With Heart in Mind

OUR GOAL is not just intellectual learning but personal transformation, and, in line with that, we are guided here not only to learn from the wise people we encounter in our lives but also to serve them. We are advised that it isn’t enough to take their lessons while standing at a distance; we must get up close and interact with our teachers in helpful ways. By doing that, we will not only learn what they have to teach us, we will also observe them close up with our own eyes. A truly wise person has assimilated wisdom into the very fiber of his or her being, and it shows up in every detail of how he or she lives. When we serve our teachers, we experience for ourselves how transformed a person can be.

When King Yehoshafat was seeking a prophet, he was told about Elisha, “who poured water on the hands of the prophet Elijah.”¹ The Talmud derives from this verse that serving the sages is greater than learning from them.² It is surely valuable to study the lessons of the wise people who have come before us, but we take home much more learning from serving a teacher and thereby witnessing the teachings close up—in action and practice.

A student once asked the Mussar teacher Rabbi Yechezkiel Levenstein why listening to recorded lectures seemed to have less impact on him than hearing the same lectures in person. Rabbi Levenstein said that what doesn’t come across in a recording is the tzelem Elohim—the divine image—that a person possesses.

When you serve your teacher, the lessons you receive include how he or she eats, bathes, helps out with household chores, opens a book, and (as the old story goes) ties his shoes. Being in close contact with someone who is farther along on the path can impress upon you how the person’s spirit permeates the details of material life to a depth and with an impact that no book or story ever can.

This method is explained by the metaphor of a match, which needs to be held close to the wick to transfer the flame. The acquisition of Torah requires close contact with those from whom you can learn, and serving your teacher provides that closeness.

But the need for closeness doesn’t explain why this method emphasizes that you must serve your teachers. The answer is that if you want to learn and grow by following someone else’s example, you must first reduce your own ego, as happens when one serves others. We see this quality in Joshua, who, the midrash tells us, was chosen to succeed Moses as leader of the children of Israel because he organized the benches and laid out the mats in the study hall.³

So important is the act of serving that the Talmud states, “Even if one has studied and is well versed [in Torah and law] but he didn’t serve a sage, he will be an ignoramus.”⁴

Service as spiritual practice was much favored in the Mussar yeshiva founded by Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv.⁵ The yeshiva never employed custodial staff; instead, responsibility for cleaning the facility was left in the hands of certain appointed students. Those carefully chosen students were in charge of everything from washing the floors and chopping firewood to drawing water from the nearby river in the winter when the wells froze over. The best students competed for the honor of doing these tasks, and these “privileges” were often auctioned off.

A wealthy German student once enrolled in the yeshiva. After advancing in his studies and his personal growth, he was afforded the “opportunity” to sweep the study hall. By chance, his mother was visiting the yeshiva and found her son sweeping the floor. Enraged, she went to complain to the Alter, saying, “Have you turned my son into a house cleaner!?” “Yes,” replied the Alter. “One who sweeps here overturns the world,” making a pun of the Yiddish words for sweep (kert) and overturn (iberkert).⁶

What’s involved here is something that Rabbi Yisrael Salanter stressed, which is that all real spiritual development takes place through engagement in real-life situations. Studying patience in the quiet of your study is nothing compared to reaching for it on the freeway. Being generous is simple until you are confronted by the open hand. It’s easy to love your relatives from a distance. Not only does serving your teacher give you a glimpse of someone to emulate, it also creates real-life situations—including challenges—that can lead to growth.

Once when I went to visit Rabbi Perr, my Mussar teacher, he told me he was busy that day and the only way we could get some time together was if I accompanied him on an errand. That task turned out to be a trip to the supermarket. He doesn’t usually do the shopping, but Mrs. Perr had just had back surgery, so more of the household duties were falling to him. As we entered the grocery store, he got a shopping cart, and I immediately reached over to take control of it. “No,” he said. “I have to push it. It’s my mitzvah to help my wife when she needs me.” Fine, I said, but what about my obligation of serving my teacher? We must have looked quite funny to the other shoppers with the four hands of two big men guiding the cart through the aisles.

PRACTICE

You may not have many opportunities to encounter a “sage” in your everyday life, but there are substitutes. Right now, in your mind, identify someone who is a teacher to you, to whom you want to be close and from whose example you want to absorb lessons.

Pirkei Avot (4:1) tells us, “Who is wise? One who learns from everyone,” and from there we learn that anyone can be your teacher. With that in mind, pick someone you respect and ask yourself, What can I do to serve that person right now? Maybe you are already aware of something you could provide. Or you could pick up the phone to call and ask if there is anything he or she needs. Or just drop by your teacher’s home, with the intention to be helpful.

If you think you are too busy to act on this practice, or if every form of service you can think of seems too big or too small, too simple or too complex, beware of the undermining power of rationalizations. There is surely something you can do to be of help and service, if you set yourself to do it. And you are sure to see something and learn something and to grow through the process.