What happens when, after much hard work and self-sacrifice, you have actually achieved your goals?
What happens when it’s necessary for your entire self-definition to change; when, after nurturing and teaching and guiding, it’s time to let go and become invisible?
In describing the kindling of the lights of the Menorah in the Beis Hamikdash, the Torah uses the phrase liha’alos ner tamid, which Chazal interpret as the requirement to keep the kindling flame against the wick until the flame burns by itself. On this basis, Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch offers an arresting insight: that the work of a Torah teacher is to make himself superfluous.
For so long as his students need him, he must be exceedingly devoted to them and available to them without respite. The Gemara (Bava Basra 8b) identifies the Amora Rav Shmuel bar Sheilas as the paradigmatic melamed tinokos, teacher of Torah to young children, and goes on to tell of how for 13 years straight he never took a break from teaching. But even when he finally did so, he told Rav, while on his break he was still thinking about his young charges.
Yet that same teacher who is the picture of years-long dedication is called upon to hope for and work toward the day when his students will no longer need him. And when that day comes, if he’s a melamed worth his salt, he is expected to graciously — joyously — step aside.
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