EXOD271 … the Torah is acquired by forty-eight things … [2] by attentive listening. Pirkei Avot, Perek VI, mishnah 6. The presence of a teacher is not enough; his thoughts will not reach your mind by osmosis. Nor should you go to a study group to break in pell-mell at every turn, to give your voice and thoughts the benefit of an airing. Your ear, as the Hebrew literally indicates, must listen and hear. And, as the Hebrew verb also connotes, you must heed and understand. It is not enough to merely hear words; you must grasp their meaning. And you must listen with your heart too, for the shades and nuances that lie in words of Torah, though they are not explicitly expressed. As others can "read between the lines," learn to "hear between the lines." Again, words mean different things, however they are interpreted. If you would understand any written passage correctly, you would know the general intention of the writer and the spirit which moves him. For this reason, as long as it could, Judaism relied on an oral tradition whose masters lived in its spirit; our way of faith did not trust in a written text alone. To defeat hostile Edom, King David sent his able general Joab, and by six months every male. in Edom was slain. Says the Talmud: when Joab returned to his sovereign, David demanded why he had spared the womenfolk [they posed a great potential danger to Israel]. Replied he, "It is written in the Torah, you shall blot out zachar, the males of Amalek" [and if no more was demanded there, surely this was enough in Edom]. Said David, "But we read zecher: you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek!" (Deuteronomy 25:19. T.B. Baba Bathra 21a-b (See II Samuel 8:14, I Kings 11:16). Because Joab's childhood teacher was careless or slipshod, the fate of a people could be placed in jeopardy. Perhaps in His infinite foresight the Almighty already intimated the need to guard against such error when, after Amalek's very first attack on the Hebrews, He bade Moses, "Write this for a memorial in the Book and put it in the ears of Joshua, that I will blot out zecher, the remembrance of Amalek…" [this verse]. If you only write something down for others to read, you may still be misunderstood. Tell, explain, teach the one who will take your place in the next generation. So must a pupil go to a teacher to study, and he must listen with open ears and open heart, if he is to be a link in our unbroken historic chain of responsible Torah scholars.