By: Yossi Prager
An article in the latest issue of RAVSAK’s HaYidion makes an interesting case for studying Jewish law, which can be framed more generally as a case for day school education. The article, co-authored by Michael Broyde and Ira Bedzow, expands on an ELI Talk given by Rabbi Broyde at the 2012 North American Jewish Day School Conference.
The gist of the Broyde/Bedzow argument is that the study of Talmud and halacha teaches legal thinking, an approach to navigating the world which, they argue, has profound benefits for students’ personal and professional development. In the real world, there is rarely one correct answer to questions. As the authors note, “More often than not, decisions are the result of nuance and the negotiating between opposing, or even contradictory, views.” The ability to accept ambiguity, hold on to opposing views, and find the path to cooperation is a life skill that students can learn from studying Talmud and halacha.
The authors go a bit further and argue that it is beneficial to the development of legal thinking that many of the topics studied in the Talmud “are irrelevant today.” As they say, “By teaching subjects with only theoretical interest and not practical consequences, students become interested in the thinking process itself and not with how the process ultimately tells them what to do.” While I find this, too, to be an interesting argument, I would not so readily concede that the topics studied in the Talmud are irrelevant to modern life. Most obviously, Talmudic law has relevance to our performance of Jewish rituals. Equally importantly, however, Jewish law reflects, expresses and teaches Jewish values.
As I wrote in an earlier blog post responding to Thomas Jefferson’s misunderstanding of Judaism:
When pure principles conflict, how can we know which choice is the ethical one? Here are some principles: feed the hungry, tell the truth, protect other people’s livelihoods, don’t steal. But what about the following cases: Who gets priority if there are two equally needy people, and I have enough bread only for one? If the truth will hurt someone, is the lie a better choice? If the one school teacher in town is mediocre, and a better teacher opens a school, should we nonetheless protect the livelihood of the first? May I steal something inexpensive to save property of mine that is more valuable, if I plan to repay the loss?
In these cases…what’s needed is a resolution of conflicting ethical principles – what in modern parlance we call law. The answers to all of the above moral quandaries are addressed in Talmudic literature.
I believe that these kinds of questions have great relevance to students’ lives, and I agree with Broyde and Bedzow that the method of analyzing the questions and sorting through the opinions provides benefits far broader than the knowledge of Jewish law and values.
Of course, engaging in Jewish legal thinking requires mastering a new vocabulary and analytical style. (I remember my first week at Yale Law School, when we were asked to study and report on one of the first rulings by the United States Supreme Court. Learning any legal system requires mastering a new vocabulary, even if the language involved is English.) But once learned, Jewish students have gained a life skill that most Americans learn only if and when they go to law school.
For Jewish educators, the study of Talmud stands on its own merit. But as a marketing tool for Jewish education, the approach offered by Broyde and Bedzow represents a way of thinking that could perhaps be expanded to other areas of Jewish study. One of AVI CHAI’s Trustees, Ruth Wisse, has written about the broader benefits of learning Hebrew language, an argument we will share in a future post.
Yossi Prager is Executive Director – North America of The AVI CHAI Foundation.
AVI CHAI concluded its general grant making on December 31, 2019.