It is interesting to note that a teacher's worst nightmare can take the form of a diligent, hardworking, well-behaved, nice little frum kid. Such nightmares are often overlooked and forgotten due to the increased attention given to their counterparts, the rebellious, chutzpadik, perpetually careless, or hyperactive sort of nightmares. But the subtle ones do exist too, and I know firsthand how much they irk their teachers in ways that worry them just about as much as one of their out of control terrors.
I was one of those so-called subtle terrors. And boy, was I proud of it.
Oh, how I loved to sit in class, drink up what the teachers would say, manipulate all of the information in my head, and come up with the many questions I usually had on any given lesson. I would raise my hand, wait my turn, and then ask away. They were usually pretty good questions, too. Of course I enjoyed wasting class time (and my classmates frequently prodded me to use my inquisitive guise to sublty propel many a teacher off topic. Ahh...what bliss! And they barely ever realized!!) but it was a very very rare occasion that I would ask a question that I was not really curious about. After a while, my teachers would hesitate to call on me when I would raise my hand in class, because so often their lessons would be brought to a standstill while they answered me. And sometimes I even asked things that brought their lessons to a standstill because after certain questions, face value teachings are rendered quite meaningless... My questions were not meant to spite, and never to undermine the teacher. I was a nice girl and a good student...just so intensely curious.
Intensely curious. That described me in a nutshell. I wanted to know everything, sense everything, experience everything, touch, see, taste, hear, feel, delve into, understand everything in and about my world. So I asked, challenged, questioned, and dissected until I was satisfied. Lessons taught merely on face value with no internal depth bored me to pieces. I needed layers or proof or inside sources or contextual cross-references or meaning or depth or emotional appeal. Come on! Give me real stuff! Teach me! Challenge me! I don't want to memorize or spit back. Teach me to think. To better understand this world. To become a better inhabitant of this world...
Not much has changed since then. Besides for the fact that now, to my chagrin, I don't learn chumash anymore with Mrs. Shoham. Because that, my friends, was an unforgettable year in learning. Real learning. I don't think I'll ever forget what I learned in that class...
Machshivos Hashem amku...we can never really understand His ways...im yidativ, hayusiv...mi yachol la'amod b'sodo.....lo livado niskanu alilos......never step on anyone's toes while you're doing good things...sometimes mudpuddles are there for you to fall into...yiras shomayim...ela ha'emes shehasneh mav'ir aish hatzaros...
She taught us about life and how to live it. I remember her distinctly saying, "Girls, things are going to be hard in life. But you have to hear that! Know it! Always know that things are going to be hard...but that knowledge will give you strength and support when it is hard..."
She encouraged questions. She loved questions. She breathed questions, lived questions, was passionate about questions...and I was thrilled to have the merit of learning under her instruction for 10+ glorious months of my life...
And then I graduated.
And brought the passion we shared along with me, I guess.
As ever, I still harbor an intense pleasure when faced with a straightforward statement or lesson. I read it, turn it over, backwards, upside down, and identify a few of its inherent questions. Of course, nowadays I have slightly more tact than I did back when I was in high school, so it's rare that I actively rip apart someone's most recent utterance, but the questions are still there, and my thirst has not been quenched.
Which is a good thing. And I'm still proud.
But it's hard when life presents you with the hard stuff Mrs. Shoham lovingly warned me about...and then there are no answers to my thirtsy questions...
I was taught never to ask "why?" Why? Because machshivos Hashem amku...If we'd understand Him, we'd be Him...Everything has a reason and sometimes we cannot understand it or are meant not to. And I accept that. But the feeling of unanswered questions--so like a gaping chasm in an otherwise comfortable heart--can be breath-catchingly overwhelming, especially when these are questions that stem from the sincere and almost painful desire to live my life in the best way I can and try to understand what exactly it is that He wants from me...
It's almost as if this cherished part of myself comes back to haunt me as my own worst nightmare....
In a way, how can I be expected not to ask questions when I was built this way and have been asking questions since I looked at the sky the first time and wondered...? Of course I can ask, but what's the point in asking if the answers are not and cannot be dispensed to me?
But ahhhhh....there it is. The answers are not the point. It's the questions that are the point. Somehow, in some confusing way, the questions themselves must be the catalysts for growth and richer living that I was looking for in their ever-elusive answers.
This is hard to swallow. That is, given that it's even a correct assumption. But I must come to terms, because I think this chasm is destined to remain unfilled until Teiku--Tishbi yitaretz kushios v'ebayos.
Oh, what a day that'll be.....
For all of us...
