How does the average house in South Korea differ from the average house in England? The average house in South Korea boasts a ‘Talmud’ on its bookcase!
Around Purim time 2010 there was a newspaper report circulating that Talmud Study was a mandatory part of school curriculum in South Korea. “Close to 50 million people live in South Korea, and everyone learns Gemora (Talmud) in school… there are more people who read the Talmud – or at least own their own copy at home – than in the Jewish state of Israel”. Many people thought the clip was a Purim joke!
What is driving the South Koreans to such extensive Talmudic study? The report discusses two reasons and summarises, “Koreans don’t only like the Talmud because they see it as promoting genius, but because they found values that are close to their hearts”.
However the Koreans quest to conquer the Talmud hit the news again. Unhappy with their studies of Talmud over the past years, they have realised that they need to learn off the Jews how to tackle the complexity of Talmudic Study and how to really internalise the thinking methods of the Talmudic scholars over the generations. In 2013 they visited the famous Ponevicz Yeshiva in Bnei Brak in search of the authentic methods of Talmud elucidation.
There are not the first to show such interest in our texts. The Greeks some hundred years before the Chanukah story were the first ‘outsiders’ who realised the depth of the Bible and famously took seventy two Torah Scholars, isolated them from one another and made them translate the Bible into Greek. This event – the Septuagint – was seen by the Rabbi’s as catastrophic and we commemorate it with the upcoming fast of the tenth of Teves. For the first time ever the Torah was out in the open – for all to plunder and rummage through!
What though, was the Greeks’ obsession in translating our Bible?
They understood from an intellectual viewpoint that the Torah – a Divinely sourced text – was the key to developing the human mind. Indeed the Greeks were renowned for their philosophers; many of whom appear in the Talmud in deep debate with the Tana’im and Amora’im [Scholars of the time of the Mishnah and Gemora]. The Greek’s were masters of taking all that is physical and using it to the upmost. They started the Olympics – pushing the body to the limit, and their philosophical minds stretched the human intellect to new depths. A new Hellenistic culture developed. They began to almost idolise themselves – to make sculptures of the human body. They had utilised the human physical and mental capabilities to the limit. Or so they thought!
What the Greeks did not realise, and perhaps this is what the South Koreans albeit subconsciously can feel, is that there is another aspect to the intellectualism of the Bible and its explanatory notes – the Oral Law.
When we get called up to the Torah we make two blessings. One is on the wisdom contained within the Torah. The is ‘as-it-were’ the ‘brain-mush’ of Hashem. We make a blessing over the intellectualism that can be seen through Torah study – “asher nosan lonu toras emes” – “who gave us the Torah of Truth”.
The other blessing we make is on the connection to Hashem that we can attain through learning His Torah. “Asher bochar bonu…” – “who selected us…” we are chosen by Hashem to be the bearers of His Torah. As His ambassadors we are worthy of a connection to Him.
The Greeks wanted the intellectualism found in the Torah but not the connection to a G-d through the Torah. The South Koreans seem to want the intellectualism and even the values found in the Torah, but perhaps they are beginning to feel that Torah has to go hand in hand with a connection to Hashem.
Invariably the two aspects lead to one another – through seeing the wisdom in the Torah one is pushed to recognise The Creator of the Torah; and through seeing a Creator one is obliged to want to learn His wisdom.
With this we can appreciate one of the Greeks’ decrees which was to write on the horn of their oxen, that the Jews no longer have any attachment to Hashem. The prophet Isaiah chastises the Jews “an ox knows its owner and a donkey his master’s trough, but Israel does not know”. We see there are two levels, that of an ox and that of a donkey. The donkey only recognises his trough; a higher level is that of an ox who not just knows his trough but even his owner.
An ox therefore represents the idea of tracing what we have back to its owner. What the Greeks wanted to do was to uproot from us this ox-ideology. Intellectual study of Torah – YES! But don’t take it back a stage and put G-d into the equation. Eat from the trough; recognize the trough; but not the master! This is why they wrote the message of the Jews having no connection to Hashem on the horn of an ox!
In the Chanukah prayer we allude to this when we say that the Greeks wanted to “make us forget YOUR Torah and to turn them away from YOUR will”. Torah they were happy with, but not “YOUR Torah” – if we use it to connect with Hashem.
The Torah is a mind blowing intellectual pursuit but as Jews there is another, much deeper aspect. The Torah is our connection, our relationship to Hashem. When we daven we speak to Hashem but when we learn Hashem speaks to us.
Good Shabbos, Happy Chanukah Yaakov