Enthusing Our Many Audiences
January, 2023
In January of 1973 a young political-philosophy professor at the University of Toronto named Dr. George Will began to write for National Review magazine. While he would eventually go on to win a Pulitzer Prize and become a staple of the American intellectual elite, at first he was having difficulty coming up with ideas for columns week after week. He approached his boss, the legendary William F. Buckley, the magazine’s founder and father of modern American conservatism.
“I asked Bill Buckley what I now know is the question most frequently asked of a columnist: How do you come up with things to write about. Bill’s answer was: “The world irritates me three times a week and sometimes a little more often. I don’t have any problem coming up with ideas.”
Lahavdil, the other week I was speaking to a newly appointed rav. He was bemoaning his new toil in striving to locate both the ideas and the time for his constant shiurim obligations. Even leaving weekday and Shabbos shiurim/derashos aside, a rav is often expected to speak- albeit briefly- before or after every teffila during the week (allowing for a kaddish derabanan for avelim).
Many talented young men entering pulpit rabbanus quickly discover that their best vertelach, the sugyos of which they are most proficient, their most stirring stories, etc. all get used up very rapidly.
“I do not comprehend how one can possibly come up with thousands of long or short shiurim and drashos each year!” he tiredly commented to me.
I first sympathized with him, and then shared a method that has served me well. “There is a proverb, a famous maamer of mysterious origin, ‘Devarim hayotzim min halev nichnasim el halev’ –things said from the heart enter the hearts of others’(for the source of this adage, see ‘Michlol Hamaamarim V’Pisgamim’ who sources it to R’ Moshe Ibn Ezra [d.1066], while others, see the yarchon Nezer Hatorah, kislev 5769 p. 305, as well as Metzuveh V’oseh p.367, source it to a gemara in Berachos 6).
“Instead of only seeking to come up with topics that you imagine would enliven your audience, which is of course important, consider also sharing with them what is truly on your mind; be it a sugya you are learning or a shailah you’re researching. My first year in rabbanmus I wanted to review hilchos yom tov, and so, between mincha and maariv during the week, and for close to a year, I would share snippets of those interesting or important halachos from that day’s learning. Recently, I intensely felt that I needed to chazer hilchos Shabbos in-depth, so, I made a weekly shiur on it! In fact, Rav Ribiat’s popular and exhaustive four volume ‘Thirty-Nine Melachos’ had its own origin from the shiurim on the subject he had to prepare.
“Not only will this method help you continue your own learning, but the power of ‘ein adam lomed elah mah sh’libo chafetz bo-a person should learn the parts of Torah to which his heart is drawn’ (Avodah Zara 19a) will allowyour own interest to invigorate the audience as well. Attentiveness is not only created, rather it can also be infected”.
In fact, the Ben Ish Chai demonstrates from the next lines of that gemara that this guidance applies both for what one learns alone as well as what one learns with others (Ben Yehoyadah, ad loc.)!
I am sharing this advice here for a couple of reasons.
For one, I believe this can be useful in most other fields as well. As an example, I am mortified should I meet a reader of our Summer Series and hear him refer to me as a ‘historian’. I choose to write in the summer on rabbanim and Jews of early America not because I know much on the subject – quite the contrary! – rather, because I am so curious about it, have access to research material, and, b’chasdei Hashem, have been able to discover material lahagdil Torah u’lihadirah, bl’h. Should a reader appreciate some of those more in-depth columns, it is because it is written from a place of curiosity, perhaps my own marvel and relishing in the new information that serves as a contagion, more so than anything else. We are partners in our history encounters, journeying together.
I believe this concept may extend to the chinuch of our children as well.
A while back, the aforementioned National Review introduced a column on language and grammar. In a recent issue, the respected linguist suddenly shifted gears to talk about parenting and how to better educate our children.
He shares one of his central recommendations:
“When they’re eight or nine, have them write essays. By the time my girls were eight, they’d already written dozens of ‘books’. Soon, they graduated to essay writing. Whenever they wanted something, I’d approve only on condition that they write a three-paragraph essay for me first. I was careful never to make writing a punishment, but instead to make it something for which they’d be rewarded.
“ Perhaps the best essay I ever received was ‘Why I Shouldn’t Have to Write Essays for Dad.’
“I’ll never forget the day my elder daughter came home from school, at the age of about ten, to declare her discovery that her classmates didn’t have to write essays for their parents. She was astonished to find that the culture in her own home wasn’t universal, and of course she begged to be liberated from the requirement.
“I asked her to write an essay about it.”
Initially, I was horrified by his methods. Should parents’ biases and predispositions be forced upon their children? Should activities adored by parents be thrusted into the role of educational modes for the home?
However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he may be on to something, While he is describing an extreme approach (bear in mind, he feels writing is, anyway, an imperative skill), I think there is much to be gained by exploiting the very things we are passionate about as a tool for chinuch.
Joy is a contagious disposition. Children, after all, are impressionists, mimicking what they see at home. If they perceive our own passion in any given subject, middah or avodah they will not only discover its beauty, but ascertain that enthusiasm is a fundamental chelek of learning and growing, and will then take that same dynamism and energy to other subjects and avodos, as well as to their own chosen focuses (the Chida, in his Maris Ha’ayin to the gemara above, quotes the Arizal who shares that due to gilgulim, people will have different miktzoas that pull their interest and that their tafkid is to focus on and to complete).
It is remarkable that after the final tochacha in the Torah, Hashem shares that the described suffering and pain will be because we did not serve him with simcha (Devarim 28:47). Aside for our avodas Hashem, we must be cognizant that to be raised in a home with unhappy parents, to be led by a rabbi not teaching what and in a style he feels is desired, serves no one’s good. Happiness is a chiyuv, but it is also a method of reaching others. We must find the tools within ourselves to make that possible.
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