ABSTRACT
As Robert M. Hutchins notes, education is the effort of human society to keep the Great Conversation going by initiating the young into it and making them participants within it. The Talmudic rabbis made a cultural-educational decision of great consequence when they decided that a fixed regimen of public Torah reading would be a staple of Jewish life. Tree of Life, Tree of Knowledge is not only about understanding some texts within the religious tradition of Judaism but also about the specific conversations the texts have generated that reflect and illuminate fundamental philosophical questions arising in Jewish education and, to a large degree, in all education. The language’s foundational literature enjoys special status, for it brings the language onto the stage of history and culture, making it more than an airy “way of thinking” or a blurry set of pointers. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
