Next week, Jerusalem will host the annual education conference of the Bnei Akiva yeshivot. The list of topics slated for discussion is impressive and current. Quite rightly, the organizers highlight the lessons of the war we have just endured and the challenges posed by the digital world and artificial intelligence (AI). Alongside these, time has been set aside both to take pride in the tangible achievements of the Religious Zionist educational system and to reflect on its future.
Personally, I was deeply disappointed by the program. I could not help but be struck by the sense that essential elements were missing from it. Now, it is true that my reaction may stem from the fact that I was raised overseas in a very different religious milieu, that informed by the presence and teachings of my revered rebbe, Rabbi Joseph Dov ha-Levi Soloveitchik, zekher tzaddiq li-verakha. As a result, it is possible that, even after many decades of living in Israel, I do not fully grasp the ethos of the community in which I reside.
Yet, perhaps that is precisely the reason that I can perceive lacunae in the conference program, and the Religious Zionist educational agenda. Perhaps, an outsider can offer the organizers and participants a few observations “outside the box.”
1) In Parashat Vayeshev (Genesis 37:16), Joseph encounters an anonymous man. When the latter asks him for what or whom is he looking, Joseph answers: “It is my brothers that I seek” (Et Ahai anokhi mevaqesh). Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin (Pri Tzadik to Vayeshev) interpreted this verse as meaning: “With my brothers I seek Anokhi-that is, the One who revealed Himself as ‘Anokhi,’ - God.
The accursed war, and the massacre with which it began, have powerfully heightened our awareness of the presence of the Creator within our lives. On the one hand, they have intensified age-old and entirely legitimate questions regarding divine justice, of why the righteous suffer. At the same time, they have also generated a powerful thirst for the Holy One, blessed be He; a longing that sweeps through broad segments of the Jewish population.
This blessed development presents Religious Zionism with formidable educational and ethical challenges: both with respect to the emphases that should shape our own religious educational philosophy and institutions, and with regard to the role of students, graduates, and the entire religious-Zionist community in assisting the wider public in seeking their Creator. Religious Zionism has always prided itself-rightly-on serving as the bridge between the world of Torah and the broader world, more so than any other sector. And there is no bridge more vital than the one that leads all of us closer and more intimately to our Father in Heaven.
Accordingly, grappling with questions of faith, forging a heightened awareness of God’s presence in daily life, and making the Creator accessible to the tens of thousands of Jews who thirst for His voice must stand at the very top of our educational agenda. Its absence from the conference agenda reminds me the prophet’s cry: “Why did I come and there was no one there? I called, and there was no answer” (Isaiah 50:2).
2) Of all the claims raised in the context of the controversy surrounding the Haredi draft, none grated more harshly on our community than the assertion that drafting yeshiva students would destroy the world of Torah. This outrageous statement callously and maliciously negates the entire network of yeshivot, pre-military academies, and kollelim established by Religious Zionism, in all its branches. Of course, I do not expect anything else from the Haredi leadership and its mouthpieces. What is deeply distressing, even excruciating, is that this calumny has been accepted by many decent people within the broader Jewish public (especially on the political right), and-to my great disappointment and astonishment-even within Religious Zionism itself. The silence of our own rabbis, yeshiva heads, and public figures, except for a very few, in the face of such contempt for our students and scholars, rabbis and Rashe Yeshiva, is perceived by many as tacit acquiescence.
This is nothing short of humiliating. So, before engaging in sophisticated discussions of AI, perhaps we ought to ask whether we have not sinned against the Torah itself. Have we failed to instill passionate love for Torah study-including rigorous learning (Lomdus) and Halakhah-in ourselves and our children? Have we, in our enthusiasm for general studies, betrayed the emphasis on the centrality and supremacy of Torah, and neglected to honor and materially sustain those who devote their lives to it? Perhaps we have fallen into a bourgeois trap, leaving the Torah “to them,” to the Haredim?
My revered teacher, Rabbi Soloveitchik, of blessed memory, broke with the traditions of his forebears and family and aligned himself with Religious Zionism for two reasons. He was convinced that Divine Providence had decided in favor of establishing a Jewish home in the Land of Israel, especially in the aftermath of the Holocaust. He also believed-and repeatedly emphasized-that it is the dissemination and teaching of Torah alone that justifies the existence of Religious Zionism.
The Rav paid a heavy and painful personal price for his adherence to Religious Zionism. It pains me to imagine what he would say upon seeing the absence of Torah from the conference schedule.
3) The Rav frequently spoke of the need to study “Torah in its broadest sense.” By this he meant that alongside intensive engagement with Torah-Talmud and Rishonim, Halakhah, TaNaKh etc.-we are obligated to master the wisdoms of the world. Doing so serves several distinct purposes. It enables a deeper understanding of the Torah itself by harnessing external disciplines in its service. Conversely, general education is indispensable for defending Torah against “enlightened” criticism from without, and for teaching Torah in a cultural and linguistic currency that is accessible, intelligible and effective.
Our religious Zionist educational system has utterly failed in realizing this vital vision and in training thinkers, educators, and people of spirit who might advance it. What value is there in a discussion of AI if, in practice, we merely surrender to the attractions of the digital world, while lacking the tools to critically engage it?
A careful reading of the conference program reveals that several sessions remain only loosely defined. There is still time to restore God and Torah to their proper places on the agenda. Failure to do so betrays who we presumably aspire to be.
Rabbi Prof. Jeffrey Woolftaught for thirty years in the Department of Talmud at Bar-Ilan University.