JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

law where it was obscure and difficult, as did Rashi (Troyes,
France), the explicator par excellence whose commentaries
helped the young boy and fascinated the adult. With such
an attitude deeply implanted in the Jewish communities, Judaic
knowledge was quite widespread. Guedemann states his
conviction that the study of the Bible in the original was so
widespread in 11th-century France, that there was hardly a Jew
there who did not know Hebrew and learned Jews spoke Hebrew
out of preference.
The Franco-German educational literature of this period,
both fragments found in various works as well as several
documents dealing primarily with learning, provides a
fairly complete picture of education in the Jewish communities.
The home, the rearing institution of early childhood,
was saturated with a motivating atmosphere and with practices
that would later lead to effective Jewish learning. Some
of these were performed long before the child could appreciate
their meaning. Thus, the Maḥzor *Vitry, a compilation
of Jewish laws, prayers, and customs for the cycle of the year,
written by Simḥah of Vitry (d. about 1105), tells of a custom
that “some short time after circumcision, ten men would be
gathered [in the home of the infant], a Ḥumash (Pentateuch)
placed over the infant” in his cradle and the wish would be expressed
“may this [boy] observe what is written in this [book].”
As he was growing up the boy heard prayers and benedictions
on many occasions at home, and was taught to repeat many
of them. He soon began to carry his father’s prayer book to
the synagogue and sat there during services on low benches
provided for children. On Fridays after the Minḥah service
he would run home to notify his mother of the arrival of the
Sabbath and of candle-lighting time. On Passover eve children
were given nuts or chestnuts to play with, and wine glasses to
arouse interest in their role at the seder ceremony. Similarly
there were various practices in which children participated
on other holidays: noisemakers on Purim, bows and arrows
on Lag ba-Omer, etc.
The start of formal schooling was a special event. The
boy was sent to a “ḥeder” (the word meaning room), a term
which came into use in the 13th century, suggesting that certain
rooms in the synagogue were designated especially for study.
According to the Maḥzor Vitry, “when a person introduces
his son to the study of Torah, the letters are written for him
on a slate. The boy is washed and neatly dressed. Three cakes
(ḥallot) made of fine flour and honey are kneaded for him
by a virgin and he is given three boiled eggs, apples, and other
fruits. A scholarly and honorable man is invited to take him to
school … The boy is given some of the cake and eggs and fruit,
and the letters of the alphabet are read to him. Then the letters
[on the slate] are covered with honey and he is told to lick it
up … And in teaching him, the child is at first coaxed and finally
a strap is used on his back. He begins his study with the
Priestly Code and is trained to move his body back and forth
as he studies.” This description is followed by an explanation
of the rationale of each of these details. R. Eleazar b. Judah of
Worms lists some of the same details in his version of school
EDUCATION, JEWISH
enrollment, as does also an anonymous document, Sefer Asufot,
written probably around the year 1300. This initiation into
school was usually made when the boy was five years old, in
some cases earlier, at the time of the festival of Shavuot, which
celebrates the giving of the Torah. Another source gives the
month of Nisan as a suitable time weatherwise, “neither cold
nor hot,” for such a start.
The curriculum of the elementary school was the traditional
one consisting, as R. Eleazar of Worms summarized it,
of first learning the letters, then combining them into words,
then biblical verses, to be followed by Mishnah and Talmud.
But there was no need for pedagogues to outline this curriculum,
since most Jews knew it quite well. The document Hukkei
ha-Torah (“Rules of the Study of Torah”) instructs the father
to bring his child to a teacher at the age of five and tell the
teacher what he expects of him: “… you are to teach my son
knowledge of the letters during the first month, vocalization
in the second, combination into words in the third and afterwards
this ‘pure’ child will take up the ‘purities’ of the book of
Leviticus. …” Later, the boy is to learn the weekly sidra, first
in Hebrew and then in the vernacular and the Targum (the
Aramaic translation of the Pentateuch) and its translation
into the vernacular. At the age of ten the boy starts Mishnah
and certain tractates of the Gemara. By 13 he has completed
his course in the Midrash Katan and then continues in the
Midrash Gadol (terms probably taken from the French petite
école and grande école.)
These Ḥukkei ha-Torah, written in 1309, are unique in
that they constitute a complete set of regulations dealing with
community responsibility, school administration and supervision,
course of studies, and other administrative and instructional
elements. According to these regulations, teachers
should not instruct more than ten children in any one group.
The pupils should be trained to discuss their lessons with each
other, and thus sharpen their minds and increase their knowledge.
“On Fridays teachers should review with their students
what they had studied during the preceding week, at the end
of the month what they studied during the past month, in
the month of Tishri what they had studied during the summer,
and in the month of Nisan what they had studied during
the winter.” A supervisor is to be appointed to observe the
pupils’ diligence or indolence. Should the supervisor note a
slow-learning, dull child, he should bring him to his father
and say: “May God bless your son, and may he be brought
up to perform good deeds, because it is difficult to bring him
up for study, lest on account of him brighter students be retarded.”
Seven more years of talmudic study were to follow the
elementary and intermediate schooling. This did not apply to
the masses (hamon). However, the numerous references in the
literature to yeshivot suggest that there were many bright boys
who did continue with such an advanced program.
*Judah b. Samuel he-Hasid of Regensburg in his Sefer
Hasidim advocated continuation of studies until the students
no longer need their teacher and “are already teaching others.”
He, too, felt that talmudic studies were not for everyone: “if
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 175