Introduction
“Since they have been taught to believe that being part of ‘Am Yisrael” (the Jewish people) entails a firm commitment to a fixed and limited world-view, they feel compelled to wander in other’s vineyards and to explore them.” (Berdichevski)
“Berdichevski assumed that if the boundaries would be extended Jewish space would no longer be narrow and choking” (Brenner on Berdichevski)
The title of this essay, borrowed from the title of Neil Postman’s book “The end of education" (1996) with the addition of Jewish as an adjective qualifying the last word in it (‘education’), plays on the double - meaning of the term 'end': as a purpose, goal or direction and end as a dissolution and termination of any specific event or phenomenon in our human reality. The Hebrew month of Elul, whose acronym is Anee Le’Dodee Ve’Dodee Lee, “I am my lover’s and my lover is mine”, during which we are called upon to conduct a religious-ethical accounting of ourselves and our actions in the way of preparing ourselves to enter into the 10 days of Awe beginning on the first day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei , is a very suitable time to address this double-edged question of the ‘end’ of Jewish culture and education.
In this essay I want to develop the following basic argument:
If on the one hand, Jewish educational leaders’ world-wide today maintain the present-prevailing definition of Jewish education’s ultimate end in terms of acculturation - initiating young and adult Jews into the texts and textures, life and holiday cycles of traditional rabbinic Judaism (however creatively and post-modernly these are interpreted); and on the other hand, do not re-define its end in political-social-economic-cultural-religious civilization-encompassing terms;
then for most persons of Jewish origins world-wide whose orientation to and engagement in the political-cultural issues facing the world and the nation-States they inhabit is open, critical, intense, creative and pro-active Jewish education will end, will ‘die’ as an educational path that offers serious options towards developing their sense of the meaning of life and towards their living meaningful lives.
Jews worldwide today ‘want the world’
Jews world-wide today “want the world”. ‘To want the world’ is to have the freedom to express the fullness of their personalities and their humanity. ‘World-wanting’ further entails freedom of knowledge, exploration and expression; the possibility of productive and/or creative work in all spheres of human endeavor; being in a position to undertake response-ability over the many myriad tasks emerging out of and entailed in leading a full life; and the aspiration to realize the ideal of ‘nothing human is alien to me’ in one’s actual life and deeds.
One of the most decisive existential ramifications of ‘world-wanting’ is the presupposition that the vigor, vitality, ‘relevance’ and persuasiveness of any culture are its comprehensiveness or wholeness. Specifically, the seriousness of any particular culture is measured, indeed ultimately only can be measured by the extent to which it offers those engaged in it ways to be response-able and responsive to the rich network of in-built human drives, aspirations and strivings, and to the burning social, national and international issues/questions facing human beings today.
Assimilation as a solution, not as a problem
It is precisely the powerful ‘presence of the absence’ of such wholeness, responsiveness and response-ability within established Jewish cultural-educational frameworks that drove and still drives so-so many of the more politically, socially concerned and creative persons of Jewish origins out-of these frameworks and into the particular-historical cultural frameworks of the nation-States in which they reside and are citizens or into radical-humanistic –universal cultures that transcend any particular-historical cultural frameworks.
The cultural – educational paradigm of compartmentalization, the construction, implementation and perpetuation of divisions between realms of human doings and endeavors that are relevant to Jewish life and culture and between endeavors that are relevant to general society and culture is at the core of the strong presence of the absence of the cultural wholeness we referred to above. The “doings” of Jewish relevance are usually defined as practices related to Jewish ‘life’ and ‘holiday’ cycle events and to the study of Jewish sources. The “doings” of general relevance are usually the political, social, economic, artistic-cultural ones that ‘belong’ to the sphere of general culture.
From the ‘world-wanting’ and cultural wholeness perspectives proposed here, compartmentalization eliminates the very possibility of experiencing and viewing Jewish culture as a serious culture or as a serious cultural option. At best, in its compartmentalized versions, Jewish culture can be considered as possibly relevant to one’s personal and immediate inter-personal life, including one’s family and social community life. To re-iterate, for any person of Jewish origin who ‘wants-the-world’ and seeks to be engaged in and by its manifold opportunities, challenges and dilemmas these compartmentalized versions of Jewish culture appear quite parochial, uninteresting and unexciting.
Consequently assimilation or more accurately intense and deep acculturation to the culture of their respective nation-State can and should be viewed as a very understandable solution these national citizens’ of Jewish origins two-dimensional perception: Of the parochial, highly insulated, protective, limited and consequently unattractive nature of Jewish culture on one hand; and of the broad, deep, comprehensive and consequently attractive nature of their nation-State’s and/or global-world’s culture on the other hand. In this perspective it is the present nature, or perhaps more exactly, the perceived present nature of Jewish culture that is the problem. The irrelevance of Jewish culture practiced to the real world as this culture is presently generally and usually defined is the root cause of assimilation. This real or apparent irrelevance and the real or apparent relevance of the other’s culture -produce and generate this assimilation.
Ultra-Orthodox and Non-Jewish Jews: Getting beyond compartmentalization
Ultra-orthodox Jews (Haredim in Hebrew) on one hand and non-Jewish Jews’, on the other hand (Isaac Deutsher coined this name to identify the radicals in modern European history whose origins were Jewish, like Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky and many others) and the very distinct and opposed roads of cultural encounter they take and travel on, can assist us to get beyond compartmentalization. The Haredim and the non-Jewish Jews travel on comprehensive and anti-compartmentalizing cultural roads, though they travel in diametrically opposite directions. The Haredim take the rode of defiance in their encounter with modern/post-modern culture. The defiant Jews sound an unequivocal yes to traditional Jewish culture in its wholeness and a no less unequivocal no to the others' cultures in their wholeness. Consequently, they achieve a comprehensive Jewish culture by sacrificing ‘world-wanting’.
Non-Jewish Jews take the road of radical universalization in their encounter with modern/post-modern culture. On this road they set-out to construct and develop a new culture which does not lend weight to any ‘given’ historical, cultural or religious traditions and boundaries, including those of their own. These radical universalists are the negative mirror-image of the defiant traditionalists. They sound an unequivocal yes to the new culture in its comprehensiveness and a no less unequivocal no to their ‘primordial’ traditional Jewish culture in its wholeness. Consequently they achieve a comprehensive world-wanting and world-attending culture by sacrificing their original Jewish culture.
Universalizing Jewish and Judaizing universalist affirmations and activities
The cultural roads of the Haredim and the non-Jewish Jews confirm and strengthen the assertion that a culture’s persuasiveness stems from its comprehensiveness. However, the cultural price each one of them pays raises but does not resolve the quintessential question on which this essay focuses: Can a Jewish culture which is at once comprehensive, world-wanting and world-attending be constructed? Or, can an end for Jewish education be constructed that would prevent its end? A positive response to these two interrelated questions can be derived precisely from a dialectical integration of these two cultural roads. This integration entails universalizing Jewish traditions, affirmations and activities – lending them world-wanting, caring and attending interpretations and Judaizing world-wanting, caring and attending ethical concerns and deeds – interpreting and anchoring them in Jewish religious-cultural traditions.
For several compelling reasons, constructing a comprehensive Jewish culture whose over-arching end is to humanize the world and whose daily policies and actions display a firm commitment to and translation of this end into human reality offers the wisest road on which ‘Jewish- Jews’ should travel. These reasons can be divided into internal-intrinsic and external – extrinsic ones.
Internal – intrinsic reasons - An ethos of active ethical care and concern towards the world and towards the inanimate, animate and animate-rational beings that inhabit it, is articulated in many Jewish literary sources and historical experiences throughout the ages from the Bible and Biblical period to this very day. The over-arching premise that holiness expresses and realizes itself when people choose to carry out the demanding, difficult and ever-yet-to-be-completed task “to build” (and to refrain from destroying) and “to love” (and refrain from hating) underlies and inspires this ethos. The voices of this ethos can be heard distinctly, clearly and powerfully in:
The words and deed of the prophets of the Bible, such as Jeremiah, Micha, Amos and many others and of these prophets’ Rabbinic successors in the Second Temple and Talmudic periods, such as Hillel the Elder, Raba and Abayee and many others
One of the theoretical and existential assumptions of the Halakhic (Jewish legal) framework constructed by our sages emblematized in the saying “do not ‘read’ halakhot (laws) but halikhot (‘walkings’ - doings, deeds, active-paths)
Re-enacting and re-membering the many experiences of enslavement, persecution and oppression Jews have undergone in the course of their history, and hearing in them a call to lend assistance, support and encouragement to human others in general and to the weak, oppressed and powerless among them in particular;
The rich, varied and numerous world-humanizing achievements of ‘non-Jewish Jews’ over the last two centuries to this very day. Considering the very small number of Jews in the world, the contributions they have made in philosophical, literary, artistic scientific, medical and more fields of human endeavor devoted to advancing and improving humanity are striking and impressive.
External – extrinsic reasons - Like its seriousness, a particular culture’s capacity in general and that of Jewish culture specifically, to exercise influence on other cultures is predicated on the extent it can publicly demonstrate that it offers those engaged in it compelling ways to respond to the rich network of in-built human drives, aspirations and strivings on one hand and to the burning social, national and international issues facing human beings today on the other The ethical double-standard peoples of the world often exercise in their relationship to the Jews as a human collectivity is quite unfair. Nonetheless due to very deep historical roots of the presupposition of Jewish chosen-ness and consequent cultural existential difficulty for both Jews and other peoples to rid themselves of this belief, the employment of this double standard is firmly here to stay. In this context, the ethical nature of the perceptible (at least!) behavior of Jews worldwide and of Israel as a Jewish nation-State becomes a matter of major political importance. In the case of Jews and their culture(s), their ethical face(s) carry with them heavy political weight.
From this perspective, a Jewish culture which is at once comprehensive and ethical is not only a matter emerging out of the soul of Jewish literary sources historical-social experiences but also a necessary political instrument in its struggle for the confirmation and support of the world’s peoples.
An ever-yet-to-be completed conclusion
Proposing an end for Jewish education that would have a very good chance of at once: attracting a significantly greater number of world-wanting Jews; dissuading them from powerful acculturation – assimilation – into other cultures; and reducing considerably the possibility of the end of Jewish education, are predicated on:
- Constructing and developing a comprehensive Jewish culture that addresses in theory and in practices all the challenges, opportunities and dilemmas of human life as it approaches the end of the first decade of the 21st century;
- Adopting an ethos of active ethical inter-personal, social, political care and concern entailing critical awareness of and sensitivity to the myriad expressions of human injustice and undertaking response-ability to reduce and eliminate them should be the very core of this comprehensive Jewish culture;
- Addressing these world-wanting and world-attending issues needs to be introduced as decisive subject matter – subjects that matter – into Jewish life, culture and education (Judaizing universal issues); and the Jewish subject matters that are usually conceived as those that constitute and define Jewish life, culture and schooling – classical Jewish texts, the Jewish holiday cycle, the Jewish life cycle, prayers, etc.- need to be interpreted and practiced towards advancing Jews’ internalizing and adopting an ethos of pro-active ethical engagement in the world(universalizing Jewish traditions).
Were these dimensions to be included among the constitutive ends of Jewish education today, it is very likely Jewish life and culture would not end but considerably flourish.