The Torah and the desert have several similarities. The desert is a place of silence where you can hear the voice of G-d. The desert is a place away from the distractions of towns and cities, fields and farms, where you can focus on the presence of G-d. The desert is a place where you realize how vulnerable you are; you feel like sheep in need of a shepherd. The desert is a place where it is easy to get lost, and you need some kind of Google-Maps-of-the-soul. The desert is a place where you feel your isolation and reach out to a force beyond you. Even the Hebrew name for desert, midbar, comes from the same root as “word” (davar) and “to speak” (d-b-r). Yet these were not the connections the Sages of the Midrash made. Why not?
The Sages understood that something profound was born at Mount Sinai, something that has distinguished Jewish life ever since. It was the democratization of knowledge. Literacy and knowledge of the law were no longer to be confined to a priestly elite. For the first time in history, everyone was to have access to knowledge, education, and literacy. “The law that Moshe gave us is the possession of the assembly of Jacob” (Devarim 33:4) – the whole assembly, not a privileged group within it.
In the first century, the world’s first system of universal compulsory education was created. 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 that man is to be blessed, namely Joshua ben Gamla, for, but for him, the Torah would have been forgotten from 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 therefore ordained that teachers should be appointed in each district and that boys should enter school at the age of sixteen or seventeen. [They did so], but if the teacher punished them, they used to rebel and leave the school. Eventually, Joshua ben Gamla came and ordained that teachers of young children should be appointed in each district and each town and that children should enter school at the age of six or seven.” (Baba Batra, 21a)
Universal compulsory education did not exist in England, at that time, the world’s leading imperial power, until 1870, a difference of 18 centuries. At roughly the same time as Joshua ben Gamla, in the first century C.E., Josephus could write:
“Should any one of our nation be asked about our laws, they will repeat them as readily as their own name. The result of our thorough education in our laws from the very dawn of intelligence is that they are, as it were, engraved on our souls.”
We now understand the connection the Sages made between the wilderness and the giving of the Torah. It was open to everyone, and it was free. Neither lack of money nor of aristocratic birth could stop you from learning Torah and acquiring distinction in a community in which scholarship was considered the highest achievement.
As Rambam says, “The crown of Torah is for all Israel. Whoever desires it, let them come and take it.”
I believe that this is one of Judaism’s most profound ideas. Whatever you seek to create in the world, start with education. If you want to create a just and compassionate society, start with education. If you want to create a society of equal dignity, ensure that education is free and equal to all.
That is the message the Sages took from the fact that we read Parshat Bamidbar before Shavuot. This is the festival where we celebrate that when G-d gave our ancestors the Torah, He gave it to all of them equally.
RABBI JONATHAN SACKS, Z”L
