I received an incredible
video yesterday from 2011 that showed a clip from Israeli national news which documented
a South Korean news crew that came to Israel to discover the secret to Jewish
success. One of the South Koreans in explaining the mission said that it couldn’t
be mere chance that a population of Jews that make up less than .5 percent of
the world population could contribute to 25% of Nobel prizes. Something must be behind this success. The intriguing
part of the video is where the South Koreans went to investigate. They didn’t investigate the pedagogical
techniques of the Technion, Israel’s equivalent to MIT, or the creativity of
Israel intelligence units in the army.
Instead they went to one of the oldest Yeshivas in Israel to study how
Jews study. They were astounded by the
extraordinary analytics happening in a religious environment and the theory is that
millennia of Talmudic discourse has shaped the Jewish brain to what it is
today- a well-oiled machine able to handle complexities of the highest
magnitude. But is that really the only
key to Jewish success? Is there something
else as well?
It seems based on recent studies that a key component
to success is not mere brains. Research
has shown that out of 36 character traits, self-control turned out to be the
only trait that predicted a college student’s grade-point average better than chance. Self- control also proved to be a better
predictor of college grades than the student’s IQ or SAT score.[1] And it seems that Judaism also espouses this
view that self-control comes even before brains in terms of importance.
Every morning, Jews wrap tefillin- those black boxes
with long leather straps. What is
strange is the order in which they do it. One would think that first comes the
head tefillin and then the arm tefillin. Instead, we start with the hand tefillin and
then put on the head tefillin. Why? As one commentary explains[2]
before the brain starts one has to be able to control his actions. If there is
no basic self-control then there is no hope of developing the higher
faculties.
It could be the South Koreans traveled unnecessarily
in their quest to discover Jewish greatness.
Perhaps a local Chabad would have been enough and they could have witnessed
the daily morning prayers where Jews have been putting control before head for
over 3,000 years starting with the command at the end of this week’s parsha to
wrap tefillin.
