Sarah schenirer in her ethical will concludes with the…
Sarah schenirer in her ethical will concludes with the words of a story about a chossid who informed his rebby that he learned the entire shas. The rebby replied but what did the shas teach you? You may have learned a lot of knowledge that you acquired, but never forget that it's not the learning that is crucial but the actions it brings about.
— from Expanding Your Range (Growth/Change/Education/Learning/Habit) · GB : Monday, June 19, 2023 8:22 PM
In the book
The remedy is to question everything, to pass every claim through a sieve and lodge nothing in your head on mere authority and trust. And never forget the point of all of it: it is not the learning itself that is crucial, but the actions the learning brings about — not study but practice is the main thing. [Here is a place for my own story of school — and I will say a little of it plainly, because you should know your grandfather was no natural scholar.] I grew up on the third floor of a nursing home, homeschooled, with almost no other children around; I went into high school at a yeshiva when I was only ten, fighting just to be allowed to play ball with boys twice my age. […] Build the small, daily habits that will quietly carry you on the days your willpower is gone, because in the long run you do not rise to your hopes; you fall to your routines. Remember always that it is not the learning itself that counts, but what you do with it. And do the one thing the machines never will: stay curious, keep creating, and remain stubbornly human. — Expanding Your Range (Growth/Change/Education/Learning/Habit)
And the point of all the teaching is never the knowledge itself. A student once told his rabbi he had learned the entire body of law; the rabbi answered, "But what did it teach you?" — because it is never the learning that is crucial, only the actions the learning brings about. Goethe called this life the childhood of our immortality; what you do in the childhood is what grows up and walks on without you. — Legacy / The Logbook (Legacy/Epilogue)