University of Washington, Seattle, the 29th Annual Samuel and Althea Stroum
The Mentor/Disciple Relationship in Classical Jewish Thought and Contemporary Practice
Professor Susan Handelman
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Susan Handelman: I have to tell you a story. It’s from 2,000 years ago—but also very contemporary. In the book I edited with Jeff Saks, Wisdom From All My Teachers, we include an essay by Rabbi Norman Lamm. Rabbi Lamm was president of Yeshiva University and a student of Rav Soloveitchik—one of the great Orthodox thinkers and philosophers of our time. Many of today’s Modern Orthodox rabbis studied under Rav Soloveitchik.
So, Rabbi Lamm tells a story about going to class. And I’ve heard this same sentiment from everyone who studied with the Rav: they were nervous wrecks. Studying Talmud with Rav Soloveitchik was intense—he was brilliant, intimidating, and very demanding.
He came from a deeply covenantal tradition—the Brit—a sense of fierce devotion to Torah study. In his public lectures, he might describe the teacher as a nurturing, nursing mother. But with his close students? He was rigorous—unyielding. As Lamm put it, “We came to class ready for battle, and we shriveled up.”
I’ve heard this again and again. Picture it: the Gemara—huge volumes, just like the Talmud—held up like shields. The students would literally hide behind them, hoping not to be seen, not to be called on. They were afraid to engage in this intense intellectual combat.
One day, Rav Soloveitchik called on Rabbi Lamm. He had been developing a complex thesis and asked, “Lamm, what do the Tosafot say?” (Tosafot are medieval commentaries on the Talmud—dense, analytical, dialectical.) Lamm, feeling intimidated, repeated what Rav Soloveitchik had said the day before. He thought, “Oh, he’s going to like that.”
What do you think happened?
He erupted—like a volcano. “I know what I said! I don’t need you to tell me what I think! What do you think?” And that was his greatness as a teacher. He didn’t want parrots. He wanted students to learn his method—yes—but then reach their own conclusions. He loved a student who could challenge him with insight and integrity.
This was a living embodiment of the relationship between Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish—those two great sages of the Talmud whose fierce debates were born of love and sharpened the minds of generations.
In fact, Rav Soloveitchik got so frustrated with Lamm in that moment, he exclaimed, “They can sell you the Brooklyn Bridge!” And then he said something truly remarkable: “Your problem is that you leave your evil inclination at the door.”
In Judaism, we speak of the Yetzer HaTov (the good inclination) and the Yetzer HaRa (the evil inclination). The tradition teaches that you’re born with the Yetzer HaRa—it’s your raw, instinctual energy. You receive the Yetzer HaTov only at your bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah—your coming of age. The Yetzer HaTov arrives later, to guide and restrain the passions of the Yetzer HaRa.
But the Rav was saying: if you leave your Yetzer HaRa outside, you’re not bringing your full self into the learning. You’re coming in with your tame, well-behaved inclination. “Next time,” he said, “bring your evil inclination in with you—and leave the good one at the door.”
It’s a brilliant insight—paradoxical, provocative. Because it was the Yetzer HaRa—the fire, the ego, the hunger—that he wanted present in the Beit Midrash, the house of study. That passion is part of the dialectic. It’s what pushes the learning forward. It’s what sharpens the argument.
And that, to me, is what made Rav Soloveitchik a living, modern inheritor of the great tradition of Talmudic learning. This story, to me, is one of those vivid, face-to-face moments that embodies the whole dialectic—a relationship built not on submission, but on love, confrontation, and the courage to think.
Third Lecture
Professor Susan Handelman of Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv delivers the third lecture in the three-part 2004 Stroum Lecture series, “The Mentor/Disciple Relationship in Classical Jewish Thought and Contemporary Practice.” The Stroum Lectures are an annual set of lectures hosted by the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Washington.