Page 2 - Announcements Mon. May 10

26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck, NY 11023 (516) 487-6100 Shabbat Announcements Bamidbar 5781
literacy. “The law that Moses gave us is the possession of that man is to be blessed, namely Joshua ben Gamla, for
the assembly of Jacob” (Deut. 33:4) – the whole assembly, but for him the Torah would have been forgotten from
not a privileged group within it. Israel. For at first if a child had a father, his father taught
him, and if he had no father he did not learn at all…They
The symbol of this was the revelation at Mount Sinai, the therefore ordained that teachers should be appointed in
only time in history when God revealed Himself not only to each prefecture, and that boys should enter school at the
a Prophet but to an entire people, who three times signalled age of sixteen or seventeen. [They did so] but if the
their consent to the commands and the covenant. In the teacher punished them they used to rebel and leave the
penultimate command that Moses gave to the people, school. Eventually, Joshua b. Gamla came and ordained
known as Hakhel, he gave the following instruction: “At the that teachers of young children should be appointed in
end of every seven years, in the Sabbatical year, during the each district and each town, and that children should enter
Festival of Tabernacles, when all Israel comes to appear school at the age of six or seven. Universal compulsory
before the Lord your God at the place He will choose, you education did not exist in England – at that time the
shall read this law before them in their hearing. Assemble world’s leading imperial power – until 1870, a difference of
the people—men, women and children, and the foreigners 18 centuries. At roughly the same time as Joshua ben
residing in your towns—so they can listen and learn to fear Gamla, in the first century C.E., Josephus could write:
the Lord your God and follow carefully all the words of this Should any one of our nation be asked about our laws, he
law. Their children, who do not know this law, must hear it will repeat them as readily as his own name. The result of
and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in our thorough education in our laws from the very dawn of
the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.” (Deut. intelligence is that they are, as it were, engraved on our
31:10-13)
souls.
Again, the whole people, not an elite or subset within it. We now understand the connection the Sages made
This is echoed in the famous verse from Isaiah 54:13, “And between the wilderness and the giving of the Torah: it was
all your children shall be learned of the Lord and great shall open to everyone, and it was free. Neither lack of money
be the peace of your children.” This was and remains the nor of aristocratic birth could stop you from learning Torah
unique feature of the Torah as the written constitution of and acquiring distinction in a community in which
the Jewish people as a nation under the sovereignty of God. scholarship was considered the highest achievement. With
Everyone is expected not merely to keep the law but to three crowns was Israel crowned: the crown of Torah, the
know it. Jews became a nation of constitutional lawyers.
crown of Priesthood and the crown of Kingship. The crown
There were two further key moments in the history of this of Priesthood was conferred on Aaron…The crown of
development. The first was when Ezra and Nehemiah kingship was conferred on David…But the crown of Torah is
gathered the people, after the Babylonian exile, to the for all Israel…Whoever desires it, let them come and take
Water Gate in Jerusalem, on Rosh Hashanah, and read the it.
Torah to them, placing Levites throughout the crowd to I believe that this is one of Judaism’s most profound ideas:
explain to people what was being said and what it meant, a whatever you seek to create in the world, start with
defining moment in Jewish history that took the form not of education. If you want to create a just and compassionate
a battle but of a massive adult education program (Neh. 8). society, start with education. If you want to create a
Ezra and Nehemiah realized that the most significant battles society of equal dignity, ensure that education is free and
in ensuring the Jewish future were cultural, not military. equal to all. That is the message the Sages took from the
This was one of the most transformative insights in history.
fact that we read Bamidbar before Shavuot, the festival
The second was the extraordinary creation, in the first that recalls that when God gave our ancestors the Torah,
century, of the world’s first system of universal compulsory He gave it to all of them equally.
education. Here is how the Talmud describes the process,
culminating in the work of Joshua ben Gamla, a High Priest
in the last days of the Second Temple: Truly the name of

Great Neck Synagogue
26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck , NY 11023
516-487-6100

Rabbi Dale Polakoff, Rabbi
Rabbi Ian Lichter, Assistant Rabbi
Rabbi Yehoshua Lefkowitz, Intern Rabbi
Dr. Ephraim Wolf, z”l, Rabbi Emeritus
Yitzy Spinner, Cantor
Eleazer Schulman, z”l, Cantor Emeritus
Rabbi Sholom Jensen, Youth Director
Zehava & Dr. Michael Atlas, Youth Directors
Mark Twersky, Executive Director
Dr. James Frisch, Assistant Director
Jordan Wolf, President
Dov Sassoon, Chairman of the Board