So I was reading this thread and I was thinking to myself that R’ Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik gave a speech in which he discussed this issue and I should really post it here. I knew that the speech was quoted by R’ Rakeffet in The Rav The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. The problem was that R’ Rakeffet’s work is two volumes totaling nearly 600 pages and I had no idea where in those pages this particular speech was quoted. Anyway, I randomly picked up one of the volumes and opened it to a random page and lo and behold the page I opened to was the second page of the speech I was looking for. With that introduction, here is the quote from R’ Soloveitchik:
(I apologize in advance for the length.)
The av zaken teaches the yeled zekunim how to act and discipline his thoughts. We must devote a lot of time to teaching Gemara. We are not just teaching a text but how to think halakhically, how to conceptualize and to define. I want to tell you that as far as lomdut is concerned, American Jewish Children are very bright and brilliant. Sometimes I do not believe my own eyes when I consider their fantastic accomplishments. I am speaking from experience, because I have been a melamed of Gemara my entire adult life.
However, besides teaching the yeled zekunim discipline, the av zaken teaches him something else – the romance of Yahadut. He teaches the child how to experience and feel Yahadut. Yahdut is not only discipline. Yes, we start with that, to discipline the child on all levels, on the physical level, on the emotional level, on the social level, snd on the intellectual level. Above all, he teaches the child how to experience Yahadut, how to feel Yahadut. That is what my melamed taught me.
A Jew is not only supposed to know what Yahadut stands for and to have knowledge of Yahadut; he is also called upon to experience Yahadut, to live it, and to somehow engage in a romance with the Almighty. Knowing about Yahadut is not enough; it is a norm to be implemented and experienced. It is to be lived and enjoyed. It is a great drama which the yeled zekunim must act out after observing the av zaken. Studying the Torah she-ba’al peh, the Oral Trasdition, and complying with its precepts are the greatest pleasures a person can have. It is an exciting and romantic adventure. It is the most cleansing and purging experience a human being can experience. The av zaken teaches the yeled zekunim how to live and to feel Yahadut.
Let me make an admission here; I will confide in you. This is the toughest of all jobs, the most difficult of all tasks. I know from my own experience how difficult it is. I am not modest; I am far from being modest. I know that I am a good teacher. I can teach halakha. I can explain the most abstract concepts. I can popularize the most complex talmudic debate and break it down into its component parts. I can explain and elucidate abstract ideas.
For instance, before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur I used to study with my students (your rabbi can confirm this) the halakhot pertaining to the Yamim Noraim. From time to time I would reach out for the aggadah or for philosophical ideas with which to elucidate the philosophy of those solemn festivals. If necessary I would also introduce a modern idiom in order to explain certain aspects of the sanctity of these holy days. All these tricks I know.
But one trick I have not mastered. One thing I cannot do to perfection is to tell my students how I felt on Rosh Hashanah and Yom ha-Kippurim when I was their age. The emotions I experienced, and not what I knew about it. I knew a lot, and they know a lot. But what I felt on these days! How I lived it! I am unable to share with them what I experienced, for instance, when the shaliakh tzibbur used to chant and sing: Veha-kohanim veha-am haomdim ba-azarah. If you know the melody, you will agree that there is so much nostalgia, so much longing and melancholy in this tune, in the melody of Veha-kohanim veha-am haomdim ba-azarah. I felt as if I had been transferred in time and space into a different world. I felt that I was in the Bet Hamikdash. How can I explain this to my students? I can tell them about it but I cannot pass on my experiences to them!
Or how can I pass on he emotion I felt on Kol Nidrei night when the congregation responded amen to the chanting of the Shehehiyanu blessing? It is difficult to transfer experiences and not just concepts; to give over themes and not just numbers. To pass on feelings, to tell the story of both inner restlessness and serenity, to relate the narrative of joy and awe, of trepidation and at the same time equanimity in one’s heart, one must not use words. Words cannot explain it. Instead an unusual medium must be utilized: silence. That melamed of old in my heder knew how to pass on his emotional acquisitions, his ecstatic experiences, and his mystical outlook on life. He knew how to pass this on to his pupils without saying a single word.
Of course these experiences can only be passed on in the fashion that one passes on a contagious illness. How do you communicate a disease? Through contact! And contact is the secret of passing on the experiences of Yahadut. The skill of somehow communicating with the soul of the person is not through he spoken word but through the art of silence.
However, it is very difficult. I have not entirely succeeded in passing on this part of Yahadut. But your teachers in your high school will. They will be more successful. They will arrange the rendezvous between the av zaken and the yeled zekunim. [emphasis added]