One night this week, my daughter asked me to help her with her math homework.
"No problem," I thought. "I’ve got this!" After all, I was an A student in math back in the day. Algebra, trigonometry, chemistry, even the Remainder Theorem—not only was I good, I actually enjoyed it all.
There was just one small problem: That was 32 years ago. I haven’t touched any of this stuff since the early 90s, and not only has my memory faded, but teaching methods have changed drastically too.
I helped her with what I could, but it wasn’t much. The rest? Let's just say, x remained unknown.
“Okay,” I told myself. “Math is not your comeback tour. So be it.”
But my opportunity for redemption reared its head the very next day when she came home with Chumash homework. Whew! Now we're talking!
Chumash, the Five Books of Moses, is my home turf. If math is my high school diploma, Chumash is my master's degree. I'm an expert. I go through the entire five books every single year. I’ve been doing it all my life. No 30-year break here! I know it inside out.
So I sat down with her, relaxed, confident, practically humming, and we did the homework together.
The first words when I came home the next day were, "Tatty, you need a tutor!"
I was shocked. Me? A tutor? What? Why? How??
Then she showed me her grade. That Chumash homework I was so confident about? It only earned her 77%!
Seventy. Seven. Percent. On fifth-grade Chumash homework. With the expert on the case.
She looked at me with real concern and said: "Tatty, you need a tutor. Math you don't know, and now Chumash you also don't know."
Oy vey.
In my defense, the questions the teacher asked were extremely detailed. Giving random quotes and asking “Who said it? Who did they say it to? And why?” There were also lots of dates, which were tricky.
But still! Only 77%? On fifth-grade homework? On a subject I’ve been studying all of my life? Crazy. Can I still call myself a rabbi?!
The Baal Shem Tov, founder of Chassidism, taught that everything we see and hear contains a lesson for us in our service of G-d. So what's the lesson here? Do I need a tutor? Do I need to study more?
My answer is a resounding yes! More Torah study, absolutely. Maybe I got too cocky thinking I know it all already, and G-d sent a reminder to go back to basics and pay closer attention to the details.
And it’s not just me. We all need to study more, and more, and more.
You can find a teacher. You can tutor yourself. You can subscribe to Chayenu, the daily Torah study booklet. You can download the Chabad.org daily study app. You can start learning anything, anything at all—just start!
So thank you, my dear daughter, for a line I'll be thinking about for a long time. Yes, I need a tutor. We all do.
Mine, apparently, is 11.