Moshe's Art of Teaching

This week’s Parasha stresses the importance of listening and memorizing. These two verbs appear in the Tanach many times. The root אזן (listen, harken) appears in close to thirty verses in the Tanach. The root זכר (remember) in its various adaptations appears over 350 times.

Any teacher who is well versed in the art of teaching will tell us that adhering to them will achieve the results of great and effective learning. Hearing is not enough. In order to grasp any lesson, one needs to listen attentively and not only internalize it but also memorize it in order to ensure that the learning process of any subject, any lecture has been mastered.

I was first exposed to importance of reviewing and memorizing when I was in second grade. The teacher taught us a very meaningful saying and asked me to make a poster of it. It read, “Anyone who learns Torah but does not repeat the learning is like a man sowing but never reaping.” I remember toiling over that poster as a young child, etching its message on my brain, committing it to memory and eventually getting into the habit of practicing it.

That is what G-d, through Moshe, is doing in this week’s Parasha, “Ha’azinu,” (harken) in D’varim 32. A quick glance at the format in which this Parasha was written, reveals that it is in the form of poetry rather than prose, unlike most other parashot. Instead of long sentences and full paragraphs, one finds two columns and short words. I venture to say that it reflects the way it was delivered, as poetry.  Moreover, I trust it was done so for a reason.

The message of this week’s Parasha is one of the most important ones delivered to Am Yisrael. It is brought forth as they are about to enter the Promised Land WITHOUT Moshe. They need to be prepared, be coached and provided with the proper and relevant tools. These include remembering the Torah, its Mitzvot and the power of Emunah, belief and faith. 

Moshe is worried about the future of Am Yisrael and rightfully so. Has he not witnessed them for over forty years of wandering in the desert? Have they not complained many a times even when their food and other needs were provided for them? He knows how impatient, weak and unprepared they are. History has taught him that Am Yisrael is not the strongest nor the toughest assembly for coping with the harsh reality and new conditions that face them in Eretz Yisrael.

Moshe, the ever-astute teacher, leader needs to ensure that, after he is gone, the processes of learning and mastering his final lesson, will be affixed in the collective memory of our People forever and be evoked as one of his most significant legacies for Am Yisrael and the future of our people.

Under the circumstances, what a better way to teach it than using poetry, a rather unconventional teaching method, to help ensure that the tenets of that intended lesson will forever be inscribed upon their hearts, brains and souls?

And what a powerful message it is. Moshe turns to the Heaven and Earth, his eternal witnesses, two of G-d’s creations that encapsulate time, space and matter "הַאֲזִינוּ הַשָּׁמַיִם וַאֲדַבֵּרָה; וְתִשְׁמַע הָאָרֶץ אִמְרֵי-פִי" (Listen, you heavens, and I will speak;hear, you earth, the words of my mouth). 

And sometimes, on a very quiet starry night, when the world is asleep, if you harken closely, you can hear Moshe's final words echoing everywhere, reaffirming G-d's promise to Am Yisrael and the Jewish People, the promise that like the Heaven and Earth, we, too, are eternal.

Chag Sameach

The Anatomy of a Proselytizing Faith

I have recently come back from an exciting experience of visiting Ireland. The Emerald Isle, as some refer to it, is beautiful. Its history is fascinating, full of intrigues, wars, conquests and above all Irish Christian history.

Strangely enough, I was fascinated by the sometimes very intricate and artistically designed Celtic Cross, a recognized ancient pagan solar symbol, which can be spotted around the country’s Christian sites. I was also intrigued, riddled and staggered by its copious use in these sites. Not for long, though.

As someone who has been following the activities of Christian missionaries, I quickly found the answer to my conundrum in the modus operandum of the propylitization milieu.

The goal of any missionary faith, creed or philosophy is to spread its message to as many people and as widely as possible. This is not always an easy task, especially as most humans are creatures of habit who are not readily willing to tread into an unknown realm.

As a teacher, I have learned that a precondition to making the foreign familiar and comfortable is to, first and foremost, create a climate of safety and trust for students. It is the basic stage of human motivation, as correctly prescribed by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Missionary undertakings must be familiar with that concept. 

Their choice of tactics confirms the assumption. One only has to look around at the way missionaries operate here in Yisrael. One only needs to observe their organizations and how they raise money for their designated cause. Their ongoing calls for support and donations are almost always about feeding poor Jews, new immigrants and the elderly. Noble and just causes indeed. But that is where theirs stops - on what Maslow termed as the “Physiological” plain, one that stresses the importance of fulfilling the basic needs for food, water, and warmth.

A principle tenet of their agenda, it would appear, is to make their beneficiaries dependent on them. At least that is what I have observed here in Yisrael. Once the physiological needs of poor souls are satisfied, the missionaries are ready to move to the next level of their holy mission.

That next step in the process of successful learning, knowledge acquisition and adoption of new concepts and beliefs, as any teacher would know, is give them tools that will guide them into new realms. These are aimed at helping them overcome the fear of the unknown and the uncertain and face the alien. It is therefore of utmost importance for teachers to engage students by presenting new ideas in frames of reference that are familiar and comfortable to them as we lead them to the new and unfamiliar path.

Missionaries throughout history must have known that as well.

Imagine the first missionaries roaming the pagan fields of strange lands. How would they be able to introduce the concept of a one invisible god when the ones they worship have human traits?

The answer is very simple. To facilitate that process, all one must do is bring some of their mundane and recognizable pagan symbols into the new faith. To help facilitate the transition all one has to do is embrace their familiar and deeply rooted frames of reference into it. This would bound to make them feel more comfortable and more at home in the newly introduced belief system.

The adoption and incorporation of the Celtic Cross is but one example of such a measure.

Another example is the adoption of the name “Easter,” an important Christian holiday that is an ancient pagan celebration named after the pagan goddess Ishtar, the Sumerian goddess of fertility (hence the custom of Easter eggs and rabbits on this holy day) that was hung on a stake and ascended from the netherworld.

There are many more similar examples. Adoption of foreign symbols and customs is very common. It is also a natural growth process of any culture, a process that no one can or should try to stop.

However, and that is where I have an issue with Christian missionaries here in Yisrael. They do not only adopt Jewish customs and symbols, rather they take Jewish sources that are ours only and redefine them to fit their Christian theology, in order to mislead ignorant Jews into accepting their faith. They become salesmen selling a product by choosing misleading words and phrases and making fraudulent promises. 

This is NOT what teaching is about. This is NOT what good teaching should do.

To that, many of us, refuse to be accomplices.


Special thanks to my dear friend Roger Froikin.

"And You Should Tell Your Son....

Last night Jews around the world celebrated the Pesach meal, called Seder.

“Seder” is the Hebrew word for “order.” Anyone who has ever attended one, would understand why it is called “Seder.” There is a certain order in this ceremony, a logical sequence to each part of this observance. It is lined out for us in the Haggadah, the booklet we use to guide us through it.

It is also apparent to anyone who has ever partaken in a Seder that, during this special meal, unlike any other night, the table is laid out and set with unusual food items and symbols. They are all intended to raise our curiosity and intrigue our inquisitive minds.

Likewise, a bird’s eye view of the Haggadah will reveal that its text is written in a manner that is aimed at prompting us to ask questions. We have the Four Questions which answer the basic query of why this night is different than any other night. We have the segment listing Four Sons, each with their own questions as well as other ones.  

Questions are an important tool along the journey of growth and development of any human being. Questions are also important along the ontogenetic path of a nation. It is curiosity that has triggered human growth and progress throughout the ages.

Our Jewish sages must have known that. And that is where the directive “And you should tell your son” comes into play.

“Those who forget their past,” a wise person once said, “have no future.” This important principle was also known to our wise sages. Teaching and educating about one’s national, cultural and spiritual past is a very important tenet in our Jewish tradition.

There are different ways of teaching, as many would know. The Haggadah, as we saw, uses a common didactic method to achieve that goal, “Questions and Answers.” There is great value in asking questions, as any teacher would tell us. More importantly is the manner in which the questions are formulated. Our sages who wrote the Hagadah were great pedagogues. They framed the questions in a way that helps the readers master core concepts about our Jewish/Zionist past. The method in which the questions in the Haggadah are articulated, the way the facts and ideas are communicated help the listeners and readers develop their critical thinking skills.

Moreover, as one might notice, the Haggadah never asks more than one question at a time. It lets them sink in, one by one. Asking questions throughout the reading of the Haggadah, as during any lesson, not only makes the experience of learning more interesting, it also makes it more interactive.

Questions by themselves, though, are not enough. They need answers in order to complete the cycle of learning, growing, advancing and progressing. Above all, the answers need to provide the links that connect our past learning to our present and future lessons.

The Haggadah writers knew that well. And when the answers come, it is often in the form of a song or a symbolic act. Everyone partakes in them. They engage every participant in this beautiful and heartwarming celebration of Freedom and Jewish Nationhood culminating with the song “L’Shana Ha’Ba’ah Birushalayim,” Next Year in Jerusalem which seals the meal. 

This morning, I am still singing this song as I continue to bask in the greatest lesson of them all, the greatest lesson of our Jewish history - to be a Free Nation in Our Homeland, the Land of Tziyon and Yerushalayim. May we all enjoy this Pesach season of Freedom and live to experience it designed and intended lessons.

Chag Sameach