On my commute this morning, I was
listening to Rav Shalom Rosner’s wonderful Daf Yomi shiur on today’s daf
(Bechorot 30). Being extremely creative and imaginative, Rav Rosner used the
Talmud’s mention of the fact that children love nuts as a point of reference to
Rambam’s use of this notion.
In the introduction to his
commentary on the 10th chapter of tractate Sanhedrin (Mishnah)
Rambam writes that it is important to attract people to Torah study through reinforcement
and reward. For children this reward should be ‘nuts, figs or a piece of sugar’[1].
As the years move on, the objects of reward change until a person can be fully removed
from any ulterior motivation to study Torah.
This was not the first time I had
been exposed to Rambam’s educational advice. It may seem quite intuitive and is
used by most pedagogic methods around the world. But this time around it struck
me: it is Rambam who is writing this! He, the epitome of self control
and of living truthfully, one of the greatest role models in history in terms
of always being in-line with his deepest values – understands who we are and
what we need. He really gets it that a person might cherish some material possession,
or even possibly an emotional benefit, more than the spiritual progress that is
gained by the study of Torah.
Dwelling upon this point during the
remaining moments of my commute, I felt that this is an important message twofold:
a) We are blessed to have such great
scholars who are distinctly in a different category than we are yet are still capable
of relating to us and demanding only that which we can actually provide.
b) We ourselves must always try and understand
the viewpoint of those who have not yet attained our current spiritual status.
May we all go nuts for Torah – be it
for nuts, iPads, respect or maybe even the truth!
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