Interestingly enough, the Torah makes no reference to schools or formal systems of educating the populace. The Torah does emphasize, in numerous places, the duty of parents to educate their children in Torah values, Jewish tradition and life skills. The Mishna and the Talmud reinforce these Torah ideas with more explicit guidelines as to the range of schooling and the skills and values to be taught, including professional and job training and the ability to swim. Yet the broader educational system is not really addressed and the tradition seemingly assumes a system of home schooling or private tutoring. There is, however, mention in the Talmud that in the time of the First Temple as well as the period of the Second Temple there was a general elementary school system in place in Israel that extended ?from Dan to Beersheba.? The Talmud even recommended that the class size in these institutions should never exceed twenty-five students per teacher. Whether home schooling and private tutoring were reserved for the wealthy and the intellectually elite exclusively is not specified in the Talmud, though it can probably be safely inferred that this was the case. In any event, it seems that the best students progressed to higher schools of Torah - yeshivot - after a period of time and the others left formal studying to take their place in the marketplace of everyday life.
After the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jewish Diaspora centered in Babylonia. There, the system of yeshivot was expanded and, at times, students numbered in the thousands. The system of elementary education remained, as it was earlier, with much home schooling and local schools for children in elementary grades. The better teachers were hired by the wealthy to tutor their children and this affected the level of competence and education in the local community schools. In the Middle Ages, both in France and Spain, the Jewish communities relied on home schooling, private tutoring and loosely organized schools to provide Torah education for their young. In Spain, Jews also engaged tutors to teach philosophy, mathematics, natural sciences and literature to their children. Many of the teachers who taught these subjects were non-Jews and this became a divisive issue in Spanish Jewish life, as well as among the Spanish non-Jews. Both groups were afraid of the influence the ?other? may have on them. After the Christian domination of Spain took hold, the Church moved to prevent Jews from hiring Christian tutors - or even maids - to serve in their homes.
In Eastern Europe, from the seventeenth century onward, the system of schooling was concentrated in the institution of the cheder (literally, ?room?). The cheder was for boys only, who entered into the school ?room? at three years of age and stayed until they were ten or eleven. The education received in the cheder was uneven, depending on the skill and patience of the melamed - the teacher. Much of the rebellion against traditional Jewry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries found its roots in the deplorable physical and educational features of the cheder. The wealthy and the elite continued to provide home schooling and private tutoring for their children. Those boys who showed intellectual promise advanced to learn with the rabbi of the town. Those who shone there were passed on to study with even greater scholars and well-known rabbis. The yeshiva system of today, serving adolescent and young adult men, did not begin in Eastern Europe until the beginning of the nineteenth century. In the Chasidic communities, education after the cheder was confined to shtieblach - small private houses of study and prayer that operated independently of each other with no fixed schedule or curriculum. Thousands of students frequented these shtieblach, which were really centers of private, independent study.
Shabbat Shalom.
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Rabbi Berel Wein, noted author and lecturer, is founder of the Destiny Foundation, dedicated to educating Jews about their historical and ethical heritage (JewishDestiny.com).
After the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jewish Diaspora centered in Babylonia. There, the system of yeshivot was expanded and, at times, students numbered in the thousands. The system of elementary education remained, as it was earlier, with much home schooling and local schools for children in elementary grades. The better teachers were hired by the wealthy to tutor their children and this affected the level of competence and education in the local community schools. In the Middle Ages, both in France and Spain, the Jewish communities relied on home schooling, private tutoring and loosely organized schools to provide Torah education for their young. In Spain, Jews also engaged tutors to teach philosophy, mathematics, natural sciences and literature to their children. Many of the teachers who taught these subjects were non-Jews and this became a divisive issue in Spanish Jewish life, as well as among the Spanish non-Jews. Both groups were afraid of the influence the ?other? may have on them. After the Christian domination of Spain took hold, the Church moved to prevent Jews from hiring Christian tutors - or even maids - to serve in their homes.
In Eastern Europe, from the seventeenth century onward, the system of schooling was concentrated in the institution of the cheder (literally, ?room?). The cheder was for boys only, who entered into the school ?room? at three years of age and stayed until they were ten or eleven. The education received in the cheder was uneven, depending on the skill and patience of the melamed - the teacher. Much of the rebellion against traditional Jewry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries found its roots in the deplorable physical and educational features of the cheder. The wealthy and the elite continued to provide home schooling and private tutoring for their children. Those boys who showed intellectual promise advanced to learn with the rabbi of the town. Those who shone there were passed on to study with even greater scholars and well-known rabbis. The yeshiva system of today, serving adolescent and young adult men, did not begin in Eastern Europe until the beginning of the nineteenth century. In the Chasidic communities, education after the cheder was confined to shtieblach - small private houses of study and prayer that operated independently of each other with no fixed schedule or curriculum. Thousands of students frequented these shtieblach, which were really centers of private, independent study.
Shabbat Shalom.
---------------------------------
Rabbi Berel Wein, noted author and lecturer, is founder of the Destiny Foundation, dedicated to educating Jews about their historical and ethical heritage (JewishDestiny.com).