BackThe Most Important Thing We Can Do
By: Rabbi Dr. Abraham Unger
It’s common knowledge that the Jewish community has historically valued education. Both Jewish families and the wider non-Jewish world often share this perspective. The well known statistic referencing a disproportionate number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners is typically used to demonstrate the results of this tradition.
Indeed, Judaism prizes education, placing it among the most foundational of mitzvot (commandments). But that’s exactly the reason for this value. It is not some folk belief or vague ethnic commitment. The Torah itself commands us to value education. No matter how far a Jew may have wandered, he or she has a deeply rooted sense that their heritage compels learning at the highest level available.
This week’s Shabbat Torah portion makes the significance of education clear. When the Cohanim, the priests who officiated in the desert and later the Jerusalem Temple, are given the laws governing their ritual purity to officiate on behalf of the Jewish people, Rashi explains that the adult Cohanim have to instruct and reinforce these laws with the younger Cohanim who are not yet serving. Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the Rabbi of the Western Wall, writes that here “the Torah focuses on the role of education, a role that is so important and that devolves on every parent.”
Indeed, in Halakhah, Jewish law, the obligation to teach one’s children does not fall on schools and teachers. The parent is the primary teacher. The instructor is just a contracted agent of the parent. This is the strength of Jewish continuity. We are a people obsessed with learning, and with learning comes progress and innovation.
No matter how small or persecuted our community might be in any given historical period, we never fade away. Education and the life of the mind keep us not only vibrant. They make us resilient and dynamic.