[Avodah] Lessons from Jacob and Esav

[Prof. Levine]

In Parshas Toldos RSRH makes many insightful 
comments on how one should raise children. He 
expanded on this topic in his essay Lessons from Jacob and Esav that is at

http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/lessons_jacob_esau_col_vii.pdf

In part he wrote

Down to our present day we have been able to 
observe the disastrous consequences of a 
one-sided approach to the unique task of being a 
Jew. Many a son of a pious talmid chacham has 
been totally lost to Judaism because his father 
insisted on training him to become a talmid 
chacham without considering whether his 
personality and inclinations truly lay in that 
direction. Thus he is exposed to Jewish life in 
only one context: that of a quiet existence of 
study and meditation for which he has neither 
talent nor desire. What attracts him instead is 
the busy, colorful life of the world outside. But 
as a result of the narrow view of life in which 
he has been trained he gets the impression that 
in order to participate in the active, variegated 
life for which he yearns, he must give up his 
mission as a Jew. He consequently abandons his 
Judaism in order to fling himself into the 
maelstrom of excitement and temptations offered by the world outside.

The story of such an individual might end quite 
differently if only, instead of forcing him into 
the mold of a talmid chacham, his father would 
raise him from the very beginning to become a man 
of the world who, at the same time, is faithful 
to his duties as a Jew; if only that father would 
teach this son that the activities of the world 
outside, too, have their place in God's plan, 
that it is possible to preserve and to 
demonstrate one's complete loyalty to Judaism 
even as a sophisticated man of the world. He 
should make his son understand that, as a matter 
of fact, many, if not perhaps the most important, 
aspects of Jewish living are intended primarily 
to be practiced amidst the conditions and 
aspirations of everyday life, in the midst of the 
world and not in isolation from it. He should 
make his son understand that the Taryag 
Mitzvos  are not meant to be observed in the 
klaus [Judeo-German equivalent for a small 
synagogue. (Ed.)] or in the beth hamidrash but 
precisely in the practical life of the farmer or 
the public-spirited citizen. If only that father 
would make it clear to his son that the spirit 
and the happiness of Judaism are just as 
accessible to a Zevulun "in the world outside" as 
they are to an Issachar "in the tents,"­who knows 
whether that son might not stand by his father's 
deathbed and gently close his father's eyes as a loyal, pious Jew?

I believe that the reason why the Slabodka 
Yeshiva produced so many gedolim is because the 
Alter did not take a "cookie cutter" approach to 
how he educated his talmidim. He let each talmud 
develop in a manner consistent with his unique 
strengths. Sadly, I do not see this approach 
being taken often enough today in Chinuch.  As 
Rabbiner Hirsch points out, the attempt to 
educate all in the same manner is bound to lead to failure in many instances.

YL
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