There are those who view meaning-making as fluffy or non-substantive. Truthfully, sometimes it is. One can make meaning out of anything; we are a species that thinks symbolically. We infuse meaning into all sorts of things that intrinsically may have no meaning at all. At the same time, once we imbue an item with meaning, such as a stuffed animal, family heirloom, or a flag, we treat that item as something special and distinct from all else around it because it brings us comfort, connection, and substance.

I do not think a Jewish studies teacher, in the 75+ year history of Jewish day school education, has ever said to themselves, “I don’t want my students’ learning to be meaningful to them today.” By implication, on some level, every Jewish studies teacher, every time they walk into their classroom has, at least implicitly, the intention that their teaching be meaningful to their students.

Growing up in the late sixties and early seventies, the world in which I lived was suffused with the search for meaning. An entire generation refused to accept that things were right because they had always been done a certain way, insisting instead that things be done because they were the right things to do. Rabbis and Jewish educators who couldn’t shift from the language of obligation to the language of meaning found themselves facing a generation of young Jews fleeing from religion or flocking to alternate ones.

If I were to ask any parent or Judaic studies teacher in my school what is their ultimate goal for students’ Torah learning, I would likely hear something like this: We want students to find Torah learning meaningful, to feel an emotional, personal connection with God and His Torah that engenders a lifelong commitment to studying Torah and adherence to mitzvot.

The premise of “making” meaning in Jewish education sounds somewhat heretical, code for the claim that learning Torah faces an intrinsic handicap: “The words of the Torah,” goes the argument, “may be weighty, but they’re not quite so…relevant. Learning, analyzing, and assessing exercises the brain, but ignores or stultifies the soul. And it’s a real shame, because learning Torah is so important. If only it were more meaningful…”

JournalCreditsView or Print Full Journal in PDFThe arguments have been made through the ages, often with refrains such as: “Why do we need to learn this?” “I'm never going to use this when I grow up so why do I need to remember it?” And “Will this be on the test?”...

It is well known that the young mind is especially attuned to absorbing copious amounts of knowledge and learning skills that will last a lifetime. Skills like riding a bicycle or swimming are not readily forgotten. Furthermore, if a child is receptive, they will learn skills like playing the piano much more readily than an adult and will be likely to retain those skills well into adulthood. Rashi, in a comment on Talmud Bavli Shabbat 21b, identifies this as girsa de-yankuta.

Viktor Frankl, the renowned psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, founded the logotherapy school of psychotherapy which suggests that a search for a life of meaning is the central human motivational force. Meaning-making is the process by which people interpret and find meaning in situations, events, and experiences in their lives, as well as in relationships and in their own sense of self. The pursuit of meaning is the most human of quests.

When my eldest child was in kindergarten, his teacher asked the class what seemed like a question with an obvious answer based on a chart that was hanging on the wall of the classroom. Most people who thought about the question would have answered in a very specific way. But my son gave a different answer. The teacher was confused by the answer since she clearly had something else in mind. However, instead of jumping in and saying that he was wrong, she took a moment to take a closer look at the chart and realized that his answer was in fact correct if you looked at things from a different perspective.

“Why are we learning this?” At times, this is a most invigorating question. What is more energizing than an invitation from an inquisitive student to passionately articulate the compelling reasons we are studying a particular text or idea? At other times, however, the same question from the same student brings a pit of anxiety to my stomach. In the second scenario, I do not have compelling reasons to passionately articulate. Responding, “Because I taught it last year and already have a worksheet on this,” or “Because it’s the next sugya/chapter,” will not satisfy students and should not satisfy educators.