By Hillel David Rapp
The consciousness of homo religiosus [Religious Man] is overflowing with questions that will never be resolved. He scans reality and is overcome with wonder, fixes his attention on the world and is astonished.
Homo religiosus is dissatisfied, unhappy with this world. He searches for an existence that is above empirical reality. This world is a pale image of another world.
Cognitive man, on the other hand, is not concerned at all with a reality that extends outside the realm of lawfulness . . . for the law is his goal, and lawfulness is always and only to be found within the context of concreteness.
– Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man
For Rabbi Soloveitchik, there is a dialectical nature to human beings that is at the core of what it means to be a religious Jew in the Western world. It is a constant struggle for resolution between a part of us that sees the world through the lense of rational scientific inquiry and the part of us that searches for depth, meaning, and purpose. And so perhaps it’s fitting that Rabbi Soloveitchik was a founding father of Jewish Day Schools in North America modeled on a dual curriculum of Judaic and General Studies. But if the Rav saw an ideal in the struggle, that ideal has proven very difficult to capture in educational methodology.
When a school seeks to present Judaic and General Studies programs, embracing the idea that each offer depth, insight, and wisdom, embedded in this structure lies a challenge. The moment both bodies of knowledge and systems of education are placed before our young people is the moment we have presented them with a seemingly intractable conflict rooted in the priorities of each system.
A standard Western education in the liberal arts and sciences builds off of some of the following values:
- Skepticism as an ideal
- Belief achieved through experimental replicability
- Full autonomy in individual expression
- History told through evidence
Alternatively, a standard yeshiva education builds off of some of these values:
- Acceptance as an ideal
- Belief achieved through revelation and prophecy
- Conforming to communal norms
- History told through memory and tradition
Placing both of these systems at the core of an educational mission challenges our community to make extra efforts to encourage discussion and exploration or run the risk of passively encouraging identity conflict.
The considerable financial resources devoted to a Jewish Day School education, and the strain families endure to provide it, implies that there is some consensus about its value in communal continuity. But even as 12 years of Jewish school can form permanent and lasting social and cultural connections, does it create intellectually integrated Jewish citizens?
To put this differently, let’s imagine the following scenario: There is a graduate of Jewish high school who finds himself living an observant Jewish life while pursuing a general profession, let’s say, doctor, lawyer, or investment banker. He is a product of a successful Jewish education yet he has trouble articulating, even to himself, if these two worlds have anything to do with each other. This is not to say that he is unhappy or rebellious, just that he is living his life much the way it was structured for him in his formative educational years. He has a Judaic Studies program where he goes to shul, observes Shabbat and holidays, and studies Torah with his children. And he has a General Studies program where he goes to work and seeks achievement in the context of a secular professional identity. But outside of practical considerations, like earning a living, he lacks a narrative to really connect these two parts of his life.
There is a confrontation between a world that views being legally bound to refrain from checking email for one day a week as absurd and a world for which that rule is a cornerstone of its very connection. The question Rabbi Soloveitchik inspires us to ask is have we given any thought to the nature of that confrontation? As educators and parents, we can ask ourselves, have we taught toward that confrontation?
In my experience in Jewish schools the answer is yes and no. There is the occasional interdisciplinary program, lessons where we can find overlapping themes, or a conversation about the sacrifices of being an observant Jew. But often enough we just don’t have the time to properly undertake this task. A serious dual curriculum with rigorous and accurate metrics of knowledge and achievement requires that we teach each discipline in a limited time frame. It takes time and forethought to proactively foster conversation, provide a dual context to each subject, and offer guidance that many of us have our own trouble finding. It is just easier to teach Masechet Kiddushin and Shakespeare as separate subjects than to try and confront divergent ideas about love, romance, and the human condition.
In this vein, I’ve begun to compile a list of ideas that I endeavour to work into curricular preparation, class discussions, and dinner table conversation. The goal of this list is to provide some contextual language for conversing in confrontation and hopefully helping sharpen the tools we use to build upon the path we’ve dedicated our lives to.
- Constant conversation about value conflicts. High school is our last best chance to have the proper time and attention to devote to this before choices in life get much more real and consequential.
- Not all questions need definitive answers. Questioning is an act of learning, learning is an act of growing, and growth happens over a lifetime. We can make value choices and commitment without having all the answers upfront.
- Make note of the difference between “how” and “why” questions. How questions are great for scientific answers. “How does the mind work? How does the universe work?” Why questions are great for prophetic answers. “Why am I here? Why is there something rather than nothing?”
- A value choice is a value trade off. For example, if we value family and community as a priority then we will necessarily pay their concerns regard before others.
- Ideas matter. Everything from ISIS to Israel is built on ideas that people take seriously. Understand those ideas and challenge yourself to come up with your own original ideas.
- Embrace the middle. Consistency at the cost of complexity will inevitably narrow our perspective. Teaching our minds to appreciate two opposing ideas at the same time can do wonders for our ability to empathize and limit our judgement of others.
Finally, teaching toward confrontation is nothing new. In addition to the Rav it occupied many great minds of the last generation. Abraham Joshua Heschel, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Eliezer Berkovitz, Rav Aaron Lichtenstein, Rav Yitzchak Hutner among others, offered us intellectual paths to travel. It is our job to discover their words and find ways to make it real for this generation.
We do not leave the shore of the known in search of adventure or suspense or because of the failure of reason to answer our questions. We sail because our mind is like a fantastic seashell, and when applying our ear to its lips we hear a perpetual murmur from the waves beyond the shore. Citizens of two realms, we all must sustain a dual allegiance: we sense the ineffable in one realm, we name and exploit reality in another. Between the two we set up a system of references, but we can never fill the gap. They are as far and as close to each other as time and calendar, as violin and melody, as life and what lies beyond the last breath.
– Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone
