⁠T⁠H⁠E⁠⁠B⁠O⁠O⁠K⁠

⁠O⁠f⁠⁠W⁠I⁠L⁠L⁠I⁠A⁠M⁠
⁠

⁠⁠ ⁠

I⁠N⁠V⁠I⁠T⁠I⁠N⁠G⁠⁠Y⁠O⁠U⁠
⁠

⁠T⁠O⁠⁠T⁠A⁠K⁠E⁠⁠A⁠
⁠A⁠⁠C⁠L⁠O⁠S⁠E⁠R⁠⁠L⁠O⁠O⁠K⁠

This book is dedicated to my grandson

William Karan
1
 Dear William,

I will never forget the time I asked you what your favorite hobbies are, and you said there
are two: sports and thinking. So, in your honor, as you become a Bar Mitzvah, I decided to
create a book for a sportsman and thinker; I want to share some words of wisdom, blessing
and encouragement from one generation to the next.

           

        . 
       : 
     ,  ,     .
You were named William Gabriel, or Hillel Gavriel in
Hebrew, and you started playing chess when you were very
young because you found it fun and it "gets me thinking."
You like puzzles like KenKen. Although you admit you
don't really enjoy reading, you like series books like Maze
Runner or Divergent. And you like sports writers who
make you think such as Stephen A. Smith and Mike Lupica.
Becoming a Bar mitzvah means reaching a new stage of
life; the most important ideas in the Torah, you believe,
are the 10 Commandments.
You rate science and English as your favorite subjects in
school although you excel in every course and made the
national Junior honor Society. Looking oward to the
future, your ambition as of now is to have a career
focusing on basketball, either as a coach, player, and/or
businessman. Personally, having tried to win an argument
against your razor-sharp reasoning skills, I think you
would make an excellent lawyer, negotiator, or diplomat.
Asked if you were interested in politics, you said you
weren’t although you do consider Washington as our
greatest president.
It is safe to say that on both sides of your family, you have inherited a propensity for solving
problems. We are problem solvers. That’s who we are. We view problems not with dread –
although some can be – but as opportunities to find answers, solutions, discoveries. Whether it
has to do with helping people with financial issues, psychological or social issues, educational
or medical problems, your mom and dad and almost all the people you see regularly in your
family are devoted to finding solutions that follow the command of the Torah to make the
world a better place.

2
 Speaking of family, when it comes to the Greatest of All Time
Rabbis, Rav Yisroel Meir Kagan, who is known to us by the name of
his book, Chofetz Chaim, is at or near the top of everybody’s list.
And he is your father’s mother’s father’s mother’s father! He
teaches us that if you really want to be smart and clever, you
should study Torah because you can learn so much from it. For
example, the Chofetz Chaim learns a lot from a verse in your
Torah portion: "You shall not cause your fellow Jew
aggravation." This teaches us that we should not use words that
will distress someone, anger him, scare him, embarrass him, or
cause him pain. The Torah is teaching us that our words are very
powerful. A slip of the tongue can embarrass someone, hurt their
feelings, or even make them cry. So much aggravation and even
hatred can be avoided by thinking carefully before we speak. On
the other hand, a kind word of appreciation or encouragement can
lift a person's spirits. Compliments have changed people's whole
lives.
The point of these two lessons is to use your G-d given skills not just on the basketball
court but on the court of life. It is important to size up court challenges and life
challenges with a careful eye. It is important to use watchful thinking before you pass balls
to someone as well as watchful thinking before you say words to someone.

Whether it is chess, brainteasers, puzzles, or adventures like an escape room, you accept and
relish a challenge. More than most kids your age, you are inquisitive and ready to question
whether seeing is truly believing. The Torah teaches in the Shema prayer which you have
learned, "do not follow after your heart and after your eyes, which lead you astray." The
illusions in this volume will teach you to expect the unexpected, to not make false
assumptions, to not be bamboozled by context, and to not be overconfident that what you
see is actually the truth. In short, this book will, I hope, help you sharpen your senses; and I
have a feeling you will enjoy doing so.

3
4
5
 FALSE ASSUMPTIONS IN SPORT:

Believe it or not, people get enslaved in false ideas even in the world of
sports. Take the field of running, an activity that you have done
competitively in the past. Back in the 1950s when I was your age,
practically everyone believed that a human could not run a mile in less
than 4 minutes. After rigorous testing and mathematical computations of
the physics of our anatomy, scientists were saying that they’d proven it
was impossible to run a mile in under four minutes. A physical
impossibility, the scientists said.

Then along came Roger

Bannister, a medical student,
who broke the world mile
record and the four-minute
barrier on 6 May 1954, just
before my Bar Mitzvah! He
believed it could be done, and he
proved that it could, in fact, be
run in 3:59.4.

And once Bannister broke the

imaginary barrier, suddenly
the floodgates opened; scores
of runners started besting the
four-minute mark every year,
each one faster than the next.

His record lasted

only 46 days!

6
How fast does a human have the potential to run the
mile--or swim the 100-meter, or complete the
marathon--today? We honestly don't know. That is
why we hold our breath during every Olympic
competition, to see if a new world record has been
established.

The point is, we do not know the limits of human

potential. Just as we can't know the limit for how
fast a human can run or predict which student will
grow up to win a Nobel Prize, we still don't know the
limits of our brain's enormous potential to grow and
adapt to changing circumstances.

All we know is that this kind of change is possible;

what you believe about your own abilities is more
important than what others believe. Do you think
you’re a resilient person? Do you think you’re a lazy
person? Do you see yourself as an active agent in
your life, or as a passive victim? Your answers to
these questions matter a lot.
7
There are few spheres of life that inspire us to cling
to strange assumptions, good luck charms, and
rituals more than sports. Athletes, especially
baseball players, are among the most superstitious
people; they assume that certain actions bring good
luck:

• Did you know that Hall of Fame player Wade Boggs would eat only chicken the day of a
game, and used to draw a Hebrew symbol that means “To Life” in the dirt before every
at bat?
• Did you know that Michael Jordan wore slightly longer shorts than other players because
he needed to make room for his lucky North Carolina shorts, which he wore under his
uniform throughout his career!
• Did you know that, besides tossing chalk before every game, LeBron James has a
special handshake for each of his teammates, and he has to go through them all one at a
time before every game in order to feel at peace with himself?
• Did you know that, before every contest, Kevin Durant will hike each leg up on the
scorer’s table, untie his shoes, and then tie them back up?
• Do you or your friends have any rituals you use before or after athletic events? If so,
you are not alone!

Birght Idea: With the doodlebug problem you were

confronted with the end result and you were asked to
reconstruct the circumstances that led up to it. The
same thing happens with detective stories which I
believe make you a better, more confident thinker.
My favorite writer of detective stories was Agatha
Christie who created a detective by the name of
Hercule Poirot. Using his brain or what he called his
"little gray cells,” Detective Poirot would dazzle me
with how he solved complex murders.

So, if you are looking for a fun way to give

your brain a serious workout, why not try
some good crime novels?
8
 OPTICAL ILLUSIONS:

Just as we sometimes are fooled into believing what we want to believe, even if it’s false, our
eyes can be tricked as well. It’s no wonder that optical illusions are so fascinating. They
challenge us and help us get out of our comfort zone and think in new and creative ways. The
brain needs this kind of exercise; it’s like a trip to the cerebral gym. Working puzzles can
increase your brain’s flexibility or neuroplasticity. And most importantly, they are a lot of
fun.” I couldn’t agree more.

Watch how this Muller-

Lyer illusion teaches us
how we perceive things and how
our brains cause us to make
mistakes:

Even when you know that the lines

are the same length, your brain
will continue to tell you that
they are different.

Turning the
This
Tables illusion shows
that our brains have difficulty
making sense of two-
dimensional (2D) images that
look three-dimensional (3D).
Our brains think that items
that are further away (like the
far ends of the table
on the left) are smaller than
items that appear closer (like
the side edges of the table on
the right).

9
 OPTICAL ILLUSIONS:

Watch in this Hermann grid illusion how your

eyes see ghostlike dots that are not really present:

Sometimes what look like different size or shape

objects are really the same as in this Leaning
Tower Illusion:

Doesn’t it seem as if the tower on

the right side is leaning a bit
more than the tower on the left?
If so, your assumption is
perfectly natural. In reality
though, both pictures are
identical, and the angles of both
towers are exactly the same.

10
 OPTICAL ILLUSIONS:

Take a look at the

pictures of the singer
Adele. Is she happy or
sad? See Appendix for
explanation.

Does this
image seem to
be moving?

Read this passage to yourself and count the number of

times the letter “F” is used in the text:

So, how many did you find? To find the correct

answer, check the appendix.

11
 Color ILLUSIONS:

Now we are going to turn our attention to something that is

very confusing and tricky to me, namely, color. As you know, I
am color blind; and although I do see colors, I do not see them
the way normal people do. But I can have fun with colors by
doing magic tricks or illusions with them.

Sometimes looks can be deceiving. Even with color.

Do you see anything unusual about the delicious

strawberries pictured on this page? Were your eyes fooled?
And look closely at the picture of the bananas. Can you see a
subtle tint of color in this image? If so, what color is it?

Here is another picture where our

eyes fool us into thinking that
two things are different colors:
When you look at Part A and Part
B, they seem to be different colors
A or shades;

in fact, they are

both the same.
It’s hard to believe, but it’s true.
Our brains tell us the bottom
B square is lit and the top square is
in shadow or receding. In other
words, the top square looks
darker than it is, and the bottom
square looks lighter than it
really is.

12
 Color ILLUSIONS:

Let’s have a little more fun with

color by showing you the STROOP
EFFECT: you have to say the word you
see, not the color:

Below you see a series of boxes. Each box

has a word in it. But you can only say the
position of the word in each box using: Up,
Down, Left, or Right. You cannot say the
actual word. Try it, it’s harder than you
think.

13
 Color ILLUSIONS:

Now I will show you some pictures

that will actually change while
you are looking at them. Wow!
Nearly all of the paper plates are
turned over, but there are a few
that are not upside down; the
moment you identify those, all the
plates will flip over!

Confusing?
Even creepy?

14
 Color ILLUSIONS:

When you look at the circles, you see bumps and

craters. Look at the image right side up, you can
count five bumps and four craters. But watch what
happens when you turn the image upside down. For a
fuller explanation, see the appendix.

It shows that one small change in an image, such as a

different angle or perspective, can change the way
your brain takes in the information.

Bright idea: Like these illusions, PURIM is the Jewish holiday that reminds us that
appearances can be deceptive.On Purim, nothing is as it appears. Esther, the
Queen of Persia, is really a secret Jew named Hadassah. Mordechai, the
arch-enemy of Haman, ends up receiving the king’s
honor by being paraded around town, by Haman no
less. Haman ends up being hanged on the very gallows
that he erected to hang Mordechai. Purim, the day
marked for death and destruction for Jews, is flipped
over into a day of feasting and gladness instead. Yes,
on Purim, we celebrate this concept that things are
not alwayswhat they seem, dressing in costumes,
reading the topsy-turvy story of Purim, and eating
traditional foods like hamentashen which "hide" their
fillings inside.
15
 SEEING THINGS IN CONTEXT:

Sometimes the same letters, the same

words, or even the same sentences can
have entirely different meanings,
depending on context. Let’s take an
example: What do you see in the middle
of the frame? Is it the letter “B” or the
number “13?” The answer depends on
which way you are reading.

Here is another puzzle. This time you

have to fill in the 7 letters in each The _
⁠ ⁠_
⁠ ⁠_
⁠ ⁠_
⁠ ⁠_
⁠ ⁠_
⁠ ⁠_
⁠ Doctor
space so that the sentence makes
sense. Here’s the tricky part: the 7 was _
⁠ ⁠_
⁠ ⁠_
⁠ ⁠_
⁠ ⁠_
⁠ ⁠⁠_⁠_
⁠ to
letters are the same ones and in the operate.
same order—but not the same word! Because there was
Can you solve it: _ _ _ _ _ _ _.

Here is something I learned from your brother Jordan who

learned it from one of his elementary school teachers.

Today was the absolute worst day ever

And don't try to convince me that
There's something good in every day
Because when you take a closer look,
This world is a pretty evil place.
Even if
Some goodness does shine through once in a while
Satisfaction and happiness don't last.
And it's not true that
It's all in the mind and heart
Because
True happiness can be attained
Only if one's surroundings are good
It's not true that good exists
I'm sure that you can agree that
The reality
Creates
My attitude
It's all beyond my control
And you'll never in a million years hear me say that
Today was a good day.

(Now, read it again, this time from the bottom to the top!)
16
 SEEING THINGS IN CONTEXT:

So now you understand

that what we perceive is
importantly dependent on
context. Look at the
circles below and see if
you can perceive the
orange circles as being the
same size. The one on the
left looks smaller because
we tend to make visual
judgments – color,
brightness, distance, size –
by comparing nearby
objects. In this case, the
mind is fooled because one
orange circle is small
compared to those
surrounding it, while the
other is large next to
those around it.

Here is another example of the same illusion:

So, this helps

you understand
why, if you want
to appear tall
for basketball,
don’t hang
around with NBA
players!

17
 AMBIGUOUS ILLUSIONS:

Now for some of my favorite illusions where two things are vying
for your attention at once. These are ambiguous figures, also
called “Ambigrams,” where your perception flickers between figure
and ground, one thing or the other.

Here are ones I like best:

You probably read the word ME

in brown, but…
When you look through ME
You will see...YOU!

How many people do you see? This is

a painting by a famous Spanish
artist by the name of Salvador Dali.
His works, which are called surreal
art, contain “dual” elements within;
you can see art within art. Cool,
isn’t it?

Bright idea: if you want to have a sharp

mind, always stay connected to family
and friends. This is one of the most
important things you can do for brain
health. Did you know that people who are
close to their family and friends score
higher on memory and attention tests?

18
 AMBIGUOUS ILLUSIONS:

Let’s Focus on our MEMORIES. Are they as strong as we like to

think they are, or can our memories play
tricks on us?

Remember the front

cover? Were you
fooled by what it
says right at the
onset of this book?

Did you read the phrase as “INVITES YOU TO TAKE

A CLOSER LOOK?” Or did you catch the extra “A.

Now you probably feel that your memory is pretty good, maybe
not like people with photographic memories. We are going to
check whether you can remember what you see; let’s see how
good of an eyewitness you are.

Carefully study the words in each list. Start with

Column 1 and then move to Column 2, 3, and 4. Then
turn the page.

19
 AMBIGUOUS ILLUSIONS:

Which of the following words appeared in the lists? Choose

yes or no for each word, and do not turn over the page to
check your answers just yet:

How did you do? Did you get a

perfect score? Or did you wind
up with false or illusory
memories, as most people do.
See the Appendix for the
reason people make mistakes
on this task.

How good are you at following Directions?

Here is a quick reading 1) Say the alphabet

puzzle that is best done by a
group of people. Gather some
friends or family members,
make sure each one of them
has the same set of
instructions to follow, and
then see who can do what it
says first to win the race.
Try it. Ready? Get set? Go!
2) Clap your hands twice
3) Cluck like a chicken
4) Run in place
5) Touch the floor i
6) Spin around four times
7) Raise your hands above your head
8) Yell “mommy!”
9) Skip steps one through nine and just go to 10.
10) Declare yourself the winner!

Here is one more test to see if you can follow directions and
decipher a text in English:
Tahnks to the phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, it dseno’t mtaetr what oerdr
the ltteres of a wrod are in. The olny imroamptnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer
be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whotiut a
pboerlm.Ptrety azanmig, huh? If yur’oe able to raed this, rsaie your hnad!

Bright idea: You should definitely check out a book called

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer. This is the true story
of a young man who was curious about human memory. It tells
how he decided to enter the United States National Memory
Championships in 2006, and guess what? He
won!! During his journey, Foer achieved what most of us would
consider prodigious feats of memory, including memorizing a
shuffled pack of playing cards in one minute and 40 seconds. It
shows that it is possible to improve memory with some simple tricks
that are well worth learning.
20
 how our mind works:

Here is the famous ball and bat problem which you answered
correctly right away, just as your father had done when he first
was given the same problem:

A ball and a bat together cost $1.10. The bat costs exactly $1.00
more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
For many people, even mathematicians, the immediate answer that springs
to mind is $0.10. Sorry, that’s the wrong answer. It comes from focusing
quickly on the numbers, dividing the 110 into 100 and
10, and neglecting the “more than” statement. Of course, once you take the
time to reflect that the difference between $1.00 and 10 cents is only
$0.90, then you see that the correct answer is actually five cents.
This teaches us that our minds have two distinct ways of thinking:
Those who confidently predicted that 10 cents would be the correct answer
were using fast thinking, and those who answered 5 cents were using
slow thinking. to succeed in school and in most human problem
situations, it is good to cultivate slow, deliberate, analytical thinking
patterns.

Do you know when fast thinking is at its best? When I see an athlete,
especially someone considered G.O.A.T (greatest of all time) at the top of his
game, I can’t think of a better example of fast thinking. You have seen Lebron
do things other basketball players can’t do, just as Odell Beckham, Jr., plays
at a higher level than most football players. So, if you want to succeed like
Lebron and other superstars, you have to practice and practice and practice
so that you are ready to function on autopilot using fast thinking:

❖ You have to be ready to accept failure because unless you learn to fail you fail to learn.
❖ You want to get into the zone, that magical state of mind where you are immersed in the here and now.
❖ You want your actions to seem effortless and where there’s a deep sense of enjoying each moment.

Do these things, and the basketball

hoop will even seem larger to you!
21
 Favorite Brain Teasers:

Now let’s see if you can succeed with

some of my favorite Brain Teasers:

1. You are a prisoner in a room with 2 doors and 2

guards. One of the doors will guide you to freedom
and behind the other is a hangman --you don't know
which is which. One of the guards always tells the
truth and the other always lies. You don't know
which one is the truth-teller or the liar either. You
have to choose and open one of these doors, but you
can only ask a single question to one of the guards.
What do you ask so you can pick the door to freedom?

2. Throughout history, there have been thousands of

well documented cases of horses jumping over towers
and landing on clergy and small men, forcing their
removal. When does this bizarresounding phenomenon
occur?

3. The clever butler needed some extra cash, so

he tells his master: "I know almost every song
that has ever been written" The master laughs
at this, but the butler says "I am willing to bet
you a month's pay that I can sing a song that
you have heard of with the lady's name of your
choice in it." “Deal” says the master. "How about
my mother's name, Felicity Jane Ashley?" And so,
the butler
sang and earned himself an extra month’s
pay. What song did he sing?

22
 Favorite Brain Teasers:

4. Is it possible for
you to find the
hidden tiger in this
picture?
5. In ancient days gone by a
wealthy land owner
challenges his two sons to
a horse race. The one whose
horse is slowest will
inherit the entire estate.
After a few days into the
race, the brothers have
made no progress and begin
to wonder what to do. Upon

the advice of a wise old man they jumped on the horses and
raced as fast as they could to the finish line. What did the
wise old man suggest?

6. A man pushes his car to a hotel and tells its owner

that he is bankrupt. Why?

7. A man is running home, but afraid to go there, for

two men in masks are waiting for him. Who are the men
in the masks?
8. There are three errers in this sentence. Can you find
them?
9. Read these nonsensical words to yourself until you
hear a familiar phrase: THE GUYS THEY’LL HYMN IT. What
is the familiar phrase?
10. What do these words depict? GESG SEGG GEGS GGES?

How many of these riddles were you able to answer correctly? When you’ve given them your best
shot, look in the Appendix to see how well you did. Bright Idea: Riddles are definitely good for
your mind: they help you form associations, link ideas and think, be creative and make
conclusions - all of which are good ways of learning and remembering things quickly and with
ease.
23
 Appendix:
VK2 productions (1): A collaboration of Val KAran and Vera kulikov (of upworks.com)
Muller-Lyer Illusion (9): The ‘angles in’ line seems to be an object that is closer,
and the ‘angles out’ line corresponds to an object that is far away. Because the lines
are actually the same size, the one that is perceived as being farther away is
experienced as being larger than the one perceived as being closer.
Turning the Tables Illusion (9): This illusion works because our brains are fooled
by parallel lines. When parallel lines are vertical, they often appear longer than if
they are horizontal.
Hermann Grid Illusion (10): Your visual neurons are being duped once more, this
time by the play of light and dark. The precise spacing between the black corners of
the squares and the white intersections give the neurons a double whammy: some
cells are stimulated while others mellow out. The result is that gray dots seem to
appear and then vanish if you look right at them. While there are really only black
blocks and white spaces in the grid, the high contrast black and white areas fool the
eyes into perceiving a gray circle at each intersection.
Leaning Towers Illusion (10): So why do we perceive the tower on the right to be
more precariously positioned, if both towers are in fact identical? It is because our
visual system treats the two pictures as a part of a single scene. Our visual system
assumes that they must be diverging as they recede from view, and this is what we
see.
Adele Pictures (11): We are programmed to recognize faces instantly right side up.
When two images are viewed upside down, they appear to look similar at first glance
but, when viewed the correct way, you can clearly see the difference between the
two images. When we look at a face flipped upside down, we cannot process it as
quickly. And, so, we can be in for quite a surprise as you saw for yourself.

24
 Appendix:

How many F’s (11): The letter “F” appears nine times in the sentence. Your brain uses its
past experience with the sound of letters as a shortcut to build them into familiar
words. As a result, many people forget to count the “F” in the word “of” because, when
spoken, it has a “V” sound.
Color Illusions (12): The strawberries appear red because of color constancy – the
human brain is designed to perceive the same colors under a range of circumstances.
Whether you’re outside in bright natural light or inside in a dimly-lit closet, the brain
works to color correct, ensuring you see constant colors. So even though the image of
the strawberries consists of gray and greenish pixels, you still see red strawberries.And
if you saw a small tint of color in the bananas, that’s incredible! But, you’re wrong.
There isn’t any. If you see a color, you’re not alone. That’s because color exerts a
profound influence on how we see the world around us. Since your brain utilizes colors
to help recognize objects, it should come as no surprise that, in turn, your brain
utilizes objects to help recognize colors – even when they’re not there. In other words,
even when we think we are seeing things as they really are, a host of other factors –
light, surrounding color, our environment – are all affecting our perception of reality.
We are hardwired to want to learn new things but much of the time we operate on
auto-pilot, not really observing the world around us. Optical illusions shake up our
perceptions of the world, allowing us to notice things afresh.
Stroop Effect (11): Here you are getting mixed message from the different sides of your
brain. You see, there are actually two separate sides or hemispheres in our skull, and
they each control different parts of our body and our nervous system. The interference
between the different information (what the words say and the color of the words)
your brain receives causes a problem because (1) words are read faster than colors and
(2) naming colors requires more attention than reading words.
Bumps and craters image (15): When your brain sees lighter shading on the top of the
circle and darker shading on the bottom, it assumes that it must be a bump. That’s due
to hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution. Our brain tells us that light
comes from a single source above – the sun – and that shadows are created by that
light’s direction. In this puzzle, when you flip the card, it re-orients the direction of
the shadows, thus giving you a different number of bumps and craters.
Seven Letters Puzzle (16): Actually, the correct riddle answer is that one word in
different ways fill all the three blanks. So, notable is the word, but it is separated by
space to fill the blanks in different ways.

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 Appendix:
False Memory Test (19,20): Because the lists contained words such as thread, sewing, and
knitting, more than 50% of people remember, incorrectly, that the list contained the word
needle. Similarly, many people swear that the lists contained the word sleep because the
lists included blanket, doze, and pillow. You see, false memories of unseen and unheard
words arise from associations. Our minds have difficulty suppressing false memories which
can become as true as real memories. Imagine how hard it is to be accurate witnesses when
we have to observe complicated and fast-paced events, such as accidents or crimes?
Riddles Correct Answers (22,23):

(1) Say to either guard, “If I ask the other one, what will he say?” Whatever the
answer, choose the other door.
(2) During a typical chess game.
(3) Happy Birthday.
(4) The Tiger’s stripes spell “The Hidden Tiger.”
(5) Let each one ride the other brother’s horse.
(6) This describes the game of Monopoly.
(7) The catcher and umpire in baseball.
(8) “Errers” is one “there is” is another and “three” is the third!
(9) The Skies the Limit.
(10) Scrambled Eggs.

Lesson from Rabbi Lamm on Behar: Behar means “on the mountain,” and it is referring
specifically to Mount Sinai. Here were the people of Israel in the time of Moses, marching to
the land of Israel, a place they had never seen. And here they are being given agricultural
laws such as Shemetah and Yovel. These are people who were nomads, never having lived on
farms and with no background in raising crops. What’s going on here, they must’ve thought
when they were given laws that appeared weird and irrelevant.
Here is a lesson I learned from Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, a great teacher of mine and former
president of yeshiva University. Just because the children of Israel at Mount Sinai did not see
practical value or even understand the laws they were given didn’t mean that this wasn’t
important knowledge. There are things that we have to learn for their own sake even if we
don’t completely understand every detail. It also reminds us that we must always continue
learning and searching beneath the surface of the teachings to find lessons and truths that
are pertinent to us. Above all, Rabbi Lamm teaches, we must be future oriented. We must
have faith that what is genuinely irrelevant now may someday become most relevant and
meaningful. What today seems visionary may prove indispensable to tomorrow’s very real
need.

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