Thursday, May 13, 2010

A Great Lesson In Humility (San 88b)

Sorry I haven't written in while. I just finished finals.

Here is a very interesting teaching from this past week's regimen:
Who is one, who is designed for a share in the World to Come? One who is modest and humble, who enters bowing and leaves bowing, and who learns Torah constantly but does not take credit for himself.
What I love about this text is it's ending. When I do daf yomi I sometimes think to myself about how  much material I cover everyday (albeit, how much I remember is a different story).  Therefore, in school a lot of what I learn comes up in discussions. I find that I walk a fine line between speaking about my learning because it applies to our discussion and will benefit others and doing it to show people what I know. It's something I've worked hard on correcting and have gotten better at it. Nevertheless, learning for its own sake is and will remain one of the key parts of my Jewish identify. And thankfully, it is a key part of the tradition as we can see from this text.

Learning to learn without taking credit is quite difficult as any student of any subject can attest and will remain a lifelong struggle for me. And the wonderful irony about it is the the more that I learn, the harder it will get.

1 comment:

  1. Beautifully put. But also keep in mind that you and your colleagues here are excellent models for others for "learning for its own sake" (But I can say that, not you. . . .)

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