If you picture Yeshua’s teaching ministry as Him standing on a pulpit with neat rows of note-taking disciples, let me lovingly tell you… no. Just no.
The Rabbi’s “classroom” had dust, noise, interruptions, and the occasional donkey. His lessons happened in motion… on roads, at tables, in boats, and in fields.
In Jewish rabbinic culture, walking with your rabbi wasn’t just a metaphor. It was the method. The Hebrew phrase halak (from which we get halakhah, “the way one walks” or “the way to live”) was about your lifestyle, your pattern of obedience to God’s Torah. To learn halakhah, you didn’t sit still, you walked with the one who embodied it.
Discipleship Was Proximity
In the Mishnah (Avot 1:4), Yose ben Yoezer says:
“Let your house be a meeting place for the sages, and cover yourself in the dust of their feet.”
This is more than poetic; it’s practical. You were so close behind your rabbi as you traveled that the dust from his sandals literally coated you.
Walking meant seeing how he handled interruptions, answered questions, blessed meals, prayed at sunrise, or navigated tension. It was Torah in motion, not theory in a scroll.
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