Jewish Education for Adults - Building a Community of Text

Jewish Education for adults is a broad and fascinating topic that can be approached from different perspectives: history, pedagogical approaches, specific institutions and programs, contemporary challenges, and more. The importance of continuing education in Judaism implies that there is no age where you end your study and stop connecting with texts, tradition, and Jewish praxis with a view to leading a Jewish life. The practice of continuous study has been fundamental to preserving and transmitting Jewish identity and culture throughout history.

For several years, I have been teaching Jewish Education courses for adults, and from my experience, I have come to believe that the education of children and young people must be supported and prompted from within family life. I posit that education remains half-baked without the parents' active commitment to study. At the same time, Jewish Education for Adults is an opportunity for those adults who in their childhood were not exposed to the study of Judaism, for whatever reasons, and a reunion for those who were. It is also a training space for those who practice teaching and who understand the importance of continued study in order to be able to teach new concepts or Jewish sources they have not previously encountered.

In what we might call the beginning of the history of Jewish Education, the Torah points to education within the family framework. The emphasis is placed on the parents’ obligation to educate their children. “And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you get up” (Deut. 11:19). Teaching here is meant not in the sense of academic knowledge but rather the need for collective memory to give meaning to the mode of life prescribed by the Torah for the present in every generation. Following this line, it is the task of the fathers and mothers to transmit both the laws and narrative memory to their sons and daughters.

The Torah’s obligation to parents to educate their children immediately raises the issue of the importance of adult education. How can you teach what you don't know and haven’t studied? Today, that problem is largely addressed by educational institutions. However, since Jewish Education does not necessarily start or end at school, the commitment and involvement of the parents, grandparents, and other significant adults inside and outside of the educative community, also play an important role. We must, therefore, devote attention to ongoing adult education as one of the pillars of the Jewish educational system for the younger generation.

In my opinion, there is much to be gained from a pluralistic approach to adult education based on the ideas and teachings of Michael Rosenak, inspired by the Buberian “I-Thou” as a model for the relationship between the reader/interpreter and the text/tradition. In other words, study as dialogue or discourse, as an encounter, whose roots are the I-Thou relationship applied to the educational experience and the conception of a community of text proposed by David Hartman and Moses Halbertal. This mode of educational experience centers on the text, and specifically on the relationship between the reader and the text. That “between” gives rise to dilemmas, debate, and exchange. The idea is to create an I-Thou relationship with text, avoiding any I-it distancing or imposition. Study here is not about closed and dogmatic knowledge or the reification of the text but about the relationship awakened by the dialogue between the reader and the sources. Rosenak also refers to the contribution that the beliefs and ideas implicit in classical Jewish texts can make to the philosophy of education in general through dialogue with other texts and ideas, and the richness emerging from the encounter between texts.

Hartman states, “The first principle of Jewish education is that when you learn Torah, you become part of an interpretive community.” He maintains that Jewish Education must train students to feel part of this interpretive community of Torah. The training of people to participate in debate, to feel intellectually free to engage and argue with tradition. Embracing his idea, I conceive education for adults as a framework for building a community of text: being yourself as part of the text.

Likewise, Holtz mentions a particular mode of teaching the Bible: “What characterizes this style of teaching is that it focuses on the experience of the reader in encountering the text - what happens to the reader and how the text itself is structured to affect the reader are the concern here.” Reading is not a matter of discovering what the text means but a process of experiencing what it does to you: going from being a reader to an interpreter and, in turn, becoming part of the text, and having the text become part of everyday life. Thus, studying involves being makers of the text and seeking new relevant meanings in the here and now. This is learning as empowerment, in the words of Hartman:

This is due, I believe, to the inherent dynamic of being "the people of the book." The text defines your picture of reality. Unless you master it, you will be enslaved by it. You cannot build your future unless you interpret your past. In such a world, learning is empowerment. Discovering new layers of meaning in your sacred texts opens up new possibilities for your future.

Putting these educational thinkers in dialogue prompted me to reflect on the possibility of transforming the beit midrash into a “being” midrash, a beit midrash grounded in a vision of dialogue, of what happens “between” the I and Thou; what happens between the reader and the text or between the reader and others.

Among the challenges facing Jewish Education for adults, we might mention the motivation to find a fixed time for studies and an understanding of the importance of study for strengthening Jewish identity. In addition, younger adults find it difficult to engage with ancient texts and debate their application in contemporary life. Lastly, the financial aspect represents another great challenge: educational institutions may choose not to invest in education for parents and communities may lack systematized study spaces for adults in general, and this has hindered Jewish adult education in Latin America. However, the innovative technologies and opportunities that exist today, such as digital platforms and the creation of new learning spaces, allow us to transcend local borders and expand the scope and reach of study sites, programs, and platforms.

In my experience, working in Jewish Education for Adults offers a glimpse of the richness that emerges from the encounter with others, respect for otherness, and learning from the different ways of interpreting texts. I believe that taking advantage of the interpretative richness created by our scholars in their study of texts is a fundamental educational experience that can strongly impact the Jewish identity of adults. In addition to enriching them intellectually, it can provide tools for life. The hermeneutical tools of our ancient texts are a way of perceiving reality, teaching not only a mode of understanding but ways of interpreting, and that even in dissent, each word and each interpretation has value.

Since there are certain ultimate truths, this way of approaching the texts entails a great challenge for the educator since he invites himself and his students to question and debate them. It is a way of re-linking [religion – from Latin, religare] or, paraphrasing Levinas, of understanding that Judaism is a religion for adults. The importance lies in transmitting a relevant, meaningful Judaism. This challenge invites us to address dilemmas and to discuss and resolve the tensions between the ancestral and the contemporary arising from the multiplicity of texts offered by our classical sources and modern thinkers.

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Bibliographic references

Buber. M. Yo y tú.

Hartman. D. “In Search of a Guiding Vision for Jewish Education

Holtz, B. Textual Knowledge. Teaching the bible in theory and in practice.

Levinas, E. Cuatro lecturas talmúdicas.

Halbertal, M. People of the Book.

Rosenak, M. La ense?anza de los valores judios.

Rosenak, M. Commandments and Concerns.

For the article in Spanish go here .

Learn more about the Hebrew University: MA in Jewish Education here .

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