The first few parshiyot of Sefer Shemot contain a narrative with Moshe and Aaron as leaders, albeit with a completely different leadership style. Leaders come in all different shapes and sizes. Some make impact on the world, some on a country, some on a single community. Others may impact only their immediate family. Regardless, they are leaders and they have an impact on people with potential to change their lives.
When we are young, we look at leaders and “great” people and feel we want to be exactly like that person. When I was young, we all wanted to “be like Mike (Michael Jordan).” At that moment, we get totally subsumed and aspire to be exactly like that individual. As we mature, we come to understand that every person is different and has different strengths and weaknesses; our focus shifts to glean different attributes from different great people, so that we can encompass the great qualities of many great people.
Just a few weeks ago, on December 20th, the 8th of Tevet, one of my Rabbeim passed away at the age of 95. Rabbi Yosef Weiss was a Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University and taught rabbinical students for over 65 years. He was a great person; he was someone that many of you reading this post have probably never heard of. And yet, he taught Yoreh De’ah (main laws of Kashrut that is necessary to obtain Rabbinic ordination) to hundreds of students who would go on to become Rabbis and teachers in communities throughout North America and Israel. His greatness impacted not just his hundreds of students, but also on the communities of Jews those Rabbis serviced.
I could never be as great as Rabbi Weiss, but there is one attribute of his that I try to emulate myself and try to inculcate in my children and students. Try to comprehend what it means that he taught the same subject for over 65 years - it is truly amazing. I could never do that. Didn’t he get bored? Didn’t he think it was time for a change? Even once he was too fraile to come to the yeshiva, YU sent boys to his apartment in the Upper West Side of Manhattan to learn with him. 65 years the same subject every year?
The thing I remember most from my year learning with Rabbi Weiss was that each day, at some point in his shiur, he would stop talking and write down his thoughts - his own chidushim on the topic. We would sit for a minute or two, sometimes five minutes until he was done and ready to continue the shiur. This taught me something very important. It taught me that despite the fact he taught this class over 40 times before he taught it to me, he was learning and thinking about something new each time he learned it. He never looked at Torah the same way twice - there was always something new to be learned; always something of value and significance to take away from the same class he taught over and over again.
This is a profound lesson for all of us. The Torah is so vast; we can learn the same pasuk 65 times and find new insights each and every time. We have to approach the Torah with that same expectation; there is no such thing as ‘we learned it already.’ This is especially important for our children who are growing up in a society of instant gratification, and the need for the newest gadget, toy, or piece of technology. When they learn Torah they too expect it to be new and flashy. When it isn’t so flashy, they tend not to appreciate it as much. We need to encourage them to look deeper, beyond the surface and they will find greatness.
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