Q&A: On Professionalism
On Professionalism
Question
Rabbi, I wanted help with a question I’ve been dealing with: how do we distinguish a professional from an amateur? I managed to think of three points that seemed relevant to me: a. mastery of all the data. b. practical field experience. c. understanding the inner point of the matter, which makes it possible to adapt it to a changing reality… I’m sure I missed something, and also that someone must have written about this in an orderly way at some point. Could the Rabbi give his own definition / point me to someone who has written on the subject?
Answer
I’m not familiar with any writing on this.
Your definition seems entirely reasonable to me. Still, a and b seem to me more essential to the definition of a professional. c is a point no less important for success in the profession, but it is not part of the definition of a professional; rather, it belongs to the definition of a talented person. There can also be a talented amateur, and sometimes he will succeed more than the professional.
Still, sometimes (I think this is usually the case) experience develops c within us, and then perhaps that too can be seen as a parameter that expresses professionalism.
What I’m assuming here is that c expresses good intuition. If it is only a result of experience, then of course it is included in b (together with a).