Parashat Shelah tells the tragic story of Het Hameragelim, the sin of the spies, and it lists the names of the twelve spies sent by Moshe to scout the Land of Israel. The most famous of these men was Yehoshua, the son of Nun, Moshe Rabbenu’s closest disciple who eventually became his successor.
It is interesting to note that when the Torah makes mention of Yehoshua, it calls him "Yehoshua Bin Nun." The word for "son" throughout the Torah is "Ben," yet, when it comes to Yehoshua, the Torah punctuates the word as "Bin" rather than "Ben." Rather than placing the three-dot Sereh vowel under the letter Bet, the Torah spells the name with the single-dot Hirik vowel, producing the word "Bin." How might we explain this unusual spelling of the word for "son" in reference to Yehoshua?
The Talmud teaches us that there are three partners in the creation of the human being – his two parents, and God. In a different sense, however, there are four partners. The Sages elsewhere comment that a person who teaches a student Torah is considered the student’s parent; he is viewed as having created him. Yehoshua, as mentioned, was a close disciple of Moshe Rabbenu. Although his biological father was Nun, his real "maker" was Moshe, his mentor. The Torah perhaps alludes to Moshe’s role in "creating" Yehoshua by dropping two dots from the vowel in the word "Ben," indicating that Nun was only partially Yehoshua’s father. The profound impact that Moshe Rabbenu had upon Yehoshua undermined, to a certain extent, Nun’s exclusive claim to the title of Yehoshua’s father. Yehoshua is therefore called "Bin Nun," as he was not entirely Nun’s son.
What exactly did the Sages mean when they said that a teacher is considered a student’s parent?
Rav Avigdor Miller explained that whereas the parents create the child’s physical being, the teacher molds the intellect, the mind. The intellect is what distinguishes human beings from the animals, and therefore a person is defined primarily by his knowledge, by what he knows and how he thinks. Hence, a person’s real "maker" is the one who fills his mind with knowledge, who develops his intellect. Since our essence is defined by our minds, it is the person who develops our mind who is considered our true "maker."
This insight should alert us to the need for careful discretion is deciding whom we allow to fill our brains, and what we allow to occupy "storage space" in our memories. We must realize that what’s in our mind determines who we are, our essence, and the one who puts information into our minds is thus our "maker." Do we really want to be "created" by Hollywood personalities? Do we want our essence to be shaped by the decadent American culture? Unfortunately, too many otherwise committed Jews allow themselves and their children to be "created" by unworthy "creators," by representatives of an immoral society. We cannot be flippant or indifferent to what goes into our heads – because that is what defines who we are. If we truly want to define ourselves as Torah Jews, then we must ensure that only material deemed appropriate by the Torah enters our minds and fills the filing cabinets of our brains. This is how we guarantee that God is the Creator of not only our physical beings, but also of our inner essence, that we are the "children" of the Almighty, and not of a debased, corrupt culture.
