TEACHING JEWISH TEXTS: AUTHORITY AND RELEVANCE
Zvi
Grumet
[1]
Most Judaic learning, especially past the primary grades, is text based. As people who study texts, we have preconceptions about those texts, which define our relationship to them. When we enter a classroom to teach, we not only carry those preconceptions with us, but assume that our students share those same notions and hence, share the same relationship to texts that we do. That assumption, however, is likely to be inaccurate, and is a potential source of conflict between teacher and student. That potential for conflict increases when the teacher is not even aware that he is making those assumptions and the resulting gulf that divides him from his students. The focus of this discussion is to highlight some of those preconceptions, the potential conflicts that can result, and offer modest suggestions for bridging the gap between teacher and student. [2]
1. The text is
authoritative. Since the teacher
assumes this to be true, when he questions the text it is for the
purpose of analysis, to gain a greater understanding of that text. In his eyes the text can never be in
error—it is always correct and often binding. Not all students consider texts authoritative, and may
perceive the process of questioning as challenging the authority of the text. Taken to the extreme, the student may even
engage in study to disprove the verity of the text.
[3]
Awareness of the problem
demands a quest for solutions. Although
no solutions are offered, five suggested approaches are presented.
1. The "theological" approach. In this school of thought, it is precisely those issues that
divide student perceptions from those of their teachers that must be addressed
directly, since they involve discussions. One practitioner of this approach teaches a unit on prophecy
before engaging in the study of Navi. The fundamental assumptions about the course are established
from the outset, defining the "ground rules" for all future
discussions. Included could be
independent units on the centrality of Talmud Torah, discussion
about Torah study being a vehicle for communication with God, the
divinity of the text of the Torah, and the like. The fundamental thesis of this approach is to anticipate the
challenges presented by the text and preempt them by dealing with the issues
before they arise.
Teachers can not
take for granted that their theological language, with all its suppositions, assumptions and preconceptions, is shared by their students. Particular care is needed when listening to students'
questions to understand the foundations on which those questions are based and
to appreciate the underlying assumptions providing the background for those
questions. More significantly, though, is the need to evaluate and understand our goals in teaching
Jewish texts. Is our ultimate purpose
the mastery of some forty pages of Gemara or eighty chapters of
Humash a student will learn throughout high school, or do the texts we
teach function as pretext for broader agendas we have for our students -
agendas relating to the very essence of their identity and commitment?
[1] Rabbi Grumet is Assistant Principal of Torah Academy of Bergen County and Faculty, Drisha Institute of Jewish Education
[2] Yeshivot in North America generally service students from diverse backgrounds with a wide variety of religious affiliations and commitments. The ideas presented here are relevant to almost all Modern/Centrist Orthodox Yeshivot, whether they be single sex or coeducational, and whether their students are fundamentally committed to halakhah or not. Although references to students and teachers are masculine, the intent is generic, and applies equally to women.
Some of the discussion here is particularly appropriate for TaNaKh texts. Talmudic texts involve slightly different preconceptions and additional levels of complication. For a discussion on teaching Talmud see Binyamin DeFries, “’Al Limud haGemara Bevet haSefer haYesodi vehaTikhoni haDatiim,” Ma’ayanot vol. 4.
[3] Again, a distinction needs to made between the study of TaNaKh and the study of Talmud. Whereas there is no room in a traditional Yeshiva for the discussion of variant texts in TaNaKh, there is certainly room for that in the study of Talmud. Still, great care must be taken in the presentation of variant Talmud texts. With all but the most advanced students the idea of alternate reading of a Gemara is, at best, confusing, and can potentially undermine the respect the student has for the Gemara (and hence, the entire halakhic process) itself.
[4]
Ironically, students will invoke Torah
lishma as a ploy to avoid being tested.
[5]
In one particularly poignant incident, a group of highly intelligent and
motivated students were studying sections of the Rav's 'Al haTeshuva. After reading his presentation of a contradiction in the Rambam, the students appeared
genuinely bored. When asked about their lack of enthusiasm, they offered
replies such as "Maybe the Rambam made a mistake" and "Perhaps
the Rambam changed his mind."
[6]
Although there may be value in some of
those debates, the resulting environment may become one in which the
relationship between teacher and class has been concretized as adversarial
rather than cooperative.
[7]
Eliezer Diamond, "Teaching From
Within/Teaching From Without: The Problem of Unshared Assumptions in the High
School Gemara Class," Tradition 19:4 (Winter 1981).
[8] Ibid.
[9]
See also Michael Rosenak, Teaching Jewish Values; A
Conceptual Guide, The Melton Center for Jewish Education in the
Diaspora, Jerusalem, 1986. On pp. 35-45 he writes of relevance and authenticity
in trying to present classical Jewish sources to those who might consider
original texts neither relevant nor authentic. See also the accompanying
sourcebooks of that series, also published by the Melton Center and the
Department of Jewish Education of the World Zionist Organization.
[10]
Some of these concerns may be
alleviated by teaching sugyot rather than a running text. This
widespread use of sugya oriented sourcebooks lends itself to this
approach. In an unpublished manuscript (as part of a study conducted for The
Jerusalem Fellows, 1994) Talmud Instruction in the Modern
Orthodox Day School, Scot Berman develops a sample curriculum for
teaching Massekhet Kiddushin using a variation on this approach.
[11] Rosenak, ibid.
[12]
On the notion of the mesora of the home, see Rabbi Joseph B.
Soloveitchik, "A Tribute to the Rebbitzen of Talne," Tradition 17:2 (Spring 1978). See also Haym Soloveitchik, "Rupture and
Reconstruction: The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy," Tradition
28:4 (Summer 1994), in which he discusses the loss of the mimetic tradition.
[13]
Clearly, a complete discussion of such an approach, including its
benefits and dangers, are beyond the scope of this paper. For further
discussion of this suggestion, including some of its pitfalls, see my
"Goals of the Day School Movement: Torah Scholars All?," Ten Da'at
7:1 (Fall 1993).