בס"ד

The Place of Yirat Shamayim in Moral Development:

The Pedagogical Approach of the Maharal of Prague

By Yael Wieselberg

Project Mentor: Prof. Benjamin Gross

ATID 2001

The Place of Yirat Shamayim in Moral Development:
The Pedagogical Approach of the Maharal of Prague
by
Yael Wieselberg

Yael Wieselberg, a doctoral candidate in Jewish Philosophy at the Hebrew University, teaches at Michlelet Mevaseret Yerushalayim, and is a participant in the Shalem Fellows Program. 

Project Description

This project presents the pedagogic paradigm of the Maharal, suggesting an approach to Torah learning based upon a hierarchy of values; those of Chochmah (wisdom), yirah (awe), and anavah (humility).  By examining the concepts behind these values, it becomes evident that the creation of a spiritual relationship with God is more essential than the academic accumulation of knowledge.  Maharal’s commitment to dveykut leads him to promote learning in a shared, interactive environment, providing helpful pedagogical suggestions as to the building of a true relationship with God. 

  

Table of Contents

Abstract                                                                       4
Foreword                                                                     6
Introduction                                                                 7
The Problem of Intellectualism                                  11
Raising an Awareness of Awe                                   17
The Beauty of Humility                                             19
The Durability of Dveykut                                         23
The Paradox of Dependence                                      24
Maharal’s Criticism of Pilpul                                     26
The Value of Communication                                    29
Articulating Chevruta Learning                                 30
The Teacher-Student Relationship                             33
A Model Class based upon the Integrative Method   36
Conclusion                                                                  39
Afterword                                                                   40
Bibliography                                                               41

Abstract
Maharal, somewhat unusual amongst Jewish thinkers for his explicit interest in the field of Jewish education, has much to say about the primary importance of pedagogy.  Throughout his writings, and Netivot Olam in particular, he explains that fear of heaven, rather than intellectualism, is the key to a genuine relationship with the heavenly realm.  Famous for his rejection of abstract pilpul, Maharal suggests a paradigm for a very different kind of learning, based upon the values of Yirat Shamayim (fear of heaven) and Anavah (humility).  Unlike contemporary academic dogma, Maharal argues that while Chochmah (wisdom) remains valuable where it leads to spirituality, it loses meaning the moment it disconnects from Yirat Shamayim.   Teaching cannot therefore be circumscribed to fact or methodology; it needs the direction of Dveykut B’ashem, guiding the student towards a personal relationship with God.
Maharal posits a clear division between Chochmah, a term to be defined here as intellectual wisdom, and Torah.  The distinction is between empiricist, this-worldly wisdom, and the enterprise of Torah, that which brings mankind to their ultimate tachlit (purpose) in the world to come.  The first form of learning explains Maharal, remains solipsistic, concerned with factual knowledge that keeps man bound in his self-contained, earthly existence. And while there is value in the Chochmah Kllalit (general wisdom) that is able to provide insights into the nature and order of reality, secular, illusory wisdom remains unable to advance the Torah enterprise.  Torah, on the other hand, with its unique teleology, constitutes the ‘Lashon Hora’ah’ (language of teaching) insofar as it ‘shows’ man the possibilities of another realm of existence.  The language of pedagogy is at root, concerned with connecting the physical and the supernatural, an aspiration generated through yirah and anavah.   
Illustrating the model, Maharal writes of an approach to Torah-learning founded upon a hierarchy of values: those of wisdom (chochmah), awe (yirah), and humility (anavah).  For Maharal, wisdom appears as only the first rung on the value-scale, ascending towards yirah and peaking with anavah, the humble recognition of one’s place in the world that aligns man with God.  In different ways, fear of heaven and the pursuit of humility both contribute towards building the I-Thou relationship.  Each express more Divine truth than barren intellectualism, viewed by Maharal as a limited, this-worldly phenomenon.  Instead, he identifies anavah with dveykut, the bond with God that is the focus and purpose of all existence.  The moment of humility in which we recognize our relationship with God also brings us to Him.  And partly because it is informed by dveykut, Maharal’s perspective on the Jewish value system is almost entirely governed by the principles of relationship.  Beginning with the fundamental inter-relation of concepts, Maharal ultimately celebrates the union of man and God, the Torah, and the Jewish people.  Behind each of these relationships is the dveykut paradigm, so that understanding its assumptions aids the education of both religiosity and reciprocity.  Learning to view oneself in relation to the ‘other’, recognizing that one stands in eternal dialogue with God, other people, or the text, establishes a contextual framework that is built upon relationship.  For Maharal, this awareness is central to the development of dveykut, the ultimate in moral development.

Foreword

Explaining the genius of the Maharal is not easy.  Yet by delicately balancing elements of rationalism with the perpetual call of mysticism, Maharal is unique in his ability to make sense of things, finding order and reason in our everyday existence.  Embodied in his writing, which is itself multi-layered, he recognizes that every aspect of life is imbued with meaning, available at a touch to illuminate and inspire.  The window he presents with breathtaking clarity is a brightly colored vista suffused with the possibilities of human experience, brushed with an optimistic expectancy that continually springs up behind the lines.  As a pedagogical paradigm, Maharal insists that a profound relationship with God is not merely possible but actual, and invites us to see beyond the shadowy penumbra of our world.  The vision is compelling, but there are few teachers who manage to embody the spirit, dedication, and compassion of the Maharal with unfaltering resolution.  Professor Benjamin Gross is such a teacher, radiating warmth, light and devotion after years of energized teaching of the Maharal.  There can be no doubt as to the clarity of his vision, the rigor of his intellectual discipline, and the kindness of his soul, and for the learning we have shared I can only thank him with my full heart.  In addition I would like to thank R. Jeffrey Saks and R. Chaim Brovender for their patience, support and guidance, together with their earnest dedication and important insights.

Introduction

Moral development is a leading dilemma for contemporary educators.  Perhaps it always was.  But today there is an evident absence of dedication to tradition that stems from the absence of a defined relationship with God.  Jewish tradition understands that commitment to observance and moral development depends upon Yirat Shamayim, a sense of reverence for the Divine that permeates the mottled hues of life.  On the one hand, fear, or awe of Heaven encourages individuals to develop their own reserves of virtue and goodness; on the other, it involves a continual suffusion of the Divine presence.  As Michael Rosenak has noted:
(Yirat Shamayim) was a complex aim.  For while it had to do with one’s duties (‘keep his commandments’) it was also, and perhaps first of all, a comprehensive image of character, virtue and goodness.  In the Jewish context therefore, while it did mean observance of commandments, and study of the Torah, it also preceded them, and it meant carrying them out with a certain pious intention… What is assumed by all is that one who fears Heaven, the Yire Shamayim, has a keenly developed sense of being in the Presence of God or of being called upon to be in His Presence. 

The definition posited here, culled from an educational forum concerned with the place of Yirat Shamayim in contemporary Jewish education, contains at least two elements.  The first is a sense of moral responsibility, a fear of heaven that expresses itself in the pursuit of duty and goodness.  The second however, speaks of a relationship with God predicated by continual dialogue, a close connection that Maharal would term dveykut.
For Rabbi Yehudah Loew (the Maharal of Prague), these two stages are connected, for only a relationship with God governed by Yirat Shamayim can be crowned with the faculty of clinging to God, with dveykut.  At the same time however, Maharal is careful to identify them as separate educational goals.  His pedagogical paradigm notes three different aspirations: the first, chochmah, involves the accumulation of connective knowledge.  The second yirah, depends upon the awareness of distance between the individual and God, while the third, anavah, involves the humility that brings us close to Him.  The ultimate goal of dveykut results not through a debilitating sense of the overwhelming greatness of God, but through an essential connection with Him.  
The paradigm presented in Netivot Olam provides a guide to moral development that includes yirah but does not end with it.  By identifying values and viewing them as isolated stages, Maharal suggests a developmental model for cultivating a relationship with God.  This article will attempt to understand the paradigm in Maharal’s own terms, ending with a review of his more specific pedagogical advice.
Maharal’s interest in pedagogy has been noted by a number of academics, most notably Kleinberger and Gottesdinger.  Yet the main academic discussion of Maharal’s philosophy of education, that of Kleinberger, takes Maharal to an intellectual extreme.  Kleinberger assumes for example, that Maharal accepts Maimonides’ ‘sociological missive’, encouraging inter-personal relations for the sake of establishing a functional society.  But in Netivot Olam, Maharal strongly renounces rationalist and utilitarian perspectives.  Talmud Torah is valuable only insofar as it encourages Yirat Shamayim and Dveykut, the spiritual, essential values that bring us to God.  As Professor Benjamin Gross has argued, understanding the place of anavah at the apex of Maharal’s paradigm involves recourse with mystical rather than intellectual concepts, for it ultimately invites an appreciation of immanence.  
For this reason amongst others, Maharal negates the value of abstract rationalism, the casuistic exercises of pilpul by which students would sharpen their arguments to impossible extremes.  Undertaken at the Prague academies of the Maharal’s day, Talmudic Pilpul was equated by Maharal with intellectual abstraction, a form of study he understood to be disconnected from reality and therefore destructive.  In Netivot Olam for example, Maharal writes of the removal of the shekhinah from the Jewish people when they cease to listen to one another, a result of the emphasis on rationalist pilpul by the educational authorities of his day.  Maharal’s insight into the absence of Yirat Shamayim is equally relevant for contemporary educators, for whom the Maharal’s paradigm provides a radical redirection of the sovereign values of logic and intellectualism.  Instead, Maharal’s guidelines for moral education demand a dynamic focus upon Dveykut, the mark of genuine relationship.
A contemporary paradigm concerned with Yirat Shamayim needs to consider a number of questions:
What did Yirat Shamayim mean in the Jewish tradition? Can it still be a formative idea or principle? Is it, at least, a resource for a modern ideal of Jewish character education?  What happens to the religious-theological concept of Yirat Shamayim when educators attempt to translate it into moral and philosophical educational language?

The answers posited by Maharal are clearly affirmative:

The matter which is the purpose of everything is Yirat Shamayim.  And because of this, Solomon concluded his book (Ecclesiastes 12) [with]: ‘The end of the matter, everything having been heard (is): Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole of man’.

There can be no doubt as to the educational value of Yirat Shamayim.   It fosters a sense of dependence upon God and the words of Chazal that enforces both spirituality and tradition.  The decisive issue for pedagogy however, is the meeting point between dependence and autonomy, between conservatism and creativity, a problem to which Maharal provides an important philosophical resolution.  
Recently, Maharal’s emphasis upon creativity in learning has been discussed by Wasserstein-Verant, in an article entitled ‘The Concept of Man in the Maharal’s Thought and its application in the Development of Creativity in Education’.  Wasserstein-Verant speaks of the importance of developing creativity, of adapting to different situations, of recognizing progress and of stimulating integration between the spiritual subjective self and the active objective self.  
While creativity remains central to education, and Maharal certainly supports creative reading, he presupposes the existence of a Chazalic discourse, covertly waiting to be exposed by the reader.  The attributes of yirah and anavah lead to a respect for the words of Chazal that enable genuine dialogue.  Rather than superimposing meaning upon the text, the student governed by Yirat Shamayim will place himself in a relationship with Chazal by which he understands their terminology to be informing his own.  The values of yirah and anavah as explained by Maharal are essential to the development of a relationship with God and with tradition, the two primary goals of contemporary Jewish education.
 
The Problem of Intellectualism

The place of Chochmah in the philosophy of Chazal is amply considered in ‘Netiv HaTorah’. And where Chochmah is translated as philosophy or intellectualism, Maharal finds that it occupies a less significant place than we might assume.  Where Chochmah lacks spiritual direction, Maharal insists that it will not succeed in bringing us to the world to come:
 וזה איו בכח שום חכמה, כי על ידי התורה מגיע האדם אל עולם הבא, ולכן ראוי לה דווקא לתורה שם תורה שהוא לשון הוראה, שמורה לאדם תכליתו האחרון אשר ראוי לאדם להגיע אליו.  ולכך אמר "ויורני ויאמר לי יתמך דברי לבך", השם יתברך הורה לאדם תכלית האחרון איך להגיע את האדם אל העולם הבא, כאשר יתמוך דברי לבך, ואז האדם דבוק בתורה המגיע אל תכליתו הוא העולם הבא. (נתיב התורה, פרק א, דף ט) 
This (ability to reach one’s ultimate purpose) cannot be said of any body of wisdom; it is through the Torah alone that one reaches the world-to-come.  And therefore it is especially fitting for Torah to be termed ‘Torah’, which is the term for teaching, directing an individual to the ultimate purpose that is fitting to attain.  It follows that the verse ‘And he guided me and He said to me, ‘Allow my words to uphold your heart…’ (T.B. Shabbat: 88,2) is to teach us that Hashem may He be blessed shows us our ultimate destiny, namely how to reach the world-to-come, through allowing God’s words to uphold your heart.  And thus an individual who clings to Torah will reach his ultimate destiny that is the world-to-come. (Netiv HaTorah, Chapter 1)

In these lines, we encounter a clear division between Chochmah, to be defined here as intellectual wisdom, and Torah.  The distinction is between empiricist, this-worldly wisdom, and the enterprise of Torah, that which brings mankind to their ultimate tachlit (purpose) in the world to come.  The first form of learning explains Maharal, remains solipsistic, concerned with factual knowledge that leaves man bound in his self-contained, earthly existence.  While there is value in the Chochmah Kllalit (general wisdom) that is able to provide insights into the nature and order of reality; secular, illusory wisdom remains unable to advance the Torah enterprise.  Ultimately Torah, with its unique teleology, constitutes the ‘Lashon Hora’ah insofar as it ‘shows’ man the possibilities of another realm of existence.  The language of pedagogy is at root, concerned with the advancement of dveykut, with creating an essential connection between the physical and the supernatural. 
It is therefore essential for Maharal that Limmud Torah does not become confused with what we would today term ‘academic’ study. He writes:
 
כי יראת השם ראש לחכמה, שמן החכמה מגיע אל המדריגה שהיא יותר עליונה מן החכמה דהיינו יראת השם יתב' שהוא ראשית וראש על החכמה. והיראה הוא עקב לענוה כלומר כאשר הוא בעל ענוה אי אפשר שלא יהיה ירא שמים, לא כמו החכמה שאפשר שיהיה חכם ולא יהיה ירא אלהים. כמו שתמצא יש בני אדם שיש בהם חכמה ואין בהן יראת שמים, ואם שודאי החכמה הכנה שעל ידה מגיע אל יראת השם כמו שאמר ראשית חכמה יראת השם, מכל מקום אינו דבר מוכרח ודאי כי החכמה היא הכנה וסולם שעל ידה מגיע אל יראת השם, מ"מ אפשר שישאר עומד בסולם ולא יגיע למעלת היראה, אבל כאשר האדם בעל ענוה והוא משפיל עצמו א"כ בודאי משפיל עצמו כנגד בוראו מכיר בפחיתות שלו וזהו עצם היראה כאשר מכיר עצם שפלתו, וזה פירושו לפי פשוטו  עקב ענוה יראת השם (ספר נתיבות עולם ב - נתיב הענוה - פרק א) 
The fear of heaven is above wisdom, for from wisdom one attains the level that is higher than wisdom, namely the fear of God may He be blessed, that is primary and the beginning of wisdom.  Fear is ‘a heel to humility’, meaning that one who has the quality of humility must necessary be a God fearing person.  This is not the case for wisdom, for it is possible to be a wise person without being God fearing, such as those who have wisdom without a fear of heaven.
And although wisdom is a preparation through which one attains fear of heaven, as it says ‘the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom’, there is no absolute certainty in the matter, because wisdom is a preparation and a ladder through which one attains fear of heaven.  It is possible to remain standing on the ladder without reaching the level of fear.  But when a person has the quality of humility and lowers oneself, they will certainly enact lowliness before the creator, recognizing their deficiency.  This is the essence of reverence, when one recognizes the essence of one’s lowliness, and this is the pshat meaning of ‘ekev anava yirat Hashem’, the fear of Hashem is a heel to humility. (The Path of Humility, Ch 1)

Wisdom is no mere collation of facts and figures.  It is a preparatory device that accomplishes little unless it aids the fear of heaven.  While the humble individual (ba’al anavah) will necessarily display reverence, aware of the relation between himself and the Divine, those versed in solipsistic wisdom might still be weighted on the bottom rungs of religiosity.  Only the fear of heaven can enable the progression towards ascendance, for it leads to the recognition of our lowliness before God that simultaneously brings us to Him.  
Learning that is separated from fear of heaven, from a relation with God, is thus rejected as meaningless.  Only when study is intimately linked with the experience of Yirat Shamayim will it succeed in opening up the channels of relationship.  On the mishnah “Eizehu Chacham, Halommed Mikol Adam”, Maharal explains the point in depth.  The definitions chosen by the mishnah, he explains, are extremely precise, and thus the Chacham cannot be defined by the quantity of knowledge he possesses.  He writes:
וזה שאמר איזהו חכם הלומד מכל אדם, כי שם חכם תואר לאדם אין ראוי שיתואר בו האדם כי אם כאשר התואר מצד עצמו, כי האדם אשר יש לו בית כיון שאיו הבית תואר לעצמו של אדם רק שהוא דר שם לא יתואר האדם ממנו, ואף אם היה זה שיתואר האדם אף כי התואר אינו בא על האדם מצד עצמו, מכל מקום אין זה תואר גמור לאדם כאשר אינו בא מצד עצמו, ולפיכך איו ראוי שיתואר האדם על ידי החכמה שהיא זולת האדם ואין החכמה אליו מצד עצמו. (דרך חיים, פרק רביעי, שפז)

The saying ‘who is the wise man? One who learns from every person’, implies that the name chacham as a description of a person can only be truly descriptive when it is an internal attribute.  In the case of a man who owns a house, the house cannot be an internal attribute of the man, because he merely lives there, so that it cannot describe the man himself.  And even if this were to provide some description of the man despite the fact that the attribute does not stem from the man himself, it cannot constitute a complete attribute because it does not arise from his inner being.  And therefore it is not fitting for an individual to be described by wisdom that is ‘other’ than the person, where there is no essential connection to the wisdom.  (Derech Chayim, Chapter 4:1)

The definitions provided by this mishnah, argues Maharal, are ‘Mitzad Atzmo’, internal rather than external attributes.  The true chacham cannot be defined by the mere accumulation of wisdom, because empirical information cannot possibly represent the inner depth of personality.  For the same reason that a person’s house cannot describe their essence, knowledge that remains external to man provides no description of tzelem, of the highest level of being.  In order to be representative of our true selves, knowledge must be searched for, hoped for, somehow ‘part’ of us in a way that expresses the Divine aspect of one’s personality.  True Chochmah is not therefore about data; it reflects an inner disposition that leads to the world-to-come.
Maharal’s analysis of the nature of man is helpful here.  Following the conception of R’ Yehudah Halevi, Maharal identifies three separate elements that he terms guf (body), nefesh, (the impulse for living), and sekhel, (the intellect).  Yet the true essence of man inheres in neither of these three; it exists in the tzelem, the extra dimension that constitutes man’s link with the world-to-come.  Unlike the bodily faculties, the tzelem is defined by its connection with the higher attributes of the spiritual world.  Its metaphysical tendency is also its spiritual destiny.  It exists in order to connect with transcendence.  And Torah, insofar as it is ‘other’ than human wisdom, likewise brings man to the Divine realm that is synonymous with the world-to-come.  Like the tzelem, the inner dimension of Torah hints towards the higher dimension, maintaining its connection with the infinite.   
Describing the chacham (the wise), gibor (strong), ashir (rich), and mekhubad (honoured), Maharal explains that quantitative attributes, how ‘much’ someone has, remain accidental, dependent upon capacity or circumstance.  Quantitative attributes remain external because they change in relation to others, transient by definition.  As definitions they remain relative in comparison to the objective reality of spiritual quest.  Like physical strength or wealth, Maharal understands that wisdom can be a relative phenomenon, assessed according to societal norms rather than innate qualities.  When received entirely from one source, even from one particular Rav, it remains possible to carry wisdom as one carries a gift, existing separately from the life of the individual.  Wisdom that is gained through quest, on the other hand, to the point that one is inspired to search for it in each and every individual, expresses a real commitment to wisdom which comments directly upon the bearer.  The chacham is identified as one who is lommed mikol adam, one who learns from every individual, because this aspiration we know to be real, essential, expressive of a thirst for learning that describes the individual rather than the knowledge he carries.  The final focus for the chacham is upon Dveykut, upon a more connective relationship with God and His wisdom.
Elsewhere, Chochmah is re-formulated by Maharal as the wisdom of the heart, as a primarily internal form of knowledge.  In a central statement he suggests that difficulty in understanding the words of Chazal results from insufficient attempts at understanding: ‘shelo natnu lev le’havin’.  While the term ‘lev’ in medieval usage commonly refers to the intellect, Maharal here connects chochmat halev to internal wisdom, suggesting an attitude of being as opposed to a purely intellectual interest.  The repeated emphasis upon ‘Lev’ in this context advocates the kind of exegesis (darshanut) that stems from yirat shamayim, from the unqualified impulse to understand the deeper meaning of the text.  For Maharal, intellectualism becomes meaningful when it enables a higher process, the encounter with awe and humility that generates a true understanding and connection with God.

Raising an Awareness of Awe
Given that ‘the beginning of wisdom is the fear of heaven’ (Psalms: 111:10), and fear of heaven results from humility, we might expect the paradigm to begin with humility and end with wisdom.  Yet Maharal is adamant that we consider a different paradigm, in which humility, and the dveykut attendant upon it, constitute the ultimate goal.  Interpreting ‘Raishit Chochma Yirat Hashem’, he equates raishit with that which is primary, so that fear of heaven is above wisdom both spiritually and ontologically.  On the mishnah in Avot discussing the mutual interdependence of these values, Maharal further delineates the supremacy of Yirat Shamayim over Chochmah:

החכמה אין לה קיום אם לא מצד הש"י שהוא העלה, כי לפי גודל מדריגת החכמה אין קיום אליה אצל האדם שהוא בעל גוף רק מצד הש"י שהוא העלה, כי כאשר האדם ירא שמים הנה האדם עלול אל הש"י לגמרי, וכאשר הוא עלול אל הש"י שהוא העילה הנה יש אל העלול קיום מצד עלתו, ולפיכך כאשר האדם ירא שמים ואז נחשב האדם עלול אל העלה אז חכמתו יש לו קיום מצד עלתו הוא הש"י אשר מקיים הכל, וזהו דכתיב ראשית חכמה יראת ה' ולא כן כאשר אין בו יראת שמים (דרך חיים, פרק שלישי, דף שכג)
 Wisdom has no continued existence unless it stems from God who is the cause.  Due to the greatness of the level of exalted wisdom, it has no continued existence in relation to corporeal man, but only when it derives from God who is the cause.  When a person is God-fearing one is dependent on God entirely, and when one is dependent on God may He be blessed, who is the cause, one has continued existence in relation to the cause that stems from the cause.  And therefore when a person is Godfearing, one may be considered a dependent in relation to the cause, and then one’s wisdom has continued existence that is derived from the cause, who is God may He be blessed who sustains everything.  And this is what is written ‘the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God’, something that cannot be without the fear of heaven. (Derech Chayim, Chapter 3: 11)

Illustrated in these lines is the relationship between the alul (cause) and ila (effect), through which we recognize our humanity and dependence on God.  Being a Yire Hashem, he explains, means recognizing our dependence upon a higher and greater source.  It involves an admission of our contingent and limited humanity that enables us to connect to the Divine.  And therefore, explains Maharal, Chochmah can have no continued existence (kiyyum) unless it is directed towards God, the cause or principle that endows it with permanent meaning.  So long as intellectual wisdom exists entirely in the human realm, it remains physical, limited, and short-lived.  Only the spiritual realm may bring vitality to the temporal, brushing wisdom with the genus of permanence.  
Maharal’s understanding of the nature of kiyyum (continued existence) is similar to his grasp of the spiritual or sikhli, in that each depend upon the existence of relationship between man and God.  When we realize ourselves to be the ‘effects’ of Divine grace, recognizing our dependence upon His nourishment, we validate our affiliation with the infinite.  By linking cause with effect, source with consequence, mankind gives meaning to an otherwise tottering world of physicality.  And if teaching is to be successful, this is the message to be conveyed.  The path to spiritual continuity, paved by Yirat Shamayim, involves a cognitive link between the physical and spiritual, between fact and affinity.  
Maharal values awe over wisdom because it brings us closer to the recognition of God.  While the fear of God, he writes, contains within it the seeds of progression towards anavah, chochmah contains no such necessity.  It remains possible to be a chacham, or in contemporary terms, an academic, without fearing heaven or serving God.  And thus Chochmah, while valuable in and of itself, is ultimately intended to be a stepping stone, a means and not an end.  The purpose of knowledge is to cling to Torah until the point at which the separation between the physical and spiritual disappears.  Without this motivation, namely the struggle for unity, we remain unable to merit it.  He writes: ‘[The Aggadah] means that a person must cleave to the Torah absolutely, until it cannot separate itself from him.  Without this a person cannot merit the Torah, for in order to do so he must become one with the spiritual’.  Dedicating ourselves to unification with the spiritual therefore also involves encouraging the desire for relationship.  Torah, representing both spirituality and the spirit of unity, depends upon our longing for Dveykut.  More than intellectual content, pedagogy needs to invite the bridging of Chochmah and Yirah, the human with the spiritual, creating an essential attachment with the Divine.

The Beauty of Humility
The Maharal’s explanation for placing anavah at the head of his hierarchy of values is somewhat kabbalistic, for he claims that it enables the closest possible relationship with God.  In Netiv Ha’anavah, he writes that of all his attributes, God expresses his love for us most deeply when he chooses, through his humility, to recognize a place for mankind in the universe:

ומפני כי מדת השם יתב' שאתו היא הענוה וזו המדה היא עצמית אליו יותר מכל וכמו שיתבאר ולפיכך בעל ענוה הוא מתלבש במדת בוראו, ובודאי דבר זה יותר גדול שמדת היראה שהוא ירא השם יתב' משפיל עצמו לפניו ואין בדבר זה התדמות כלל, רק שמכיר שהוא עלתו ית'. ועל זה אמר מה שעשתה חכמה עטרה לראשה עשתה ענוה עקב לסילותה, כי יראת שמים שהוא יותר גדול מן החכמה והוא קטן מן הענוה כי בעל הענוה מצד שיש בו מדעת קונו יש לו מעלה יותר וזהו יותר מן יראת השם, כי בעל ירא שמים מצד שהוא עלול אל השם יתברך שהוא העלה יש לו דביקות עם העלה. ולכך ענוה יותר גדולה מן יראת השם, כי יש לבעל ענוה התדמות למדת יוצרו (ספר נתיבות עולם ב - נתיב הענוה - פרק א)

Because the attribute accompanying Hashem is humility, and this is the attribute more essential to Him than any other, as will be explained, the humble person participates in the attribute of his creator.  This is certainly the greatest thing, for the attribute of reverence that is the fear of God may He be blessed, involves enacting lowliness before Him, and in this there is no likeness with God at all, except for the recognition that He is the cause.  About this it says ‘that which wisdom has made a crown to its head, humility has made a shoe for its foot’, (Shir Hashirim Rabbah, 1:9) because the fear of heaven is greater than wisdom and lesser than humility.  Because the humble person connects with some of the knowledge of his creator, he attains a greater level.  This is greater than the fear of God, because from the perspective of being a dependent upon God may He be blessed, who is the cause, the God-fearing person has a close connection with the cause.  And therefore humility is greater than fear of Heaven, because the humble person has a likeness with the attribute of his creator. (The Path of Humility, Chapter 1)

The quality most essential to God, explains Maharal, is humility.  In the hierarchy of God’s inner being, humility exceeds awe because it involves a decision to abandon transcendence in favor of creation.  Humility indicates immanence.  And thus Maharal explains that anavah stems from recognizing God’s providence over worldly creatures, finding in His choice to attend to us the ultimate indication of his greatness.  More important than coming close to God in awe of Him, more valuable than the yirah mode, is the development of anavah.  While awe enables us to meet God, this relationship is based on inequality, upon recognizing the gap between His greatness and ourselves.  Humility on the other hand, means that man may emulate God’s essential quality within himself, coming close to Him on more intimate terms.  Ultimately it enables the experience of Hidamot Lakel, likeness to, and therefore proximity with, God Himself.  
Humility stands at the center of closeness to God.  But in order to realize itself it must remain in continual dialectic with the subsidiary quality of yirah.  While it is the fear of heaven that enables humility, it is also the recognition of lowliness (stemming from anavah) that stimulates awe.  The principle of ‘ekev anavah yirat Hashem’ (Shir HaShirim Rabbah, 1:9) of awe resulting from humility, is explained by Maharal to mean that awe follows humility just as the heel trails the body, always a lingering step behind.  While the haughty individual, imagining himself sovereign, cannot recognize his subservience before God, the humble learn the meaning of relationship.  More than the pursuit of knowledge, and greater than awe, is the appreciation of immanence, the union with God that formulates our deepest aspiration.
Of course, Maharal is not the first to emphasize the virtue of humility.  The Torah itself describes Moses as ‘anav mikol adam’.  Yet the mystical meaning of humility is quite different from its rational implications.  For Maharal, true humility likens us to God at a level which is ‘atzmit elav yoter mi’kol’, essential and expressive of his most intimate love for us.  Choosing in his magnitude, to descend and embrace mankind, God expresses humility through His love, revealing his compassion through the warmth of the shechina.  Expressed by the aggadah in Megillah, it is precisely together with his greatness that God’s humility rests: ‘wherever you find the greatness of the Holy One blessed be He, there you find his humility’.  Philosophically, God’s greatness, humility and simplicity are one, a corollary we are invited to aspire towards.   
Discussing the need for anavah in contemporary moral education, Moshe Arend lists a number of modes of acquiring the attribute.  Based on Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzato, he advocates habituation through action; consideration of the virtues of humility over arrogance, an awareness of mortality and a recognition of one’s obligations before God.   In addition, Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzato suggests that admitting the weakness of intellect may inspire greater efforts in study. 
In practice, these approaches are encapsulated in Maharal’s reverence for Chazal, and the humility he reveals in interpreting their words.  His respect for their every word reveals in methodology what we, as teachers, aim towards in pedagogy. Conveying the notion that Chazal’s words hold meaning, regardless of whether it is discernible by the student, is an important pedagogical message.  Whether anavah is directed towards God or Chazal, it remains at the head of the value pyramid, endorsed first by Yirah, and only then by Chochmah.  Rather than intellectual solipsism, Maharal advocates interaction with Chazal.
The pedagogical implications of humility are particularly important in a society governed by post-modernism.  Presenting a text according to Maharal’s paradigm involves inspiring awe for God, for one’s fellow man, and also for the text.  There is an expectation that the text holds greatness, constituting an independent entity.  And here Maharal’s approach constitutes the antithesis of post-modernism.  Standing in this kind of relation to the text involves an admission of dependence; a belief in its inspirational possibilities that exists independently of the faculties of the student. Rather than encouraging the student to impose his understanding of the text, recognizing only his own presence in the learning process, Maharal insists upon the existence of the ‘other’, a presence with whom the student must engage.  The ‘tziruf la’acher’, (joining with another), is central, so that while there is no need to crush creativity, Maharal remains adamant that it needs to take place in the independent presence of the text.  The pedagogical message is that Torah texts are more likely to be inspirational once they have been correctly understood. 

The Durability of Dveykut
By recognizing ourselves as the outcome of God’s will, and admitting our dependency on him, we develop an attribute in ourselves that furthers the I and Thou relationship.  In ‘Netiv HaTorah’, Maharal writes that Torah is intended to strengthen the heart and to endow life, both through the performance of the commandments and through learning its verses.  Strength is the result of the spiritual in man, when we become likened to the sikhli, and truly relate to it.  Torah, he writes, is the ‘seder ha’adam’, that which provides meaning, consistency and order in life, inviting us towards dveykut in this world and the world beyond.  Maharal’s hope is that students will identify their hearts, and not only their minds, with the learning process.  And in this connection, Betzalel Safran refers to the value of dependence, of sensing the need for Divine sustenance in the quest for Yirat Shamayim.  Most evocatively he refers to ‘a near simultaneity of experiencing one’s helplessness, even as one is ‘raised’ by the divine revitalising’.    It is only when we find ourselves in the hands of God, aware of our contingency as compared with His solidity, that we gain strength from his presence.  In pedagogical terms, suggests Maharal, encountering Chazal from a position of humility stimulates dveykut, a connection that truly enables the text to endow its wisdom. 

The Paradox of Dependence
Understanding the concept of Lishma (‘for its own sake’), follows naturally from an understanding of Dveykut.  Given that Lishma stems from the words ‘Lema’an Hashem’, it involves a mode of learning that is undertaken for God’s sake, primarily because we love Him.  The beauty of Torah Lishma is its dual impact; by expressing our love of God through learning his Torah, we also revitalize ourselves.  As Maharal writes: 

ובפ"ק דתענית, ר' בנאה אומר, כל העוסק בתורה לשמה נעשית לו סם חיים, שנאמר עץ חיים היא למחזיקים בה, ואומר רפאות תהי לשרך, ואומר כי מצאי מצא חיים.  וכל העוסק בתורה שלא לשמה נעשית לו סם המות, שנאמר יערף כמטר לקחי, ואין עריפה אלא הריגה, שנאמר וערפו שם את העגלה.  עד כאן.  מדמה התורה שהיא סם חיים לאדם, שהסם מניח הרופה מבחוץ על האדם, ועל ידי הסם הזה הוא החיים.  כך התורה היא נבדלת מן האדם והוא דבוקה לאדם, כמו הסם שהוא בחוץ דבק באדם.  וכמו שהתורה היא סם חיים לתלמיד חכם שהוא עוסק בה לשמה, כך התורה היא סם המות לתלמיד חכם שאינו עוסק לשמה.  (נתיב התורה, פרק ז, דף סט)
In the first chapter of Ta’anis, ‘Rav Bana says, Whoever involves himself with Torah for its own sake, it becomes a life-giving balm for him, as is written, ‘It is a tree of life for those who grasp it’ (Mishlei 3:18), and as is written, ‘It shall be healing to your stomach’ (Mishlei 3:8), and as is written, ‘Whoever finds me finds life’  (Mishlei 8:35). But whoever involves himself with Torah not for its own sake, it becomes a death-inducing balm for him, as is written, ‘My portion shall drop like the rain, (Devarim 32:2) and the word arifah can only mean killing, as is written, ‘And they shall there behead the calf’ (Devarim 21:4).
The Torah is compared to a life-giving balm, for the physician applies the balm onto a person externally, and through the balm comes life.  Likewise the Torah is apart from a person but is also essentially connected, like the balm that remains external but connects with the person.  And just as the Torah is a life-giving balm to a Torah scholar who engages in it for its own sake, so is it a death-inducing balm to a Torah scholar who does not engage in it for its own sake. (Netiv HaTorah, Chapter 7)

Maharal is explaining the essence of two different modes of Torah learning.  The aggadah informing his discussion is based upon the promise in Ha’azinu, in which Torah meets man in two different ways.  When God’s words descend as rain, drenching the individual with its strength and weight, the message can be deathly, asphyxiating the living entity beneath.  When, on the other hand, the words of Torah emerge from beneath, with the gentle touch of morning dew, they are experienced as an enervating force that generates new life and growth.  The difference between rain and dew is the difference between the transcendent and the immanent, the first of which remains Nivdal, separate and abstract, while the second bespeaks a closer, more intimate connection.   What turns Torah into a prescription for life, is the ability to become one with the transcendent and thereby make it immanent.  And this can only take place if there are no ‘material’ elements involved.  Rather than personal interest there is instead complete surrender to the will of God.  
This interpretation identifies three aspects in a Torah lifestyle.  First and foremost, it involves a love of God, the motivation of learning Lishma without concern for material benefit.  But it also needs to be understood as a transcendent reality (nivdal), effecting a spiritual transformation within that enables us to meet it in dveykut.  Experiencing the Torah as the nourishing benefit of dew means recognizing the transcendent otherness of Torah while at the same time experiencing its closeness and warmth.  And in this way the Sam Chayim generates the student’s own life, bringing him growth and an identity of his own.  
In order for this autonomy to develop however, there must be dependence upon God.  And herein lies the paradox.  The more we view ourselves as dependent upon God, the more autonomous we become, because we cannot exist without the inspiration of spirituality.  Like the affirmation of being inspired by air and food, it is the connection with God that truly affirms life.  The paradox is at the center of the debate between dependence and autonomy, and the Maharal’s chiddush is that when these are correctly understood, the former leads to the latter.   It is by deepening our consciousness of the need for Torah, that we become deeper, fuller, more harmonized beings.  And thus to invite the nivdal into one’s spiritual life is also to welcome autonomy.

Maharal’s Criticism of Pilpul 
Maharal’s central pedagogical tenet involved the rejection of Pilpul in favor of a more harmonized, holistic form of learning.  As Kleinberger formulates it, pilpul was felt to be ‘a flawed system of learning, which results in a lack of knowledge and a lack of understanding of the written and oral Torah,’ which for Maharal brought in its wake a ‘siluk hama’asim ve’yirat Shamayim min ha’dor ha’ze’ – ‘a removal of good deeds and reverence from this generation’.  When one engages in intellectual sophistry rather than in unity, the result in a given generation is likely to be a dearth of good deeds and an absence of reverence.  The reason, simply, is that when an educational system encourages the sharpening of conflict, it becomes difficult to stimulate harmony and reverence.  
Maharal is known for his continued struggle against pilpul.  In fact, his concerns about this form of learning may well have been the reason he was initially passed over for the position of Chief Rabbi of Prague. Governed by rationalist principles, the pilpulistic method originated in the yeshivot of Germany and Italy and later found its way into Eastern Europe; so that by the sixteenth century in Prague, Pilpul had become the dominant mode of learning.  Although Pilpul was immediately integrated into the mainstream of Polish Jewish learning in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, coinciding with a considerable growth in Jewish learning, Maharal emerged in staunch opposition to its didactic principles.  
Initially, the verb ‘LePalpel’, originating in the phrase ‘הפך לכאן ולכאן’, had referred to the dialectical activities of midrashei halacha.  But by the sixteenth century it had devolved into abstract dialectics.  While Maharal recognized the value of pilpul emet, ‘true’ insofar as it illuminates genuine aspects of existence, he remained deeply suspicious of pilpul sheker, of the kind of philosophical abstraction that disconnects one from reality.  In Maharal’s view, pilpul had developed into a form of learning based upon the abstract and the imaginary, upon sharpening one’s arguments to impossible extremes just in order to outwit alternate dogmas.  
In defense of pilpul, those who endorsed it believed that having a focused perspective would aid intellectual development, encouraging the student to think more clearly and thus move on towards autonomous learning.  At the same time however, because students were so concerned to extend the parameters of their argument, they would often enter the realm of casuistry, arguing that different positions could be reconciled on the basis of obscure interpretations.  While those in favor of pilpul were unconcerned by those flights of the imagination that left the realm of truth, making inroads into the murky depths of casuistry, Maharal was deeply concerned that the Torah enterprise remain restricted to truth, to its applications in reality.  While intellectual abstraction may indeed develop logic, it may not lead to truth, which must remain connected with the more useful, ‘ma’asi’ aspects of Limmud Torah.  Preferring to imagine hypothetical interpretations, students of pilpul ended by contorting the concepts they were trying to reconcile, forcing them into categories that denied the depth and truth of the original ideas.  Instead of unifying concepts, as Maharal does, with the help of aggadah, by identifying the essence of ideas and readily admitting the existence of different contexts, pilpul sheker divides. It disconnects the subject from its inherent truth, and the student from his connection to reality.  And thus, for Maharal, pilpul includes a number of dangerous elements, each of which oppose the sentiments expressed in Netiv HaTorah.  
One of the issues that Maharal identified with pilpul is the individual nature of the learning.  On the surface, this would seem to be a positive trait, connected somehow to the creative pursuit of Torah.  Yet Maharal doesn’t view it this way.  Time and again he speaks of the need to learn in a shared, interactive environment, in a way that emphasizes the element of relationship.  Whether between teacher and pupil, or between chevrutot (partners in learning), it is the joint search for creativity that Maharal is interested in.  As Wasserstein Verrant has noted: ‘The main characteristic of man’s specific location in creation, is his need for other human beings and for those of higher spheres, such as angels’.  It is as a result of man’s ‘dynamic and boundless aspect’ that he seeks to realize his potential, and thus the tzelem can only emerge with others, with an extension beyond the self. 

The Value of Communication 
Writing of the importance of applying Torah, Maharal identifies the essence of Torah as imparting one’s knowledge to others.  With a helpful aside to educators, he notes that the essence of Torah, namely ‘Torat Chesed’, is realized only through the outpouring of its shefa towards an identifiable recipient.  As the infinite source of goodness, Torah emerges from potentiality to actuality when successfully transmitted into action.  The sikhli, referring both to the spiritual Torah and the spiritual aspect of the human intellect, will therefore be best served not by the abstract casuistry of pilpul but by its immediate, practical application.  The message is that pedagogy requires an outward perspective, a concern for maintaining the shefa that is the essence of Torah.  
Teaching others, writes the Maharal, thereby bringing their Torah to actuality, affects the teacher in addition to the pupil, for in this way the teacher becomes a ba’al chesed.  Choosing not to teach, on the other hand, is to be involved with stasis.  Maharal’s message is that solipsistic learning makes one a receiver rather than a giver, connecting with the mode of death rather than with life.  Private learning is passive learning, involving the passive reception of knowledge from a Rav, or even God Himself, who remains the source of all successful Torah development.

Articulating Chevrutah Learning
For Maharal, only developing Torah through partnership makes true discovery possible.  And thus in Netiv HaTorah, Maharal speaks at some length of the importance of Chevrutah learning.  Like his anti-pilpulist discourses, the emphasis is upon a kind of learning that builds bridges rather than sharpens divisions, promoting relationship rather than abstraction.  While creativity is essential, evident throughout the Maharal’s own writings, it most helpfully developed through shared discourse, with partners and with Chazal. 
The faculty of speech, representing the vitality and essence of a human being capable of transcending himself, must therefore be involved in Limmud Torah.  Learning must be articulated, as it is in Chevrutah, if the essence of the student is to enter the experience.  Maharal writes:
"ר' זירה אמר מהכא, שמחה לאיש במענה פיו, אימתי שמחה לאיש בשעה שמענה בפיו.  רבי יצחק אמר, כי קרוב עליך הדבר מאד בפיך ובלבבך לעשתו, (דברים ל:יד). אימתי קרוב אליך הדבר מאד? בפיך, בזמן שבפיך ובלבבך לעשותו.  רבא אמר מהכה, תאות לבו נתתה לו וארשת שפתיו בל מנעת סלה, אימתי תאות לבו נתת לו בשעה שארשת שפתיו בל מנעת סלה.  פירוש דבר זה, שבא לומר כי נעימות התורה כאשר התורה נמצאת אצל האדם בפועל, כי אז האדם הוא שכלי כאשר התורה היא עמו, ואין נעימות למעלה מזה, וזהו כאשר אין תורה משתכחת ממנו" (נתיב התורה, פרק ד, דף מט)
R’ Zeira said [This may be inferred] from the following: ‘a man has joy through the responses of his mouth’ (Proverbs 15:23).  When does a man have joy? When he has responses in his mouth.  R’ Yitzchak said, ‘The thing is very near to you; in your mouth and in your heart, to do it’. (Devarim, 30:14) When is the thing very near to your heart? When it is in your mouth and in your heart to do it.  Rava said [this may be inferred] from the following:  ‘You have given him his heart’s desire, and the utterances of his lips you have not withheld, Selah! (Psalms 21:3)’.  When have you given him his heart’s desire? When the utterances of his mouth you have not withheld, Selah!’ This [Aggadah] means to inform us that the pleasantness of Torah is when Torah is present in actualized form, because when Torah is present in us we become spiritual, and there is no greater delight than this.  [Torah exists in actualized form,] when it endures in the memory. (Netiv HaTorah, Chapter 4)

The aggadah enlisted by the Maharal understands speech to be central in bringing the words of Torah close to the heart of man.  When are the words of Torah truly close to us, making it likely that they will be realized in practice?  The response is when these words are close to us, articulated by us, part of our most intimate experience.  The moment of articulation is a moment of joy, for it means that Torah has become one with us, that we have managed, in this moment, to transcend ourselves.  And of course, the element of ‘asiya’, of activity in the speech process, is for Maharal, part of the point.  It requires us to bring our potential to actuality, to choose to engage in the active pursuit of spirituality.  When words are spoken, they transform creed into deed, entering into the sphere of dialogue and relationship.  And as a helpful aside, it also strengthens his memory, his immediate awareness of Torah, impressing its words upon his mind and heart and bringing him closer to his creator.
Yet articulation is not only about actuality.  More importantly, it enables people to listen to one another:
שני תלמידי חכמים המקשיבים זה לזה הקדוש ברוך הוא שומע לקולם.  דבר זה, כמו שכל אחד שומע לקול חבירו, כל השם שומע לקולם.  ואין דבר זה דומה למה שאמר לפני זה, שני תלמידי חכמים הנוחים זה לזה.  כי כאן מדבר שהם מקשיבים כל אחד לדברי חבירו ונותן לבו על דבריו, לכך הקדוש ברוך הוא שומע לקולם גם כן. (נתיב התורה, פרק ו, דף סד)
‘When two scholars pay attention to one another, the Holy One blessed be He, listens to their voice.’ (T.B. Shabbat, 63,1)   When each one listens to the voice of his friend, so does Hashem listen to their voice.  This is not the same as the previous statement concerning two scholars who are amiable to one another.  Here, [the aggadah] says that when each person listens to the words of their fellow, and opens their heart to their words, the Holy One blessed be He also listens to their voice. (Netiv HaTorah, Chapter six)

Maharal explains that when students of Torah listen to each other’s words, God listens with them.  More than simply being pleasant (nochim) towards one another, this kind of Torah learning involves real listening, with genuine identification with the position of the other (noten libo lidvarav).  In this way, giving voice to the words of Torah invites God Himself to become the focus of shared experience.  The experience of unity that emerges from the dialogue is so intense (‘ki hamakshivim ze laze yesh la’hem chibur beyachad yoter’), that God himself comes to hear, to partake in the harmony of the moment.   

The Teacher-Student Relationship

כי שתי בחינות יש לתלמיד אל הרב, הבחינה האחת שהתלמיד יש לו צירוף אל הרב כמו האב והבן שגם להם יש צירוף ביחד, ובחינה שנית, וזה שזה רב וזה תלמיד לכך הוא נבדל ממנו, ומצד הזה שהוא משמש אליו כמו העבד שמקבל אדנות האדון ובזה קונה יראת שמים, כי יראת שמים עצמו מה שהש"י נבדל מהכל, ולכך בשימוש התלמיד לרב יש כאן חיבור ודבר זה הוא חסד, ויש כאן מה שנבדל ממנו וזהו יראת רבו, ויראת רבו הוא יראת שמים. ויש להבין מה שאמר שמונע חסד ודבר זה מצד שמתחבר הרב אל התלמיד וחבור הרב אל התלמיד הוא חסד, ומה שאמר פורק ממנו יראת שמים דבר זה מצד התלמיד כי מצד שהוא ירא את רבו שהרי משמש לו ונכנע מפניו זוכה ליראת שמים, כי מורא רבך כמורא שמים והבן זה כי דברים אלו עמוקים מאוד: (ספר חדושי אגדות חלק ראשון עמוד קס - מסכת כתובות)
There are two ways in which the pupil relates to the teacher.  The first approach involves the student joining with the teacher as a father and son, who likewise join as one, while the second approach recognizes that one is the teacher and one the pupil, so that they remain apart from one another.  From this perspective the student administers like a servant who accepts the lordship of his master, and through this acquires a fear of heaven.  The fear of heaven is essentially God’s transcendence, and therefore included in administering the teacher is a connection which is loving-kindness, but there is also that which is apart from him, which is the fear of his teacher, and which is also the fear of heaven.  It is important to understand the reason for saying that [the teacher, were he not to allow the student to service him, would] prevent the student from achieving chesed, for this derives from the fact that the teacher is connecting with the student, and the connection between the teacher and student is loving-kindness.  The reason for saying that the teacher would [likewise, in refusing service] take from [the student] the fear of heaven, is from the perspective of the student, because fearing his teacher, namely servicing him and yielding before him, leads him to merit a fear of heaven.  The fear of one’s teacher is like the fear of heaven, and understand this because these things are truly deep. 

In this passage, the rav is mediator between the student and God, maintaining a delicate balance between authority and kindness in order to affirm the realities of yirah and anavah.   On the one hand, a necessary distance exists between teacher and student that encourages a level of awe for the teacher and for the body of information being conveyed.  In this respect the teacher represents the Chazalic consciousness, bridging the gap between the student and Masoret (tradition) by connecting the student with Rabbinic wisdom.  The yirah relationship is characterized by distinction, by the recognition of the nivdal (transcendent) element inherent in the teacher as representative of Jewish tradition.  And this mode involves authority and the maintenance of discipline through respect, a model intended to enable a larger sense of yirat shamayim.
At the same time however, Maharal refers to a different kind of tziruf (joining) characterizing the relationship between teacher and student.  This bond, that of the parent-child relationship, is the most intimate pedagogic mode, bespeaking love, kindness and a ready identification of the student’s needs and hopes.  The ‘chesed’ connection, or the unconditional extension of loving-kindness, constitutes an essential part of the Teacher-Talmid relationship, for it is indispensable in the creation of Ahavat Hashem.
A prerequisite for maintaining the yirah aspect of the relationship is the need for the teacher to be as informed as possible of the insights and methods of Chazal.   Maharal writes: 
 
ואמר שמספיקין בידו ללמוד ג"כ, כי ללמד אחרים צריך האדם שיהיה יודע התורה ביותר כדי שידע להשיב מה שישאל אותו תלמידו וזהו שאמר כי מספיקין בידו ללמוד וללמד ר"ל שמספיקין בידו ללמוד עד שיוכל ללמד אחרים. אבל אם הוא רוצה ללמוד מסכתא אחת במקצת אין מספיקין בידו ללמוד כל המסכתא, כי נקרא למוד התורה אפילו אות אחת בלבד. אבל ללמד את אחרים צריך שיהיה יודע הרבה כמו שאמרנו, גם אין באים בני אדם אצלו ללמוד אם אין בידו תורה הרבה, ולכך הלומד על מנת ללמד אחרים מספיקין בידו ללמוד הרבה עד שיוכל ללמד אחרים. (ספר דרך חיים - פרק ד משנה ה)
And it says that he is given the means to learn [in addition to the means to teach], because in order to teach others one needs to know as much Torah as possible, in order to know how to answer student’s questions.  This is the reason for saying ‘one is given the means to study and to teach’, meaning that one is given the means to learn until it becomes possible to teach others.  If however, one wishes to learn a certain amount of one tractate, one will not be given the means to learn the whole tractate, because [study] is termed the study of Torah even if it includes only one letter.  Teaching others however, requires a significant amount of knowledge as we have said, and in addition people will not come to learn from an individual who has not attained a quantity of Torah.  Therefore one who learns in order to teach is given the means both to study and to teach others.   (Derech Chayim, Chapter 4:5)

Returning to the theme that it is only truly possible to learn when learning is geared toward teaching and ultimately toward action, Maharal focuses upon the teacher’s own erudition.  Successful teaching, he explains, depends upon an outward focus; simply learning a tractate of gemara in a way that fulfils one’s own interests is not enough.  Where one is concerned with private learning, it becomes easy to limit the extent of the effort, whereas learning in order to teach demands a higher level of mastery.  Ultimately, Yirat Hashem demands not only the extensive knowledge of the teacher, but the consciousness of bringing the words of Torah to their active completion, giving them vitality through the pedagogic connection.
Furthering the ahavah relationship between teacher and student, depends, like the parent-child relationship, upon answering each student in accordance with their needs:
שלכך כתבה התורה כל אחד ואחד בפני עצמו שחייב להשיב לכל אחד ואחד כפי חכמתו, וצריך להשיב לחכם כפי אשר הוא חכם, ולכך צריך לומר כהלכות הפסח ר"ל כל הלכות הפסח, ולרשע צריך להשיב לו כרשעתו גם כן, ולכך זכר תשובת כל הארבעה בנים. (ספר גבורות ה' - פרק נג, דף רלג)
The Torah wrote [answers] to each one [of the four children] separately, because it is essential to respond to each one in accordance with their wisdom.  One should answer the wise son according to the degree to which he is wise, and therefore one needs to tell him the laws of the Pascal offering, namely all of the laws of the Pascal offering.  To the wicked son one must likewise respond in relation to his wickedness, and it is for this reason that [the Torah] mentions the answers to all four sons. (The Book of Divine Power, Chapter 53)

There is a profound pedagogical message in the answers provided by the Torah to the four sons at the seder table.  As far as possible, individual students should be answered according to their particular intellectual frame; the goodness of the chacham and the disinterest of the rasha need to be responded to in kind.  By identifying different answers for different children, the Torah sets the pattern for pedagogy.  Only once the teacher is aware of the personality traits of their students, is it possible to respond to the ideological underpinnings of the questions presented, so that both the chacham and the tam for example, receive answers greater than the formulated questions.  By considering the full implications of the questions addressed, the teacher shows himself to be a ba’al anavah, capable of entering into the personal experience of the student.

A Model Class Based Upon the Integrative Method
By sensing the existence of system, the depth inherent in the words of Chazal, Maharal guides his readers towards a reverence for Chazal that is also likely to stimulate Yirat Shamayim.  But unlike the Maharsha, for example, who similarly appreciates the weight of aggadah, Maharal brings a wealth of philosophical possibilities to our reading of the text.  Where the peshat reading seems incongruous or of insufficient consequence, the Maharal succeeds in showing the possibilities for unification hidden in the drash. 
In Brachot 32:2 for example, a question is raised in the context of Yeshayahu, which speaks of Israel’s concern that Hashem has forgotten us.  The response given by God in the text, is ‘Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?  Even these will forget, but I will not forget you.  I have graven you on the palms of my hands, your walls are continually before me.’ (Yeshayahu, 49:15).  In the aggadah, the verse ‘Hatishkach ishah ulah, merachem ben bitnah’ is recognized as a source inviting semantic wordplay.  The ‘Ulah’, or sucking child that cannot be forgotten by its mother, becomes the ‘Olah’ sacrifice offered by the Jewish people in the wilderness.  The connection, explains Maharal, is between the presence of the sucking child and the sacrifices of the Jewish people as expressed in the incipient moments of the wilderness experience.  The implication is that neither the infant nor the infant people can be forgotten, even after maturation has set in.  Hashem will never forget his people, despite their later delinquencies with the golden calf.
Maharal’s own methods in evaluating this aggadah are instructive.  First and foremost he asks questions of the text, expecting the aggadah to hold up to scrutiny.  He asks, for example, how may the word Ulah, (pronounced with a shuruk) referring to a new-born child, be read with a cholem, as Olah?  What is the justification for re-reading the sucking child with reference to the sacrifices offered by Bnei Yisrael in the wilderness?  Maharal then notes other grammatical difficulties, such as the incongruity between the singular reference to Ulah, and the plural reference to Bnei Yisrael.  And he asks about the absence of an explicit parallel in the text of Yeshayahu.  If the verse were concerned to convey the message of the aggadah, why does it not read ‘Just as a woman will not forget her sucking child, so too I will not forget you’ - ‘Gam Isha Tishkach Ulah? Veanochi Lo Eshkachecha’?  In contrast with this hypothetical, more connective question, the peshat in Yeshayahu is evidently rhetorical – ‘HaTishkach isha ulah?  Finally, Maharal notes an apparent redundancy, asking why the text ‘mirechem ben bitna’ includes a double reference to the womb? 
The purpose of asking questions in pedagogy is primarily, for Maharal, a means of revealing the inherent beauty of the text.  The aggadah stands alone, ready to respond to our demands of it.  In transmitting ideas, Maharal reveals the Chazalic consciousness of system, inspiring students to anticipate meaning even when this is not immediately apparent.  Understanding rabbinic texts in this way engenders a sense of awe, for it focuses upon the intellectual profundity of the major proponents of Jewish tradition, and consequently upon yirat shamayim.  
The purpose of the aggadah, explains Maharal, is to give comfort to those who feel abandoned by the intense difficulty of galut.  Chazal insist that God, like mankind, has a penchant for those things that are ‘first’, and as the ‘first’ nation Bnei Yisrael will not be forgotten.  The aggadah is understood in metaphoric terms, centered upon the independent image of mother and child.   Hashem explains his message to Israel with the graphic suggestion that we are placed upon His heart much as a newborn child is connected to its mother.  Bnei Yisrael are a living presence, their wilderness sacrifices endowing them with ‘metziut’, (ultimate existence), in the eyes of God.  Because the Olah sacrifices tell of this closeness (Kiruv), Chazal’s semantic wordplay is a natural choice with which to identify the relationship.
Maharal’s question about the reference to the womb is a question about the need for metaphor.  On consideration, it is evident that the womb informs our relationship with God, representing the ultimate form of closeness.  But it also refers to the fact of first encounter, like the first moment between husband and wife or between a mother and her child.  There is an internal necessity about the relationship that is matched in philosophical terms, where the first thing (or first cause), is the principle thing ‘Ki hatchalat hadavar hu ikar ve’etzem’.  As an essential reality, the primal image of mother and child addressed by the aggadah must therefore stand alone, so that in Maharal’s insightful reading, the rhetorical ‘Hatishkach isha ulah’? is indeed in place.  The image of closeness reflected by the aggadah must exist in and of itself, before we come to relate it to God’s love for his people.  

Conclusion
The pedagogical paradigm of the Maharal provides an excellent resource for developing the fundamental goals of yirat shamayim and dveykut.  In his vision, Limmud Torah becomes the basis for a triad of values, in which wisdom leads to awe and peaks with humility, namely the immanent relationship between God and creation.
Methodologically, the attempt to unify ideas in the light of Chazal is likely to stimulate reverence for the enterprise of Limmud Torah.  Academic textual study, helpful where it illuminates Torah concepts, proves less helpful when it becomes autotelic, concerned with the confines of fact rather than the magnitude of moral development.  Maharal’s suggested mode of humility before the text means that we anticipate rather than impose meaning.  Our sense of the solidity of the text enables us to challenge it, grasp it, and ultimately connect with it.  
In speaking of dependence in addition to autonomy, of reverence in addition to love, Maharal contravenes some contemporary post-modernist assumptions. But in so doing, he suggests that finding the limits to intellectual aspiration and instead relating to God in terms of reverence and immanence, is likely to guide us towards a genuine connection with the Divine.  Although it may promise creativity, post-modernism often delivers solipsism.  Learning in partnership, on the other hand, invites relationships with God, one’s teachers, one’s study partners, and the texts of Chazal, that are inspired by grace. 

Afterword
Given that last year’s Atid project was concerned with the encouragement of creativity, it was illuminating to discover that despite the Maharal’s radical dynamism, he was keen to emphasize dependency, or ‘tlut’ upon God.  Absent from most contemporary discussions of moral development, modernity tends to apotheosize autonomy.  Yet at least two recent thinkers, Rozensweig and Levinas, recognized (in different ways) that the presence of an ‘other’ to whom we remain accountable is perhaps the most important contributor towards our humanity.  Maharal’s message is that an excessive focus upon autonomy leaves us bound within the parameters of the self, preventing the awareness of Divinity that stems from our interactions with others.     If we are to develop a relationship with God, we must also locate ourselves in relation to Jewish consciousness, finding in the words of Chazal and in each another, an informing and inspiring presence.  

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