Chapter Nineteen Education and the Study of the Torah

The main component of Jewish education in the first century c.E. is the study of the Torah. In order to understand education we must first see what place the Torah occupied in the life and thought of the Jewish people. The nation's return to the God of Israel after the Babylonian captivity was expressed principally by its acceptance of the Law of Moses as the Law of God. In the course of the Second Temple period different sects and movements came into being, which developed their own ways of interpretation of the written and oral Law, but they all accepted the Torah as the fundamental law of existence and as teacher and guide of the Jewish nation for all times. The Torah was the basis of the entire social and legal system and of the way of life of the community and of the individual. The Torah established a man's place within the nation and the nation's place among the other nations; it established the rules for every-day life and provided the ideals to strive after. The study of the Torah, however, was not only done to learn proper conduct and action; it was also an act of worship, which brought the student closer to God. The study of the Torah was a holy duty, the fulfilment of which became a religious experience. It was cultivated in public worship in the synagogue (in the readings from the Torah on sabbaths, mondays, thursdays and during the festivals). and in the Temple, at all public meetings and in individual and group study. Almost all the literature from the Second Temple period manifests this religious aim o~ Torah study. This is most powerfully expxessed in Psalm ng, which is a paean to the Torah. All stages of education are centred around the study of the Torah. Even the initial learning of the letters of the alphabet was understood as a religious act, as was children's further study. This is the background of the wellknown sayings: 'Schoolchildren may not be made to neglect their studies even for the building of the Temple' and 'The world endures only for the sake of the breath of schoolchildren.'1 ;Though these statements

1 T. B. Shabbath 119b. 945 EDUCATION AND THE STUDY OF THE TORAH are from a later date (about the third century), they admirably express the atmosphere and views which prevailed earlier as well.

The duty of education and the establishment of schools The national assemblies in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah were definitely orientated to public instruction: 'And he read from it from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the Law' (Neh. 8:3). During the Second Temple period and even more after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 c.E. the entire Jewish community, from its public institutions to the individual families, developed into an education-centred society, which paid particular attention to the education of children. An illustration of this is found in the Passover seder, in which questions for the children are incorporated into the service to encourage their interest and participation. It states that 'Here the son asks his father and if the son lacks intelligence, his father instructs him.'1 Numerous laws were enacted and formulated so that 'the children ... should be educated ... so that they will be familiar with the commandments.'2 We are ignorant of the way of life among the Sadducaeans, but this characteristic is conspicuous among the Pharisees and it also emerges from the various descriptions of the Essene way of life and especially from the Dead Sea scrolls. Torah study was not confined to the legal experts and the pliests, but became a general community matter. Everyone who had gained a knowledge of the Torah was obliged to teach others, and he who studied Torah and did not teach it 'hath despised the W md of the Lord' (N urn. 15:31).3 After the Bar Cochba revolt when a Roman decree demanded apostasy, the sages met and announced: 'Everyone who has studied shall come and teach, and everyone who has not studied shall come and learn.'4 As early- as the first century c.E. and perhaps even earlier, the majority of the children received education at school. A baraita from the end of the first century counted the school among the institutions which a town is obliged to maintain. 6 When talmudic tradition described the

1 M. Pesahim 10:4 and the Haggadah of Passover. 2 M. Yoma 8:4. sT. B. Sanhedrin 99a. 4 Canticles Rabba 2. 5 T. B. Sanhedrin 17b.