Hebrew academic and Jewish scholar Irene Lancaster reflects on what society can learn from the Jewish approach to education and the importance of nurturing the soul.
In Judaism there’s a practice that a Jewish child’s biblical education should start with the Book of Leviticus. One reason is that just as babies are pure, so their first educational experience must be an immersion within the laws of purity.
As we enter the brand new Jewish month of Nissan, the primary of the yr leading as much as Pesach in the course of the month, we also finish the Book of Exodus and embark on the Book of Leviticus.
Nissan, which also marks springtime, is all about purification of home, body and spirit, as we renew ourselves once more by re-enacting our Exodus from Egypt and rebirth as a people within the Promised Land. Fittingly, a latest book in regards to the great Rav Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) has recently appeared and does just that.
The writer, Rabbi Dr Marc Shapiro, is the writer and has definitely opened our eyes and led us into the spiritual world of this great rabbi, who was chosen as first Chief Rabbi of Palestine under the British Mandate (1921-35).
Also fittingly for the season, the book is entitled ‘Renewing the Old Sanctifying the New: The Unique Vision of Rav Kook’. It is an element of the respected Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, published by Liverpool University Press, just down the road!
Rav Kook has been written about greater than every other rabbi lately. For, one way or the other, though born in 1865 on a mud track in a Latvian hamlet, he seems, through intuition, wide reading, or each, to have change into aware of the signs of the times and considered something of a prophet for the brand new era.
He mastered all features of Jewish learning before emigrating to Jaffa, Israel, in 1904, where he hoped to implement his latest vision for the Jewish people, and particularly within the realm of education. And he also felt that these latest insights could have appeal for the broader world.
In 1914 Rav Kook was trapped when visiting Germany on the outbreak of WWI. He took refuge in neutral Switzerland after which spent a few years in London as rabbi to the Orthodox community, where he helped to steer people to sign the petition for the implementation of the 1917 Balfour Declaration. Subsequently, he returned to Palestine as first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of the entire country under the Mandate.
In the meantime Rav Kook had learned English while strolling with a student in Regent’s Park. On encountering the works of Rembrandt in considered one of London’s art galleries, he proclaimed that Rembrandt had a ‘Jewish soul.’
He deemed exercise to be of prime importance and sought to include the most recent scientific discoveries into the Jewish curriculum, even in the event that they appeared to contradict traditional understanding of Biblical interpretations.
A Talmudic scholar himself, he nevertheless understood that not everyone seems to be cut out for one of these in-depth and infrequently rigid sort of book study.
He subsequently encouraged an academic curriculum which might put the needs of the scholar first. He saw a first-rate role for science, philosophy, and aggadah – the non-legal parts of the Talmud – in addition to what he called ‘natural morality’.
In Europe, in addition to now in Palestine, he encountered young individuals who had rejected tradition because their school curriculum had been too restricted. He was a poet and thinker for whom book knowledge was not enough. He believed that soul-searching was useful and that aspiring to succeed in G-d in quite a lot of ways was a noble enterprise and that traditional modes of Talmud study must be supplemented, on the very least.
In other words, Rav Kook’s aim was to maintain every Jewish person inside the fold, and to this end a large and even controversial school curriculum was advisable. According to his view, Judaism wasn’t simply for a small mental elite, but for everybody.
As we in our own day are beset by problems in our contemporary educational system, with unhappy and depressed teaching staff and pupils alike, and with universities in disarray, an example of how Rav Kook’s curriculum worked in practice may not go amiss.
One of the primary pupils of Rav Kook’s Merkaz Ha-Rav school in Jerusalem, arrange when he was Chief Rabbi, was the young Shear Yashuv Cohen (1927-2016). Later, young Shear Yashuv fought for the Old City of Jerusalem within the 1948 War of Independence, was imprisoned in a Jordanian PoW Camp, became Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem and at last Chief Rabbi of Haifa, where I met him and was subsequently asked to translate his 2017 biography, Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen: Between War and Peace, which I translated.
This is how he describes his school: “The Nazir [Shear Yashuv’s father] felt that the constructing of 1’s spiritual character also required the study of secular studies, in order to create the completeness that features each Torah [Jewish learning] and general education. To this end, and despite the family’s dire financial situation, he hired private teachers for the boy’s general education: grammar, languages, math and other secular subjects. When he accomplished this curriculum, the boy stood successfully for the British matriculation certificate.”
This took place within the Thirties.
Later, Shear Yashuv describes his studies at Merkaz Ha-Rav, founded by Rav Kook in line with his well-thought-out pioneering methods:
“Rabbi Charlap [a leading teacher at Merkaz and disciple of Rav Kook] used to show Gemara [Talmud] in Yiddish … In contrast, my very own studies with my father, the Nazir, were conducted only in [modern] Hebrew. This meant that in the first place I wasn’t capable of understand Rabbi Charlap’s classes. But he felt truly liable for his flock, and the little lamb mattered as much because the fully grown sheep, and so Rabbi Charlap would invite a gaggle of us into his room to listen to the lesson again, this time in [modern] Hebrew …‘On the opposite hand, Rabbi Charlap did use [modern] Hebrew to show his classes on Jewish thought. This was a most inspirational class … It would at all times open with the words, ‘’You’ve got to learn this; you’ve got to learn this!”
The classes handled the very complex contemporary topics that occupied our thoughts, similar to Faith and Science, Secular and Religious Zionism, Aloneness versus Togetherness, the Individual versus the Community, and the way we relate to what the Pesach Haggadah calls ‘the Wicked Son’”.
“I once asked Rabbi Charlap why he began his classes with the words “You’ve got to learn this!” His answer was that everyone seems to be aware of the importance of studying the legal features of Judaism, present in the Gemara and the Halakha [Jewish law], but he wanted everyone to appreciate that the non-legal aggadic texts are also essential learning. For if Halakha may be in comparison with the body of Torah teaching, then aggadah should be in comparison with the soul of Torah, and we mustn’t ever surrender on the soul.”
This excerpt summarizes the implementation of Rav Kook’s educational goals through the first years during which his Jerusalem school was in operation. Marc Shapiro’s latest book on Rav Kook’s progressive approach is as relevant today because it was then.
If education is to encompass the entire person, then the soul must indeed be nurtured. This is completed by the study of recent, spoken languages, music and art, in addition to sport. On the opposite hand, the novelties of science must even be tackled head-on.
Reading Dr Shapiro’s marvellous latest book, so fitting for the start of Nissan, I even have little question that religious practitioners can be much encouraged to take care of the neo-atheists who mock biblical teachings, and can be higher able to have interaction them positively in debate, using the insights of Rav Kook.
If individuals who espouse a non secular tradition remain open and are equipped with the tools to avoid being on the defensive, who knows what miracles might occur, with the much-needed revitalization of the West’s contemporary life, during which religion would play its proper part.
I highly recommend this book for Jewish and Christian readers alike. There is way to learn, much to astonish, much to enjoy, and far to share.
