As I entered the kindergarten classroom this week, one of the students recognized the bag of sand I use to tell a number of Torah stories in the Torah Godly Play style and announced, “Oh, it’s the desert. You told us this one already!” She’s spent enough time with me to know that I will sometimes tell the same story again, until students are really familiar with it, but not enough time to know how many stories involve the desert, and this was one I hadn’t yet told her. From telling the same story a few weeks in a row to repeating the Torah reading cycle to retelling each of the holiday stories at the same time each year, Jewish children have plenty of opportunity to declare, “We’ve heard this one before!” and ask why we keep coming back to the same stories. And Jewish teachers have plenty of opportunity to question and debate how much to keep returning to what students have already learned, to allow them to see it with new maturity and greater insight, and when to press forward into the totally unfamiliar.
Moses is known primarily in the rabbinic imagination as Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses our teacher. In tractate Eruvin of the Talmud, the rabbis discuss the same question as they postulate how Torah was taught in the time of Moses. They explain,
Moses learned it from the mouth of God, then Aaron entered and Moses taught him the chapter; when Aaron had finished, he left the seat of study, taking a seat at the left of Moses, and then his sons entered. Moses then taught them the chapter. When they finished, Elazar assumed a seat at the left of Moses and Ithamar at Aaron’s right. R. Juda says: ‘Aaron was always at the right of Moses.’ The elder then entered and Moses taught them the same chapter. When the elders were through, the people entered and Moses taught them the chapter. Thus Aaron studies the chapter four times, his sons, three times, the elders twice, and the people once. Moses then departed and Aaron studied the same chapter with them all. When Aaron finished, he departed, and his sons studied the chapter with them; after the sons finished, they departed and the elders studied the chapter with the people. It is thus found that every one repeated the chapter four times. ‘From this.’ says R. Eliezer, ‘we learn that it is the duty of a man to repeat a lesson with his disciple four times.’ For if Aaron who learned it from Moses and if Moses, who learned it from God Himself, had to repeat the chapter four times, then, surely, an ordinary man who learns from another ordinary man, should repeat it much more frequently.” R. Akiba said : “Whence do we infer that a man must learn the lesson with his disciple until his disciple knows it? It is said (Deu. 31, 19.) And teach it the children of Israel. Whence do we know that he must teach him until he knows it? It is said (Ib. ib. ib.) Put it in their mouths. Whence do we infer that the he must show him the reasons for every law? It is said (Ex. 21, 1.) And these are the laws which thou shouldst place before them.”
The rabbis start with the assumption that in the ideal situation, with the best teacher and the strongest student, it will take four repetitions to learn each lesson, and for the rest of us, it will take more. They insist on continuing to teach and to study, to the point of mastery, and beyond, until the student can teach it herself. And beyond rote mastery, they insist that Torah be taught to a level of true understanding including the reasons behind each law. The proof text for the Talmud uses to demonstrate the imperative to teach the “why” is the first verse of this week’s parsha, Mishpatim, “These are the laws that you shall place before them.” Later commentators explain that to place the laws before them means to treat the lesson as if it were a banquet laid out artfully on the table in front of the students. The teacher’s job is not just to tell the students what they should know, but to organize the material so that it makes sense, so that the students can make it their own.
Mishpatim, literally translated as statutes, follows the parsha of the Ten commandments and provides a contrast. In last week’s portion, all the people experienced God directly, together, and briefly. It is a unique, powerful and frightening experience. This week begins the work of learning to build the society that God demands in all the nitty gritty detail. For this, the people need Moses in role of teacher. They need to not only be able to repeat what he tells them, but to understand it through and through. They’ll need to learn it again and again, from Moses, from Aaron, from multiple teachers, each with their own perspective and teaching style, until all the people with their individual perspectives and learning styles truly get it, until they can repeat it themselves, until they can explain it, make it their own, and teach it to the next person.
The process begins in the desert where our ancestors stood at the base of the mountain, and it continues today as my students cry out, sometimes in excitement, sometimes in frustration, “The desert! We’ve heard this one before!”