Strange Rumors About Bitachon and Talmud Torah

From time to time my kids will reveal shocking things going on deep inside the yeshiva world. That's not the same thing as saying all of those things are actually happening, but that they seem to at least be accurate reflections of some of the conversations taking place out there in the wild. I thought I'd share two of them here along with my own thoughts.

"True Bitachon"

The first involves a well-known American rosh yeshiva who's apparently been invited by many kollelim and shuls to speak about bitachon. Now it’s perfectly reasonable to assert that God hears all of our requests and, should He choose, is capable of providing anything we could need. But it's something else to claim that "bitachon" means that formulating your request just the right way is guaranteed to produce predictable and happy results.

In this particular case, I was able to find a PDF version of one of the rosh yeshiva's shiurim. Here's a brief sample:

"You see Rabosai, you’ve got to know that you talk to Hashem. You can get anything you want. Within reason, if it’s a normal request. Hakadosh Baruch Hu should help us be mechazek ourselves."

As long as you follow the protocols - and your request is "reasonable" - then whatever you demand from God He will be forced to deliver. There are two fascinating assumptions built into this reasoning, and one hilarious error:

One assumption is that there are rituals you can follow (like davening at least 265 times for something) that will guarantee success. That, as I've written elsewhere when quoting Rav Hirsch, is indistinguishable from paganism.

The second assumption is that your "reasonable" desires are pretty much assumed to match God's will. You want to travel to Israel to visit family even though you can't afford the travel expenses? God must also want that. You want to continue learning in kollel even though your debt is rising out of control? God must be on board with that one, too. There's never a consideration that God's actual hopes and expectations for you could ever diverge from the current popular social preferences. I find this lack of imagination...immature.

The error is a bit embarrassing. The article I linked to began with the claim that, if you want your tefilos to produce guaranteed results, they have to follow the rules. The source for this claim was the well-known suggestion that Moshe davened many, many times for a particularly important desire (Devarim 5:23). Somehow, the rosh yeshiva inferred from that verse that the minimum required repetitions is 265. (It’s as though God just doesn’t listen the first 264 times.) The obvious problem with using that source is that Moshe's particular tefila (that he should be permitted to enter Israel along with the Jewish people - see Ramban) was DENIED.

Strange beliefs. And even stranger that they're promoted by so many mainstream Torah institutions.

“True Talmud Torah”

The second news concerned an unnamed rosh yeshiva in Israel whose shiurim were reportedly understood by less than 10 percent of his talmidim. Now I can imagine one scenario where this isn't a problem: the rosh yeshiva knows that his content is too complex and involved to be absorbed on-the-fly, so he expects that the talmidim will spend their available time before the next shiur working all the details out on their own. I'm all for that combination of delivery and independent effort.

But I've been solemnly assured that, in fact, only a very few of the talmidim ever master the material. This - assuming the information I'm hearing is accurate - suggests a number of problems:

If the talmidim are genuinely trying their best to understand, then the rosh yeshiva has utterly failed as a teacher and should be replaced. Halacha places the full responsibility for student success on the teacher (Rambam Talmud Torah 4:4).

If the talmidim who fall short are just lazy, then they shouldn't have been admitted to this particular yeshiva - or perhaps to any full-time yeshiva. Why would they have been accepted? Perhaps:

• More seat warmers generate more government income

• More talmidim is a point of personal pride - even if they're just seat warmers

• Tolerating "fake" talmidim protects them from alternatives (work, the draft, etc.)

In fact, my mind is open to the possibility that no such yeshivos exist and that Torah teachers are endlessly devoted to honestly carrying out their important work.