Weekly Letter from Rabbi
Bamidbar
Dear friends
One of the most remarkable stories I have read recently began with a mistake.
The Israeli educator Avinoam Hirsch tells how one day he awarded a certificate of excellence to a student in his class. He decided not to let student’s mother wait till her child will bring the certificate home and send her congratulatory message – ‘Bravo! Your child received a certificate of excellence!’ There was however a ‘little problem’; by accident, the congratulatory message was sent to the mother of another child – a boy who excelled only in causing constant disruption in the class. Earlier that very same day, Hirsch had actually thrown him out of class because he would not stop disturbing everyone.
By the time Hirsch realised the error, it was already too late. The mother had responded emotionally:
“You do not understand what your message did for me. It is the happiest thing that happened to me this week.”
Suddenly Hirsch understood that this was no longer merely an administrative mix-up. Something deeply human had happened.
A mother who had grown used to criticism and disappointment about her son suddenly experienced pride.
On the other hand, his conscience wouldn’t let him writing a certificate of excellence for a student who had not earned it.
Hirsch decided to do something unusual. He approached the student and said:
“Listen, you are the first student to whom I am going to loan a certificate of excellence. You do not deserve it, but I believe that your behaviour in the upcoming week will justify it.”
The boy looked stunned. Then he answered:
“Last night my mother cried because I make her so sad after she spoke to my English teacher. Thank you. I will not let you down.”
Over the following week, the transformation was extraordinary. The disruptive child became attentive, disciplined, and cooperative. The school counsellor even asked whether the boy was put on Ritalin.
Hirsch replied: “No. He is on a much stronger substance. It is called trust.”
What happened in that classroom?
At first glance, the story feels almost miraculous. A child changes completely because somebody believed in him. Yet modern psychology suggests that this transformation reflects one of the deepest forces shaping human behaviour: expectation.
In the late 1960s, psychologists Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson conducted one of the most famous educational experiments ever performed.
In their experiment, teachers in an elementary school were falsely told about certain randomly selected students that they had been identified through testing as “academic bloomers” – children expected to show exceptional intellectual growth over the coming year.
In reality, the students had been selected entirely at random.
Yet by the end of the year, many of those children genuinely improved.
Rosenthal and Jacobson described the results of their experiment in their book Pygmalion in the Classroom.
The premises of their theory, known as the Pygmalion Effect or self-fulfilling prophecy, are:
When teachers believe students are capable, they unconsciously change the way they interact with them:
Students internalise those expectations. Eventually, they begin behaving differently because they begin seeing themselves differently.
In other words, expectations do not merely describe reality. Sometimes they help create it.
This is especially true for children. Young people construct much of their identity through reflected judgments:
A child repeatedly treated as “the difficult one,” “the lazy one,” or “the disappointment” may eventually stop resisting those labels. The identity hardens.
But when someone communicates: “I believe there is more inside you,” a competing identity becomes possible.
This is what makes Hirsch’s story so psychologically powerful.
Notice what he did not do.
He did not pretend the boy had already earned excellence. In fact, he explicitly said:
“You do not deserve it.”
That honesty mattered.
False praise often fails because reality contradicts it too obviously.
Instead, Hirsch offered something far more transformative: trust in a future self.
He effectively told the student:
“I believe you are capable of becoming the kind of person who deserves this.”
That changes everything.
The child was no longer trapped inside the identity of “problem student.” He was temporarily being treated as someone connected to a better future version of himself.
And suddenly he wanted to protect that possibility.
The most heartbreaking sentence in the story may be:
“My mother cried because I make her so sad.”
Behind disruptive behaviour there is often accumulated shame.
Many difficult children are not acting from indifference but from wounded identity. They come to believe they are fundamentally disappointing. After enough criticism, failure begins to feel inevitable. Sometimes misbehaviour becomes psychologically safer than trying and failing again.
What Hirsch gave the boy was not merely praise. He gave him dignity.
Not permissiveness.
Not lowering standards.
Dignity.
And dignity can be transformative because human beings desperately want to live up to identities that make them feel valuable.
Punishment can suppress behaviour temporarily. Trust can reorganise identity.
Punishment says:
“Stop being this.”
Trust says:
“I believe you can become more.”
Of course, trust alone does not always work miracles. Human beings are complicated. Not every child changes overnight. Not every act of encouragement produces transformation.
But there are moments when a person’s entire trajectory changes because somebody important, whether a teacher, a parent, a spouse, a friend, or a leader, sees them differently before they have fully become different.
Someone decides not to define a person exclusively by their worst behaviour.
Someone offers them a future larger than their past.
And because of that, they slowly begin growing into it.
That brings us to this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Bamidbar.
At first glance, Bamidbar appears to revolve around statistics and organisation. The chapter opens with a census of the Jewish people. Tribe after tribe is counted. Names, numbers, families, and encampments fill the opening chapters.
Yet the Torah uses a strangely beautiful expression for this census.
God does not simply tell Moshe:
“Count the Jewish people.”
Instead, He says:
“Se’u et rosh kol adat Bnei Yisrael”
“Lift the heads of the congregation of Israel.”
Why describe a census as “lifting heads”?
Rabbi Sacks explains that this phrase captures one of Judaism’s deepest ideas about leadership. Moshe was not merely counting bodies. He was affirming significance.
A leader counts people because people count.
In many ancient societies, ordinary individuals were insignificant compared to kings, armies, and empires. Judaism introduced a revolutionary idea: every human being carries the image of God. Every individual matters infinitely.
The census therefore was not bureaucracy. It was recognition.
Every person had a name.
Every tribe had a place.
Every individual was seen.
“Lifting heads” was a much needed healing of the “lowered heads” of the People of Israel.
The great medieval commentator Rav Avraham Ibn Ezra observes that throughout the journey of People of Israel in the wilderness, we see again and again that the entire nation of Israel carried with them through the wilderness a slave mentality – they couldn’t shake off the inferiority complex they had gained in the land of Egypt; in Ibn Ezra’s words, they were people of “low spirit”.
“Lifting their heads” meant so much more than counting them! It meant restoring posture, confidence, and dignity.
The Torah speaks not only to the People of Israel in the wilderness, but to all people who walk through life with lowered heads. Human beings often walk through life with lowered heads burdened by shame, disappointment, insecurity, or the feeling that nobody expects greatness from them.
To lift someone’s head is to help them stand upright again.
Suddenly the connection to Hirsch’s story becomes striking.
Without realising it, Hirsch performed a small act of “se’u et rosh” – lifting a child’s head.
He helped a boy see himself not only through the lens of his past failures, but through the possibility of future dignity.
And that altered behaviour more effectively than punishment had.
Perhaps this is one of the Torah’s deepest insights into leadership and education.
Great leaders do not merely measure people as they are.
They call forth who people can become.
Moshe had to prepare a nation of former slaves to receive Torah, build a covenantal society, and carry moral responsibility. That transformation could never happen if people saw themselves merely as anonymous members of a crowd.
Before the Promised Land, before destiny, before mission, their heads had to be lifted.
They had to learn:
“You matter.”
“You are seen.”
“You have a place.”
“You are capable of greatness.”
Perhaps that remains one of the holiest tasks we can perform for one another.
To lift heads.
To speak to people in ways that enlarge possibility instead of imprisoning them inside failure.
To encourage others’ accountability, without stripping them of dignity.
To believe in people honestly, not pretendingly, not naïvely; seeing clearly who they are while also seeing who they may yet become.
Because sometimes the turning point in a human life begins the moment somebody says:
“I know you are not there yet.
But I believe you can get there.”
Wishing you Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Shalom Kupperman
