“I Don’t Know”

by Rabbi Mordechai Rhine

Dear Rebbe,

It happened about midyear during fifth grade. It was our first week learning Talmud, and we were finding it both invigorating and challenging. The vocabulary was new, so were the concepts. It was a very sophisticated level of logic. And then it happened. We saw the way Rashi explained the passage, and it troubled us greatly. It just couldn’t be, we thought, that his was the correct way to understand the passage. So we said the words… the words people sometimes say. We said, “But that doesn’t make sense.” And with a generous and understanding smile you corrected us. You said, “Don’t say, ‘It doesn’t make sense.’ Instead say, ‘I don’t understand.'”

The message that you shared with us on that day was that just because we had a first reaction to something, doesn’t mean that this would be the final word. To say that Rashi doesn’t make sense, simply isn’t something that we have the authority to do. The commentaries of generations would yet have their say on what Rashi meant, and why he said it. We had every right to be bewildered and object to Rashi’s explanation. But our rights were limited to saying, “We don’t understand.” We had no right to sit definitively in judgment and claim that Rashi is wrong.

I later realized that this is the lesson that the Torah shares with the Metzorah. After he received an affliction resulting from his speaking Lashon Horah, the Torah requires that he call a Kohein to rule on its status; the afflicted himself is not allowed to rule on his own affliction. Even a great scholar who is afflicted must only say, “Something that looks like an affliction has appeared,” and not pass judgment. As the Talmud explains, “He must train himself to say, ‘I don’t know.'” Perhaps this person who experiences the affliction resulting from speaking Lashon Horah needs to learn this lesson especially well. For he has been passing judgment on others regularly, spreading his critical view of people, as if he is the authority. To this person, especially, we say, “Train yourself to say, ‘I don’t know.'” Instead of passing judgment and saying that other people “just don’t make any sense,” let him get humility-training, and let him say, “I don’t understand.”

You didn’t mention it at the time, Rebbe, but the principle your taught us is very much related to the Jewish attitude of “Gam Zu Litovah- This too is for the best.” It is an awareness that Hashem may very well be doing something for me which seems bad, but is in reality calculated for my benefit. Lucky for me if I can say, “I don’t understand,” rather than say, “It is so unfair, and does not make sense.” In this week’s parsha we are given a candid example regarding a person who finds an affliction on his house, is obligated to remove the afflicted stones, and discovers an abandoned treasure underneath which he may keep. He might have been resentful as he was at first thinking, “Why is G-d bringing affliction on me?”  But ultimately, a healthier perspective, when an affliction appears, is to say, “I don’t yet know why. I don’t understand.”

But the ultimate gift that you gave us on that day in the classroom goes well beyond meaningful perspectives. You gave us- in that one phrase- the gift of life development and relationships. When we would encounter an idea that seemed wrong at first, we would check the source and its credentials. If it was a worthy source with good credentials then the correct response would not be to pass judgment and say, “It doesn’t make any sense.” Instead we would say, “I don’t understand.”

Your students are no longer in 5th grade, Rebbe. They have gone on to be teachers and professionals in a variety of fields. They have gone on to have families of their own. And when they hear a perspective that is new to them- from a student, patient, child, or client- they know how to listen, to think, and to consider. “I do not know all” is part of their vocabulary.

Thanks for teaching us a great lesson. Thanks for teaching it with such patience and humility.

Respectfully,

Your student

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