BOY HAVE I got a deal for you!
Actually, I do.
Its a free masters degree in education.
No tuition.
No registration fees.
No classes to take, not even online.
No research papers to write.
No model lessons.
This degree wont take a year or two, just a few hours however long it takes you to read a recent book by Yisroel Besser (Judaic Press, 235 pp.). Buy the book, and get the free MA.
The book, which is more than a book more, truth to tell, than an advanced degree is titled Reb Leizer, the nickname of the late Rabbi Eliezer Geldzahler, who died in a tragic accident at 46.
Teaching is more than a classroom pursuit; it is a life pursuit. Rabbi Geldzahler mastered it. This book conveys it.
Rabbi Geldzahler was a master educator not by vocation, but by breathing.
He founded a successful Jewish school, yes.
He took students beyond their limits, yes.
He mastered method, curriculum, discipline, yes.
He pushed himself, studying Torah even when he was exhausted from his professional responsibilities, so he had the credibility to push his students, too.
But more.
Much more.
Pedagogy filled every moment of his life.
As it does all of our lives.
Know it or not, intending to or not, everything we do teaches others, for better or for worse.
Rabbi Geldzahlers life teachings were unceasing, by turns ingenious, thoughtful, and spirit- expanding.
In any circumstance, he seized the educational moment.
This book can show us how to do the same, even in the smallest comments we make.
Example:
Rabbi Geldzahler was a descendant of founders of the Lithuanian yeshiva tradition, Rabbis Israel Salanter and Elijah E. Dessler. He, however, went in a different direction and became chasidic.
This was who he was in his depths. His fellow students and teachers accepted him for who he was.
Which later boosted his capacity to accept his own students for who they were.
In any case, a disciple once asked Rabbi Geldzahler: How could he have departed from the traditions of his illustrious grandfather, Rabbi E. E. Dessler?
How could he have gone in a different direction?
Rabbi Geldzahlers pithy reply, reflecting his independence as well as his awareness that his reply could teach something beautiful or something disrespectful, was both/and: I study the same works he did.
Rabbi Dessler was an eclectic thinker, steeped not only in works of the Lithuanian tradition, but in chasidic works, too.
Rabbi Geldzahlers answer amounted to this:
If you need to, be independent of your elders.
Be respectful of them, too.
All this was conveyed in a short sentence, offered instantaneously: I study the same works he did.
Rabbi Geldzahler regarded every moment in his life as a teachable moment.
That is a true educator.
THERE IS hardly a more comprehensive way of life than that of the true educator.
A student in camp required medical attention, so the head of the camp [Rabbi Geldzahler] drove him to a doctor . . . They sat together in the waiting room for a long period of time.
Later on, a family member asked the rabbi why hed had to sit there along with the boy. I understand that the boy couldnt be left alone, but why did you you have to be the one to sit with him for half a day? [You dont have someone else at camp to do this?]
I also had that thought, replied the rabbi, and considered asking one of his friends to sit with him instead of me. But then I thought to myself, what if it was my own son? Would I also think it OK for someone else to sit with him? So I said, just like thats my job, this is also my job!
The ultimate evidence for Rabbi Geldzahler as a life-educator must be in more than what he did; it must be in what he transmitted to his students.
Rabbi Ephraim Wachsman was once returning a rental car at the airport.
For some reason, his credit card didnt go through.
A yeshiva student standing in line saw his distress and quickly offered to pay the full sum, about $800.
Why would you lend me so much money, wondered Rabbi Wachman, when you dont even know my name?
Because my rosh yeshiva taught me that if you see a Jew who needs help, you dont stop and make calculations.
And who is your rosh yeshiva?
Rabbi Leizer Geldzahler.
IN a column, I can do justice neither to Reb Leizer nor to Reb Leizer. To be a better educator a better parent, teacher, friend, counselor, principal, manager I urge you to read this book.
Then, without my urging, you will reread it.
There is so much educational wisdom in this book.
Its your free MA in education.
Copyright © 2014 by the Intermountain Jewish News
