Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Differentiating the "Avot" Way


 As the secular New Year begins we also celebrate another beginning- the beginning of Sefer Shemot in Keriat HaTorah. We celebrated the culmination of Sefer Bereishit in our Parsha and Parenting class last week. For those who were unable to be there, we highlighted new and unique perspectives on some parenting strategies we could learn from G-d- the ultimate Parent, and then from the Avot and Imahot. The Torah purposefully does not portray our patriarchs as flawless, thereby allowing for us to better relate to their experiences and learn from them.

I want to highlight one element of our shiur last week which particularly relates to us today in 2013. The interactions of Yitzchak with his sons Eisav and Yaakov are quite puzzling. Didn't Yitzchak realize what Eisav had become and the evil path he had chosen? Didn't he realize that Yitzchak was the righteous one and through him the Jewish people would continue? How “clueless” could he have been to love Eisav more than Yitzchak and choose to give the blessing to Eisav? As I shared with those who attended, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, in his commentary on the Torah and in an article he wrote, provided an unbelievably progressive answer to this difficulty. Upon reading his article today, one might have imagined that he lived in 2013 instead of the 1800's.

Rav Hirsch stresses that the above story is difficult to explain. Eisav and Yaakov were born from the same womb, raised in the same home, and yet the two grow up to be as different and disparate as possible. He finds a hint in the pasuk in Bereishit 25: 27, “ויגדלו הנערים" “And, the boys grew up.” Rashi on the pasuk comments, “While they were boys, the differences in their behavior were not recognizable. No one paid any attention to the differences in their tendencies. Then, when they reached the age of thirteen, the one devoted himself to the house of study and the other to idolatry. They may be compared to a myrtle and a thistle that grew up intertwined. Only when they were fully grown did the one spread its fragrance and the other bared its thorns. As long as they were children they went to the same school, but once they were grown the one moved into the house of study and the other into the house of idolatry.”

Rav Hirsch takes this Rashi and continues, “They tell us that Jacob and Esau alike could have been preserved for their Divinely-ordained destiny as descendants of Abraham if their parents would have noticed the difference between them at an early age. They could then have reared and educated both lads for the same goal by following a different approach in each case, taking into the account the fact that these two brothers were basically different from one another. Because, unfortunately, an identical approach was followed in the rearing and education of these two boys, even through they were two totally different personalities, Jacob and Esau in manhood developed attitudes toward life that were fundamentally opposed to each other.” Rav Hirsch speaks of the modern concept of differentiated instruction. As it says in Mishlei 22:6, "חֲנֹ֣ךְ לַ֭נַּעַר עַל־פִּ֣י דַרְכּ֑וֹ גַּ֥ם כִּֽי־יַ֝זְקִ֗ין לֹֽא־יָס֥וּר מִמֶּֽנָּה" "Train a child according to his way; when he matures, he will not deviate from it." As teachers, we design our lessons so some students can learn visually, others auditorily etc. , and we keep the personalities of children in mind. As parents, we need to differentiate as well.

Rav Hirsch continues to describe that as a child Eisav's tendency was to use his physical skills and his mental agility, and he had no interest in the sedentary and cerebral life of Yaakov, (and Yitzchak). And, yet Eisav was educated without utilizing his tendencies and developed “a loathing for the Abrahamite tradition.” All that he thought entailed following that tradition was “completely foreign to his personality...The type of education he received could have only one effect: to make him yearn for the moment when he would be free to escape from the confines of the Abrahamite house of study...” I have written in the past about the “off the derech” phenomenon and why children raised in religious homes choose to leave the fold. Among the many possible reasons, Rav Hirsch highlights a common one.

Had Yitzchak and Rivka raised Eisav by showing him that traits such as physical and mental agility could be used in the service of Hashem, he would have grown to understand that his talents could play an important role and his traits would have been refined in that service.

Rav Hirsch then goes on to point out that before Yaakov's death he brings all his sons together to bless them. They all received different berachot- all differentiated. The Midrash Tanchuma 16 stresses, “But you must not think that because he assigned to Judah the strength of a lion, to Benjamin the ferocity of a wolf... that Jacob did not give them all an equal share in his blessing. For this reason it is written he blessed them each separately according to their individual personalities, but each of these separate blessings was a blessing intended to benefit all of them together.” And, we do note that Yaakov is the only patriarch who had all his sons follow the ways of Hashem.

Differentiation is not only the job of the school educator. It is a parent's job as well. We need to differentiate rules, consequences for misdeeds, and parenting styles. It is a challenge to assess what each child needs and to reinforce that treating each child equally is actually not fair. Or, as we coined a new word in a Parsha and Parenting shiur last year, as parents we do not want to treat our children equally, we want to treat them “uniqually.”