Amidst the tumult of the Athenian agora, Baltimore’s recent riots, and the depredations of the Romans, these three venues hosted groups of people who could silence the chaos raging around them by meeting and learning together by posing questions.
The Socratic method, pioneered in ancient Athens by the philosopher Socrates and his disciple, Plato, encouraged Athenian men to think through important questions like What is real? How do we know what we know? Similarly the tannaim (of Bnei Brak fame, as mentioned in the Haggadah) and later the amoraim began to record the discussions among the argumentative rabbis. When studying Mishna one quickly learns the Hebrew abbreviation for “another opinion.” These teachers, too, began with questions that were posed by a Torah text or questions of law; and, the disputations were exhilarating and respectful, not laced with enmity and venom.
Leslie and I recently returned from a Hadassah Brandeis Institute in Baltimore on April 28th and 29th. West...
