3 Mindfulness, Curiousity, and the Growth Mindset: Hitlamdut (התלמדות)

Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Founder of Kelm Yeshiva

Every person that has a special feeling for a certain endeavor will be extremely sensitive when she sees any little thing having to do with that endeavor. For example: When a tailor meets someone he will immediately look at his clothes, the shoemaker –at the shoes, the milliner –at the hat. Similarly a merchant will be very sensitive to any words or actions that will have an impact on his merchandise. Another type of person would not see or hear any of these things because her heart is not given to inquire and investigate anything from these matters because he has no desire for them…all of this, if one is not engaged in such activities will not notice them when performed by others. If this is the case, then one who “learns from every person,” behold, this is a great “merchant,” she trades in everything and thus he understands the necessity to learn from the other and thus is called "Wise."

Alei Shor, Rav Shlomo Wolbe (1914-2005 Berlin, Jerusalem) Hitlamdut v. 2 pp. 192-97 selections)

Hitlamdut is a large and rich treatise, and we must engage in it for half a year at the very least until we become learners in all our affairs. After all, this is not a particular middah but the lifestyle of a mussar practitioner. And if this is the only reason we came, dayenu, it is sufficient: if all the mussar work would only bring us to hitlamdut, it would already be a huge benefit.

- Let's go back to the beginning of the chapter: after all, we were looking for a way to practice that prevents any awakening of pride - how do we find this in the way of hitlamdut? The Rabbi of Bartenura on the Mishnah "Izhu Hacham" already hinted at this: in hitlamdut there is no pride! If I do some good deed, I might be proud of it; if I am learning to do some good deed - then I have not done anything that I can be proud of, because I'm just learning! And when I'm learning - I'm always aware that the act was not perfect; the sense of self critique that accompanies me in every act makes me aware of what could be improved. And in all my matters I'm "only" learning. I see room for improvement and further perfection - I never come to be proud of the actions I do. The person who wants to "work on themself" must understand the depth of these things, and must agree to put their whole life from now on on this basis of hitlamdut, that they will be in all matters only an student, and that right up to their last day: even when they reach the day of their death, they will not die but will learn how die. This is the way of the person engaged in mussar work. From now on we will practice learning how to be always learning.

Vaad 3

From now on we will approach a more difficult matter. "What a wise man - the one who learns from everyone, as Scripture states: “From all who taught me have I gained understanding” (Psalms 119:99)

" After all, you have to really learn from every person: some small habit, some middah, or some wise thing. We will try, therefore, to learn three things from our friends every day. At first this will be very difficult, because they are not used to this kind of thing. Criticism of friends arises in us at every moment, but to see in them some good thing that we can learn from them - we never risked it. Many days will pass until we manage to find out from friends some good thing that is worth learning from. But there is no escaping it, and with consistency we will eventually succeed in paying attention every day to find small things in our friends that are worth learning from. After we have discovered such things, we will continue for a few more weeks, and from now on it will be a real hitlamdut, that we will notice how good the friend's behavior is and say to ourselves: how beautiful this habit is, and I will do the same as them in this regard!

Vaad 5

There is nothing in creation that we cannot learn from, because that is why the Almighty created so many creatures. And the Sages have already said, "If the Torah had not been given, we would have learned modesty from a cat and [the prohibition of] stealing from an ant and chastity from a dove and the way of the earth [the correct manner of sexual relations] from a cock that courts and then mates" (Eruvin 100b). With this we will now learn to learn something from animals three times a day. And if we do not find something to learn from their behavior, we will learn to see in them the wisdom of the Creator.

Vaad 7

Perhaps one of the most difficult things about our subject is to learn from our family. Since his wedding, a husband has been used to encountering strange things in his house: he does not understand his wife's opinion and her behavior on many matters and he has already gotten used to reacting according to his feelings without trying to understand her. And who understands his children why they make trouble, behave stubbornly, bicker? The preoccupied father does not tolerate their disturbances and reacts to them in the moment emotionally: shouts, slaps, gets angry, without bothering himself to understand why they behave this way. A person gets used to living in his house for years without attempting to understand what is happening in his immediate environment. The damage that arises from this is obvious and does not need to be described. When we begin to learn from the members of our household, a whole new world may be revealed before us - a new era in matters of peace in the home and children's education. Let's begin, therefore, to learn three times a day to understand spouses and children. After all the stages in the hitlamdut work that have already passed, there is great hope that the hitlamdut will not be limited to three times alone, but will extend to all situations and times, especially at home which is the main weakness of non-hitlamdut.

The “person learning to learn” cannot possibly not feel how his inner world expanded as a result of his actions. His life will really become richer.

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At the end of this work, we must emphasize once again that the entire success of the mussar work depends on the integration of the practice of hitlamdut in our souls. Without this, there is a great fear that the work will become a burden to us, and instead of real growth, the work described in the following chapters will make us more proud and boastful, thinking: I am a "mussar man"! - and all our work will be negative reversed hitlamdut with harmful consequences, God forbid, and all in the guise of "frumkeit" which is characteristic of every action that is done without real hitlamdut. That is why one should not move from the practice of hitlamdut until we have firmly acquired it, and whoever did not succeed in this and is not able to endure it - should cease from mussar work altogether, and they will be a good Jew without it.