The word teiku (תיקו) infuriated me for decades. But in the end, teiku taught me about teaching and learning Torah, and perhaps most importantly, teiku represents not only a willingness to accept ambiguity and uncertainty, but the total embrace of multiple paths to Truth that is fundamental, not only to Jewish education, but Judaism itself. 

Teiku (תיקו) is an ancient Aramaic word, likely a shortened version of teikohm (תיקום), that means “unresolved” or “shelved.” In modern Hebrew, teiku means “a tie.” Some say teiku is an acronym for תשבי יתרץ קושיות ובעיות—Elijah the Prophet will answer all questions when the Messiah arrives. In the Talmudic context, teiku means that we don’t have a definitive answer in a dispute because neither side has proved its point conclusively or irrefutably.

The first time I came across a “teiku” was in 1980, while learning the first chapter of BT Berakhot. I was in 11th grade and the class was co-ed. Coming from a non-Orthodox family, I had absolutely no idea how revolutionary this was—girls learning Gemara, girls and boys learning together. My teacher, Rabbi Yosef Adler, zt”l, was a prize student of Rabbi J.D. Soloveitchik, the Rav, and incredibly brilliant. If you were in his class, it was because you deserved to be there, and he expected you to keep up. Rabbi Adler didn’t care about the gender of your ears, he only cared what was between them. Those two fundamentals—high standards and the faith in your students to meet them—have guided my teaching for almost four decades.

We were learning about berakhot and intentions. If you have an item—say, wine—in front of you and you inadvertently make the berakha for beer, can you drink the wine? Do mitzvot require kavanah, the proper intention, or just the proper action? We spent weeks delving into less than 4 lines in the Gemara. We learned Rashi and Tosafot, Rambam and other rishonim I had never heard of before. We learned the Shulhan Arukh, the commentaries on the Shulhan Arukh, the aharonim, and the Rav himself. Higher order thinking was inextricably linked to the content. Fundamentals of Judaism—the unbroken mesorah from Avraham to us, the need for heart, head, and hand to all be in sync, and the centrality of education—were all woven into each lesson. 

For the test, a 90+ minute, written exam, I spent two weeks preparing by reviewing with a hevruta during allotted class time and memorizing 40 pages of notes. All so that I could come up with answers that not only proved that I knew the material we’d learned, but could apply it to new, theoretical problems. The answers had to be cohesive, clear, and compelling. The amount of information and the level of critical thinking were expected, and necessary to pass. The degree of rigor together with application of knowledge and skills in real-world ways informed the assessments I created for my students years later. 

After the exam, we went back to the Gemara and finally got to the end of the section.  We also arrived at the fateful word: teiku. There was no “right” answer to the question.

I was incredulous. What do you mean teiku? How was it possible that there was no definitive resolution to this halakhic problem? With so many brilliant people spending centuries, millennia, dealing with this issue, how was it even imaginable that there was no clear answer? I felt betrayed. More than that, I was terrified, and felt like I was facing an existential crisis of faith. 

An unresolved argument is a challenging construct under the best of circumstances. The higher the stakes, and the more deeply and passionately-held the beliefs, the more difficult it is to “let it stand.” In Jewish history, Talmudic debates sometimes devolved to the point where the fabric of Jewish society almost unraveled. In one famous story (BT Bava Metzia 59b), a heavenly voice had to intervene. The disagreements between the houses of Hillel and Shammai and the academies of Israel and Babylonia fill the Talmud. Arguments and counterarguments, all based on logic, principles of Torah learning, and prooftexts fill the tractates. Sometimes there is a resolution, or at least a decision. But other times there is just a teiku, the absence of a definitive answer, while unnerving, it is actually embraced, even elevated. It’s acceptable to live with uncertainty. 

For middle and high school students however, ambiguity and multiple truths are daunting on both cognitive and emotional levels. For them, every perception, emotion, and thought is magnified and intensified. While they are forging their own identities, they are also trying to figure out where and how they fit into the “big picture” of their communities. While their critical thinking skills are emerging and developing, they may often still default to thinking in black and white, right and wrong. 

For 21st century students, these cognitive and developmental realities are further exacerbated by the social media environment in which many of them live. That world is populated by short clips, popularity contests, and algorithms. It plays on—and to—the emotion-driven, black and white thinking that typifies adolescence. It discourages nuance and multi-perspective thinking, logic, and investigating facts. In addition, it puts almost limitless information at our students’ fingertips and does a lot of the thinking for them. Making sure our students slow down and develop both the critical thinking and interpersonal skills necessary for learning (as well as life) is greater than ever. 

Setting up our classrooms and teaching our students to see, evaluate, and present different points of view, and to tolerate ambiguity has perhaps never been more important. Talmudic principles and processes can guide our teaching. Just as the Talmud makes sure to quote the speakers as they argue, we ask our students to name the speaker of an idea and address why they agree or disagree with the idea rather than with the person. We need to require that students back up opinions and arguments with logic and facts, as well as to be able to defend multiple positions. Students also need to be able to apply what they think and what they know to new scenarios. As teachers, we need to create openings in which each student’s voice, whether literal or metaphorical, is heard. And we need to find the words and the methodologies that validate and normalize uncertainty, ambiguity, and the absence of one “right” answer. 

However, my teacher didn’t take a few moments to unpack the “whys and wherefores” underlying teiku, or introduce the construct of “eilu v’eilu divrei Elokim hayim” (these are all the words of the living God). He didn’t assure us that it is not only okay to live with uncertainty, but that uncertainty is fundamental to humility and to faith in God. Had he done any one of those things, I wouldn’t have gone through so much agita, and I could have learned a life lesson as well as a Talmudic concept. For adults, the paradoxical coexistence of faith and uncertainty is navigable; for adolescents, it is almost inconceivable. 

When I began teaching, I was acutely mindful of things that had gone wrong in my own education. Many of my Jewish studies teachers were geniuses and passionate about Torah and learning, and a few were amazing role models, but they weren’t necessarily great educators. From the teiku experience and others like it, I realized that I had to make sure that students had time, information, and opportunity to process concepts that I had come to see as givens. As their teacher, I had to be mindful of the implications of Torah concepts and peel back the layers of peshat and parshanut to reveal and deal with them. 

Still, even as an adult, the concept of teiku ate at me. When it comes to halakha, Jewish law, literally “The Way,” shouldn’t there be one clear, correct way? 

No, there shouldn’t. And there isn’t. Judaism accepts and teaches that there are “70 panim laTorah,” 70 faces, pathways, or legitimate truths, to Torah. It elevates perspective-taking, logic, and multiple options to a place of sanctity. What differentiates Hillel and Shammai and all who follow their example, from Korah and his cabal, is the ultimate purpose of the debates. “Mahloket l’sheim shamayim,” argument for the sake of Heaven, means that the purpose is seeking Truth and the ultimate goals are serving God and the community, the present and the future. Respect is essential to the quest, and so is humility. Foundational to that humility is an awareness of our own limitations to know everything. When we bring all of this to our classrooms and the study of Torah, the mahloket becomes elevated, holy, and eternal. 

Decades after being in Rabbi Adler’s class, and after I had hung up my own hat as a high-school Tanakh teacher, I began to learn Gemara again. At the end of BT Horayot (14a), I found a startling and powerful anecdote. Horayot is largely concerned with what happens when leaders make mistakes ruling halakha that then cause the regular people to err. On the last page of the masekhet, there is a debate around what is more important in academic leadership—someone with a vast amount of knowledge (“Sinai”) or someone with incredibly sharp and incisive thinking (“uproots mountains”). Rav Yosef was the former and Rabbah was the latter. The ruling came that “Sinai” was more important. But Rav Yosef, out of humility, deferred to Rabbah, who became the leader of the Babylonian academy for 22 years. Only after Rabbah’s death did Rav Yosef take over. Regarding their students—the next generation—a similar, but slightly different dilemma arose: is it more important for a leader to be able to “uproot mountains” or to be more moderate and arrive at the correct conclusions? The answer, and the last word of the tractate: teiku.

After I read this story, I sat back and smiled. Hillel and Shammai; Rabbis Eliezer and Yehoshua; Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Akiva; Rabbi Yehuda haNasi and his colleagues; the Babylonia schools of learning—it had seemed like a zero-sum equation of Right and Wrong. These binaries were at odds with another pillar of Torah learning: 70 panim laTorah, and all of them can be True. In this story, the Gemara makes clear there really is no one right way, and that there are many possible approaches and answers. Each answer, and each person who espouses it, is important and has validity in its tradition and on its own. These answers, and the approaches to teaching, learning, and living, can also evolve with the generations. Eilu v’eilu divrei Elokim hayim.

Teiku had evolved for me. It became a way to bridge gaps, to validate multiple perspectives, and to embrace ambiguity and complexity. It was not a breakdown or a cop-out, it was a repair. Teiku had become tikkun. 

This article is dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Yosef Adler, zt”l. He taught me—and thousands of students—what it means to learn Torah and think at the highest levels. More than that, he taught me that when it comes to learning Torah and serving God, gender is irrelevant; only your heart, your soul, and your mind matter. He also taught me that if you don’t have self-respect and don’t love yourself, then you can’t fulfill “love your fellow as yourself,” considered a foundational mitzvah. His brilliance was only matched by his commitment to serving God and the community. May his memory continue to inspire generations, and be for a blessing.