As part of Mitzvot Unplugged we’d like to welcome Anne Gordon to talk about girls and Talmud Torah or teaching Torah to girls.
Said the veteran principal and trainer of teachers: “Kids don’t want to learn.”
Said I to myself, “No, kids don’t know that they want to learn.”
Tell Me Why
Try walking down the block with a toddler. Even assuming the child’s stride is stable, the odds are good that the distance you traverse alone in a few moments will now take 20 minutes (hypothetically speaking), and the reason is not that the tot’s legs are shorter than yours are. Rather, the child is discovering all kinds of interesting, fascinating tidbits of important paraphernalia that you (most likely) have forgotten to pay attention to. And my guess is that the child has all kinds of questions for you that you may not remember the answers to, if you ever knew them.
Don’t tell me that child isn’t interested in learning.
He wants to know why the sky is blue. She wants to know why the ants wander in circles. She wants to see what happens when she pokes the ants with a stick. He wants to measure the links in the chain-link fence.
Curiosity, Familiarity & Freshness
These children – nearly all children – are characterized by their curiosity. They want to understand everything they encounter. Children are eager to learn. They don’t necessarily realize that what they’re doing is learning.
As knowledge becomes familiar, as studies become required, the eagerness to learn without even thinking about it is often diminished. The obligation to digest material and apply it often deters those who are obligated. Yet we don’t let them off the hook.
The eager toddler, then, offers an object lesson about the mitzvah of learning Torah. Even for veteran students – especially for them – we need to keep it fresh.
Girls and Talmud Torah
Given the practical angle of the “mitzvot unplugged,” let us recall that, practically speaking, there is no obvious mitzvah of “talmud Torah” for girls. The obligation to learn Torah is found in a biblical verse: “ve-limadetem otam” – “you shall teach them,” where “them” refers to mitzvot that traditionally were the domain of men (like tefillin). The traditional interpretation – indeed, the accepted halakhic position – is that this verse excludes girls from the requirement to learn Torah, just as they are exempted from the mitzvah of tefillin. Because of this understanding, for hundreds of years, most girls were not taught Torah in any regular, official way. Only those girls who were actively eager to learn Torah sought it out and learned (we do have accounts of girls who did so).
In the twentieth century, there is a mandate for girls to learn Torah, despite the absence of a clear directive from a biblical verse, because of a visionary understanding of the changing needs of the Jewish community. Today, in a world where religion is not automatic and the individual’s interests often trump those of the community, we choose to be involved Jewishly; Jewish identity and knowledge are not givens. Thus, to be involved Jewishly – to be functional, insightful, practicing, committed members of today’s Jewish community, one requires an education. That would be first-hand encounter with Torah, the blueprint and lifeblood of the Jewish people – by both boys and girls.
But requiring that girls learn risks diminishing any active eagerness to participate. We need to “keep it fresh.” So…remember that kids inherently want to learn.
Engagement
The Torah itself helps engage the learner. Torah narratives, with strong personalities and their dramas, capture the imagination; “dry” legal passages have application in case studies; philosophical conundrums suggest solutions to the mysteries of existence. Formal educational or creative training is not necessary. Engage with the texts seriously and authentically yourself and you bring it alive for those in proximity, even when they do not yet know that they want to learn.
When we engage our girls in learning Torah – with narrative and creative presentation and practical application and philosophical puzzle, but most importantly, with personal verve – we discover that, like the toddler who is fascinated by the world, our girls want to engage in Torah learning. When the girls are encouraged to consider the material in a personal way, their desires to know and to understand are incited to flourish. Moreover, the same approach benefits the “obligated” boys just as well.
Anne Gordon is currently pursuing a (slow) doctorate in Jewish Education, focusing on teaching Talmud to women and girls. She has taught in both the United States and Israel, from high school through post-graduate levels, and is currently working in computers as well. Anne holds a B.A. in History & Philosophy and an M.A. in Judaic Studies from Harvard University; she is a graduate of Drisha’s Scholars Circle and a veteran of the women’s batei midrash of Jerusalem.
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