The gift of knowledge
So often, education is viewed as studying a subject for the purpose of mastering it. To gain a skill. To get a degree. To further a career.
In Judaism, education goes far beyond study for the purpose of making a better living. It’s to make a better life. For yourself. For your community. For society as a whole.
View each experience in your life as a teaching moment for yourself. How can this make me a better person? How can this better the people around me?
3 takeaways on Jewish education
Jewish education is about life on earth—all of it.
Jewish education is not just about G‑d, heaven and getting to heaven.
Sure, we need to provide soul food for ourselves. But the goal of Jewish education is not about getting to heaven. It’s about getting heaven down to earth.
So the Jewish education we get and give others should do the same. We want every Jew to learn to be a mentsch, to do business with integrity, and find G‑d in all his daily affairs.
Jewish education is time-transcendent.
Time is to Jewish education what geography is to others.
It’s all there, all at once, and you have to know the roadways that connect the dots. When you learn Torah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Deborah, David, the Temple in Jerusalem, Esther, Hillel, Akiva, Maimonides, the Arizal, the Baal Shem Tov and you are all alive in the same space together.
Jewish education is about being part of the discussion.
Even if you know every halachah in the Code of Jewish Law, all of Jewish history, and are fluent in Hebrew, Aramaic, Ladino, Yiddish and Judeo-Arabic, you’re an ignoramus. Until you can become part of the discussion.
Sure, you need knowledge to join the discussion. But, more than that, you need to sit in a place where that knowledge is being slammed back and forth in a hi-speed hockey game.
That’s a place we call Yeshivah. And every Jew, no matter what age, should have an opportunity to spend at least a few months in a yeshivah.
Because every Jew needs to be an educated Jew.
Education Day
The Rebbe dedicated endless amounts of time and energy to promoting the value of education.
The Rebbe felt that education in the school system needs to put a greater focus on promoting fundamental human rights and the obligation of justice and morality that we owe the world.
In recognition of the Rebbe’s efforts on promoting education, every U.S. president since Jimmy Carter in 1978, has dedicated the Rebbe’s birthday as Education Day USA - a day dedicated to honoring the value and importance that education plays in our world.
This year, both Governor Cooper and Mayor Mary Anne Baldwin declared the Rebbe’s birthday as Education Day NC & Education Day Raleigh, respectively.