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.
“Torah is a yerushah [an active inheritance] … It needs work on behalf of the child if it is to be passed on across the generations” (Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ Haggadah). What is the essence of the work that a child must do in order to receive Torah in the way described by Rabbi Sacks? Rabbi Sacks identifies children’s questions as a key part of the process of preparing to receive Torah. Contemporary educational research supports this idea, highlighting the multiple ways in which student question-asking is central to deeper learning.
Some years ago I distributed a page to one of my classes with pictures of various traffic signs and asked students to pick the one that best represented their current religious journey. One student’s response particularly resonated with me. She chose several speed-limit signs that were above the legal limit and then wrote: “On the road, for many, the goal is to reach your destination in the fastest, most efficient way possible. For example, learn the text in the curriculum, learn the three planned commentaries, only ask lack of comprehension questions, and move on. But what about the WHY’s, the slowing down from time to time, the reflecting, and enjoying the view?”
Netanel Burstin introduced his high school students in Zikhron Ya’akov to a photograph of the Jewish celebrations in Rome when the State of Israel was established. Although he had carefully analyzed the photograph before the lesson, a student surprised him by pointing out one detail he had neglected. Among the crowd gathering at the Arch of Titus was a woman holding a baby in the air and staring towards the camera.
What does meaning-making look like in Talmud education? Is it possible to make the text meaningful to students without sacrificing rigor and skills-based learning? How might progressive educational models enhance student appreciation of Talmud study without taking away from traditional models of study?
In my experience as a Tanakh teacher for many years in both Orthodox and community schools, I have consistently encountered consensus amongst educators that learning should be meaningful and relevant to students. This has emerged in informal faculty room discussions, almost every department meeting, and professional development sessions. Teachers I interviewed for my doctoral research expressed similar sentiments…
As an educator, I have fairly lofty goals when it comes to the takeaways I want my learners to have from our time together. When I engage in the sacred work of Jewish education, I do so with the aspiration of inspiring my learners to be intentional in the ways they make decisions, the ways they walk through the world, and the ways they interact with others. I regularly say that my greatest disappointment when it comes to my work as an educator would be if my learners left our time together feeling fully satisfied, as though there was nothing else for them to learn. Instead, I want them to be intrigued and inspired to the point that they seek out a next step—more learning, more meaning-making, anything that will keep them searching for the next piece of wisdom and understanding.
