Rabbi Sacks,
I was wondering, what was the point of yesterday's class? Also, why did you start the zoom with single celled organisms coming together? Isn't our pasuk about day six which is after the fish and birds already exist?
thanks,Yaakov
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18 comments:
Yaakov,
Sundays class was instrumental in setting the stage for us to understand the Mizvah System. Rabbi Sacks began the discussion with identifying those things which may impact and prevent us from seeing the אמת as expressed in the universe. He focused in on the ways we are influenced by our “group” (society, family, friends). The example he gave of the attitude of the Israeli soldiers being shaped by a governing principle that emerged as a reaction to the events of the Holocust( I believe). The reaction of the Jew of not being put down was a guiding principal that impacted the way the martial arts of Krav Mgraw(s.p.) is taught. (I may have gotten he particular wrong) This one outlook permeated all the soldiers. This is illustrating how a belief can trickle down and affect the way we think about things. We are constantly affected by the views of our society. These views cause us to forget the true principals which ought to guide us.
The starting at the pasuk of the animals emerging is vital to seeing us (humans) as particular type of animal that emerged from a set of governing principals. We need to see animal as emerging from the Aretz, coaxed along by Hashem. We need to clearly experience the guiding principals of the Pasuk as it describes the emergence of animal. This will set the stage for us seeing man as a type of animal that is governed by principals of the Aretz. We can then be in a better position to see how Mitzvos move us inline with these principals and the guiding force of Hakodesh Baruch Hoo.
I hope this is clear and helpful. If I have time I will clarify further.
RW
RW
Thank you for your answer. it is very clear. However I don't think it answered my question, maybe let me clarify the question. Since these ideas are so beautifully able to be expressed in two paragraphs, even with further clarification it should not take more than a 10 minute shiur to go through them. What was the point of extending the process over an hour and a half?
This is especially bothersome since based on my second question it would seem that we were reinforcing a certain incorrect dimension to our understanding of the Pasuk.
Also in regards to your Krav Magah summary, my impression was that Rabbi Sacks was not only focused on how our outlook is influenced by our group. But on the idea that for the student of Krav Magah, as well as any other craft, one must not only have the principle (Don't be a victim) but one must also learn how to apply this principle in every material case (How does not being a victim against 2 terrorists with knoves look etc.). Of course he went into more detail but this IIUC was the main point
Yaakov,
You first issue is questioning the amount of time it took Rabbi Sacks to carefully illustrate the idea and coax us through a series of examples to impact our psychic response and resistance to the ideas conveyed. It would be more appropriate for Rabbi Sacks to address that issue.
Regarding your second issue of conveying a false understanding of the Pasuk, I am a bit unclear as to what you are refering to. Could you please elaborate? Do you mean that to start the zoom from a place that is not consistent with all the preceding verses is problematic? I believe the function of the zoom is to connect our experience to the Pasuk. Allowing our psyche to be guided by the various modalities and terms that verse directs us to. This will be powerfull in taking the next step of connecting our minds the universal principals that directly emerge from our clarified experience. Animal did emerge from the Aretz. How exactly it did this, perhaps is best expressed by the evolutionary model. I am not certain on this, but this is our current world view on this issue. This is the science of the times. If I am missing you issue entirely, please clarify, what you are bothered by. Thanks.
Regarding the Krav Magah, I don't recall that point being an essential feature. I may have just missed it. I don't see how that point would have fit into the overall objective of what Rabbi Sacks was trying to get accross. I don't believe he was endorcing the extending of the principal of never be a victim to all particulars as much as simply stating that was what occured. In other words we must realize that "big ideas" trickle down and affect how we act in many areas of our life. The "pursuit of Happiness" as a principal that impacts every American and the choices they make. We the Am Kodosh must be inline with a different set of principals that are illustrated in the design and chochma of the creation and exemplified in the system of Mitzvot.
This is what I understood. I hope Rabbi Sacks will weigh in on the above points.
Lefi Aniyas Dati
RW
RW
Thank you for your response
I believe you are still missing the essence of my first question. It is not a quantitative problem as to why Rabbi Sacks took a certain number of minutes to explain, but a qualitative one, why did he go into a type of explanation beyond defining the meaning of the pasuk. I know that the answer is "in order to coax our psyches into seeing the idea" but I don't see where the need for such "coaxing" is in this case, nor do I understand why this method of "coaxing" is the appropriate one. speaking from my own standpoint this shiur did not have any noticeable difference from if he had just expressed the three elements at the beginning.
In regards to my second question, if we are going based on current science then the land animals evolved from sea animals. hence since we are talking about day six when the land animals emerged, we should start the evolutionary zoom with sea creatures. a zoom moving from single celled creatures to animal life is more appropriate to a discussion of day five.
Yaakov,
My understanding of the process of the shiur is similar to RW's. The difference is that instead of using the term "coax" I would use "aided discovery." That is, R' Sacks helped us come to a personal discovery of the principles instead of just stating them. That way, the knowledge is more of a first hand knowledge than a second hand knowledge.
What do you think?
Sean O'Neill
Could you explain what you mean exactly by a personal discovery? I am new to this site. It is very interesting but you seem to speak your own language. What are first and second hand knowledge? Do those have to do with personal discovery?
Dear Yaakov,
I think I understand your critique. Recently, my colleague Rabbi Wildes asked me to sub for him at Y.U. for a Semicha class. The class was focused on teaching the practical elements of outreach work [Kiruv]. My goal was to teach these 30 Semicha students the number one principle of educating the unaffiliated - namely, you need to enter the world of your prospective student and find what of their world can become Torah. The classic error is to give your best Torah - the Torah that you are the most proud of and share it - usually to horrible results.'[i.e. my favorite brisker chakira - can you imagine the boredom?]
Instead of just sharing the principle and giving examples [giving the Universal and then exemplifying it by particulars], I broke up the class into groups and gave each a scenario where they had to teach for 5 minutes in different settings. This forced them to explore their best sense of the world of each unaffiliated Jew and try to engage them. As they made their presentations - the class and I critiqued them. One learns an art from dealing with the particular and develop from there the universals. The class that Rabbi Sacks guided on Sunday was really on the art of the posuk - starting from everyone’s "zoom " hava aminas and slowly identifying the key elements and finally the principles.
All the best,
Pinny
Here are some of the senarios I used:
Scenario #1
You have been invited by the local conservative Hebrew school principal to give a 5 minute presentation on the Orthodox position on the mitzvah of living in Israel to the hey class [12 year olds]. The class has 18 students with both boys and girls.
Scenario #2
You have become the assistant regional director of Long Island NCSY [Mazal Tov !– you have no life]. You are giving a class at the spring regional Shabbaton to a group of high school students on the beauty/importance of Shabbat. Share the first 5 minutes of your class.
Scenario #3
You are a madrich on a Birthright tour. The average age is 19. You are sitting with a group of 20 birthrighters overlooking the kotel and you are asked to explain what is going on and its significance. Share the first 5 minutes of your talk.
Scenario #4
You are a Hillel Rabbi at University of Chicago. You are sitting with a group of young Hillel students and are planning the upcoming Chanukah programming. You are sharing with them what the educational component of the festivities will be – share the first 5 minutes of that conversation.
Scenario #5
You are a pulpit Rabbi in a medium sized suburban shul. Your President who is traditional and not learned asks you to lead a lunch and learn at his law firm. The class will be in his large conference room and it will attended by both non observant Jews and non Jews alike. Share the first 5 minutes of the class.
Scenario #6
You are the Rabbi who is teaching the basic Judaism class on Monday nights at MJE. The topic of the week is Kashrut. You have 15 unaffiliated students. Share the first 5 minutes of the class.
Scenario #7
You are a synagogue rabbi and you running a program at the local Jewish old age home. Most of the people are not Orthodox. It is before Purim. Share the first 5 minutes of your talk.
Yaakov,
First of all, I absolutely love your first question - very balsy.
My perspective on the answer to this question is that before the class I had basically no idea what the "days" of creation were talking about in any real way. Real way meaning - educating from a perspective of how I actually see the world. The days of creation for most (including myself) are a formulaic, close to meaningless presentation of creation. Now, I can see creation (at least the part of it that we discussed) as a real "coming into being" of the physical universe. I visually can see it in my mind, starting with the single celled organisms and ending with the picture of the field with the various groups of animals. Without slowly going through the visual process as we did in the class, we never would have arrived at the clarity of the creation process that we did. The most important part of the whole process (it seems to me) was starting with our own experience and letting the Torah's story guide our experience through the story of creation. If we didn't do that, it would have just been a formulaic lecture - less interesting, but more importantly, less real.
What do you think?
Rabbi Rosenthal,
Mazal Tov ! you have no life
That was hilarious, did you actually write that for the class or was that just for us?
Michael
Welcome! I know how you feel, when I first started reading this blog I also had great difficulty with the language.
First hand knowledge is knowledge you have discovered yourself. (Often with the guidance of someone who has already discovered it) An example being when a math teacher shows you the steps in a proof.
Second hand knowledge is knowledge which you accept from another person. For example accepting a math rule without seeing the proof.
personal discovery is the process of gaining first hand knowledge, by going through the steps until one logically sees the idea which is being learned.
There is a great benefit in transforming second hand knowledge to first hand knowledge when possible since that makes the knowledge more 'real' or in other words it is undertood better and accepted more completely by the person. This acceptance is one which ultimately becomes real to the emotions (for example looking for traffic before crossing the street is not just something we know as a rote formulaic memory but rather something which we have made an instinctive response. Whereas as young children we did it as a rote performance out of fear of punishment)
I hope this helps, if you have any other questions please feel free to ask.
Yaakov,
My understanding is that Torah is meant to be speaking to undeveloped psyches, not fully developed minds. A mind can take a summary like RW's and appreciate it to the fullest. But the psyche must be taught in its own terms, i.e. the language of experience. The psyche doesn't experience life through pure concepts, it experiences it through pictures, sounds, etc.. A detailed lecture may help our mind components, but it won't have any effect on us, who are still essentially psyches. That's why coaxing our psyches is so important and why we must do it in this way.
Jonny
Thank you all for your responses
Sean
Interesting point, I agree with your description but I don't think it contradicts RW's point. In other words the purpose of making it first hand knowledge was to help make it real to the emotions.
Is that what you meant? or do you have a sense of a different purpose?
Rabbi Rosenthal
My impression from Rabbi Sacks is that our current focus is not on learning the skills of reading a pasuk, (of course that is a very significant side benefit which comes from the class). Am I mistaken as to the direction the class is focused on? Am I misunderstaning your comment?
Also what were you trying to bring out with your elaborate description of the class you gave? Is it significant for this point or 'merely' something which you thought we would find interesting? If the former would you please explain the connection that you are making.
Dan
Excuse my ignorance, but what does 'balsy' mean (I assume it doesn't have to do with the Romanian town nor the wood commonly used in making model airplanes)
All
Again thank you for your comments,
Does anyone have any possible answers to the second question?
Dan, I think I figured out your comment, I'm glad you found the question "K'dvash Tachas Leshonech" but I didn't realize you spoke Turkish.
Yaakov,
You were right the first time, I was refering to the Romanian town.
Like honey under your tongue? Speaking Turkish? This time you will have to excuse my ignorance. What are you talking about?
But Yaakov, you did not comment on the substantive part of my comment. What do you think about that?
Dan
bal is turkish for honey. what does this issue have to do with romania?
In terms of your main point, it was in essence very similar to the ideas put forth in earlier comments and I agree with the gist of it. One point in specific caught my attention; the ideas of the days of creation is something we addressed with some detail last year, so this discussion was basically a review of those ideas but with less clarity and precision.
thanks for your input!
Yaakov,
I was just kidding about the Romanian town. Its hard to explain in writing - I will explain when we have the next chabura - but it was a compliment.
Yaakov,
Thanks. I am not very good at Math sorry. I think I do understand what you are saying with the example of
looking for traffic before crossing the street being not just something we know as a rote formulaic memory but rather something which we have made an instinctive response. Whereas as young children we did it as a rote performance out of fear of punishment.
1) Could you fill in the steps the child goes through of moving from rote formulaic memory to what Shawn calls "first hand knowledge through personal discovery"?
2) What does personal knowledge have to do with what RW is talking about- I don't really get him at all.
Thanks so much for your help. I don't want to be a pain...
Michael,
Welcome to Rambam System! I thought I'd chime in and say that if you'd like to understand what Rabbi Sacks means by "zoom," read this post: http://rambamsystem.blogspot.com/2008/06/experiencing-nefesh.html.
Also, if you'd like to know what this blog is about, scroll down to the bottom of the blog and read the "Why Rambam?" mission statement.
Lastly, this blog functions as a sort of extension of Rabbi Sacks's weekly class, which he gives via conference call every Sunday from 7:45-9:30am Pacific Time / 10:45am-12:30pm Eastern Time. If you are interested in participating in this class over the phone, email Rabbi Sacks at sacks.yoni@gmail.com and ask to be added to the class-update list and email me at mattschneeweiss@gmail.com for instructions on how to call in.
Matt,
Thank you so much for your help. I have read the pieces you were talking about written by Rabbi Sacks.
I think I see what a zoom is now. Could you explain to me how the "principles" RW is talking about are connected to visualizing?
I dont see any connection beween these at all...
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