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May 7, 2000

Education as a Mitzvah (2000)

Jewish Education
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Takhlit - Teaching for Lasting Outcomes (1970)

The Talmud (Ber. 17B) uses the term takhlit, purpose, in discussing what should be the lasting outcomes of Jewish education. מרגלא בפומיה דרבא – תכלית חכחמה תשובה ומעשים טובים. Rava used to say: the takhlit of wisdom is teshuvah (the transformation of personality) and maasim tovim (good deeds). A parallel that immediately comes to mind is the Platonic tri-partite soul. Plato divides the soul into three: the cognitive, or intellectual; the effective, or emotional; and the volitional, that which commits a man to action. In medieval Hebrew thought these were known as sekhel, regesh, and ratzon. What Rava does is to place the first at the service of the latter two. In contemporary terms we would say: the purpose of learn- ing, the takhlit we seek, is the commitment to Jewish action and to the sense of Jewish identity. Jewish education endeavors to produce, first, young men and women who will live their personal lives in a Jewish manner, and participate fully in the affairs and concerns of the Jewish community, both locally and throughout the world. Second, and even more fundamentally, it seeks to secure in him or her an inner sense of identity as a Jew, the transformation of the student’s personality from some- thing Jewishly unformed to something Jewishly informed: its Judaization. We want the product of all our efforts to be Jewish both inwardly and outwardly, psychologically and practically. Of course, those who have differing Jewish commitments will vary in their interpretations of these ideals. From the stand- point of Jewish tradition, it would be necessary for a young man, for instance, to be acquainted with Talmud, to study Torah every day, and to observe kashrut, Shabbat, taharat ha- mishpachah. For others, the standards may be different. But all Jewish educators can agree on the general rubric of “feeling Jewish” and of acting Jewishly. II Now, teachers today — and perhaps it was always that way — are caught in a terrible bind. Economically, socially, cultur…
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The Challenges of Jewish Education in the 80s (1979)

Any discussion of Jewish education in the coming decade stands to benefit much from Dean Henchey's cogent analysis of the general educational scene. Because Jews do not live in a vacuum, or even – in the open, democratic, and pluralistic society of North America – in hermetically sealed enclaves, what he has to say about the contours of society as they are beginning to emerge for the 1980s must clearly enrich any analyses and prescriptions that we may offer for Jewish education in particular. However, because of the peculiar nature of our community and our concerns, our focus must simultaneously be somewhat narrower and somewhat broader. It must be narrower, because as a minority (irrespective of the degree of our creativity) we are bound to operate within the social parameters, communal structures, and cultural paradigms which our whole society sets for us. Perhaps it would be more courageous to speak of rejecting these structures and paradigms and reaching out boldly for something radically different. But realistically, that will not happen, certainly not when one considers how intimately and intricately North American Jewry is tied in with the mainstream of Western civilization and, even more, with the cutting edge of its most progressive elements. The best we can do — and this must never be denigrated — is to seek out creatively those nooks and crannies within these structures which we consider more amenable to Jewish development, more accessible to Jewish aspiration, and more compatible with Jewish values and principles. It is here that collective innovation is possible for us. Our focus must be broader because our educational concerns embrace not only the transmission of knowledge — of the cognitive and abstract elements of culture per se — but the whole gamut of Torah, which is as broad as life itself. For the Jewish educator, character and religious conduct and morality are not merely the consequences of education, but the very substance and stuff of educat…
Jewish Education

Speech

The Jewish Educator and Jewish Education - Four Myths (1976)

I concede, at the outset, that I have many more questions than answers, and that contemplation of the subject assigned to me leaves me more puzzled than enlightened. At the beginning of this century, Ambrose Bierce defined "education" as "that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding." The truth in that statement does not diminish with age. In an effort to avoid playing the fool, I shall make no pretense to greater understanding than I possess. I shall bear in mind what Alfred North Whitehead said after hearing Lord Bertrand Russell lecture on quantum theory at Harvard: "I congratulate Lord Russell for leaving the vast darkness of the subject unobscured". Permit me to do just that: to respect the "vast darkness" of the subject, to make no effort to unravel the fundamental mystery that lies at the heart of the educative process and the teacher-student relationship. I shall merely endeavor to remove some of the obscurity covering the darkness and the mystery by discussing four myths or half-truths that have afflicted us this past half-century. Perceptive teachers recognize these sanctified untruths for what they are ; however, as long as they remain unidentified they impair the work of the Jewish educator and have done so this past half century and more.MYTH NO. 1: "Children Don't Want to Learn." This unspoken assumption imposes an obvious handicap upon the teacher. But it is only a half-truth. הספר On a general, theoretical level, it is true that there is a natural resistance to school and learning. The Sages, commenting upon the reluctance of Israel to stay on at Sinai after the Revelation, compared the Israelites to תינוק a child fleeing from school. The aversion of children to learning is no new phenomenon. Yet, that can hardly be the whole story. It may be as much a reflection on the school system in the days of the Sages as an expression of some universal, innate anti-intellectualism. At any rate, such tendency is c…
Jewish Education