RAYSH LAKISH AS RAV YOCHANAN’S “TEACHINGASSISTANT”
Bava Kama 117a describes R. Kahana, uponentering R. Yochanan’s Yeshiva, finding Raysh Lakish "reviewing the day'slesson for the rabbinical students:"
אזיל אשכחיה לריש לקיש דיתיב וקא מסיים מתיבתאדיומא לרבנן
When [R. Kahana] arrived at R.Yochanan's academy [in the Land of Israel], he found Resh Lakish reviewing R.Yochanan's lecture of that day with [the younger] Rabbis.
Rashi elaborates upon the nature of this “reviewlesson”:
מסייםמתיבתא דיומא לרבנן - היה מחזר ושונה להם מה שדרש רבי יוחנן אותו היום לפישר"ל חכם גדול היה ולאחר ששמעו כולן מפי הרב חוזר ומכוונה בידם.
[Raysh Lakish] would review and teachthem that which Rebbe Yochanan had explicated that day. Since Raysh Lakish wasvery wise, he would review and direct [the lesson] into [the students’] handsafter all of them had heard the lesson from the mouth of the Master (i.e.,Rebbe Yochanan).
Rashi’s foregoing description requireselaboration, as it presupposes a number of important assumptions.
1. Unmediatedexposure to the great creative scholar of the generation is necessary, eventhough his lecture may not always be fully accessible to the students.
2. This lackof accessibility is due to a number of possible factors.
a. The greatscholar often lacks training as a pedagogue, and often lacks interest indynamics of pedagogical excellence.
b. Part ofthe intellectual make-up of most great scholars – in almost any field – istheir natural intuitive endowment, a type of in-born understanding of theirfields’ complexities and inner dynamics. Their ability to advance their fieldsforward with original, “cutting-edge” contributions is very often a function ofthese inborn dispositions, in addition to intensive, disciplined training. Moststudents, in contrast, even if they possess high intelligence, lack this sortof intuitive endowment, and therefore, are able to master a field almostexclusively as a function of their willingness and ability to comprehend theexoteric, teachable and therefore accessible methods and protocols of thediscipline. Since they often will not be able to follow their teacher’sintuitive leaps, they will therefore not readily understand how the master- scholar derived his mostinnovative insights. Raysh Lakish’s task was to make explicit and overt RebbeYochanan’s latent, intuitive thought processes, with the result that the normalintelligent student would be able not only to understand but also todemonstrate the validity the master’s conclusions.
c. Even ifthe master-scholar is pedagogically oriented, the focus of hiscreativity during the lecture is often almost exclusively on the dynamics ofthe subject matter. This all-consuming focus may not allow him to concentrateupon pedagogical demand of making these dynamics accessible to “normal”students.
d. The manystudents attending the lecture possess different learning styles from oneanother, (and from the teacher, for that matter). The master-scholar is thereforehard-pressed to accommodate all of these learning styles in one lecture.
3. RayshLakish’s “great wisdom” lies in the combination of his scholarly and pedagogical abilities. On one hand, he comprehended Rebbe Yochanan’sanalyses on their own terms. This mastery was a function of “nurture” - intense anddifficult preparation - as well as “nature” – his innate genius. The Talmudelsewhere describes Raysh Lakish as preparing for Rebbe Yochanan’s lectures byreviewing the material twenty-four times before entering the classroom! On theother hand, perhaps because he was a late learner himself, he possessed theability to process the lectures so that they would be accessible to eachstudent’s learning style.
4. DespiteRaysh Lakish’s excellent presentations, exposure to the original lecture wasstill necessary, for a number of possible reasons.
a. Thestudents will enhance their own methodological abilities bywitnessing the master’s relationship to the material, including his occasionalstruggles with the material. Likewise, they benefit in their exposure to themaster’s process in refining his analyses, especially in light of challengingquestions from the students.
b. Thestudents will grow religiously through their exposure to the character of theirmaster’s piety: his devotion to the text, and to the Divine source of thattext.
c. From apurely academic perspective, the master’s personal style, especially thenuances of his speech and body language, contribute to the contentof his message. The experience of histeaching is ultimately inseparable from his insights and interpretations.Confrontation with an outstanding master - in any field of humanendeavor - is ultimately an experience of the “You-had-to-be-there” sort. Weare never able to recreate it or evoke it to our satisfaction. In Judaism’s ongoingquest to comprehend Torah - Hashem’s message and His will - the absolutecentrality of the Oral Law to this endeavor presupposes a significant effect ofthe person who is delivering this message upon its content. The “medium” – inthis case the great scholar-teacher – effects the “message” even in ways thatmay be intangible and not necessarily rationally comprehensible. To evoke adifferent metaphor: when confronting great scholars, the “dancer and dance”integration becomes apparent. As William Butler Yeats so eloquently indicated,to separate the dancer from the dance is to destroy both! *
*
O’ body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
Y.B. Yeats: Among School Children