Timeless Torah

A commitment to education stems from the recognition that perfection of self is insufficient. For the Jew, this means enlightening other Jews with the divine wisdom of Torah and prevailing upon him to implement its precepts in his daily life. On three separate occasions, the Torah emphasizes that, “The great are to be charged regarding the small” obligating the older generation to pass on their knowledge and experience.

It is noteworthy that these three particular mitzvot exemplify areas in which we tend to doubt our ability to influence. Indeed, this is why the Torah chooses them as the contexts in which to establish the responsibility of education. The first time we are enjoined to teach the small is by the commandment, “Just be strong, not to eat blood.” Indeed, the Bible repeatedly warns, in the strongest language, against the consumption of blood. Why, asks the Midrash, is the Torah so emphatic? Back then, explains Rabbi Judah, they were fairly wallowing in blood. Blood was the coca-cola of that time. It took a lot of berating and coaxing to wean the people of Israel from the prevailing passion for blood.

Today, the lust for blood, at least in the gastronomic sense, has somewhat abated. Yet blood remains a byword for passionate craving. “Hot blood” or “young blood” is our forgiving explanation for a host of iniquitous indulgences. Many an educator is cautioned; “Stay away from the blood. Don’t tell people that they can’t have what they want. It’s an immediate turn-off. Talk about the nice mitzvot, the ones that make people feel good inside: charity, Chanukah candles, matzah on the seder night, and so on.”

But it is precisely regarding a mitzvah forbidding a most desirable indulgence, a “blood prohibition,” if you will, that the Torah speaks of the need to prevail upon others. We can teach man - because he is not an animal - and with proper education, he will accept the divinely mandated moral curbs on his desires.

The second time that we are reminded of our teaching responsibility is in dealing with whom to talk to, rather than what to talk about. What about the fellow whose shortcomings are due to plain evil and who sins out of sheer spite? Trying to educate him is futile, says conventional wisdom. Yet the Torah declares our educational obligation when speaking of the prohibition against eating vermin. Now who would eat a flea or a cockroach? Only a person who transgresses the divine will out of spite, says the Talmud. The Torah, then, sees the need and duty of education even in regard to the most disgusting sin and the most vindictive sinner.

The third context in which the Torah chooses to reiterate the imperative to educate are the laws of holiness that a kohen’s spiritual station demands of him. These laws of ritual purity figure among the Torah’s supra-rational statutes. Here, too, the educator is likely to be intimidated. “I’d best stick with the rational ones,” he might think, “The mitzvot with a clear social function. How can I expect someone to accept ideas that he finds dogmatic and irrational?”

Hence the Torah commands: “Do not shy away from the supra-rational.” Indeed, even in teaching the most rational mitzvah, you must emphasize that by definition, every expressions of divine will is beyond the scope of human reason. It is only that G-d chose to clothe certain mitzvot in garments of logic, making them more palpable to our reasoning selves.

The laws regarding the ritual purity of the Kohanim exemplify another problematic area for many a Jewish educator: the chosen-ness of the people of Israel. For in truth, the priest’s station in the Jewish community mirrors that of the Jew vis-a-vis the rest of humanity. Does not our Torah state that have been chosen as His, “kingdom of priests?”

Jewish education concerns itself with all areas of life, including those topics we wish to avoid, like our deepest desires, base evil and innate holiness. No subject is taboo for Torah encompasses all.