I do not ask Rabbi Kushner to tell me which book to write, or which house to buy. And yet, I know the course of my life is profoundly changed because of my relationship to him. On those occasions when my rabbi says that I am his teacher, I know he is not only being polite. Teachers need students no less than students need teachers. And when we are very lucky, what transpires between student and teacher is mysterious, non-hierarchical, healthy, holy, transforming.
Teachers have good days and bad days, great jokes and lame jokes.
Week to week and year to year, Rabbi Kushner teaches me that in order to be a serious Jew, I do not have to be a scholar. Only a student. For this lesson alone, I will always call him my teacher.