Notes

Teaching Torah Correctly : A Picture will be Worth 1000 Terms - Parshat Shemini
If the saying of which says that some sort of picture is worthy of a thousand words has any genuine meaning, can a single think about the value of the original piece contained in the picture itself?!

We all live in a world of sight (amongst our other feels. ) When it comes to pedagogic teaching methods, when we're going to be able to really succeed in instructing someone else regarding something, there is hardly any better approach of carrying it out than by actually demonstrating them what is actually all about.

That brings to mind the strangeness suffered by a lot of at school level : and advanced schooling, in which the professor walks into the room, rambles off typically the biggest words they can think regarding, then gives typically the students a heavy textbook to read, and not only needs these to have comprehended every one of the terms, although to actually undertake what they have been supposed to have got learned.

The Torah is not a new text book : though many "greats" apparently think it is. The Torah is a signal of rules of living life. Really full of such practises as wearing Tefillin and Tzizit, placing up Mezuzot upon doorposts along with a variety of other exclusive commandments such because the way to immerse ships within a Mikvah with regard to "koshering" purposes, or even for instance - just how to even create the Mikvah to be able to begin with! Exactly what from the laws regarding killing an creature before being permitted to eat this?! In fact, typically the majority of Torah law is based upon real actual things - that will require sight throughout order to realize what it's just about all about.

Let's make keen Talmudic pupil. He is ready to turn into a rabbi. He works through some serious stuff, learning about the particular laws of meat and milk by way of example - and next some laws working with how to kosher meat by salting it. He might furthermore learn the laws for Shechting (slaughtering) an animal also - and the variety of various other important laws associated with ritual law. In the end, if he is going to be a rabbi of any community -- he might need in order to know how to rule in these types of matters to assist the community fulfil Legislation law correctly! Taking is going to be able to be a large area of issue the community - so he'll really have to know everything from how to slaughter an animal : to salting the meat - to a number of problems that may arise through people accidentally finding themselves for the circumstance exactly where some milk splattered on top associated with the meat (or was accidentally cooked properly by it - a new prohibition of typically the Torah. )

Will the student actually know anything about the down sides of dairy and meat combining? What of salting the meat? In addition to what of slaughtering the animal?! He may well be able to recite totally off by center the Talmud pagina he is at present on... the commentaries written about that and have a clear grasp of the dialect used to explain how to get rid of a creature. Does this individual however actually understand anything about the functional? Does he also know what the distinct parts of the pet are? Has he *seen* the animal also?! Or has they simply recited by simply rote - every thing dealing with typically the animal?

In fact , although the student may be considered a figured out scholar, it would be the unusual individual to think about such a student like a real expert on Jewish law : without knowing in the event that the student features actually practised anything at all he has mastered.

Sadly in each of our day and age, there is usually simply a lack of competent people ready in addition to available to instruct these things in a practical stage. Most teaching is definitely done via the Talmud page with the student attaining his certification and even qualification from simply regurgitating the fabric away from by heart. Inside the eyes with the teacher - they are truly a Talmid Chacham - some sort of wise and learned student. One could including wonder if he or she is really honest sufficient with himself to grasp that with most his knowledge : he may know extremely little!

A lot more regarding doing, about finding and knowing exactly how things work. Not necessarily simply by reading a text guide and being qualified to deal with life from whichever is learned coming from it.

The popular history is told with regards to the great Rabbi Akiva who started learning Torah when justin was 40 to become the best of Torah giants. All Torah that we get today -- both revealed plus hidden - have got because their roots instructions the teachings educated at this time very special giant of a man. Yet from 40, he understood almost nothing involving what Torah has been all about. Consequently much so, this story is much more worthy of becoming recorded.

Rabbi Akiva found himself throughout a deserted place one day. As he was travelling, he observed a body resting on the terrain. Upon closer inspection, he realised right now there was no living in it. A dead body... in will need of burial. Rabbi Akiva was no trick when it came up to the laws and regulations of burial. They also valued typically the honour from the entire body. After all, what type of honour would this be to hide a body inside the middle of nowhere? It was bad enough that the body had ended up here all by itself. The finest would be to bring it immediately in order to an honourable graveyard and bury that with the honor due it.

So, Rabbi Akiva got the body themselves to the nearest graveyard and began to bury the entire body, supplying it the honor due it. About doing so, this individual was berated by his teachers. "Do you not learn about the Meit Mitzvah? " they requested him. A Meit Mitzvah is some sort of body that features died somewhere using nobody there to take care associated with it and where nobody knows anything about it. Legislation is that it should be buried from the very level that it is definitely found. Of course , Rabbi Akiva - being especially feeling in the direction of others, a male regarding kindness, realised although that this simply was not honourable and so did the particular very next most sensible thing by taking this to a proper graveyard for burial.

The particular truth is that on the surface, Rabbi Akiva do nothing below typically the best for this particular body. Yet, something was missing. While Rabbi Akiva himself testified after this kind of incident. The factor of Shimush (serving Torah scholars) had been missing! While he had learnt about the particular need for giving honour into a dead body (which he did with excellence! ) he did not truly see how other people before him experienced treated such a new situation. Had he seen it, they would have realized that the Mitzvah that he experienced, had nothing in order to do with honouring the body by burying it inside the graveyard, but throughout fact by honouring it more simply by burying it precisely where it had been!

When a picture may be worth 1000 words, then the actual implementation of viewing something made in person must end up being far beyond this. Such is typically the way that Torah must be educated always.

Learning the laws of typically the prohibitive mixing regarding milk and meat is decent. But if the Rabbi will never actually demonstrate to be able to trainees what may be (at lowest with excellent sketches! ) or next best to permit the student to ask - and ask and ask, and if the rabbi will not have patience to offer with the scholar's constant queries and even difficulties, then your educating he will become doing to his / her student will end up being more associated with a perceptive exercise, which might simply be a waste of resources.

In the event that the student understands about the laws of cleaning vegetables with regard to kosher purposes yet never actually wipes them himself, he or she will be in relation to as smart since he was ahead of he had learnt the fabric! And whilst regurgitating the laws of slaughtering a good animal - or perhaps building a kosher Mikvah may produce the student intelligent... they will go nowhere if the teacher is not really prepared and prepared to really show the scholar what it's almost all about.

He might ask a variety of questions to the college student, challenging him with rhetoric and reasoning, but with no scholar actually seeing the particular law in action - the scholar will remain permanently lost, never having understood one phrase of Torah.

Although don't be amazed. These ideas were not my own, personal.

Inside Parshat Shemini, Moses is commanded simply by G-d to teach typically the Jewish people typically the laws of which wildlife are fitting intended for kosher consumption and which are not.

Moses - the humblest and very best of all adult men - does not really simply inform typically the Jewish people by simply naming the pets... he takes things one step more. How many animals could there maintain the world? How many birds in the sky, fish in the sea, plus creepy crawly pets upon the Planet?! Wouldn't it merely requires be good enough for Moses to list them all?!

Inside of Parshat Shemini : Leviticus 11: one particular and onwards, G-d commands Moses in order to speak to your children of Israel and even tell them of which *this* is the particular Chaya (animal) that you may take in. Rashi (the well-known commentator on Torah) remarks: This is definitely in the dialect of "life" (i. e. the message Chaya is relevant to the term Chayim meaning life) - for if not just for this, the particular text could have got said "Behema" -- which also means animal (Mizrachi. ) Since the Judaism people cleave to be able to G-d and are fitting to be living, therefore independent them from your impurity and decree after them commandments... )

Rashi then carries on to point away: This teaches us (i. e. through the proven fact that the particular verse says clearly that "this" is usually the animal that you may eat, it indicates an action regarding pointing to something) - that Moses held the dog and showed it to the Guidelines people (saying) this particular you may take in, and this you may not eat. Even all the excitedly pushing fish in the sea, he placed up every individual specimen and they showed them. In addition to so too using the birds... and therefore too with typically the creepy crawly beings.

Rashi remarks evidently that the instruction to Moses was not simply to *tell* the Jewish people what they may or perhaps may not consume. It had been not great enough to basically tell them the brands of the creatures. The reason is usually obvious. It will end up being that Moses realized the names of each and every animal, what they will appeared as if and the reason why we were holding Kosher or not, but is not every single person seemed to be able to just know via intuition which animal Moses was talking about. Better for Moses to really point to be able to the animals independently and show all of them exactly what had been kosher and what was not, and this way instruct the Jewish people exactly what was permitted and what was not.

Moses instructs us all a great important lesson - especially when considering teaching Torah (if not everything otherwise in every area of your life as effectively. ) Not necessarily enough to debate regarding hours on conclusion over texts thinking if one provides grasped the material properly enough to pass a written exam. Rather more info must teach typically the student well enough -- and clearly enough, thus that the college student does not only be aware of the material found in his head (such a walking encyclopaedia), but rather that he actually holds the physical element of the idea as well, so that when it arrives to implementing a law (or the like) trainees can actually know exactly what to accomplish.

Learning exactly how to slaughter a creature through one 1000 pages of textual content may be beneficial. But this does not compare to the reality of actually seeing a new qualified slaughterer perform the slaughter. Learning how to salt meat to make it kosher through another thousand pages regarding text and a new confusing exam, may possibly well test the particular students intellectual abilities, but it comes close as nothing when placed with typically the real situation involving finding meat waiting around to be salted rather than actually figuring out how to take care of this and just exactly how much physical salt to really use (how to wash the meat, how to soak this as well as how to clean that afterwards etc. ) Learning how to build some sort of kosher Mikva via thousands of webpages of text might do well intended for implanting in typically the student the opportunity to realize the basic concepts of the composition of a kosher Mikvah - but does it compare from all to the particular teacher physically revealing students what a Mikvah seems like, the particular pipes used and how the drinking water is definitely brought in to the Mikvah?!

Because Torah is lifestyle (see Rashi above), and the Guidelines people represent life itself and need to cleave to living - it is definitely fitting that each Torah teacher internalise these kinds of concepts, so that when the time relates to share what Torah is all about - into a scholar who finds assumptive concepts challenging to understand - the instructor will actually have the ability to show the college student what all around. Not just throughout words. Not still in pictures : but for real, on this physical planet that we are now living in.

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He or she is involved in Torah learning as well as Torah teaching both in person, and through using Internet technologies to those situated from him.

He enjoys both the unveiled and the hidden (Kabbalah and Chassidut) factors of Torah. This individual loves writing with regard to a variety involving publications and mags and is often open to additional such opportunities. He or she is additionally a qualified photographer, photographing marriages and events as well as having a web photo store.

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