The Lake Norman Rabbi

I was asked to be on a panel for Davidson Reads about religion and education. (http://www.ci.davidson.nc.us/index.aspx?NID=459). Below are some edited and expanded comments that came out of that experience. I think I ramble a bit and the dots may be connected in my head more than on the page, but there are some cogent thoughts and ideas embedded in there.

————————————————————————————————

I believe that Jews (The “People of the Book”) consider education and learning, exploration and questioning, to be the most essential component of a meaningful spiritual and religious life.

This emphasis on learning has its roots in some of our earliest biblical text. In Genesis 18:19 “[Abraham is blessed because] he will instruct his children and his house after him to follow in God’s ways to perform righteousness and justice.” The Talmud (a record of rabbi’s discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history) recounts how one sage established a system of mandatory formal education in the 1^st century of the common era.

It is clear that Judaism places a strong emphasis on learning and questioning.  The Talmud goes as far as to state that the world continues to exist for the sake of learning, and that even the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, a prerequisite for the coming of the Messiah, should not interrupt this process.

Even though my theological approach does not include rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem, I appreciate and welcome how the above example places education and learning as the most important endeavor in which we can engage.  Learning is essential to the continuation of our society and our world. I believe when we fail to live up to our educational obligations, when we cease to question and explore, it is an affront to God.

Judaism’s approach to learning is a very healthy one. The focus is not on the specific answers, but rather on the process. In the Machzor (the prayer book for the High Holy Days), a reading captures this philosophy of life and therefore learning:

Birth is a beginning

And death a destination.

And life is a journey:

From childhood to maturity

And youth to age;

From innocence to awareness

And ignorance to knowing;

From foolishness to discretion

And then perhaps to wisdom;

From weakness to strength

Or strength to weakness –

And, often, back again;

From health to sickness

And back, we pray, to health again;

From offense to forgiveness,

From loneliness to love,

From joy to gratitude,

From pain to compassion,

And grief to understanding –

From fear to faith;

From defeat to defeat to defeat –

Until looking backward or ahead,

We see that victory lies

Not at some high place along the way,

But in having made the journey, stage by stage,

A sacred pilgrimage.

Birth is a beginning

And death a destination.

And life is a journey,

A sacred pilgrimage –

To life everlasting.

In life and learning, and I hesitate to separate the two for what is life without learning, education is not about the test, it’s not about what you can “get” for memorizing information or answering the specific question. It is about engaging in a potent process that leads one to greater depths, to even better questions, and hopefully allows us to scratch the surface of some of the profound truths along the way.

We see that learning, and therefore life, is about the making the journey stage by stage. It is about assuring that we continue to learn more no matter how old, no matter what our specific limitations may be.