Irish Culture, Jewish Learning

The first time research brought me to Ireland, I was struck by a national oxymoron: "it is and it isn't." As in...

• The situation is hopeless. Well, it is and it isn't.
• The weather is fine. Well, it is and it isn't.
• Is this the way to Ballyglass? Well, it is and it isn't.

To someone with Germanic bloodlines like mine, it either is OR it isn't. It can't be both. And furthermore once we believe what is, then "strait is the gate, and narrow is the way" forward.

I was recently reminded of the oxymoron by guru Donald Tam, for whom it is a credo. Like most rabbis, Tam's vocation is teaching rather than preaching, questioning rather than vouchsafing. His faith is centered on learning and intellectual growth. Its scripture and devotions are spiritual and yet practical templates of education and training for life.

For Tam, "it is and it isn't" explains how traditional Jewish learning works, and works very well at that! Among other things he told me about two defining principles of Jewish learning. These principles happen to be alien to popular instructional design theory; they are missing from the standard corporate curriculum:

• Empowerment
• Dissent

Principle of Empowerment

Disciples of Robert Mager may scratch their heads. "Are you serious? How can empowerment be missing from the corporate curriculum, when training exists ONLY to enable people to do things?"

Well, that may be true, but a more precise statement of purpose for criterion-referenced instruction is that "training exists only to enable people to do as they're told." That is no closer to empowerment than training animals to perform in a circus.

In contrast to this, empowerment is primarily about engagement. The individual is taught to engage directly with the text, and encouraged to "own" the message.

Training of this kind does not exist to produce workers who do as they're told. It exists to cultivate human beings who can do what they believe is right, necessary and best in any situation.

There is a huge difference between these outcomes. And I am sorry to report that most corporate learning is admittedly about circus-like performance rather than empowerment.

In contrast, Jewish learning is mainly about empowerment and really not about performance. That may be why Jews (like the Irish) tend to argue about everything!

Principle of Dissent

Corporate learning takes direction from business leaders, as it should. However the leadership model that prevails in most businesses is a top-down hierarchy.

I think you'll agree that clarity, certainty and decisiveness are hallmarks of effective business leaders. Most don't condone dissent among employees. They expect performance rather than empowerment. They want employees to do as they're told quickly and expertly.

Is anything wrong with that? Well, there is and there isn't.

At the risk of citing way too extreme an example, I ask you to recall a scene in Schindler's List, when the Jewish inmate of a lager protests the faulty construction of a building. The lager's CEO, Amon Goeth, has the inmate shot on the spot, but not because she was wrong (she was a professional engineer trained to do what is right, necessary and best in any situation.)

No, he ordered her immediate execution because she dissented. She did not do as she was told.

I know, the example is provocative, but I use it to make a point. In contrast to an organizational model premised on obedience, traditional Jewish learning prizes dissent. Jews who are empowered by learning to become more authentic human beings are not expected to agree with authority all the time. On the contrary, they are encouraged to investigate, doubt, reconsider, reframe; and yes, to argue with peers, parents and even teachers (poor rabbi!) for their personal and informed point of view.

A concept that underlies Jewish learning is that no individual stands apart; that everybody exists in the community. For that reason, people who dissent are nonetheless bound by their common purpose, a social contract in practical terms. Dialectics get them to truth together, better than marching in lock step with transient and imperfect leaders.

Fair enough, I thought, but what about productivity and efficiency? A business can't be run with arguments! I asked Rabbi Tam why chronic dissent doesn't lead to anarchy. He had a ready answer.

Yes, Jewish learning is messy; but no, it doesn't lead to chaos. Why? Because underneath the differences is a bedrock of values. Jewish learning promotes empowerment and encourages dissent. But it doesn't tolerate deviance from core values of the faith.

Values rather than discipline and obedience have been enough to sustain the Jewish community through unimaginable vicissitudes. I was amazed to learn that there were never Jewish police until Nazis created them.

And the Irish?

Ireland has a traditionally scholastic Christian culture. But the hero of Ireland's national epic, Leopold Bloom in James Joyce's Ulysses, is Jewish.

Joyce's vision of his native land was that nothing is absolutely certain for everybody. Everything can be known, and lost, and found again in something different and perhaps nearer the truth. Every student is a seeker. Every teacher is a guide and fellow traveler.

If I were to say that traditional Jewish and Irish culture have much to offer the designers of corporate learning, you could say, well, it does and it doesn't. And I would reply, now we're getting somewhere!

Comments

[Michele]

Great newsletter this time, but ...

What does rabbi say about the dissent taking place in the financial industry?

"Values rather than discipline and obedience have been enough to sustain the Jewish community through unimaginable vicissitudes."

But does this include values demonstrated by investor fraud Madoff, one of many hedge fund managers, e.g., Nadel, and Indiana financial adviser, Schrenker to name a recent few?

Or is it because the reference to 'brilliant' and 'intellectual' give one a free pass to behave badly inside and outside of the community? Thanks.