Learning in Balance

There is a story in the Talmud that relates how Pappus ben Judah came to Rabbi Akiva as he was teaching in public against the decrees of the Roman rulers in Israel. Pappus ben Judah asked, “Are you not afraid of the government?” And Rabbi Akiva responded in a way that was not very teacherly. He said to his student, “You, Pappus, who is said to be wise, are in fact a fool.” Then Rabbi Akiva changed his tone and did something that every great teacher does when words alone cannot convey his message. He told a story.

We have many great stories in Judaism; Torah is full of the best of our stories, followed by the stories of the Prophets, the Kings, the Rabbis and generations of story tellers who use this amazing medium to convey the set of values and rituals which are the content of Judaism. I could listen and learn from these stories for the rest of my life and never get enough, but there is something I learned from Professor Martin Buber, who taught at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem for many years, that makes me believe that part of the content of Judaism is to make it our own in each generation. This is why, explains Professor Buber, we say in our liturgy, “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (I could, and probably should, add the God of Sarah, Rivka, Leah and Rachel.) There were never separate Gods for each of these patriarchs, but each had a unique relationship with God and this line reminds us that we too need to nurture our own unique relationship with God.
One way that my teaching helps students foster this relationship with God and the ownership of the content of Judaism is through stories. My cachet is the same as many, but I try to put my stamp on the stories in two ways. The cadence and passion of my delivery is unique to me. As we learn from our sources, when a king mints a coin, they all come out the same; but when God minted us, we all came out special in our own ways. The other thing I hope to do with the content of my Judaism is to create new stories. If we are created in God’s image and God is the creator of so many wonders, than ought we not exercise our creative powers which come to us in God’s image?
“These and these are the product of the living God,” thus we have an obligation to use many methods to convey God’s Torah which is the primary source of our Judaism. In fact, God too uses many methods to convey the rich tradition and values of the Jewish people. Yes, there are 613 mitzvot and a rich halacha, but there are also numerous stories that convey our values—not in literal statements or commands, but as narratives that show us how to and how not to behave, what actions of humanity are acceptable and which are not, and what righteousness looks like in human behavior. This is the power of narrative. It was the power of Rabbi Akiva. And the brilliance of our tradition is the balance between the literal and the narrative in teaching our Torah’s ways of pleasantness.