The importance of teaching in Judaism

• Author: AHARON E. WEXLER
• Published date: 23 September 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Judaism for me is the greatest idea in the history of the world and the opportunity to share that idea with my students whom I see as my extended family, is a powerful and electric experience for me. While I am aware of how much of a cliché this sounds, I really do look at each of my students as a younger brother or sister. I actually care about them and cheer for them as they make their way in this world.

My own Jewish take on things is quite simple. I really believe that at least one of the following must be true:

cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });

>

Either there is a God who takes an active role in this world, the same one that made a covenant with Abraham almost 4000 years ago, pledging we would be for Him a people and He would be for us a God. It cast a special role for us – Abraham's children. It comes with special obligations and burdens, but grants the gift of eternity to its adherents.

Or, perhaps there is no God. God never made this covenant, which was merely a fiction created by a tribe of desert nomads, a group of religious geniuses who stumbled upon a narrative, theology, and system of rituals that have preserved them as a distinct and separate people for close to four millennia. And in their distinction they have enriched the world through philosophy, science, math, ethics, medicine, theology, literature, physics, astronomy, and the arts.

Either way, I want to be on 'Team Jew.' Team Jew is a formula for morality, ethics, and eternity.

I remember reading once that a great philosopher pointed out, almost as a moral condemnation, that those Jews who did not convert to Christianity in the 19th century and remained steadfast in their Jewish identity and observance damned their progeny to be murdered in the Holocaust. My immediate reaction was to be troubled by that thought, until a second later I realized that the philosopher got it all wrong.

While those Jews who did not convert did have their descendants murdered in the Holocaust; those that did convert and assimilated to become Christian Europeans damned their children to be the murderers! Between the two options, I think the choice is clear.

As for an educational method, I find too many teachers use a top-down approach. They walk into the classroom with an agenda. The agenda might be to dictate his or her own way of thinking to a student. Or the agenda may be to drill the subject or course...