Teaching <i>Tanach</i> To Today's Students , Barry Verstaendig

From time to time I read various polemical articles concerning the problems with Jewish education in today's school system. These are usually written by educators or those aspiring to be educators, though some are vastly more qualified than others. Some of them argue that traditional methods of studying texts need to be taught more vigorously, while others insist that newer approaches need to be taken.

I am no teacher, but from talking to youngsters in religious elementary and high schools it seems to me the problem across the board isn't the specific structure in which Jewish texts are taught or the methods of analysis used to explore them, but rather the way their very essence is presented.

Take Tanach, for example. What is Tanach? Rashi's first comment on the Torah makes it clear that it is not meant to be a mere history book. It is not, however, just a book of laws either, as a cursory reading of that particular Rashi might lead us to believe. It contains much more than that.

And yet it seems that teachers who opt for the more traditional teaching approach view Tanach as a compilation of statements and commentaries on those statements that must be memorized for the purpose of testing.

At the other end of the spectrum, teachers who opt for more modern approaches - including many in my age range who study in seminaries with impressive names and supplement the lessons they learn there with courses (and, in some cases, degrees) from impressive-sounding universities - Tanach is fodder for intellectual games in which its beautiful prose and poetry are cut apart and put back together again to prove a trivial case.

Not too long ago I was invited by friends for a Shabbos meal attended by several teachers in religious schools - or what I thought were religious schools. During the course of the meal I heard the terms "chiastic structure," "criticism," "analysis" and other words not ordinarily used in everyday speech. In fact, I heard them so often I felt dizzy by the time I left.

Neither group transmits to students the simple reality of what Tanach is: the Living Word of the Living God, who revealed it to us in order to teach us about ourselves and the best way to live our lives.

Today's teachers fail to teach Tanach in a way that encourages students to apply its lessons and insights to their own lives. Instead, students are taught to memorize what others read into its words. But even these lessons tend to lose all relevance for students when conveyed in a narrowly rigid manner.

When teaching the story of Gan Eden, for example, students are virtually never asked to really think about the story and answer questions like the following:

Why did Adam and Eve disobey Hashem's command? Why were they tempted to do so? Have you ever been in a similar circumstance? What is the relationship between that story to the story about Cain and Abel that follows it? What does it teach us about the nature of people?

Why would people trade eternal life for knowledge? What is immortality? Are Adam and Eve immortal in the sense that everyone remembers them, even though they died? Are they immortal because they have over six billion descendants running around the world today? Are their descendants repeating their mistakes or rectifying them? What can we do to rectify them?

What is the existential human condition? What is human destiny? How do the commentaries on the story reveal their perspectives on these issues?

These questions cannot be found in books. They, and their answers, must be generated from the minds of students engaged in vigorous discussion and guided by teachers who are God-fearing and whose experience with life amounts to more than one or two years of post-high school education.

Unfortunately, teachers often don't have this maturity (and in too many cases their higher education consists of a few years in a seminary that is more like a continuation of high school). Thus, students can't help but view Gan Eden as a quasi-mythological place that only two people ever saw, and that the events in the story surrounding it occurred so many years ago that they have no way of being replicated today. In short, students are taught to think of the story as having no relevance to anything in today's world.

(There are, of course, teachers who approach their task with a considerably greater degree of sophistication, but more often than not they utilize methods of "analysis" that "our forebears did not know" and that are, to paraphrase Rava's words in Bava Basra (111b), like "a sharp knife that chops up the text." These teachers often ask their students to compare Tanach with other tales of antiquity such as the Epic of Gilgamesh.)

Tanach needs to be presented to students in a way that will enable them to understand the relevance it has to their lives - a way that will whet their appetites to study it further. Ideally, this should be done by posing questions designed to stimulate discussion and instill a desire to understand how the classic commentators - scholars whose depth of knowledge we cannot even begin to fathom - dealt with these very problems.

But the main idea must be to encourage students to think about the foundational literature of the Jewish nation rather than simply recite back by rote the teacher's lessons.

Barry Verstaendig is an engineer who currently lives and works in Israel.

Read Comments (3)

Re: Tanach Study
Date 11:02, 02-28, 09

Mr. Barry Verstaendig expresses concern about Tanach study in our schools. He favors instruction which calls attention to "the relevance it has" to students.

In his critique of current teaching methods, he writes that inappropriate emphasis is placed on rote memorization in accordance with a rigid curriculum which does not promote comprehension of the deep meaning of scripture together with the profundity of the classical commentators. In general, I would agree with the aforementioned critique. (I would add, however, that memorization is useful when properly applied to the learning process. In fact, many students derive great pleasure when they can quote classical aphorisms. Mastery of basic facts actually enhances understanding.)

The writer is, however, mistaken about the role of analysis in the learning process, which, inexplicably, he
denounces, asserting that teachers "more often than not utilize methods of 'analysis that our forebears did not know' and... to paraphrase Rava's words in Bava Basra 111b,
'like a sharp knife that chops up the text." The writer misunderstands Rava---the talmudic authority he cites. Rava is not against analysis. Indeed, he himself engages in very sharp analysis in the talmudic selection under discussion.
(His statement about "chopping up the text" is directed at his colleague Abaye. Rava disagrees with Abaye's exegesis.
Study the shaklah veh taryeh more carefully.)

Rava really encourages us to analyze Torah---see BT Berachos 63b.

This is a subject that warrants much study. In all such discussions, we should be guided by Proverbs 22:6:

"Educate a youth in accordance with his way..."
(My own translation. Pursuant to the classical commentaries,
King Solomon teaches here that teachers have to make learning meaningful by teaching in a way that is suitable for the individual student---for sure, no easy task.)
For some students, critical analysis is helpful; for others
it is tedious. As Rambam teaches, a proper balance is necessary.

One final note: It seems to me that the study of Tanach should be conducted more vigorously in our boys' yeshivas. (In my opinion, in some institutions it is neglected.) May Hashem bless Klal Yisroel by virtue of our sincere efforts to learn the holy Torah! Rabbi Chaim Silver

Engineers' Shabbat Lunch
Date 10:03, 03-2, 09

I agree that Tanach is not just a subject for rote memorization. But I am surprised at the knee-jerk rejection of modern study methods displayed in this article. Those methods are what can help students answer the very questions (the good ones, anyway) that the writer raises.

As far as "chadashim mikarov ba'u" goes, the writer seems oblivious to the fact that the approach of some rishonim (even Rashi!) was new in their day, as well. On the flip side, Chazal show their awareness of many of the techniques of Tanach observed by modern scholars. Perhaps some of those teachers he had lunch with could enlighten him.

Which brings me to my main point. If I had lunch on shabbat with a group of engineering professors who threw around terms like "physics" or "caboose" or whatever, I might not enjoy it, either. But I wouldn't turn around and write an op-ed about how engineering should be taught in engineering school.

Aryeh Wiener

Tibet and Palestine?
Date 02:04, 04-23, 09

Dear Mr. Verstaendig,

Upon reading your New York Times reader's comment on April 23, 2009, I find it an uncomfortable fact that you were distorting basic historical facts about Tibet by stating Tibet was "brutally occupied by Chinese forces" and constantly comparing it to Israeli occupation of Palestine. Such an error seems very, very misleading to NY Times readers.

To put historical facts straight, the time Tibet was formally annexed into China was in 1727, when China's Yongzheng Emperor of the last Qing Dynasty established the post of Minister for Tibetan Affairs in Lhasa for formal rule. Other historians argue the formal annexation could be traced back to 1306, when Tibet was first ruled from Beijing. Actually, either way, the name "Dalai Lama" was originally given by the Chinese Emperor through a court decree. If you call this "occupation", can you call Australia, a land of natives, or America, a land of Indians, is brutally occupied by whites?

In 1911, when the Qing Dynasty was overthrown by the Republic of China, Tibet declared independence just like every other province of China, but neither the Chinese government in Nanking nor Washington or London recognized it. When the Communists came to power, Mao decided to reclaim Tibet and sent troops in. You should avoid making Western readers conclude China suddenly occupied/"annexed" Tibet as Israel did to Palestine, or risks misleading readers on Tibet the same way most Western media typically do.

These are all verifiable historical facts that can be crosschecked from Western sources. Every official World Map by the US & British authorities before the Communist takeover of China included Tibet as part of China, which you can consult in New York Public Libraries or easily find in any history website. I would appreciate it if you could set the facts straight.

However, your article proved one point right: there are aspects we Chinese find hard to accept in terms of Western criticism, which culminated in the public outrage over Western coverage of the recent Tibetan turmoil. Since the Tibet issue is over-simplified in most Western press, they tend to neglect the long shared history between Han China and Tibet under successive dynasties (Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties for over 600 years) or trust only the one-sided and notorious politically-charged accusations from the exiled Tibetan side. To a China whose modern history was marked by foreign humiliation and loss of one territory after another to foreign hands under a weak government, most Chinese find it unacceptable to act weakly on Tibet, and especially when there is a genuine US-backed , CIA-involved conspiracy to support Tibetan independence(see ???).

To be frank, Tibet can be the largest myth in Westerners and news coverage, so much so that you may be astonished if you probe gradually into the full complexities of this relationship.

Best.

Champson