Timeless Torah

The first two paragraphs of the Shema outline a program of Jewish faith. A careful reading of both sections however reveals different visions of what constitutes belief. The first parsha sets forth an operative code of behavior. “You will love G-d with all your heart...all your soul...all your might.” No reasons are given, and no promises of recompense or retribution are made. In philosophical parlance, such a commandment is referred to as categorical.
The second paragraph also mentions the love of G-d, but allows itself to be strengthened by reason as well as sanctions. The very first word, “If you will listen,” indicates the possibility of alternative choices. Another important distinction is that the acceptance of these mitzvot is delivered as a business transaction. “If you listen...I will give rain....take care, lest your heart be deceived...and He will close the heavens and there will be no rain.”
While the commentaries struggle to reconcile these two different approaches, one crucial stratagem to continued Jewish faith is placed at the very heart of both passages, education: Teach your children...when you sit at home...when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
Herein lies the secret of Jewish survival. As everyone is aware, minorities are not supposed to survive. First they integrate, then assimilate, and finally disappear. Yet in defiance of all known history, Jews kept their identity intact for almost 20 centuries of exile because they built schools. Rather than look back to a vanished past, they looked to the future. When a nation’s highest priority is educating the next generation, it does not grow old.
It was not until 1870 that Britain, (at that time the world’s most advanced and prosperous country) introduced universal education. Jews had done so eighteen centuries before. As the 1st century historian Josephus testifies, “Should any one of our nation be asked about our laws, he will repeat them as readily as his own name. The result of our education in our laws from the very dawn of intelligence is that they are engraved on our souls. Hence to break them is rare, and no one can evade punishment by the excuse of ignorance.”
Even in the bleakest moments of Jewish history, Jewish communities kept the beacon of education burning. One particularly poignant testimony will make our point. By the fifteenth century, Spanish Jewry had long passed its golden age. The Spanish equivalent of Kristallnacht, synagogues set on fire, Jewish businesses looted and Jews killed, took place in 1391. From then until their expulsion in 1492, Jews lived under the shadow of persecution. Their civil rights were curtailed, many of them became victims of the Inquisition, and even greater numbers “officially” converted to Christianity.
At the height of this crisis, a gathering of Jews was convened at Valladolid in 1432. It ordained a series of taxes on meat, wine, weddings and circumcisions, to raise funds for public education: “We also ordain that every community of 15 householders (or more) be obliged to maintain a qualified elementary teacher to instruct their children in Scripture. They shall provide him with sufficient income...Parents shall be obliged to send their children to that teacher...each shall pay him in accordance with his means. If this revenue from the parents should prove inadequate, the community shall be obliged to supplement it.”
Until modern times, there was no parallel to this Jewish insistence on education as a child’s fundamental right. In truth, this love of teaching was not a Talmudic innovation. It goes back to the dawn of Jewish time. As G-d says of Abraham, “I have chosen him because he will instruct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord.” In other words, Abraham was chosen not only to be a father, but a teacher as well.
Where did it come from, this passion for learning and teaching, education and literacy? One suggestion places Judaism being born at the same time and place as the invention of the alphabet (the first alphabet in history was the ancient Semitic script: alphabet comes from the two Hebrew letters, aleph, bet). This made universal literacy possible for the first time. This proposal however forgets the Midrash that explains how the Hebrew alphabet precedes Creation. Indeed it is the basis for Creation.
Another idea: The Jewish belief, revolutionary in its time, is the equal dignity of every person under the sovereignty of G-d. Throughout history, many attempted to create an egalitarian society. Some focused on equality of income (communism); others on equality of power (democracy). Judaism concentrated on something else altogether: equal access to education. Knowledge is fundamental to human dignity, and a society that cares for the latter must make the former available to all.
The most compelling reason is that Judaism is an inter-generational covenant. The radical vision of the Torah could not be implemented overnight, not even in the course of a single generation. Even forty centuries later, we are awaiting its full realization. That is why Moses was so insistent that we hand our ideas and ideals across the ages. What we cannot yet achieve, our grandchildren may be able to. Education is the conversation across the generations, and no civilization has cherished it more than Judaism.
Unfortunately, it only requires one generation of Jewish mothers and fathers to fail for the great chain of learning and wisdom to snap. So let’s not disappoint our former teachers, Abraham and Moses. More importantly, let’s not disappoint our children. Our people’s future depends on it.