Learning Aleph-Bais from An Illiterate

Imagine a person to ashamed to acknowledge his own identity; or, sadder yet, a person who doesn’t even know his own identity. Picture a soul so lacking in self-confidence that it cannot look you in the eye; or, sadder yet, cannot even look itself in the eye. Think of a mind so devoid of education that it rots away in its own ignorance, but not ignorant enough for the rotting to be in bliss.

Now imagine the potential such a person, such a soul, such a mind must have. It has no limits. It has nothing, and thus has nothing in its way. It is a raw receptacle, a budding flower, an innocent child. It is the reason I left the comforts of home for the unknowns of the road; it is my mission. It is the reason we all leave the comforts of heaven for the unknowns of earth; it is our mission.

I sit in Vasvari Pal Utca, number 5, reading the Aleph-Bais with a man named Shuni. Do you know what it’s like to teach a grown man both the literal and the figurative Aleph-Bais? It is like nourishing a starved child; like pulling a drowned ship from the swirling waves.

You, dear reader, may think that when I talk of starved children, of drowning ships, of ignorant minds, of unidentified identities, of self-conscious souls, I talk of the people here in Budapest, people other then myself. But reader, if you were to think thus, you would be terribly mistaken. True, they may be some – or maybe even all – of these things, but, then, how would I know?

When I talk of these things, I only talk about myself:

Before I left for Hungary, I was an ignorant child – even if I knew cerebrally that there is a purpose for all things and an underlying and unifying message, it was, like I said, only cerebrally; it wasn’t factual, or even actual; it was nothing more then a novel idea. I was living in a personal ghetto, though it is hard to admit, where all was sheltered, or shall I say, imprisoned, within the confines of self.

Only after entering 5 Vasvari Pal Ut. and teaching Aleph-Bais to a man named Shuni, have I begun to teach the “Aleph-Bais” to myself. Only by helping somebody else find his way, have I begun finding my own way. Only by changing somebody else have I begun changing myself.

If not for Shuni’s Aleph-Bais I wouldn’t know how to “read”; or, sadder yet, without Shuni’s Aleph-Bais I would still think that I know how to “read”, I would still think that I know it all. It takes someone who is as pure as Shuni, with no ghetto barbed-wire distorting his view, to show me that I am more ignorant then he is: he is taking a step in life which I, for better or for worse, never had to take – until now: now, when it isn’t about me anymore, I must decide is this what I want or is this not what I want. When sitting in Yeshiva, in a cozy blanket, shied away from the outside world, what I do has no real affect on people; however, now that I learn with others and am no longer in the “comforts of home”, I must decide: do I or don’t I want to live this life; otherwise, not only am lying to myself, I am lying to others, and once they see my insincerity, how can they remain sincere?

I only wonder if Shuni, and all those like him, know what type of affect they have on their so-called “teacher”. And, as I can now relate to the words of the Sages, “I’ve learnt much from my teachers, I’ve learnt much from my friends, and, from my students, have I learnt the most”, I can only hope that Shuni, and all those other pure souls out there, have learnt, from me, just one iota of what I have learnt from them.