(There are, of course, teachers who approach their task with a considerably greater degree of sophistication, but more often than not they utilize methods of “analysis” that “our forebears did not know” and that are, to paraphrase Rava’s words in Bava Basra (111b), like “a sharp knife that chops up the text.” These teachers often ask their students to compare Tanach with other tales of antiquity such as the Epic of Gilgamesh.)
Tanach needs to be presented to students in a way that will enable them to understand the relevance it has to their lives – a way that will whet their appetites to study it further. Ideally, this should be done by posing questions designed to stimulate discussion and instill a desire to understand how the classic commentators – scholars whose depth of knowledge we cannot even begin to fathom – dealt with these very problems.
But the main idea must be to encourage students to think about the foundational literature of the Jewish nation rather than simply recite back by rote the teacher’s lessons.
