Q:
What is the reason that yeshivas do not learn Tanach? Is this right?
A:
The yeshivas go on an assumption, usually not justified that the talmid learned Tanach in his elementary years. That’s why the big yeshivas in Europe didn’t learn Tanach because they usually learned it in the Lithuanian chadarim. In America, the yeshivas continued with the European tradition but they did not learn Tanach in American elementary yeshivas.
Is it right? I’m not going to speak on that subject, because there are certain exigencies of chinuch today that make certain things necessary. Like one adam gadol said, you’ll take a young man or a boy and you’ll tell him to sit down and learn through Tanach first like the Gra said, the Gra said learn through Tanach first and then learn through all Mishnayos first and then learn through Gemara first. Then you’ll start learning deeply. By that time, you’ll be already retired.
In the olden days when people learned all day long summer and winter, they learned – children that came in at five or six, there were no vacations, they learned summer and winter, summer and winter they learned all day long, so you could hope for such a program. Today, first of all there is the secular studies that take up a big part of their time. In addition, today people don’t want to work so hard. There are summer vacations and other bein hazmanim. So if you’ll wait, you’ll never learn anything.
Therefore, we’d say, start Gemara even before he knows Ivra. That’s what they do. Before he can read Hebrew, they start Gemara. But it’s a good thing. So he gets involved in Gemara and he feels he’s a lamdan and he’s committed to it and that’s saves him. Whereas if you’ll start from the beginning, he’ll be lost before he gets to anything. It can’t be helped.
However, every man should be ambitious of knowing Tanach. Without knowing Tanach, you’re missing one of the fundamentals of Torah knowledge.
Tape #78 (June 1975)
