Earlier this year Yadid came home all excited that they were learning a Mishna at school that we learned together. Not shocking, it was from Elu Metziyot. There are a few reasons that it is customary to start learning Mishnah with Elu Metziyot, but one is assuming that teaching children the laws of lost and found will start them off with a real life application and lifelong framework of personal responsibility. I was thinking about that this week when we start reading Vayikra, the book of Leviticus. It is choked full of rules regarding korbanot sacrifices. About Vayikra the Midrash shares it imagination of educational philosophy. There we read:
Rav Assi said that young children began their Torah studies with Leviticus and not with Genesis because young children are pure, and the sacrifices explained in Leviticus are pure, so the pure studied the pure. (Leviticus Rabbah 7:3.)
I understand why people might think that the story of Genesis is too nuanced to be a young child’s initiation to learning. But, just because we are not starting off with the Garden of Eden does not mean that we should start off with all of the blood and gore and guts of Leviticus.
The word “korban” (sacrifice) derives from the word that means “that which is brought close.” Bringing a korban was not just the process of giving something up to the Tabernacle or Temple, but the process of becoming closer. Maybe this is what we need to be teaching out children.
Education is not about the blood of the sacrifices or for that matter any of the data. It is about relationships and making those connections. When I add that to starting the Mishnah with Elu Metziyot it starts to make real sense. Relationships and responsibility are the basic building blocks of menschlichkeit. Education is not just about knowledge; it is about wisdom.
Said to Myself 