This week our Hebrew and Jewish Studies staff attended the Zionist Federation of Australia’s biennial Educators Conference. It was an outstanding two day program of Jewish learning and I was thrilled that our own Ilan Bloch, Keren Gengut-Mushinsky, Damien Green and Hani Ron all ran beautifully received sessions.

I attended a number of sessions by an exceptional Israeli educator, Dr Zohar Raviv who is the International Vice President of Educational Strategy for Taglit-Birthright Israel. Dr Raviv raised pertinent points about Jewish, Zionist and general education.

I attended his session called ‘The Issue is not “the Issues”, but the Spiralling Collapse in our Ability to Discuss Them’. I thought that his messages were so powerful, important and well expressed that I wish to share a summary with you. 

Dr Raviv opened by suggesting that Jewish education, and indeed education in general, faces a crisis that is a consequence of the contemporary western approach to learning. He stated that the problem is not one of content but rather of pedagogy and philosophy. 

Dr Raviv suggested that our society encourages surface level learning. He said that “we deal with a world of surfers without a diving licence.” He extended the metaphor suggesting that surfers are attracted to what makes waves but that the “deep ocean of wisdom is of no interest.” He stated that there was an inverse relationship between very low levels of knowledge and very high levels of opinion. This resulted in “people having a lot to say about things they know nothing about.”

He asked us to draw a triangle and to create labels at each corner of “Information”, “Knowledge” and “Opinion”. He suggested that people tend to jump straight from information to opinion and often skip over the knowledge stage.

He argued that our role as educators is to establish the movement between information and knowledge through the application of context and complexity. This would then enable our students to develop informed and knowledgeable opinions. 

Dr Raviv identified another contemporary challenge that derived from our immersion in echo chambers. He said that as we in physical and virtual environments surround ourselves with like-minded people, we create a “delusion of global consent” which leads to a “spiral of self created conviction.” A consequence of this, is a loss of the “ethical backbone and moral clarity” to be able to cope with dealing with differences of opinion.

He stated that this was then reinforced by a binary mode of thought that tends to govern all social discourse. He referred to this as “an era of either-or instead of and-and.”

He characterised this beautifully stating that “people do not know how to dialogue in a world of parallel monologues.” 

Dr Raviv then discussed how to respond effectively to what he believes is a genuine crisis. He said that we needed to create a new shared language that made space for depth and dissent.

He said that “the mandate of education is to become a counter-cultural positive interruption” that runs against the prevailing culture. He said educators need to offer meaningful alternatives.

Dr Raviv argued that we must distinguish between unity and uniformity. He said that unity is an appropriate aspiration but uniformity is very damaging.

He explained that Judaism has never been afraid of a difference of opinion. He said that “it fears indifference”. 

Dr Raviv suggested that the purpose of education is to reintroduce the value of pluralism. He said that this could be achieved through reestablishing meaningful dialogue. 

He cited Rabbi Heschel who defined dialogue as the “ability to become dangerously involved in the life of another”. Dr Raviv added to this that true dialogue should not aim towards agreement nor to resolve an issue but to “befriend the inherent ambiguity of a subject.” 

He repeated that befriending ambiguity should be one of the greatest goals in education. He challenged the educators to become role models in showing their comfort with ambiguity. He said we should teach students to look for things rather than how to find them. He extrapolated that this involves teaching how to think and not what to think. 

He reiterated that the role is to offer context and complexity and that “dealing with content alone is not education.”

Finally he posited that creating meaningful dialogue requires a safe and a brave environment. He said that a safe environment is one which invites people to share their beliefs but a brave one focuses more on listening to others, especially when they challenge one’s perspective. 

He quoted the Dalai Lama who stated that “When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.” 

He finished his powerful presentation by suggesting that the overarching goal of an educator is to allow our students to understand how hard it is to understand.  His final pronouncement is one that will last with me forever. He said that we need to turn “exclamation marks into question marks.” 

Shabbat Shalom,
Marc Light