Rabbi Ben flying a remote control helicopter

Ever since I was ten years old I wanted a remote control helicopter. At the time the cheapest ones started at almost $1000 and you needed to join a flying club and take lessons to learn to fly the helicopter. It was explained to me that flying a remote control helicopter was more difficult than flying a real one.

In the last couple of years remote control helicopters have gone through some serious development. Using cheap materials, it is possible to buy one for a little as $20. These new helicopters are built with twin propellers and gyroscopic systems that enable the learner to fly the helicopter within a few minutes of practice. What once would take months of practice with the standard helicopter can now be learned in an hour.

Since we are staying in Florida in the same place for a month I decided to order one. I’m not yet sure what I’ll do with it when we pick up our backpacks and move again. A remote control helicopter will not fare well in a backpack.

So I was wondering what remote control helicopters have to do with Judaism or what can we learn from them.

20 years ago, if you wanted to study Talmud, halacha, or chassidut, it was a struggle to find a good printed copy with an English translation and illustrated pictures. You had to make the effort to go to classes or perhaps get cassette tapes, though many classes were not recorded onto cassette tapes.

In the last ten years we have seen the Jewish book market flooded with some incredible learning aides. For example, the ArtScroll Talmud and the many Chabad Chassidic discourses having been translated into English. It is now possible for a total beginner with no experience in learning Talmud to sit down by himself at home and study Talmud, enjoy it, and actually make sense of it. The same applies to shulcahn aruch, mishneh berurah, etc. And off course there are the countless podcasts and YouTube videos of shiurim.

It is like the new remote control helicopters that you can fly straight out of the box. But ultimately the real challenge and pleasure is to be able to fly the real remote control helicopter with a six channel remote and no double propeller system. Why? Because only with this type can you do all the maneuvers. The easy-to-fly straight-out-of-the-box ones have their limitations.

To excel in one’s learning one eventually wants to be able to open any gemarrah with a study partner and be able to read and understand it. Learning it like this gives a whole new perspective because when one is not shown right away what is a question and what is an answer, they need to work and figure it out for themselves. This is how all the commentaries came up with their ideas based on their understanding that they gained through reading, not by having an understanding first presented to them.  For now, I’m happy to have my easy-to-fly remote control helicopter, but I know that some day it will no longer be enough.  Some day I will outgrow it and I will want the challenge and growth that the real thing brings.  So, too, with Torah learning.