Why Hebrew School

Today I read an article about Justice Souter who will return home to New Hampshire when the Supreme Court closes this year. He was talking at a forum oranized by former justice Sandra Day O'Connor, another voluntary retiree. He spoke about his education in democracy as a child attending the annual town meeting.

"the most radical example of American democracy that there is." With the town's three selectmen at the front, every resident could attend, and any resident could speak. Sitting sometimes at the back with friends, sometimes between his parents, Souter learned three lessons, he said. First, though people talk about "the government," power is divided; the selectmen could not speak for the police chief, and the police chief could not answer for the road agent. Second, though no one used the word "federalism," power is divided vertically as well; you could complain that the road agent hadn't plowed the Class 5 roads, he said, but the Class 2 roads were the domain of the state of New Hampshire. And finally, the justice said, he learned the extreme importance of treating others "fairly and decently": "Everybody got the same chance to have his say." And so by the time they got to middle school, though they might never have heard of Montesquieu or even Madison, Souter and his classmates "had basically learned what they had to teach."

The justice went on to lament how many Americans today do not grow up understanding even the most basic truths about U.S. democracy -- that there are three branches of government, for example. This ignorance, he said, was "the most profoundly important fact" to emerge from O'Connor's first seminars, because if people do not understand the divisions and limitations of power, they certainly will not defend the judiciary's independence.

This led to a realization, he said, that "we had to start with the reeducation of a substantial part of the American population." Recalling Benjamin Franklin's oft-told admonition to a woman asking what the Founding Fathers had created -- "a republic, madam, if you can keep it" -- Souter said, somewhat gloomily, "It is being lost. It is lost if it is not understood."

As I read this editorial - I couldn't help think about The state of Jewish education. Unless we teach our children everything about our past -- from our forefathers to the great Jewish thinkers -- and have our children question and challenge every pasouc and parash, mishna and gemara it will be lost because it's not understood.