Dear Reader,
When I first thought about creating this journal, Turn It Turn It, I told Rachel. She liked the idea but said something like,
“Don’t worry so much about parashat hashavuah (the portion of the week), no one cares if the lesson is from parashat hashavuah or not. And besides, you will likely pick a small piece of text out of the narrative so you won’t even be telling the entire narrative.”
I said something like, “But I want people to understand that the Torah we read isn’t just on a whim, but sown into an eternal cycle.”
She said something like, “Sure, of course, but the teaching you provide will matter more than if it came from parashat hashavuah.”
She was always primarily concerned with her learners – what will be the strongest teaching for them? I told her I wanted both. She became one of my first paying subscribers.*
My dear friend and teacher, Rachel Aviva Brodie z”l died last week. In her memory, I want to offer a teaching not on this week’s parasha, but on a text that is calling to me from my core.
Love, Meg
*I have since discontinued the option for paid subscription so my Torah can flow more freely.
“Make for yourself a teacher.” Pirkei Avot 1:6
When I was in elementary school, the week before classes began in the fall, the class lists would be posted on the front door of the school. Literally posted, like, on a printed piece of paper, taped to the glass. My friends and I would run to go see what class we were in – did we have friends with us or our mortal enemies? And maybe more importantly, who was our teacher? What did we know about this teacher? Was she the same one my sister had? Would he be strict or a pushover? Would they give a lot of homework or none at all? It was like a sentence being handed down from heaven: this was your teacher.
As I got older, while there were definitely some situations where I could not avoid a certain instructor even if I tried – maybe the class was required or she was the only one who taught Chaucer – I became more and more in control of from whom I learned. There were even some teachers who I bet wish I hadn’t had so much autonomy. I have definitely been known to be a groupie for a select few intellectuals in undergrad, graduate school, and beyond.
But “make” for yourself a teacher? Some translations rather use the word, “appoint,” but I’m feeling literal today and I think this is closer and more interesting.
Maybe this text means we ought to turn others into teachers by changing how we see them. Something like, we are surrounded by teachers if we allow ourselves to see it. But Ben Zoma says something to this affect later on: “Who is wise? One who learns from all people” (Pirkei Avot 4:1).
But Joshua ben Perahiah doesn’t say that. He says, specifically, “make for yourself a teacher.” A rav. A rabbi. One.
Wait a minute. Don’t rabbinical schools make rabbis? See, this was written around 200 CE, well before the rabbinical schools of today were even a twinkle in our eyes. For Joshua ben Perahiah, it is the readers, perhaps the students, who make for themselves the teachers, and not the other way around. How could this be? (And how might we return to a more organic and emergent model. By that I mean, can someone be taught to be a rabbi, or does a rabbi emerge from within a community? More for another time).
One might argue that a teacher is not really a teacher without students. Sort of like the tree falling in the woods with no one to hear it. That way, when Joshua ben Perahiah says “make for yourself a teacher,” he might actually mean, make yourself into a student.
But he doesn’t say that. He says, “make for yourself a teacher.”
I’m feeling less concerned with the particularity of the “making” of the teacher and more with the action this lesson requires. The student, unlike my elementary self, is not told to wait for a teacher. The student is told to take reigns of their learning. It is not the teacher who needs to say “come learn from me.” It is the student who ought to say, “please teach me.”
To be in the orbit of a teacher that truly delights in helping you grow is one of the greatest blessings a lifetime can afford. In our hyper-sexualized and yet repressed American society we are obsessed with relationships when they include sex or intimacy or both. We privilege the nuclear family and how we can stack them like little boxes in a warehouse. We assume people are only friends with people their same age and qualify our friendships if they are more than a generation apart. And we have a hard time understanding the extreme importance of a teacher (we certainly don’t know how to value it monetarily. The truth is the value of a teacher is infinite in the seeds she can sow).
Ok, I have to stop because there is something I’m not telling you. Joshua ben Perahiah continues in his wisdom. He starts by saying, “make for yourself a teacher” but then immediately after he says, “acquire for yourself a friend.”
Teachers and friends. These are the two relationships he instructs upon. Some might translate friend to be companion. But nonetheless. And what’s more? “Make for yourself a teacher” comes first. In an environment of great learning, like that of the rabbis, the teacher-student relationship might even be primary in one’s life. Finding a teacher like finding a partner. Having a discussion like going on a date– if you know what I’m talking about you might even be nodding right now as you read.
It occurs to me that “make for yourself a teacher” is similar to how we say, “make for yourself a friend.” We send our children to summer camp saying, “make a friend!” but why not also teach them to “make for yourself a teacher?” How would our world shift if we truly understood and honored this relationship? The joy of this relationship? The challenge and commitment and love of this relationship?
Have you ever made for yourself a teacher?
If you have not, I recommend it. I recommend it in the same way I recommend choosing to forgive or sitting outside in the sun just to do so.