<HTML>I am distressed at the comments on teaching Maharal, to the point where
I feel obligated to speak becavod Hatorah.
Pedagogically, we teach what we have prepared and personally absorbed.
There is something to learning a sefer with students, but obviously not
without tools and certain underlying assumptions in other areas. This
experience sounds only damaging to the youth, and not healthy to pursue.
There are seforim who have "predigested" Maharal's thought for the
uninitiated, and on a higher level, as mentioned, Pachad Yizchak by Rav
Hutner.
For personal understanding there is no substitute for going to a gadol
baTorah who has spent decades and devoted his life to delving into the
sacred and kabbalistically based words of the Maharal, such as Rav Aharon
Schechter at Chaim Berlin, who succeeded Rav Hutner as Rosh Yeshiva.
The Maharal was not writing a popular sefer; he was writing for yod'ei
davar. The questioner's comments that "many have suggested that this [lack
of clarity. Shalom] is inherent in Maharal's style. We can not define the
terms because Maharal does not define them. If this is true it is a
tremendous weakness in Maharal's religious thought," do not take into
account the complexity of the Maharal's work.
Consider that no one would teach advanced chemistry or math in such
fashion, even though all the words seem to be in English, because of the
depth of meaning and layers of understanding implicit in every term. Even
a "popular" work like Rav Dessler- if one has not read fifty pages of what
he means by chessed and not in one set of essays, one does not appreciate
at all what he means in others, though the Hebrew is clear. Maharal is all
the more so on a different plane.
Yes, we want people to appreciate the spiritually and deeper more esoteric
sense of Judaism, perhaps vital for our generation of youth - a Rosh
Mesifta here in Israel just expressed to me privately that this is truly
what his students are seeking, and if they do not get it in the Torah
world they are liable to go to India in the end. We must be personally
proficient to share on this level, or pass that mantle onto others.
Sincerely yours,
Barnea Levi Selavan</HTML>
