Professionals and business people the opportunity to acquire true learning skills and master the technology of Talmudic learning. We need to develop new world-views and imbibe Torah thought and values into the very core of their identities.
The disruption of educational methodology
Educational method has been disrupted. The way we learn will in the future will not be a linear continuation from the past. The quick, free and global diffusion of information that the Internet provides has revolutionized how young people learn.
Students, accessing information on line, no longer need teachers for this. Models like the Flipped Classroom and The Khan Academyrecognize that education needs reinvention. But we don't always have to reinvent in order to plot a more relevant future. Sometimes we can rediscover. Sometimes by going back to the genesis of an idea we can discover the code that maps out its future just as a particle of a newborn baby's DNA informs the child's development. To discover the Torah's model of education, a model that is modern and relevant now more than ever, we need to go back to the very genesis of Jewish education.
Avraham was the genesis of Jewish learning. Although Adam also had access to knowledge, he was born with knowledge and transmitted it as information. Avraham, on the other hand, innovated. He discovered knowledge that was not given to him and to which no one else in his time had access. He innovatively articulated it and packaged it into a livable formula that he taught to his disciples (The meaning of vayishmor mishmarti - see Bereishis Rabba 95:3). He gave his method, the 'technology' of chidush (innovation), over to his son who in turn taught it to Jacob, and he to his twelve sons. So the study of Torah was core to Jewish life long before it was given to us at Sinai. So much so that before Yaacov began his journey to Egypt, he sent his son Yehuda as an advance guard to establish a Beis Talmud, a fixed center for the study of Torah there (Rashi, Bereishis46:28)
Three-dimensional learning
What was Avraham's technology of Chidush considering he had no text and no teacher? The Midrash on Parshas Vayigash (Rabba95:3) describes it:
"And where did Avraham learn Torah from? Rabban Shimon says he two kidneys became as two decanters of water and they sprang forth Torah. Rabbi Levi says he reasoned it out himself… Avraham observed the details of Torah and taught it to his sons."
The views in this Midrash are not dissenting ones; they are complementary opinions that highlight three dimensions of learning. The first is an intuitive method, the second is rational and the third is a didactic method. All three methods are necessary in order to imbibe Torah and absorb it into the very DNA of ones being. Only by using all three methods does the knowledge of Torah convert into insight and wisdom providing new perspectives and a Divine perception of the world and life. The general world of education, recognizing that information is not wisdom, has already begun to slowly revolutionize its methodology. Sadly, at the same time many people and groups learning Torah have devolved their methods from three-dimensional Abrahamic learning, to one dimensional, linear, secular methodology.
Uni-dimensional learning
Consider the number of people whose learning is limited to either passively listening to an informative shiur, often the daf yomi (dailydaf of Talmud), or to reading Talmudic texts from one of the translations and anthologies of classical commentators. The pace and passivity of the process does not allow for the intuitive exploration and discovery of ideas, instead ideas are generically packaged and presented as if they are the only way to understand the text. There is little or no innovation. Teachers all use the same anthologies as their primary source, and students of classes anywhere in the world get the same prepackaged material.
There is little opportunity for students to apply their rational intellects to the material they are studying and probe their teachers deeply as they deconstruct and reconstruct the logic of the Talmud, making it their own in the process.
In Yeshiva, even after twenty hours on one daf (double-sided page), it was only when we taught that daf to a more junior student or presented a chabura (academic paper) to our class that we really grasped the section of learning and made it part of our beings. We studied Torah the Abrahamic way! What chance have those Torah students today who substitute being informed for being inspired and information for insight?
I do not, for a moment, trivialize the enormous contribution made to advancing Torah literacy by the daf yomi movement and the spectacular publications that have opened the Talmud to the masses. I suggest only that substituting information gathering for real three-dimensional learning in which intuition, intellect and teaching converge into wisdom, is a poor alternative to real learning.
Professionals and business people deserve more than places and opportunities to learn Torah together and to participate in informational shiurim. They also need the opportunity to acquire true learning skills and master the technology of Talmudic learning. We need to give them places where over years of consistent study they will develop new world-views and imbibe Torah thought and values into the very core of their identities. We need to open their intuitive minds to Torah and stretch their rational minds in the deep exploration of new ideas. We need to prepare them to teach others so that they themselves can reach the highest levels of understanding. Then we will raise a generation of professionals who are also talmidei chachamim, and more importantly, individuals who are professional talmidei chachamim.
Give yourself an eternal gift. In addition to any informational learning you currently do, find yourself a true Rav, an educator. Find yourself a teacher who stretches your mind, ignites your soul and inspires you to action; one who propells you into spiritual spaces you could never have found without him.
