RAV CHIYA'S VISION OF TORAHEDUCATION

**                                       RAV CHIYA'S VISION OF TORAHEDUCATION**

Bava Metziah 85b relates anincident regarding three illustrious scholars: Raysh Lakish, R. Chanina, and R.Chiya.

What follows is a summary ofthat incident, accompanied by some suggestions that may lead to a more completeappreciation of the sugya. As will become apparent, I believe that this sugyacontributes significantly to our understanding of Chazal's vision of Toraheducation. Some of my remarks are speculative; my only request is that they becarefully considered. I welcome all criticism.

[1] The Sugya commences with adescription of Raysh Lakish marking the graves of the Rabbanan. Rashi noteswhat motivated him to do this...

‏שלאיכשלו הכהנים לעבור עליהן ולהאהיל, שלא תארע תקלה על ידי צדיקים    ‎

["...so that the kohanim not accidentlycontaminate themselves by inadvertently walking over the graves - in order thatthe righteous not thereby be the cause of stumbling."]

Rashi thus explains that Raysh Lakish's primarymotivation was not simply to prevent the kohanim from becomingcontaminated. Had that been the case, he would not have limited his endeavor tomarking the graves of the righteous, for the graves of less-than-righteous Jewscontaminate just as much! His motivation, rather, was to prevent the righteousfrom becoming "stumbling blocks" in their deaths by causing thekohanim's contamination.

In other words, Raysh Lakish's primary focus ofconcern was upon the posthumous merit of the ‏צדיקים‎. While they werealive, they had achieved only good for the world. By preventing them fromposthumously contaminating the kohanim, Raysh Lakish hoped to preserve theexclusive quality of their positive effect upon the world.

[2] When Raysh Lakish was unable to find R. Chiya'sgrave in order to mark it, he immediately became upset [‏חלש דעתיה‎ = "His mindweakened;" "He experienced a sense of humiliation;" - Soncinotranslation], because he correctly interpreted his inability to find that graveas a sign of his own lack of merit relative to that of R. Chiya.

Thereupon, he asked:

‏כמותו?‎ ‏רבונו שלעולם, לא פלפלתי תורה‎

["Master of the Universe! Have I not analyzedthe Torah as sharply as he did?!"]

Raysh Lakish evidently felt that Heaven would onlyallow him to mark the graves of those to whom he was equal in Torahscholarship. One does not merit to serve the righteous unless he is deemedworthy. He was pained and shocked, therefore, to be informed that he was not worthyenough to be of service to the remains of R. Chiya.

[3] In response to his outcry, a Heavenly voiceinforms Raysh Lakish that R. Chiya's superiority over him was not in the realmof Torah mastery, but rather was in the realm of Torah dissemination:

‏תורה כמותו פלפלת; תורה כמותו לא ריבצת!‎

["You mastered Torah as well as he did; butyou did not spread the Torah as he did."]

The implication is clear: the act of disseminatingTorah places a person on a higher level of merit than does his in-depthmastery.  Successful teaching takesprecedence even to great learning.

[4] To illustrate the greatness of R. Chiya, theTalmud describes how R. Chiya and R. Chanina, when in disagreement, would eachassert his own superiority over the other. Each Amora did this by presenting a vision of himself as"rescuing" the Torah for Israel. R. Chanina argued that were the Torah, G-d forbid, to be forgotten fromIsrael, he would be able to reconstruct it by means of his dialectical prowess.

‏חס ושלוםאי משתכחת תורה מישראל, מהדרנא לה מפילפולי.‎

R. Chiya, on the other hand, argued that he had alreadysuccessfully established that the Torah would never be forgotten from Israel.He described the process of his achievement as follows: He began his endeavorby growing flax, from which he made nets. With the nets he trapped deer.  He gave the deer meat to orphans, and fromthe deerskins he prepared scrolls, upon which he wrote the Five Books of Moses.He then went to a town [Rashi: which contained no ‏מלמדי‎ ‏תינוקות‎ = teachers of youngchildren] and taught each of five children one of the five Books, and each ofsix other children one of the six orders of the Mishnah. He thereupon badethem: "Until I return, teach one another the Torah and the Mishnah."

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I. BASIC DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN THE TWO SCHOLARLYVISIONS

The claims of these two great Amoraim reflect twoimportant models of Torah learning. Note that R. Chanina'sself-characterization contains the three following characteristics - to bedistinguished from those of R. Chiya:

(1)It assumes that in-depth intellectual mastery is the major factor thatwill guarantee the survival of Torah in this world. R. Chanina apparantly viewsthe Torah as an integrated system which on its deepest level is accessible tohuman reason. Analogous, ‏)להבדיל(‎, to a complexmathematical equation, therefore, the Torah may be "reconstructed" bythe unique Torah scholar who is endowed with sufficient intellectualprowess.

(2)R. Chanina's ultimate vision of Torah greatness does not primarilyentail the act of communicating Torah to others. He asserts that if Torah wereto be forgotten, he would be able to reconstruct it by means of his mind alone,i.e., independently of anyone or anything else.  His act of retrieval thus requires noteaching, no creative confrontations with the world (human or material) outsideof himself. It consists simply of the independent cogitative act.

(3)R. Chanina is boasting of his potential, not of his accomplishments: "Werethe Torah to be forgotten from Israel..."

R. Chiya's ideal vision for the preservation ofTorah contrasts with that of R. Chanina on all three accounts:

(1)First, he insures preservation of the Torah by enabling children to understandthe sources of Torah (‏שבכתב ושבעל פה‎) on what appears tobe a basic level of understanding. He does not refer to uniqueintellectual strengths or analytic abilities. R. Chiya's vision of preserving Torah thus appears to focus primarilyupon communicating the basics, rather than upon developing a profound, highlysophisticated understanding of the material.

(2)Second, R. Chiya's act of preserving Torah involved both teaching and industry.i.e., confronting and working creatively with representatives of all categoriesof life: with other people (‏מדבר‎), with animals ‏חי(‎) and with thevegetable kingdom (‏צומח‎).

(3)Third, R. Chiya doesn't refer to his potential, but to his actualaccomplishments. He asserts that due to his actions, the Torah will never beforgotten from Israel.

In an attempt to better understand the position andposture of R. Chiya, we shall now reconsider certain aspects of the sugya.

II. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GRAVE-MARKING PROJECT

Raysh Lakish's preoccupation with grave-markingsymbolizes how he assesses the posthumous significance of the righteous. Heengages in a type of "damage control" in order to minimize theirnegative effect. By marking their graves, he hopes to prevent inadvertentcontact with their corpses. Raysh Lakish thus appears to focus upon the negativepotency of the righteous after their deaths, i.e., their power to contaminatekohanim as their remains decompose.

As we saw, Heaven denied Raysh Lakish theopportuinity to mark R. Chiya's grave only because of the former's relativeinferiority to R. Chiya in the realm of ‏הרבצת תורה‎ (=dissemination ofTorah). In the area of ‏פילפול‎, however - which inthis sugya means the intellectual mastery and in-depth understanding of Torah -Raysh Lakish's proficiency was not judged to be inferior. By using the term"‏פילפול‎" to describe the strengths of both RayshLakish and R. Chanina, the sugya implies that Raysh Lakish's Torah greatnesswas akin to that of R. Chanina's. In attempting to integrate the"grave-marking " section of the story with the section describing thedifferences between R. Chiya and R. Chanina, I would suggest that RayshLakish's commitment to the grave-marking project should be understood in lightof his "R. Chanina-like vision" of the Torah scholar as a great ‏מפלפל‎.

As we suggested in our characterization of R.Chanina (I.(2) above), pilpul is per se a lonely, non-dialogical endeavor.  The exclusively"pilpulistic" scholar, while alive, achieves much merit for himselfand for the world as he successfully "masters" the Torah. After hisdeath, however, he is no longer able to generate sanctity in this world becausehe is no longer of this world. In a sense, the great ‏מפלפל‎ (who was notinvolved in ‏הרבצת תורה‎) "takes his Torah with him". Hisposthumous effect in this world, alas, is relegated to that of adecomposing corpse, contaminating all who come into contact with his remains.Rash Lakish therefore views his primary obligation towards these scholars innegative, "damage-control" terms: he must carefully mark their gravesin order that they not be the cause of anyone contracting impurity.

Heaven decreed that such an assessment of R.Chiya's posthumous relevance is inappropriate. His grave cannot be found - atleast not by Raysh Lakish - because in a very real sense R. Chiya is stillvital!  (Note the evocation of life - ‏חיים‎ - in R. Chiya'svery name!) The effect of his Torah preoccupation - ‏הרבצת תורה‎ - remains eternalin this world. On the most obvious level, this eternal vitality is dueto the fact that he not only taught students Torah, but he also mandated thatthey imitate him in teaching Torah to one another.

III. HOW R. CHIYA'S TEACHING METHOD WORKED

We must examine more closely the implications of R.Chiya's instructions to his eleven students. Each student in the group wasobligated not only to teach his portion to each of the other ten, but also tolearn one of the ten portions from each of the others. Everyone thus possessedan "expertise" which he eventually taught ten times over. Yet, eachof these ten "teaching experiences" must have been unique, due to atleast four factors. The first two factors are based upon the very nature ofteaching Torah - perhaps the nature of teaching in general. The last two arethe results of R. Chiya's specific instructions.

(1)First, every repeated teaching experience entails a review of the materialfor the teacher, and as such creates a heightened learning experience for him.Every time one reviews Torah, he becomes more attuned to its nuances, and therebydiscovers new levels of profundity. (‏אינו דומה שונה פרקו מאה פעמים...‎)

(2)Second, the teacher's learning experience is enhanced when each review occursin the context of teaching a different student in a "tutorial-chevruta"relationship. Such situations force the teacher to present the material innew ways in order to accommodate the unique background, personality,intellectual capabilities and learning style of each student. Each of R.Chiya's student's was thus required to restructure the presentation of hismaterial in ten different ways. When a teacher recasts his ‏שיעור‎ to accommodate theneeds of different students, he is afforded the opportunity to appreciate Torahfrom different perspectives.

(3)Third, each subsequent teaching experience occurred with the knowledge-baseof the teacher having been significantly increased. For example, when R.Chiya's "Bereshit student" taught Bereshit for the first time, he wasteaching all the Torah he knew. The second time he taught Bereshit, he was ableto present it in light of his freshly acquired knowledge of Sefer Shemot. Thetenth time he taught Bereshit afforded him the opportunity to present it inlight of his having mastered ten/elevenths of ‏כל התורה כולה‎!

(4)Fourth, the knowledge base of each subsequent student was increased inlike proportion to that of his teacher. For example, the Bereshit teacher'sfirst student was familiar with only one volume of Torah; his tenth student,like himself, possessed a knowledge base of ten/elevenths of ‏כל התורהכולה‎. The increased intensity and quality between eachchild's first and tenth chevrutot must have been very great. We may easilyimagine how, following these ten initial sessions, the students would continueto be drawn to one another in order to achieve an ever heightened understandingof Torah. For example, the "Vayikra" teacher and the "SeferKodoshim" teacher would certainly desire to get together once again inorder to review their material in light of their enhanced knowledge bases. Outof such chevruta relationships, great "lomdus" is born!

R. Chiya thus taught his "core group"that quality rises out of the "basics", when every student ofTorah is mandated to become a teacher of Torah and to generate, in turn, theteaching potential in others. In their "training sessions" no oneever experienced teaching or learning in one direction only; every person'sstudent, as we have seen, was also his teacher (and he was everyone else'steacher as well) and vice versa. ‏מכל מלמדי השכלתי‎

IV. UNIFYING NATURE WITH TORAH: TIKKUN OLAMREDEFINED

On a more holistic level, R. Chiya's unifyingpowers extend beyond the immediate realm of students and teachers. He takespains to note that his major endeavor began not with people nor even withsolitary study from books, but with agriculture, industry, and technology.Contemplating a mere handful of flax seed, he possessed the vision to see therelevance of that seed to issues of ultimate, transcendental import. Withindustrious creativity, R. Chiya enabled that seed to transform into flax,which he in turn transformed into net-traps. Although his primary intention intrapping the deer was to use their skins as parchment in order to write thebooks of the Torah, he made sure that their flesh would not go to waste. He fedthe venison to orphans - indigent children who in all likelihood rarely had theopportunity to enjoy such a nutritious delicacy.

In its image of R. Chiya, therefore, the Talmudpresents to the reader a compelling model for tikkun olam. This conceptis often defined negatively in modern literature; people understand it asreferring exclusively to humanity's obligation to correct or neutralize badsituations. The term is therefore utilized in order to evoke the mandate to"right wrongs" in all realms of life: e.g., to conquer disease, tostop political injustice, and to combat poverty.

Jewish tradition certainly considers such goals as worthy illustrations of the tikkunolam mandate. R. Chiya's model, however, adds an important dimension whichmay serve to place the more popular image into proper perspective. Tikkunolam for R. Chiya is the act of enabling any phenomenon in thecreated world to realize its ability to contribute - directly or indirectly -to the service of G-d. The phenomenon may be a small flax-seed, a quill andink, a deer, a student, or oneself. The act thus serves to endow reality as awhole with ultimate meaning and purpose.

One need not seek out disease or injustice,therefore, in order to engage in tikkun olam. A person may participatein this process whenever he is able to direct anyone and anything towards itsultimate self-realization. The drive to "right wrongs" must beunderstood in light of this over-arching goal. For example, disease andimpoverishment need to be eradicated not only because suffering per se is evil,but also because one is unable to realize his full potential when he is inanguish. (See Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Deot 3:3; 4:1.) Suffering tends tocatalyze the sufferer's self-involvement, which in turn undermines hisability to focus upon the act of enabling the other to achieveself-realization in the service of G-d - the ultimate goal of tikkun olam.

For R. Chiya, therefore, the "industrial"aspects of his endeavor are no less intrinsic to his vision than is the actualteaching.  Every act in one's life is tobe evaluated on the basis of its ultimate contribution to the only legitimateends: service of G-d. To articulate this principle in anthropological terms: R.Chiya models for the reader the process of unifying nature (plant=flax, andanimal=deer) and culture (net-traps, parchment and scrolls) for the service ofG-d (promulgation of Torah throughout the world).

Perhaps the Talmud is teaching us that thephenomenon of ‏הרבצת תורה‎ includes the act of unifying and harmonizing allof reality for the purpose of promulgating Torah. By enablingrepresentatives of the animal and vegetable kingdoms to contribute to thishighest of goals, one endows their existence with ultimate meaning.

V. R. CHIYA'S CLAIM

Having accomplished this educational feat in butone community, why  does R. Chiya claimthat he prevented Torah from being forgotten for all time throughout all ofIsrael? Perhaps he was able to make this claim because he understood that theprocess that he generated in that city, if genuine, would definitely catalyze a"domino effect" that will continue infinitely - throughout history.He created a core of eleven students, who unified with one another throughmutual teaching, learning, and teacher-training experiences. These experienceswere increasinly more sophisticated and therefore more rewarding. To summarizethe situation at the risk of oversimplification: For each of them, to live isto grow through learning; to learn is to teach; to teach is to generatestudents who in turn teach others to teach. Indeed, once this processcommenced, how could this process ever stop? How could the Torah ever beforgotten from Israel?!

R. Chiya thus understood that the guarantor ofTorah continuity is not merely education, but the education of educators- the enabling of enablers. The corollary of this principle is that from theTorah's perspective, every Jew is in essence a potential educator no less thanhe is a potential student. His desire to communicate the redemptive knowledgeof G-d's will to others should be no less intense than his yearning tointernalize it in the first place.

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An aspect of The Rav's uniqueness was his abilityto combine the talents and the commitments of both R. Chiya and R. Chanina.From his youth and throughout his life, the foremost Torah authoritiesconsistently acknowledged his unparalleled mastery of Torah. He was indeed theR. Chanina of our generation.

But he followed the path of R. Chiya as well. Thischaracteristic was manifest not only in his commitment to Maimonides DaySchool, Yeshiva University, and the B'nai Akiva Yeshiva movement, but also tothe many institutions, including Lakewood, Brisk (Jerusalem), and ChinuchAtzmai, which he supported personally and through private fund-raising.

In addition, his insistence upon delivering ahundreds of sheurim each year, even when weak and debilitated, reflected a mostpassionate commitment to R. Chiya's vision.

Qualitatively as well, every one of the Rav'ssheurim represented a fulfillment of ‏הרבצת תורה‎. He was accessible.Agreeing to teach in many different venues, he generously shared his insightswith all Jews, regardless of age or level of learning. He never glossed overthe basics. Quite the contrary, his great insights, his ‏חידושים‎, almost alwaysinvolved defining - with breadth and precision - basic halachic concepts. Andimplicit in every one of his sheurim was the mandate to teach. In sum, he taughthis ‏תלמידים‎ to approach Torah honestly and thoughtfully and toenthusiastically share with others the insights they received, directly andindirectly, from him.                       ‏‎                      ‏‎

‏ולא ידע איש את קבורתו עד היום הזה.                   ‎