Thinking Citizen Blog — The Talmud, South Korea, The Jewish Triad, Jesus
Thinking Citizen Blog — Friday is Education and Education Policy Day
Today’s Topic: The Talmud, South Korea, the Jewish Triad, Jesus
Ten years ago, an Adams House student, Bryan Kauder, informed me that almost every home in South Korea had a copy of the Talmud! I was flabbergasted! A year later an article in the New Yorker told the story. According to the South Korean ambassador to Israel “Each South Korean family has at least one copy of the Talmud.”
After World War II, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. 70 years later it was one of the richest. Why? Attitude. South Koreans after the war looked around the world looking for a model for how to pull themselves up with their own bootstraps and noticed that a hugely disproportionate share of Nobel Prizes were won by a tiny minority, which happened also to be the single most persecuted ethnic group in the history of the planet. They decided to learn what was special about the Jews so they could be as successful as they. The answer was to get their own copy of the Talmud. (See first two links below for details).
My own theory as to the cause of this startling performance disparity is what I have come to call the “Jewish triad.” Today, a re-statement of the theory.
Part One of today’s post runs though the difference between a Talmud page and that of a typical Catholic catechism that I was trained with as a child.
Part Two explains the mystery of “chavruta,” a K-12 version of a daily mock trial. Part Three contrasts a Jewish rite of passage — the Bar Mitzvah — with the Catholic right of passage that I went through — a “Confirmation.”
The South Koreans had the right attitude. Don’t envy the most successful. Learn from them.
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
THE TALMUD PAGE CONTRASTED WITH THE CATHOLIC CATECHISM
1. Catholic Catechism: every question has one correct answer that comes down from the Pope.
2. Talmud Page: central text from Torah surrounded by a plethora of conflicting interpretations over centuries.
3. Your job is to make up your own mind.
NB: Analogue — the US Constitutional text at the center and conflicting precedents over last two hundred years.
THE CHAVRUTA — DAILY MOCK TRIAL — pair with a “chaver” (friend, study buddy) and argue that heck out of it all day long
1. “Chavrusa” is when there are three or more students debating.
2. Truth comes from subjecting your ideas to the crucible of debate.
3. Jewish version of a constant, never-ending Socratic dialogue.
THE BAR MITZVAH VERSUS THE CATHOLIC CONFIRMATION — below Jewish boy (Jesus) in the Temple
1. Catholic confirmation: 12–14 year olds gather in a cathedral by the hundreds and are “blessed” by a bishop hundreds of feet away.
2. Jewish Bar Mitzvah or Ba tmitzvah (for girls): the boy or girl stands in front of congregation and delivers their interpretation of a sacred text.
3. Which practice is more demanding? which more empowering?
NB: Are the South Koreans on to something?
CONCLUSION — My version of the Jewish triad — Orion exchange. Have you made an “Orion” yet? (that is a list of the seven most important things you have learned about something really, really important — organized and prioritized)? If not, what are you waiting for? Have you exchanged your “Orion” with those of others who share your sense of the issue’s importance? What are you waiting for?
Yes, this is hard work. So is anything worth learning. Tennis. Piano. How to think. 10,000 hours gets you basic competence. But to stay in shape requires daily practice until the end.
How the Talmud Became a Best-Seller in South Korea
Bar and bat mitzvah — Wikipedia
https://groups.google.com/g/whatmattersadams/c/eu6aZ6J67aU/m/DJAGML6jgjMJ
https://groups.google.com/g/whatmattersadams/c/3HsH5AvR-yU/m/iXe_uaq_qcYJ
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IP5ATbqCWPv0WKC4dCDgAiidbFVOaqR_
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to education or education policy. Or the coolest thought however half-baked you had.
Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to education or education policy that the rest of us may have missed.
Or just some random education-related fact that blew you away.
This is your chance to make some one’s day. Or to cement in your own mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something that is dear to your heart.
