He was a boy when I last saw him. A grown man sits across from me now, a favor to his worried mother. After we talked and laughed about his past as a rebellious kid in my office. Quick to dispel his mother’s fears, he said that he didn’t need any help. He could go it alone. I asked him about the current contours of his life. A torrent of grievances and blame spilled forth. A disposition that doesn’t play well with the world. I saw the ancient pattern that he could not yet see: Student needs teacher and when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
When the young rabbi walked into the desert of his hungry desires, his work was not to teach, but to be taught. He yielded to a process, an unseen beckoning hand asking for his power until it could be rightfully given. His cravings stared at him, as did the call from his Teacher. In the hush between lightning and thunder, a space of surrender appears. The acorn must break in order for the oak to grow.
My intuition said I wouldn’t see him again. I leaned forward and said something that I had never said before: “Unless you give yourself to a teacher, you will likely push your discontent onto everyone and everything that does not share your narrow opinion. The only way to fully ripen is to turn loose. And in so doing, a larger self can grow. Teachers are the way.”
After he left, I offered a prayer for him, as I do again now, “soften his good heart, O God, and guide him towards his teacher.”
