Grant Dignity to Your Friend
“Push the student away with your left hand, and bring him close with your right hand” (Sanhedrin 107b).
The Talmud advises teachers to maintain a balanced relationship with their students. “Push away” your student with the left hand — the weaker hand, and “draw him close” with your right hand — the stronger hand. In this manner, the student will have the proper respect and admiration for his teacher.
Once, Rabbi Nosson Zvi Finkel, the Saba of Slabadkah, asked Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, what is the appropriate measure of “pushing away the student”?
Rabbi Salanter responded, “The Talmudic dictum “to push the student away with your left hand” does not apply whatsoever to our generation! After enduring two thousand years in exile, every Jewish person has a broken heart. Every teacher must do everything in his power to show the maximum level of love, kindness, and encouragement to his student. As a support for his position he quoted Isaiah the Prophet, “The word of HaShem — it is to this I look, to the poor and broken-spirited person” (66:2).
Rabbi Salanter presented a beautiful parable to emphasise the importance of this lesson. A carpenter steps on sawdust in his workshop, a glazer steps on shards of glass in his studio. A Rabbi “steps” on broken souls.”
Meaning, a teacher must have the sensitivity and gentleness to build up his students and strengthen them with warm words of love, self-esteem, and sweet affection.
May we have the sensitivity to support the delicate souls around us, and heal them with encouragement, joy, and love.
