Dear Friends,
This week we read Parashat Bereshit and wow is it full of so many things. Creation in six days with the first shabbat to follow. The Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve. That serpent. And the first ever babies born in the entire Bible: Cain and Abel. Today, I’m taking my cues from them.
What follows is another *draft* chapter from my forthcoming book. This brings me to my next point –I’m still fundraising for my book (yay!) If you have benefitted from my writing this year (this substack is almost a year old, yikes!) please consider giving some gratitude in the form of cold hard cash $$$. Your support will help this book enter the physical world and hopefully serve many, many people.
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Thank you!
Love, Meg
“The thrill of learning is just this: that you never quite know in advance what’s going to happen when you encounter the sacred text through someone else’s eyes” – Rabbi Steven Greenberg from Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition
“Torah is only acquired in community” – BT Berakhot 63b
The first babies ever born in the Torah? Maybe you’ve heard of them: Cain and Abel. Oh, and the first murder was between them, too. We learn of these two in the Book of Genesis when they are born to Adam and Eve as the first humanly conceived and birthed people. But after God does not accept Cain’s offering and does accept Abel’s, Cain kills his brother out in the field. God then asks, “Where is your brother?” to which Cain responds with the infamous question (a rather Jewish moment, I might add), “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Uhm, duh. If only Cain had learned to study torah.
I have taught some version of Hebrew school for many years now. While the curriculum changes from synagogue to synagogue–or from youth group to summer camp–there are some deeply wise methods baked into the gigantic Jewish cake of learning. One of the wisest is the method of learning in chevruta. This means studying in a pair or very small group of people. Chevruta is both the name of the model of studying and of the person with whom you are studying. For example, you could say, “Alright class, we are going to get into chevruta for this next text” or “Bernie is my chevruta.” Roughly, chevruta means “friend, partner or fellow.”
Our tradition has various texts that speak to the value of studying with others. The Talmud (which through its form models the importance of learning through debate and dialogue) records famous chevruta couples, like Reish Lakish and Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, or Hillel and Shammai (though they might not have called themselves as such). What is a chevruta if not an intellectual sparring partner? A person to sharpen your theological and argumentative edges. Jewish tradition teaches that learning with a partner can both strengthen the individual and result in a higher understanding of the text:
“Rabbi Ḥama, son of Rabbi Ḥanina, said: What is the meaning of that which is written: ‘Iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend’ (Proverbs 27:17)? This verse comes to tell you that just as with these iron implements, one sharpens the other when they are rubbed against each other, so too, when Torah scholars study together, they sharpen one another in halakha.” 1
“Just as fire does not ignite in a lone stick of wood but in a pile of kindling, so too, matters of Torah are not retained and understood properly by a lone scholar who studies by himself, but by a group of Sages.”2
Chevruta learning is like a swiss army knife–one thing with many uses. It can help solve legal, moral, or textual problems. It teaches us to hold multiple interpretations. It improves intellectual and spiritual fitness in each learner. And, it trains learners to thoroughly engage with one another, not just use each other for some other end. Chevruta is a team. The chevruta versus the text. Or, the chevruta and the text versus the issue at hand. We either all succeed together, or not. Chevruta creates a “we.”
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In their study of chevruta learning entitled, A Philosophy of Havruta: Understanding And Teaching The Art Of Text Study In Pairs, Elie Holzer and Orit Kent reflect upon how chevruta study teaches social responsibility and forces learners to learn from each other as opposed to from one centralized authority figure we typically call the teacher.
“Instead of only being concerned with what the teacher is saying, [a chevruta learner] is confronted by the need to learn with a fellow student. And instead of only paying attention to her own accomplishments, the chevruta learner is expected to take into account her partner's success as well…the ethical responsibility for one’s partner’s learning constitutes one of the foundations of interpersonal practices…students learn to challenge their partner’s textual interpretation, even when they agree, in order to help their partner refine and improve the quality of the interpretation.”3
This is precisely the opposite of how I felt growing up. In high school, while we were frequently assigned group projects, nine out of ten times the strategy was either “Divide and conquer, see you at presentation day,” or two kids took the lead and rest kind of putzed around in the background. And I’ll admit right here and now, I didn’t care that much what my classmates had to say. My goal was to get the best grade I could and almost no part of that required me to listen. As long as my teacher heard me say something smart each class so I could get my “participation credit,” things would be okay. Definitely not the chevruta model. Then, when I got to college and became an English major, I noticed just how much people loved to dunk on each other in seminar. Oh, you haven’t read Proust? Sure, our papers weren’t graded on a curve like those kids over in the sciences, but the spirit of competition and stench of smug self-congratulatory arrogance was alive and well. There were winners and losers in this zero sum game. Not so for chevruta learning:
“[Chevruta learning] should also help to nurture and cultivate the student’s awareness and ability to care about, empathize with, and assist another person in her or his own learning process. When the student perceives the scope is his responsibility to include a genuine care for the learning of his partner, and when this deep concern translates itself into concrete solicitousness and effective assistance, the student is said to enact the ethical-relational dimension of chevruta text study.”4
Of course chevruta learning has competitive elements–a learner might feel competitive with their partner at any time throughout the study time, or with themselves to beat whatever would be the torah equivalent of their “personal record.” Competition isn’t all bad–in fact it can be quite motivating! But the end goal isn’t who can get the best grade or the foot in the door for that internship. The end goal in fact varies depending on the reason for studying. It is not prescribed by the teacher and due at 3:05pm. It is decided upon by the chevruta, in cooperative partnership. Are we trying to solve a textual problem? Are we trying to decide how to proceed with a certain ritual or law? Are we working out our minds and enjoying the sparks that fly? This kind of collaborative learning isn’t just a breath of fresh air from our American educational norms (at least, as I’ve experienced them), it is something else entirely. It puts learning in the hands of the learners. Co-op learning.
The only way this sort of learning can take root is if, at the end of the day, each learner isn’t judged by their own individual achievements, but instead, by how they were able to bring along their teammates. It doesn’t matter if they learn while their partner doesn’t.5 This a radical departure from a strain of American culture that preaches primarily personal responsibility with charity a la carte. Of course there is an element of that in chevruta learning, but it is only an element. To be in chevruta is to look up from our own navels into the face of another human being. Chevruta is a system that necessitates social responsibility. A posture towards our neighbor that says, “I’m not going to leave you behind.”
It also feeds the soul. Everyday we read headlines about how lonely Americans are–how isolated we feel. In my personal experience, chevruta learning is an antidote to loneliness. It asks us to go deep with one person. A truly present partner. Turn off your phone. Say a blessing for the luxury of potluck learning and slow-cook friendship.
Taanit 7a:8
Taanit 7a:9
Elie Holzer with Orit Kent, A Philosophy of Havruta: Understanding And Teaching The Art Of Text Study In Pairs (Academic Studies Press: Boston, MA; 2014), 60-61.
Ibid, 75.
I’ve heard this ethos of chevruta most beautifully articulated by Rabbi Benay Lappe and Rabbi Laynie Solomon while attending SVARA’s Queer Talmud Camp in 2019 at Walker Creek Ranch, California.