by Rabbi Mordechai Rhine

Moshe was instructed to take a tally of the Jewish families according to their tribes. Various reasons are given for this counting. Among them: To make the Jewish people realize how much they had been blessed. Just three hundred years earlier they had been a family of 70 people. Since that time Hashem had blessed them with strength and multiple births. Now they were 600,000 families- an estimated 3 million, or more, in number.

Perhaps the most noticeable place of the blessing is by the tribe of Dan. In Parshas Vayigash, when the Jewish family comes to Egypt, the tribe of Dan consists of only one child, a young man by the name of Chushim. Now, however, the tribe of Dan is most numerous among the tribes, second only to the royal tribe of Yehudah.

Even more striking is that Chushim, the son of Dan, was deaf. It is from this one, handicapped child, that Dan was able to produce a tribe that was supreme in numbers and in blessing. What was the secret of his success?

The commentaries explain that the secret for Dan’s success was that his only son was handicapped. It was precisely the awareness of the handicap that caused Dan to pour into his son every bit of energy he could muster so that his son should succeed. It is in the way that Dan educated and communicated with his deaf son that the secret of success can be found.

A number of years ago a fascinating study was done in which children with equal capabilities were separated into two groups and assigned similar assignments. At the conclusion of the relatively simple assignment each child was complimented for their work, but the two groups of children were complimented differently. To one group the organizers said, “You did a great job. You must be very smart.” To the other group they said, “You did a great job. You must have worked very hard.”

They then assigned a slightly more difficult project to each child, and offered similar compliments to the children of each group. After four incrementally more difficult assignments were given, the difference between the compliments given became very clear. The children who were told that they were very smart did not tackle the new assignments with the same confidence as those who were given the compliment that they “worked hard.”

When children are told that they are innately smart and talented, they have not been gifted the confidence to tackle more difficult, future projects. When a child is told: You met a difficult challenge and conquered it because of your hard work, they will be able to search within themselves for the ability to succeed once again.

The tribe of Dan was not founded on innate talent. As a deaf person, Chushim the son of Dan was undeniably handicapped. But Dan poured into his son the message of success. He could not claim that Chushim was innately talented. But he could “sign” to his son the true message of success: Try hard and you will succeed.

With best wishes for a wonderful Shabbos.

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