The Secret of Dikduk

The seven year old boy was struggling with his Hebrew grammar studies.

[Hebrew is highly inflected, as compared to other languages. So Hebrew grammar - known as Dikduk - is especially complex and nuanced.]

It was 1887, and little Yosef Yitzchok, who excelled in all other areas of study, just couldn’t grasp Dikduk.
The boy’s father, Rabbi Sholom Dovber Schneerson (fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe), hired a skilled tutor; but the boy kept struggling. Crestfallen, Yosef Yitzchok approached his saintly father and - in tears – expressed his deep disappointment.

After serious thought, Rabbi Sholom Dovber spoke to his child (I’ll present the Rebbe’s words as I understand them, not verbatim):

Some areas of Torah are primarily conceptual; they may be a concept, an art or a skill. Other things are fundamentally ‘labors’; their focus is more on the task at hand, the brass tacks, than the particular philosophy.

Dikduk is a laborious, detail-focused pursuit (the word ‘Dikduk’ actually means punctiliousness, scrupulous attention to particulars). Grasping ideas and principles doesn't make you a Grammarian; it’s about bottom-line attention to detail and structure.

Apply the Dikduk attitude – meticulous, detailed mindfulness – to your internal posture, to measure how you’re feeling toward others. Bring the Dikduk attitude – careful attention – to the flow of your thoughts, guiding them to positive and productive places. Administer the Dikduk attitude – painstaking scrutiny – to your speech, assessing how you express yourself to others. Extend the Dikduk attitude –precise fine-tuning – to your actions, monitoring and refining the way you treat others.

The Rebbe was teaching this gifted little boy that the key to better living goes beyond the realm of theory. It lies in punctilious attention to detail. Sure, we need a theoretical framework; but the primary accomplishment lies in our concrete behaviors.

This opens a tiny window into how one Chassidic master raised another (decades later, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok became the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe).

It also reveals the spirit which Rabbi Sholom DovBer breathed into the Yeshiva he founded, Tomchei Temimim, which I was privileged to attend (the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown goes by that Hebrew name: Tomchei Temimim).

Today, the 20th of Cheshvan, is Rabbi Sholom DovBer's birthday, so we need to say “Happy Birthday Rebbe”.

Thanks for everything.