Rabbinically Rashi I
Rabbinically Rashi I: Your Children Will Surprise you
To be delivered in front of a teachers’ meeting, either Hebrew School or Day School, to begin the meeting.
We all know the story of Avram’s three visitors. Avram is sitting in the opening of his tent, possibly recovering from his circumcision at the end of the previous perek, and he looks up and sees three people there. Immediately he jumps up, runs around giving orders, sets before his guests a lavish feast. They reveal that they are angels, messengers from God, and they are to announce to Avram that within the year he will have a son. But what was Avram doing in the opening of his tent in the first place? Not only in the opening of his tent—bepetach haohel—but also “kekhom hayom,” in the heat of the day.
When Rashi looks at the line, “kekhom hayom,” he sees in it more than just a weather report. For him, this is an insight into the relationship between God and Avram. Rashi asks, why does it say “as in the heat of the day,” “KEkhom hayom,” not simply “in the heat of the day,” “BEchom hayom?” He answers that it was in fact what should have been the hottest time of day, but that God, thinking to spare a convalescent Avram from trouble, had removed the sun from its usual place so as not to drive guests toward his tent seeking shelter. God is aware of Avram’s legendary hospitality and eagerness to observe the mitzvah of hakhnasat orchim. What God doesn’t count on, Rashi says, was that Avram would feel disappointed when no guests arrived, that he was actually sitting at the opening of his tent, waiting for guests. When God sees how sorry Avram is not to have guests to feed, God sends Avram three angels disguised as human beings, and so God observes the mitzvah of visiting the sick, while giving Avram the chance to observe his favorite mitzvah, hakhnasat orchim.
As teachers, it can be very tempting to underestimate our students. Sometimes that even seems like what they want. They seem to kvetch and complain about every little thing, and it can feel like pulling teeth to get them thinking about anything. But when we give in, when we stop pushing, when we decide to just let it go, just this once, take it easy, maybe play a game or show a movie because we think that’s what they want, that is when we fail them.
We can even sometimes fail our children out of love, out of the wish to make life easier. We try to step in and help when we see them struggle, and we forget that sometimes the struggle can be the most rewarding part of the experience, that an A+ isn’t worth much if it comes too easily, and that sometimes, as the poet Taylor Mali puts it, a C+ can “feel like a congressional medal of honor.”
Sometimes the student who struggles needs an extra hand here and there, such as those with learning disabilities who need sometimes serious accommodations to be able to do the work. But those accommodations are there to help us as teachers to take these students seriously, not to forget them or give up on them or just give them the answers to keep them abreast of the class. When we look at each student not only for where their difficulties are, but also for their strengths, their interests, and their passions, then we cannot fail them.
And when we do—as we will—underestimate our students, then it is up to us to do as God does for Avram and reevaluate, reconsider, rethink the plan we made, the decision we came to. We may need to swallow our pride in order to do this. We may need to send a piece of ourselves, in human form, unguarded and accessible, into the student’s life to let them know that we really are thinking of them, that we haven’t given up, that we know what heights they can achieve and that we do expect greatness.
To be delivered in front of a teachers’ meeting, either Hebrew School or Day School, to begin the meeting.
We all know the story of Avram’s three visitors. Avram is sitting in the opening of his tent, possibly recovering from his circumcision at the end of the previous perek, and he looks up and sees three people there. Immediately he jumps up, runs around giving orders, sets before his guests a lavish feast. They reveal that they are angels, messengers from God, and they are to announce to Avram that within the year he will have a son. But what was Avram doing in the opening of his tent in the first place? Not only in the opening of his tent—bepetach haohel—but also “kekhom hayom,” in the heat of the day.
When Rashi looks at the line, “kekhom hayom,” he sees in it more than just a weather report. For him, this is an insight into the relationship between God and Avram. Rashi asks, why does it say “as in the heat of the day,” “KEkhom hayom,” not simply “in the heat of the day,” “BEchom hayom?” He answers that it was in fact what should have been the hottest time of day, but that God, thinking to spare a convalescent Avram from trouble, had removed the sun from its usual place so as not to drive guests toward his tent seeking shelter. God is aware of Avram’s legendary hospitality and eagerness to observe the mitzvah of hakhnasat orchim. What God doesn’t count on, Rashi says, was that Avram would feel disappointed when no guests arrived, that he was actually sitting at the opening of his tent, waiting for guests. When God sees how sorry Avram is not to have guests to feed, God sends Avram three angels disguised as human beings, and so God observes the mitzvah of visiting the sick, while giving Avram the chance to observe his favorite mitzvah, hakhnasat orchim.
As teachers, it can be very tempting to underestimate our students. Sometimes that even seems like what they want. They seem to kvetch and complain about every little thing, and it can feel like pulling teeth to get them thinking about anything. But when we give in, when we stop pushing, when we decide to just let it go, just this once, take it easy, maybe play a game or show a movie because we think that’s what they want, that is when we fail them.
We can even sometimes fail our children out of love, out of the wish to make life easier. We try to step in and help when we see them struggle, and we forget that sometimes the struggle can be the most rewarding part of the experience, that an A+ isn’t worth much if it comes too easily, and that sometimes, as the poet Taylor Mali puts it, a C+ can “feel like a congressional medal of honor.”
Sometimes the student who struggles needs an extra hand here and there, such as those with learning disabilities who need sometimes serious accommodations to be able to do the work. But those accommodations are there to help us as teachers to take these students seriously, not to forget them or give up on them or just give them the answers to keep them abreast of the class. When we look at each student not only for where their difficulties are, but also for their strengths, their interests, and their passions, then we cannot fail them.
And when we do—as we will—underestimate our students, then it is up to us to do as God does for Avram and reevaluate, reconsider, rethink the plan we made, the decision we came to. We may need to swallow our pride in order to do this. We may need to send a piece of ourselves, in human form, unguarded and accessible, into the student’s life to let them know that we really are thinking of them, that we haven’t given up, that we know what heights they can achieve and that we do expect greatness.
posted by Viola Cesario at 12:21 AM
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