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Is there a Disconnect between Torah Learning and Torah Living? : 55
Furthermore, children should not only be allowed to ask
questions but encouraged to do so. A student of mine related that
when he was a young boy he asked a question in class. His rebbe told
him that he should ask the question when he’s a little older. A few
years later he asked another rebbe his question. This rebbe said, “By
your age you should already know that.” And thus the question was
never answered. “When was the window of opportunity to get an
answer”? he wanted to know. There is nothing that disconnects
Torah from life more than not being able to ask a question about it.
A question is a child’s attempt to take Torah seriously, to say in
effect, “If I understood Torah correctly it implies something about
life, but I’m puzzled. Perhaps I saw life differently, please help me
make sense of it.” Teachers who ignore such questions send a
dangerous and terrible message to children. The message is, “This is
what I say it says. Don’t ask questions. There are no answers. What it
says and what you see in real life are not necessarily connected.”
Children hearing this message get the wrong idea. They learn to
disconnect Torah from life and, ultimately, life from Torah. We must
send them a different message. We must connect their lives to Torah.
They must learn that the two are inseparable, as the following
anecdote involving Reb Yaakov 60 demonstrates.
A renowned professor of mathematics, Dr. Trachtenberg, became
a baal tshuva and a talmid of Yeshiva Slobodka, thanks to the
influence of the brilliant versatility of Reb Yaakov [Kamenetzky]
and his all-consuming love for every aspect of Torah. The
professor gained his respect for Torah when he became acquainted
with Reb Yaakov and was overwhelmed by the profound
understanding of mathematics which this young talmid chochom had
mastered in one evening of leafing through some mathematics
textbooks in the home of a relative.
His subsequent involvement in Slobodka was threatened with
disaster when his chavrusa refused to continue learning with him.
They had been studying a Talmudic issue relating to a strip of land
[protruding] from the city of Akko. The professor challenged one
opinion in the Gemara on the grounds that it was inconsistent with
what appeared on a map of the area. “How can I continue to learn
60 From “HaGaon Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky זצ ‏"ל His Life and
Teachings,” p. 105, published by Chug Talmidei Rabbeinu Yaakov
Kaminetzky, Monsey, NY: distributed by Feldheim, 2000.