Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection

Welcome back to way number 12. Way number 12 is Bipilpol Talmidim, which is the learning of students. And it's a very important thing. The test of whether you've grasped an idea properly is whether or not you can teach it to someone else. Until then, you don't really understand it. If you can't teach it and relay the information you learned to someone else, you haven't acquired it yet properly. Sharing your wisdom gives you the self-respect that comes through sharing.
Bipilpol Haverim, which is teach in order to learn. If your child needed to know something important, you'd care enough to teach them. We are obligated to teach. This is an obligation in Judaism to teach. Lilmod ul-elamed, learn, you learn something, you know something, share it. That's why I consider myself completely inadequate to create these podcasts or these videos. Well, who am I? Who am I? I'm not some world-class scholar or some great orator, but if you know something, share it.
That's the obligation you have. The word to teach and the word to learn are the exact same word, same letters. Lamed lilmod, the same exact three letters. So if you take the letter Lamed, which is the same letter as well, same word, Lamed, the way it's designed, it's the only letter that reaches up above the line, the only letter, then it goes horizontal with the line and then goes beneath the line. Say, just tell us, the Lamed teaches us
to reach up from a teacher, discuss it with a peer, and then share it with someone who knows less than you. That is the letter Lamed teaching you. You learn something, discuss it, clarify it, and then teach it, share it. Each one of you can have a home study group in your homes respectively and teach what you learn to your friends. You don't have to be some rabbi, some scholar, some influencer on Instagram or TikTok. You learn something.
You take some notes, share it with the world. Also, it's a very amazing thing, is that if you take a look at the letter Lamed, it has three Vavs, the one that reaches above, the one that's horizontal, and the one that goes down. The letter Lamed, Vav, Vav, and Vav. Six is the numerical value of the letter Vav. Six, six, and six is 18, Chai. Chai means life. You want to bring Torah to life? Follow that process. Teach whenever you can.
The more you practice, the better you get. You know, for me as an individual, I was never a good student. You've learned that in the past. I told you, hard to believe, right? Let me tell you how I learned. I obligated myself to teach. Anything I've learned, including my EMT course, by the way, I had a very difficult time getting that information, but you know what I did? I told all my buddies, I'm doing a class tomorrow on the respiratory system,
and even if only one person showed up, I had to be ready with all that information to be able to teach it to someone else, and that's how I learned. I obligated myself to teach it to someone else. Every single part, whether it was burns, whether it's shock, anything that was required, I obligated myself to teach it, and that's how I learned it the best way. That's for me. Now, some people don't feel comfortable doing that, and they just learn it by reading it.
That's fine. For me, with that goal in mind, I set that goal, and that helped me learn. I try to do that, by the way, in everything in life. I feel that sometimes just having that responsibility, that obligation towards others, instills within us the responsibility and obligation to get that information, understand it, so that we can share it properly. So teaching others in a meaningful way is a deep expression of creativity. Finding a way to explain things,
finding a way to express the messages that you want to impart. Ask, what did you understand? And have your students repeat it. We don't do it enough in our classes, but we should. When I study with a study partner, I try to ask that question. So what did you understand? And many times, when they repeat it back, they're like, that's not what I said. That's maybe what you understood, but that's not what I said, and repeat it and review it.
Sometimes teaching is letting them fall and lose to learn and become better for the future. You know, if you always pick up your child when they fall and not let them fall, they'll never learn how to walk. They need to learn so their body learns to, okay, I have to compensate, I have to gain the balance. You know, Michael Jordan, at 5'11", was thrown off of his high school basketball team because he was too short and lacked the skills to play basketball, they said.
Babe Ruth held the record of the highest strikeouts for a decade, 1,330 strikeouts. On being asked about his strikeouts, he said, every strike brings me closer to the next home run. And he was the third highest home run record in all baseball history. And Mark Cuban was a failure as a carpenter, as a cook, and as a waiter, who didn't even know how to open a bottle of wine. He said, I've learned that it doesn't matter
how many times you failed, you only have to be right once. He says, I tried to sell powdered milk. I was an idiot a lot of times, and I learned from all of them. Took every failure and learned from it. And you know what, I guarantee you that he still fails. But if a person isn't open-minded enough to make failure your friend, learn from those experiences. John Wooden said, winners make the most errors, but the reason they win is because they never quit.
Students make you honest with yourself. I remember a friend of mine who was a very prominent lecturer in the Jewish speaking circuit. He told me that one of the leading rabbis asked him, he says, do you even believe the words you say? Like, do you even? And he said it was an eye-opening question. Because he realized, I need to do a lot more work to make this real in my own life. Saying nice words and saying impactful stories isn't enough.
You have to actually live it and believe it in order for it to be impactful for your students. If you have a piece of wisdom, there's a moral obligation to share it. You know, I was once interviewed on a radio program, and they asked me a question. I said, you know, that's a great question, I don't know. And there was deafening silence. Deafening silence on the airways. I don't think they've ever heard someone say, I don't know. You ever see someone on television
talking all these talking heads on television? Did you ever hear anyone say, I don't know? I don't know. In fact, the Talmud says, I don't know is a sign of wisdom. You want to know who's wise? Someone who can say, I don't know. Teaching others contributes to the betterment of the world. Don't bore your audience. If it's not interesting for you, why should it be interesting for them? You know, I've been asked many times by rabbis in training,
I've done a course for about 12 or 13 years for rabbis in Israel who are about to go out to the world and teach, and they always ask me one question every single time. What should I teach people? What should I teach people? I come to Houston, Texas, I'm a new rabbi, what should I learn with people? You know what my answer is? Teach what you're passionate about. If you're not passionate about it, there's no way they're going to be passionate about it.
When you're passionate, even by the way, I know a rabbi who's very passionate about in-depth Talmud study. And you know what he teaches his students? In-depth Talmud study. You're like, what? They're beginners. How can they learn in-depth Talmud study? You know what? Because that's his passion and that's his love. And I sat and saw this rabbi teach his students in-depth Talmud study, and they're arguing with him in very deep ideas in Talmud, because he transferred that passion to them.
He was able to transmit it and they were able to absorb it. It's not about what you teach. It's about how you teach it. Teach something you want to learn. I do that many times in these classes. In fact, these notes for the 48 ways, I wanted to learn it. So I said, I'm going to do a series on it. And it was a year long series that we did several years ago. 48 weeks, every week we did one of the ways,
and that's how this whole book came about. It was tremendous work putting down those hours and hours of preparation to hopefully acquire these traits. A person needs to ask questions. Never discourage, we mentioned this previously, never discourage the why of children. There's an age where the children are asking why about everything. Why, why, why? Never say, you know, can you stop asking why? Never say that. Encourage them, great question. Let me give you an answer.
And if you don't know the answer, find out the answer. Say, I don't know, I'm going to look it up with you. We're going to search this together. Let them see your interest. Let them see your discovery of wisdom. Real understanding requires teaching and teach by example. Zikna, elderliness, is the age of 70, our sages tell us. What is the word zikna? Zeh, kana, chachma. This person acquired wisdom. We value wisdom in Judaism. We therefore stand for someone 70 years and older.
The real learning results in teaching. You know, there's a very interesting dilemma. The state of Israel has two water sources. Well, it has the Mediterranean, but that's ocean salt water. The Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee, is very sweet water. And the Sea of Galilee feeds its water into the Dead Sea. And the Dead Sea is the most bitter water on earth. You can't drink that. You know, it'll cause you a lot of injury if you drink that.
But I don't understand, where does it get its water from? It gets its water from the Kinneret. The Kinneret is sweet. So how can the Dead Sea be so bitter? Our sages tell us, you know why? Because the Kinneret shares its water, so it's sweet. The Dead Sea is called the Dead Sea because it doesn't give. It doesn't share its resources with any other water source. It keeps it all to itself, so to speak. That's not a good thing. Remember, when we started the series,
we talked about the four-step process in learning. We have to plow. And in wisdom, that's the way it works as well. A new concept is plowing. Imagine if we started a new course now on a topic we've never, ever studied before. The first time we learn it is like plowing. It's a new concept. We're learning new ideas. We don't become proficient. We don't become experts after learning it one time. The second step of the agricultural process is when we sow, we plant.
And you let the ideas, in wisdom, you let the ideas sink into your mind. You understand the idea. Number three is when you harvest. Harvest means gaining clarity when you start experiencing and making it your own. And four is when you eat it and you consume it. You absorb it and you make it part of you. You integrate it into your life. That's the four-step process of learning. When we teach, we examine our learning and gain a greater understanding of the subject. It gives confidence and it gives insight. And that concludes way number 12.