The History of Discipleship in Judaism

From a Biblical Commandment on the Individual to Rabbinic Regulation on the Establishment of Public Jewish Educational System

Abstract

This article deals with the history of discipleship in Judaism and its transition from an individual obligation to a public education system. The article is divided into three main sections: The first section discusses the centrality of education to Torah study in Judaism as well as the Jewish legal concept of “educational obligation” as opposed to the modern legal concept of “right to education.” The second and central section examines the development of the Jewish obligation to educate – the transition from private to public education. The author analyzes the various Talmudic regulations that led to this transition and the relationship between them. At the end of this section, the author discusses the funding structure of the public education system and the right of parents to choose the educational framework for their children. In the third section, the author emphasizes the distinctiveness of Jewish education as the supreme value of the pure intellectual study of the Torah, which refers both to financial interests such as the teachers’ right to strike in Jewish law, and to dedication to study in times of severe hardship and darkness such as the time of the Holocaust...