The concept of God as a teacher is not something that we talk about these days. It seems that most of the troubles afflicting our souls spring from everyone already knowing what God wants of us; in fact, many are experts in implementing these assumptions.
The most important word in this parsha is “m’lamaid” – as in, “I am instructing” — as in God is our teacher. With AI and ChatGPT on the brink of overtaking the space our minds have formally inhabited, maybe this is a good time to pay attention to this idea: God is still teaching us today.
The rest of the verse is specious and interpreted wildly; every generation understands it and implements according to their time so “we may live and enter and engage with the land as a holy inheritance that ties us to our ancestors.” However, it takes humility to be a good student, and that middah is the opposite of what is trending these days.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks shared some essential insights into humility: True humility is mindlessness of self. An anav (the biblical word used for humble person) is one who never thinks about himself because he has more important things to think about. I once heard someone say about a religious leader: “He took God so seriously that he didn’t need to take himself seriously at all.”
May we all find humility and favor curiosity, which breeds compassion, as we find our way back as Students of God.
Rabbi Lori Shapiro for Jewish Journal, August 2025