“. . . every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household, who brings out of his treasure things new and old.” Matthew 13:52

After the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E., the sages of early Judaism worked diligently to understand, refine, and transmit the traditions, rooted in Scripture, that had been handed down to them. A giant of that first generation was Rabban Yohanan Ben Zakkai. At times, Rabban Yohanan would test his students by intentionally slipping in a wrong answer to their questions. They learned to pay attention! And one of his students, Rabbi Joshua, later expressed in a few words that true learning involves hard work:

Rabbi Joshua says, “He who repeats a tradition but does not work at grasping it is like he who sows seed but does not harvest . . . .” Rabbi Akiva (a younger colleague of Rabbi Joshua) says, “A song in me, always a song.” (Tosefta Ahilot 16:8)

Joshua learned that it is not enough to repeat what we have heard. We have to work hard not merely to remember and repeat what we have heard, but also to take hold of the meaning and make it our own. In this way, our tradition will live in each generation. We must grapple with what we are taught in order to make it our own.