Concluding Thoughts: The Goal of Learning is Learning

As Barry Holtz illustrates in our leading article, Jewish education is at a turning point. For decades, we have looked to Jewish education as the means of achieving the ends of preventing intermarriage and assimilation. Now that this (for good reasons) seems to be at an end, what are the outcomes of Jewish education? The various authors propose alternatives—old, new, and renewed—which include knowledge and skills; access to Jewish wisdom, beliefs, and commitment; and thriving as human beings.

Each author makes a convincing case for their preference, yet I propose that these are actually not alternatives. Rather, they are essential threads of what could and should be a rich and robust tapestry of learning. To use another analogy, in Jewish education, we tend to be like the blind men exploring different parts of that proverbial elephant and proclaiming our part as the whole. Instead, I propose that we look at the whole elephant in the room, another proverbial elephant we know has always been there but we try not to talk about—that there is no more worthy goal of Jewish learning than (more and better) Jewish learning.

To build toward this claim, I offer as conceptual building blocks three insights gleaned from the various articles in this issue. By weaving together the viewpoints of the various authors, I hope to make visible the whole, and perhaps disquieting, elephant that is Jewish education, whose means is its own end.

Insight 1: Jewish education is a dialogue between text and experience.

Bryfman argues against Holtz’s seeming privileging of knowledge and skills. He states “Jewish education must stop defaulting to literacy over values, texts over ethics, and the past over the present and future.” On the p’shat (literal reading) of this statement, I fully agree. I have been in numerous conversations that echo Bryfman’s enviable desire, where it is simply assumed that we know precisely what the Jewish values or ethics we would teach are. Yet I have come to wonder, how do we come to understand what is a Jewish value except through text study?

One example from my teacher, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg: b’tzelem elokim (being created in the image of God). It has rightfully come to be seen as a core Jewish value. Yet, what does it mean for all of us to be created in the image of God? What does this imply for how we act toward one another?

The first question can only be answered if we look to our sacred texts. The texts that define the meaning of b’tzelem elokim come from the Talmud (Sandhedrin 37a), where we learn that all humans are:

Of Infinite Value: “Therefore, the first human being, Adam, was created alone, to teach us that whoever destroys a single life, the Torah considers it as if he destroyed an entire world.”

Equal: “Furthermore, only one person, Adam, was created for the sake of peace among men, so that no one should say to his fellow, ‘My father was greater than yours…’”

Unique: “Also man [was created singly] to show the greatness of the Holy One, Blessed be He, for if a man strikes many coins from one mold, they all resemble one another, but the King of Kings, the Holy One, Blessed be He made each man in the image of Adam, and yet none of them resemble his fellow.”

The second question (What does this imply for how we act toward one another?) can only be answered if we engage in a dialogue between text and our contemporary experiences, particularly reflecting upon our efforts to live according to this value. We bring the texts to life by filling in the spaces with our own experience, and we give meaning to our lives by interpreting our experiences through the stories, metaphors, and tropes of Jewish text. Orlow, quoting Rosenzweig, echoes this, “It is learning in reverse order, a learning that no longer starts from the Torah and leads into life, but the other way around: from life . . . back to the Torah.” That it must begin this way today may well be true, but regardless of where the conversation starts, it seeks to become a true dialogue.

Insight 2: Jewish education fosters ethical relations among learners.

Edelsberg finds the relevance of Jewish education today in providing “inventive, easily accessible ways for individuals to mine Judaism’s rich treasure of wisdom for purposes of meaning making and living authentically in a complex, dynamic society.” Despite the use of the word “individuals” here, he sees learning not as an individual pursuit, but as a relationship among Jews. “[L]earning for its own sake in the 21st century, given the pervasive presence of networks, will ineluctably become learning done in relationships learners have with others.”

This bodes an important question: what are the values of those relationships among learners that promote rich and generative learning?

Sterne offers a stimulating analogy:

To make a comparison to other areas of our lives where knowledge plays a critical role, let’s think about our relationships with other people and, in particular, with falling in love. When we first meet another person—while the relationship is still superficial—we have a general sense of liking the other and wanting to spend time with him/her. But, the only way for that relationship to become truly sustainable and long-term is to really develop a deep knowledge of the other.

Like falling in love, learning demands not only a dialogue between text and (individual) experience, but also between learners where they come to deeply understand and value one another. Like Martin Buber’s concept of I-Thou, learners, including the teacher, must encounter one another, as well as the text, with openness and a valuing of the other as an end in itself, not merely as a means to my own ends.

To flip Bryfman’s initial premise on its head, good learning presupposes shared values. To engage in the dialogue of meaningful and lifelong Jewish learning, one needs to learn and commit to certain values and competencies. What may those be? Certainly, these include an ability to deeply listen and appreciate the other’s perspective, to value and engage in critical inquiry and conversation, to be open about one’s life, to care about what the text actually says, and to trust one other and the educational process.

While sharing with Edelsberg’s appreciation for Paula Hyman’s assertion, that “the legacy of our generation may well be a postmodern hermeneutics of suspicion and a recognition that a diverse people requires cultural diversity,” this cannot be all. We need to hold to a “hermeneutics of hope,” as well, in which these values that we learn in havruta (partner study) and as members of a learning community become a source of wisdom and emulation in all parts of our lives.

Insight 3: Through Jewish education, we narrate what it means to be Jewish today.

Bryfman asserts that Jewish education “must be focused on making a positive difference in the lives of Jews today. This is foundationally different to Jewish education that has traditionally seen its purpose as making people more Jewish, allowing Jewish institutions to prosper, and making the Jewish community stronger.”

While sharing his sentiments here, I must disagree with his following statement: “Instead, the significant outcome that Jewish education and engagement should be tackling is that Jewish educational experiences enable people to thrive as human beings in the world today—as human beings, in their various communities, and in the world at large.”

There is no such thing as thriving as a human being in general, rather we thrive in the particularities of our identities (how we identify as a particular gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or nationality). Thus, Jewish education should help us thrive as Jewish human beings living in America today.

Moreover, the idea that there are uniquely Jewish values (that help us thrive as humans) is erroneous. There are only the unique Jewish stories through which we understand and talk about our values and the unique Jewish practices through which we express those values. To thrive as a Jewish human being involves learning those stories, as we discussed above, and learning our customs and mitzvot.

It is also useful to treat our customs and mitzvot as lived texts. Looking at the past, they are literally the cultural record of Jewish life. Looking forward as learners, we would seek to read them more intimately through experiencing them and reflecting upon that experience with other learners. As Torah says, “We will do and we will understand.” Then, as with traditional text, we reinterpret them in ways that enable these practices to become more meaningful to us and richer vehicles for thriving in today’s world.

By engaging with others in this dialogical and ethical (educational) relationship with Jewish practice as text, we are developing shared understandings and meanings. We are, in essence, narrating what it means to be Jewish in today’s world. And, in so doing, we are (re)interpreting and (re)forming our identities as Jews. Kardos observes that “Educational experiences are always teaching students beliefs and commitments—beliefs about who one is and is not, where one belongs and does not, and what is and is not valued.” She proclaims, “Developing beliefs is a basic feature of what our minds do, and students are creating the building blocks of what will become their personal identity.”

CONCLUSION: THE GOAL OF JEWISH LEARNING IS (BETTER AND MORE) JEWISH LEARNING.

Holtz focuses on knowledge and skills as the outcomes of Jewish learning because these competencies and dispositions will provide Jews with access to “a religion and Jewish culture in its broadest sense [that] offers a tradition of wisdom and practice that can make a difference in an individual’s life and in bettering the state of the world.” It begins by Jewish learning modeling ethical ways of being in the world.

To quote from Talmud (Kiddushin 40b), “Rabbi Tarphon and some elders asked: Which is greater, study or action? Rabbi Tarphon spoke up and said: Action is greater. Rabbi Akiva spoke up and said: Study is greater.
The others then spoke up and said: Study is greater because it leads to action.”

Jewish education can nurture strong Jewish identities. Jewish education can enable us to better thrive in the world and to act in ways that make the world a better place. But, the ways in which we will choose to act in the world, to thrive, and to define our identity as Jews, are open-ended. They cannot be predetermined prior to the educational process. As Paula Hyman also asserted in the same article that Edelsberg references, the answer to the question of “Who [or what] is an educated Jew?” if posed “in 1750, in say Poland, would have been obvious.”

Today, that is no longer true. We are in a continual process of redefining what it means to be Jewish. We can only hope that Jews will redefine their Jewish identity based on profound experiences of Jewish learning. As educators, educational funders, and those who care deeply about the Jewish future, we cannot set forth outcomes that lie external to the process of education. We can only hope and work to ensure that generations of Jews to come will have a desire for, the competencies to engage in, and a commitment to the values that underlie lifelong Jewish learning with other Jews.

Katzman and Abramson capture this perfectly in their question: “[H]ow do we foster students’ desire to be part of the ongoing Jewish conversation and feel competent and motivated as Jewish citizens, kids who intentionally put themselves in the conversation long after they leave our classrooms? We do this by having the educational experience be a model of citizenry and ongoing Jewish conversation. The end is embedded in the means. Or as Dewey argues even more poignantly, “Cease conceiving of education as mere preparation for later life, and make it the full meaning of the present life.”

Dr. Bill Robinsion is dean of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education of The Jewish Theological Seminary.