Q:
Am I justified in protesting against my rebbe or my rabbi if it seems to me that he’s making an error about something?
A:
The question is, if a rav, a rabbi, said something and he is generally superior to you, but this something seems to be to you erroneous, are you justified in making a protest?
Now the question is, what do you mean by protest? Does it mean you have to pick up your shoe and throw it at him?
You can protest by going over to him during the week, visiting him and saying, “Rebbe, will you please go over this point and make it clear to me? I don’t understand it so well.” And maybe he’ll explain it to you in such a way that it’ll become clear. That’s also a protest.
Who says that if you’re sitting, let’s say, in the yeshiva and the rosh yeshiva is saying a shiur and you don’t understand, so it means you should let out a squawk, a howl and say, “It’s not so!”?
So ‘protest’ means, after the shiur go over first to one of the talmidim who repeats the shiur and say, “Can you explain what the rosh yeshiva meant?”
If the talmid cannot, then you go to a higher talmid; if he can’t help then you go to the rosh yeshiva finally and ask him to explain it to you. Maybe after all, you’re right. But the way to protest is this way. To protest doesn’t mean that you come up with something impolite. Protest doesn’t mean to do it in a coarse, rude way.
(October 1972)
