others favourably is a small price to pay for this privilege.

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Teachers and students

With a new academic year shortly to commence in many countries, this is a good time to turn our thoughts to education. Of the 128 teachings in Pirkei Avot, a staggering proportion deal with this topic, a total of 58—that’s around 45 mishnayot and baraitot—give advice on teaching, studying or on the relationship between teacher and taught.

At its highest level, teaching can generate great personal tensions. This is not a solely Jewish phenomenon; it can be seen in kolel, in yeshivah and at university. This is because teachers who do their jobs well enough will often find that they have equipped their students to discuss their topic of study as equals; they may have empowered their students to take them on in argument, sometimes getting the better of them.

Pirkei Avot recognises (at 6:6) that teachers can learn from their students and also that a teacher is obliged to concede the truth when he knows he is wrong (5:9).  One should hold one’s students in as high a level of respect as one expects to receive oneself (4:15). There is no escape from the vital act of enriching another’s understanding: everyone, including a teacher, is supposed to have a teacher—and someone who can teach but doesn’t is regarded as being below contempt (1:13).

Having been a teacher and a student (often at the same time), I have often pondered on the complexities of the teacher-student relationship. Here’s a case in point.

Back in the 1980s I was teaching part of a postgraduate diploma course on intellectual property law. In the course of doing so, I often set written work. On one occasion I set an essay on patent law. One student, a lawyer from Pakistan, handed in a fairly mediocre effort, which I was obliged to read. The essay was quite week, apart from one perceptive and well-drafted paragraph in the middle which most impressed me. One reading it a second and then a third time, it gradually dawned on me that I had read it before. More than that, I had written it, this paragraph having been copied verbatim from my book, Introduction to Intellectual Property Law, that I had published a year or so before.

I called the student in to discuss the essay. I had no wish to hurt his feelings by labelling him a plagiarist or by challenging his honesty, but neither did I wish him to make a habit of doing such things since it was bound to get him into trouble eventually. Anyway, not wishing to embarrass him, I explained gently to him that in good legal circles it was considered wrong to pass the writings of another off as being one’s own, particularly without attributing that text to the author (see Avot 6:6). “I’m afraid you don’t understand”, I added, “but when I am marking an essay I want to know what you think so that I can see if you are right or wrong”.

The student looked a little surprised, then answered: “No, I’m afraid you don’t understand. I copied this paragraph to find out what you think, to see if you still agree with what you said when you wrote your book”.

How does this little scenario pan out in terms of Pirkei Avot? Suggestions, anyone?