� 27. School And Synagogue

§ 27. SCHOOL AND SYNAGOGUE
“THE people which knoweth not the law is accursed” (John 7:49). Such was the fundamental conviction of post-exilian Judaism. And this of itself implies that a knowledge of the law was esteemed as the possession worthy above all others to be striven after. Hence the exhortation: To the law! is sounded abroad in every key. Joses ben Joeser said: Let your house be a house of assembly for those wise in the law (חֲכָמִים); let yourself be dusted by the dust of their feet, and drink eagerly their teaching.[1536] Joshua ben Perachiah said: Get thyself a teacher (רַב).[1537] Shammai said: Make the study of the law thy special business (קְבַע).[1538] Rabban Gamaliel said: Appoint for thyself a teacher, so wilt thou avoid what is doubtful.[1539] Hillel said: An ignorant man cannot be truly pious (לֹא עַם הָאָרֶץ חָסִיר).[1540] He also said: The more teaching of the law, the more life; the more school, the more wisdom; the more counsel, the more reasonable action. He who gains a knowledge of the law gains life in the world to come.[1541] R. Joses ha-Kohen said: Give thyself the trouble to learn the law, for it is not obtained by inheritance.[1542] R. Eleasar ben Arach said: Be diligent in the study of the law.[1543] R. Chananiah ben Teradion said: When two sit together and do not converse about the law, they are an assembly of scorners, of which it is said: sit not in the seat of scorners. When however two sit together and converse about the law, the Shechinah is present among them.[1544] B. Simon said: When three eat together at one table and do not converse about the law, it is as though they ate of the offerings of the dead. But when three eat together at one table and converse about the law, it is as though they ate at the table of God.[1545] B. Simon said: He who in walking repeats the law to himself, but interrupts himself and exclaims, How beautiful is this tree! How beautiful is this field ! the Scripture will impute it to him as though he had forfeited his life.[1546] R. Nehorai said: Always travel towards a place where there is instruction in the law, and say not that it will come after thee, or that thy companions will preserve it for thee; also depend not upon thine own acuteness.[1547] The same R. Nehorai said: I lay aside all the trade of the world, and teach my son only the law, for its reward is enjoyed in this world, and the capital (הַקֶּרֶן) remains for the world to come.[1548] The following things have no measure: the Peah, the first-fruits, pilgrimage, benevolence, the study of the law. The following are things whose interest (פֵּירוֹת) is enjoyed in this world, while the capital (הַקֶּרֶן) remains for the world to come: reverence for fathers and mothers, benevolence, peace-making among neighbours, and the study of the law above them all.[1549] A bastard who knows the law takes precedence of a high priest if he is ignorant.[1550]
[1536] Aboth i. 4.
[1537] Aboth i. 6.
[1538] Aboth i. 15.
[1539] Aboth i. 16.
[1540] Aboth ii. 5.
[1541] Aboth ii. 7.
[1542] Aboth ii. 12.
[1543] Aboth ii. 14.
[1544] Aboth iii. 2; comp. iii. 6.
[1545] Aboth iii. 2.
[1546] Aboth iii. 7.
[1547] Aboth iv. 14.
[1548] Kiddushin iv. 14.
[1549] Peah i. 1.
[1550] Horajoth iii. 8. Comp. on the necessity and value of the study of the law, Weber, System der altsynagogalen palästinischen Theologie (1880), pp. 28-31.
Such an estimation of the law would necessarily impel to the employment of every possible means for bestowing upon the whole people the benefit of the most thorough knowledge and practice of the law. What the Pharisaic scribes had established in their schools as the law of Israel, was to become both in theory and practice the common possession of the whole nation. For both the knowledge and practice of the law were required. Josephus boasts of it as an excellence of the Israelitish nation, that in their case neither one nor the other received a one-sided preference, as in the case of the Spartans, who educated by custom, not by instruotion (ἔθεσιν ἐπαίδευον, οὐ λόγοις), and, on the other hand, of the Athenians and other Greeks, who contented themselves with theoretic instruction, and neglected practice. “But our lawgiver very carefully combined the two. For he neither left the practice of morals silent, nor the teaching of the law unperformed.”[1551] The instruction which formed the prerequisite of practice began in early youth, and continued during the whole life of the Israelite. The care of its foundation rested with the school and family, that of its farther carrying on with the synagogue.
[1551] Contra Apion. ii. 16-17.