Revach has a couple of posts discussing whether Tanach and Dikduk should be learnt in Yeshivos.
Its commonly assumed that the reason these two subject are not learnt in Charedi Yeshivos is because of the emphasis maskilim placed on these subjects.
I don't remember where, but I read somewhere that in the prewar European Yeshivos, if someone wanted to learn Nach, he had to do so in hiding. Otherwise he would quickly be branded as a maskil.
Nowadays haskalah doesn't seem to be an issue in the Chareidi world. (Although online it still seems to be going strong.) I'd posit that the reason Yeshivos don't learn these subject today is because the rebbe's don't know them. :)
Interestingly, these two very subjects seem to be very popular in the Beis Yaakov schools.
Anyway, it seem that the reasons these limudim aren't taught are mostly moot. Yet, no one seems to be interested in teaching them yet.
I wonder why?
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7 comments:
Actually the dislike for teaching Nach precedes the haskalah. It was the emphasis Chrisianity put on it that turned Jews away from it. If we both do "Bible study" then what set us apart from them? The emphasis switched the Gemara which was the quickest way to distinguish our Torah (which included the Oral Law) from theirs (which didn't).
As for dikduk, frankly I think that's just a result of neglect. Remember that for centuries, especially amongst the Ashkenazim, Hebrew was strictly a legal language. It simply wasn't used as a spoken language which meant there was no need to learn dikduk.
However, as a former Belzer once told me, just because the Rebbe says it a certain way doesn't mean his teacher taught him right.
I don't think that European Jews had to differentiate from the Christians. Anti-Semitism did that. There was little to worry about co-ed.
The maskilim is a different story, however.
On dikduk, maybe. Frankly, for Americans it still is.
It does fit with my theory good enough.
It was not the emphasis Christianity put on it which turned Jews away from it. If anything, the emphasis Christians put on it turned Jews toward it. There are (semi-reasonable) theories that the French peshat school of parshanut arose in part as a counterpoint to Christian Bible study which at the time was mostly allegorical, and sort of the antithesis of peshat. In turn, Jewish exegetes began to show themselves and Christians who forced them to justify Judaism that the plain meaning of the text precluded the Christian interpretations. This isn't just some wild historical conjecture, because Rashbam, Radak and others actually refer to Christian interpretations and show why they think they're untenable. Their audience was undoubtedly Jewish, not Christian. That is, they're trying to shows Jews that the Christians read the Bible wrong.
Similarly, some might conjecture that the Karaites pushed rabbinic Jews away from studying Tanakh and Hebrew, but the opposite is true. Karaism may have forced rabbinic Jews into greater and more profound engagement with Tanakh. On the other hand, the grammatical study of the language and Tanakh was part of the Zeitgeist at the time Karaism arose, but that may have had to do with Islam and their mode of study of their own language and scripture, but the effect is the same.
Far more likely, the real culprit is that we are rabbinic Jews, and there has always been tension between ksav and al peh. It's hard to justify spending a lot of time with the text when we maintain that the most important mode of meaning is the Talmudic. And yet, there is no doubt that rabbinic Jews also esteem the text, so there could never be a complete estrangement, and time and time again rabbinic Jews return to it.
In terms of Hebrew not being a spoken language, on the contrary. If it was a spoken language it could not have been regulated ala modern Hebrew -- or Yiddish, which contains many Hebrew words. It is precisely because these Hebrew words were spoken as part of a living language that they could wind up so distorted. It was not only a written language, but also a liturgical one. There was a need to learn dikduk, because three times a day you were supposed to read large chunks of the language out loud. But just because there's a need...
As for the modern association with maskilim, what I have found is that the "velt" refuses to allow haskalah the dignity of having any antecedents in the true tradition, so people act like its rise was a mystery, or if not, than simply an evil. But in fact there was a long tradition of the kind of critical and grammatical study championed by them.
So you're essentially saying that its all trends, with the bend now being lined up against it?
I'm not sure about you're argument regarding the maskilim. No one is really claiming that the study of Tanach is an important part of Jewish tradition. Nothing evil or mysterious. Rather, the leading Rabbis' at that time saw fit to distance themselves from this study in order to differentiate from the maskilim.
Similar to the reason we don't hear about chavivas ha'aretz in Satmar or about Mashichah in the litvishe velt.
There's no good evidence that the rabbi's distanced themselves from it's study. Rather, they maintained the traditional distance, only now they could give an allegedly good reason for it: "It leads to impiety/ it is impious." Before the maskilim there wasn't this really any reason, but it certainly was widely neglected.
It's not like 300 years ago Litvaks pronounced Hebrew more correctly, and then they stopped.
So why do we see the Rishonim learn Tanach with such gusto?
Where exactly did the perceptions change?
As I've been saying, we've had a complicated relationship with Tanakh, dikduk and the Hebrew language, not that we've entirely neglected. There seem to have been always forces pulling "us" away from it, and pulling us back to it, depending on internal and external factors. In addition, even in times of neglect a few specialists have always been interested in it, which persists to this day.
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