It was June 24, 1963, the day I was to take the last of my qualifying examinations for rabbinical ordination at RIETS, one day after my wedding, and two days after I had been informed that the Talmud class I had been promised to teach in MTA (Manhattan Yeshiva University High School) had been cancelled due to a lower-than-expected enrollment. To say that I was "panicked out-of-my-mind," would be an understatement. Here I was with a new bride (an 18 year old Religions Major at Barnard), a three-year rental contract for an apartment at 100 Overlook Terrace, and no tangible means of support. The telephone rang: "This is Moshe Besdin speaking. (Could it be the R. Moshe Besdin, Director of the James Striar School for young men without Yeshiva background - many of whom I had taught at Yeshiva University Seminars - who had a legendary reputation as a master educator but whom I had never formally met.) I would like to offer you a full-time position, teaching Freshman Bible and Sophomore Gemara. May I depend on you?"
I was flabbergasted, frightened and flattered all at the same time. I mumbled into the phone my appreciation of the offer, but that I had never taken a course in pedagogy and I was more than a bit daunted by the prospect of teaching students who would only be a few years my junior (I was then just 23 years old - and looked about 16) He waved away my protestations telling me that he would observe my class-room manner and have a weekly lunch meeting with me during which time I would receive on-the-job training. "I'm a beit-midrash watcher," he concluded, "and I've had my eye on you for a long time. I'm sure you'll do fine."
So began an association which was one of the most significant relationships of my life. From September 1963 until June 1977 - for as long as I taught at JSS - we ate lunch together Monday thru Thursday, 1-3 p.m., at the Tov Meod restaurant (affectionately known as Greasy Spoon). R. Besdin loved to monologue - and I became his most ardent listener. He was for me a rebbe, a mentor, a personal counselor, and a second father: every skill I acquired in educational methodology, every new initiative I established in the formative years of my rabbinate, every attitude I developed in my approach to Judaism and to life - were shaped and refined by this generous, genuine, wise, incisive, and consummately normal talmid hakham, who was both modest and decisive, inspiring and down-to-earth, completely devoid of any modicum of self-importance or hypocrisy.
The James Striar School which he created - he was not only its first Director, but he was the individual who shaped its contours, determined its curriculum and had the most abiding influence on four decades of its students - was probably the very first Yeshiva for ba'alei teshuva in Jewish history. The student body (200-300 strong) was comprised of graduates of secular High Schools from all over America and occasionally even from far-flung areas of the globe (I had a student from Barbados, West Indes), each of whom had been influenced by some religious inspiration: a Yeshiva University seminar, a Synagogue Rabbi or youth group, a religious relative or friend. Because R. Besdin believed that a school was formed in its admissions office, he himself interviewed every prospective student: he made sure the candidate was serious about his Judaism, willing to assume an observant life-style and able to read (but did not have to understand) a Hebrew text. Each interview lasted at least an hour; by the time it was over, he had weeded out anyone whose main interest was merely getting into a Private College and he had established an inextricable bond with anyone he had decided to admit to the Program.
The curriculum of the James Striar School consisted of the study of traditional Jewish texts: the Bible and its classical commentaries, (R. Besdin himself taught this class to every one of the incoming students), the Mishnah and the Talmud. He would regale me with his philosophy of education during those unforgettable lunches: "Teach it, not about it," which meant that he was against a paper-back, even Artscroll form of Torah-in-translation, or a Judaism-lite article about Biblical or Talmudic thought. His "itological" theory of learning meant that a serious student would welcome the opportunity to take the necessary intellectual plunge and grapple with the text itself: learn to read it, translate it, understand it and internalize it, slowly but surely progressing from Chumash to Rashi, to Mishnah, to Talmud. He actually called himself a "hederologist," based upon the heder (literally room or class-room) which was the Jewish School in the European "shtetl" that successfully taught hundreds of generations of Jews how to properly "learn" and understand a classical Hebrew text, based on the single educational principle that if you can't properly read and translate the original verse or Talmudic passage, you will never truly understand it.
R. Besdin also had traditional notions of class-room management. He walked the halls before class was due to begin to make certain that each "rebbe" was on time, and he demanded thorough preparation and lucid explication from every member of his faculty. Because we were teaching not only Divine texts but also supremely human subjects - flesh and blood students - we were paid for two extra periods a week at which time we were expected to meet with our individual pupils for regular counseling sessions. In all of this he remained "primus inter pares": the master teacher, thoroughly knowledgeable, in love with his subject matter as well as with his students, always accessible and totally committed.
R. Besdin detested pretense and pretension. There is a tendency among freshmen "ba'alei teshuva" to attempt to skip steps in the educational process and in their religious progression, to try to appear to know and to be more than what they actually knew and were. If he saw a beginning student expose his ritual fringes or wear a black hat, he would take him aside and warmly chastise him: "Remember, it is proper and even laudatory to attend a formal dinner with a tuxedo and top-hat. But if one wears a tuxedo and top-hat along with torn pants, he becomes a clown!" He understood that climbing up too quickly can result in crashing down just as quickly; true education must be a gradational, step-by-step process.
R. Besdin was an accomplished Torah scholar - he knew Yoreh Deah (the Code of Ritual Kashrut laws) virtually by heart, with all the comments of the Pri Meggadim - but I believe that his real love was the Ramban's commentary on the Bible. He had great respect for world literature - he especially enjoyed quoting long passages of Shakespeare, he played a mean game of tennis, he was immensely proud of his charming and beautiful wife, he deeply believed in romantic love, and he gloried in the various and varied successes of each of his children. Above all else, however, he was the consummate teacher, for whom teaching Torah was not only his profession but was truly the existential definition of his very being. And the Torah that he taught was constantly interspersed with the wise reflections of a renaissance man whose faith was profound without being fanatic and who genuinely believed that every individual was granted the God given right to choose his/her life-style and life commitments. He saw the task of a teacher to lovingly expose and wisely guide; never to forcefully coerce or underhandedly manipulate.
R. Besdin had a clearly formulated philosophy of Judaism, which stressed the Maimonidean golden mean, and included a commitment to Torah together with derekh eretz (both in terms of respectful inter-personal relationships as well as professional pursuit). The source of his theological outlook was our classical Jewish texts, especially the Bible and its commentaries of Rashi and Ramban. The Divine Covenant with Israel was, for him, the very basis of the uniqueness of our nation, and so R. Besdin was fond of explaining (in his interpretation of a difficult passage of the Ramban) that whereas a contract depends on the fulfillment of both parties to its stipulations, a covenant has the Divine guarantee that there will always be a nation Israel through whom redemption will eventually come, no matter what. Therefore a contract can be revoked if one of the parties reneges; the covenant is eternal. He had great respect for our traditions, and the vital force of a Judaism which has been transmitted - parent to child, teacher to disciple - for the past 4,000 years. Indeed, he believed that Isaac's "test" in the akedah was greater than was Abraham's; after all, Abraham heard the Divine Voice ask for the sacrifice of his son, whereas Isaac heard it only from his father. In this fashion, Isaac is the truest representative of the Jewish people, who have constantly been ready to lay down their lives for their faith not because they heard the command directly from God but because they heard it from their parents and teachers...
And, in addition to all of this, R. Moshe Besdin had a twinkle in his eye and a warm sensitivity and sense of humor in his heart. Which one of his myriads of students wouldn't yearn to be lovingly called by him once again a "trumbenick," or doesn't think of Lavan as a "villain with style"? I remember once that R. Besdin suggested we cut out the "Knish" (generally kasha) with which we daily concluded our sandwich-and-salad each day; after all, calories and cholesterol were beginning to make a difference on both of us. But then, towards the end of our two-hour "session," he looked at me seriously. "Reb Shloime," he said, "I've been noticing the woman who makes the knishes in the back. Do you know that in all the time we've been sitting here, no one has ordered a knish. She has had nothing to do. If she's fired, it would be on our conscience. You wouldn't want that to happen." I dutifully got us two knishes, as an act of mesirot nefesh on behalf of the Knish-cook, of course!
So indebted did I feel towards R. Besdin that I asked him to be the Sandak for my first son's circumcision, of course he acquiesced to my request. That lunch, however, he seemed quite agitated. His son-in-law, with a PhD in Jewish History, was having difficulty in finding a suitable teaching position. "Plumbers," he railed. "Jewish children have to study to be plumbers. It's easier for plumbers to make a living than it is for Jewish educators." He went on and on, quite disturbed by the situation.
The next morning, the morning of my son's circumcision, I called R. Besdin at 6:00 in the morning. I apologized for the early telephone call, but I explained that I hadn't slept all night. "I'm concerned about your kavannah (internal intention) when you will be Sandak," I explained. "I don't want you to intend my son to be a plumber. A plumber is fine, but I would still want that my son be a Torah teacher." R. Besdin laughed heartily, "You surely know I wasn't serious," he said. "There is no profession as exalted and as satisfying as being a teacher. Even our morning blessing refers to the Almighty God Himself as a melamed, a teacher. A good teacher can always look in the mirror at night and know that he/she spent the day in a significant way. An educator paves the way for the next generation of Torah, participates in eternity. I wouldn't trade my life with anyone in the world." Neither would I - thanks to the many life-lessons I was privileged to learn from the greatest teacher I have ever known, R. Moshe Besdin.
Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Riskin, BTA '56, YC '60, RIETS '63, BRGS '73, is the founder and dean of Ohr Torah Stone Colleges and Graduate Programs. He is the chief rabbi of Efrat.
2008 Woodie Awards
