Q&A: Talmud vs. Secular Studies
Talmud vs. Secular Studies
Question
Hello Rabbi, in your opinion, is the amount and level of Talmud study in yeshiva high schools okay? Because a lot of students leave yeshiva and still don’t know how to learn Talmud independently with broad coverage. Thank you very much.
Answer
That sounds like magnificent naivete. The level isn’t okay? The level doesn’t exist. Most students who leave a yeshiva high school don’t have the faintest clue how to study Talmud. Usually the yeshiva also doesn’t see it as its role to bring them to a real learning level. Most yeshivot see themselves as a pipeline whose purpose is to spit the student out in the right direction, without the time spent in yeshiva high school having any intrinsic purpose of its own. By the way, that’s usually also true in pre-military academies. And in some hesder yeshivot as well.
Discussion on Answer
Hello Rabbi, I wrote this to you because I feel that way too, but I phrased it less extremely than you did because I didn’t want to generalize in case it’s only like that where I am. What do you think the solution to the problem is?
And regarding secular studies, are you talking about the level of study in a specific place, or about the very concept of matriculation exams? Thank you very much.
I don’t have a general solution. I once proposed a different curriculum for a yeshiva high school, and you can find it here among the articles. This is a broad social problem, not only in schools and not only in Talmud.
The concept of matriculation exams is reasonable. But at the end of the day, the school system produces ignoramuses and uneducated people with no real learning abilities. Anyone who ends up with any of that gets it despite the school, not because of it.
It’s amazing how, despite all this, the State of Israel is still among the strongest economies in the world technologically, how the TikTok generation gave their lives in the war, and how Torah scholars and great Torah figures still grow among us in the State of Israel (and not דווקא from the Haredi public). Is there some missed perspective here in Rabbi Michi’s point of view?
As for our issue, if it matters to someone to learn, and for his children to know how to learn Talmud, then he should learn Talmud with them himself. Systems can function up to a certain level. Beyond that, it’s the individual’s investment.
Are you serious? You think that’s because of the education system? As I wrote, it’s despite the system, not because of it. Go and see the results of the international comparison tests. To succeed in science and technology, a very small layer of smart people is enough—people the system didn’t manage to ruin.
You need to decide whether the education system is important or not. In any case, note that international metrics measure very different populations. The scores of the Arabs are completely parallel to the scores in Jordan and Syria. The reading scores of Haredi girls and the math scores of secular boys brush up against the top tier. Each population according to its own potential.
The situation isn’t all that different in secular studies either. In general, schools don’t really impart a solid and systematic academic level, and in yeshiva high schools it’s usually even worse.