But the Most I Have Learned From My Students: Commentary on Parashat Va’etchannan 5784
By Ezra Kiers, Hebrew Seminary Rabbinical Student
Rav Chanina said, “I have learned much from my teachers and even more from my friends, but from my students I have learned more than from all of them” (Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 7a; Koren-Steinsaltz translation). This teaching is not only one of my favorite teachings from the Talmud (yes, I am a nerd with favorite Talmud verses), but it is also the heart of my teaching philosophy. I began teaching Jewish content to kids when I was still a kid myself, and my experiences with my students have guided me toward deeper and more meaningful relationships with Jewish history, our texts, and myself. As such, my interpretations of Parashat Va’etchanan are certainly guided by the teachings of my former student, Tessa, a formidable authority in her own right, who explored this parashah for her bat mitzvah celebration in the summer of 2023.
For her devar torah, Tessa emphasized that Parashat Va’etchannan repeats the Ten Commandments, originally found in the Book of Shemot (Exodus). In our studies together, she asked, “Why are THESE the important ten? Why not any of the other 603?” This line of questioning led to a few different dictionaries, and eventually to Tessa’s own translations of the Ten Commandments. This twelve-year-old girl stressed that it felt important that she understood the text in her own words to comprehend why they were important enough to be repeated in the Torah. In our exploration, Tessa’s translation of the ninth commandment (Deuteronomy 5:17) truly struck me:
וְלֹֽא־תַעֲנֶ֥ה בְרֵֽעֲךָ֖ עֵ֥ד שָֽׁוְא
Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour. (Koren translation.)
You may not lie to intentionally hurt another person. (Tessa’s translation.)
Her translation centered the idea of intentionality because of the word “בְרֵֽעֲךָ֖” (v’reacha). When exploring the shoresh (“root”) of this word, she discovered that the word for ‘neighbor’ is the same as the word for ‘purpose.’ While pondering the meaning of this coincidence, she also considered what it means to “bear witness.” In true Tessa fashion, her first instinct was to refer to the many true crime documentaries that she had seen. Tessa explained that to her, bearing witness (especially when someone’s freedom or livelihood is on the line) means experiencing something so deeply that it influences how you think about the world and your place in it. As such, to bear false witness is to knowingly and consensually lie, usually to avoid a negative outcome for yourself or a loved one. After all, why lie if you have nothing to hide? Referring back to the text, Tessa concluded that bearing false witness might be considered appropriate in certain circumstances but only when the truth will cause more harm than the act of lying itself.
In her devar torah, Tessa claims, “A good lie could be hiding a part of the truth from someone to protect them from emotional damage… because withholding the truth can benefit someone by not causing hurt feelings.” She acknowledges that even a lie with good intent can lead to a complicated and sometimes harmful situation, but that if there is no other way to preserve a person’s dignity or confidence, every now and then it’s okay to tell a white lie. She continues, “On the other hand, doing something bad and blaming it on someone else… not kosher. Now your actions have hurt two people: the person you did the bad thing to and the person you blamed it on. You’re just making an already bad situation worse when you lie about it.” In the second case, bearing false witness as a method for self-preservation seems more closely aligned with the biblical prohibition. After all, why lie if you have nothing to hide?
Tessa’s determination about the ninth commandment prompted me to wonder: is bearing false witness prohibited because lying is inherently wrong, or because the aftermath of a lie amplifies the impact of harm done? I can think of a few times when I’ve believed that telling a half-truth or a white lie might spare someone the pain of a challenging truth, yet when the other party learned that I wasn’t being transparent, the original reality was even harder to bear. Similarly, I’ve often found that the pain of being lied to by a loved one has wounded me more than hearing something I dislike. Honesty and accountability afford all involved parties the opportunity for teshuvah and repair, while dishonesty robs them of their right to make informed decisions.
Tessa taught me that sometimes, the simplest messages are the ones worth repeating; not because we didn’t understand, but because there’s always something more to learn. As Ben Bag Bag said in Pirkei Avot 5:22, “Turn it over, and [again] turn it over, for all is therein” (translation by Rabbi Dr. Joshua Kulp). Maybe the Ten Commandments are repeated in Sefer Devarim (the Book of Deuteronomy) because the Israelites didn’t truly grasp their meanings the first time. Perhaps because they thought they understood them and grew complacent in enacting them. Whatever the reason, let’s all take a page out of Tessa’s book and really put our own thoughts, morals, and values into how we engage with Judaism instead of taking it at face value. You could have the worst or best teacher in the world, but at the end of the day, it’s your interpretation and your judgment that affect how you move through the world. If you’re lucky, you’ll even be inspired by a really fantastic student.
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