Bruner and the Rambam: an Unlikely Alliance

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Yes, I know that this is not actually what the Rambam looked like.

I wrote a post back in 2009 entitled Torah Study as Natural Discovery. The reading I did during that time eventually developed into what would be the final paper I wrote for my final class in graduate school in July of 2011. I recently rediscovered that paper and was pleasantly surprised to note that while many of my views have changed over the past seven years, I still pretty much agree with everything I wrote in that paper - so much so that I decided to post it here on my blog.

I definitely learned a lot in the process of researching and writing this paper, and the insights I gained significantly shaped my approach to teaching. Although I haven't fully implemented the ideas presented here in my own classroom, I can point to a number of educational practices which characterize my teaching that I owe to the unlikely alliance of Bruner and the Rambam.

Because this was a term paper, it is much longer than my usual blog posts. I considered splitting it up into two parts, but decided that it would make the paper feel less unified. I hope you find it to be a worthwhile read!

Bruner and the Rambam: an Unlikely Alliance

Foreword

The aim of this paper is to explore the possibility of using the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah as the basis of a new Torah curriculum in accordance with the educational theories of Jerome Bruner. This paper is comprised of three parts. In the first and largest part, we will review Bruner’s insights into the learning process; we will focus on the insights he introduced in Structures in Learning (1963), which were fully developed in The Process of Education (1977). In the second part we will demonstrate how the novel organizational scheme of the Mishneh Torah renders it a viable basis for a Brunerian curriculum. In the third part we will offer a few suggestions on how to incorporate the Mishneh Torah into an actual curriculum. 

Before we begin, however, we will set the stage by examining the educational crisis which faced the Rambam during his lifetime, the effects of which continue to this day.

Introduction

The Rambam concludes the introduction of the Mishneh Torah [1] with a grim observation about the state of Torah education in his time: 

In our times, severe troubles come one after another, and all are in distress; the wisdom of our wise men has disappeared, and the understanding of our discerning men is hidden. Thus, the commentaries, the responses to questions, and the settled laws that the Geonim wrote, which had once seemed clear, have in our times become hard to understand, so that only a few properly understand them. And one hardly needs to mention the Talmud itself – the Babylonian Talmud, the Jerusalem Talmud, the Sifra, the Sifre, and the Toseftos – which all require a broad mind, a wise soul, and a long time, before one can correctly know from them what is forbidden or permitted and the other laws of the Torah.

The Rambam saw that his Jewish brethren suffered from an educational crisis of epidemic proportions. All but the most erudite scholars had drowned in the sea of the Oral Torah – the classical texts, the commentaries, and the other various writings from the Geonim. Halacha had become inaccessible not only in the realm of theoretical study, but in practice as well. The average Jew was at a loss to determine “what is forbidden or permitted and the other laws of the Torah.” In his Maamar Techiyas ha’Meisim the Rambam writes: 

I was most zealous for the Lord God of Israel when I saw before me before me a nation that does not have a comprehensive book of truth, nor true and accurate philosophical ideas.

In his introduction to the Sefer ha’Mitzvos, the Rambam even goes so far as to apply the following words of the prophet: “To all of you the prophecy is like the words of a sealed book, which one gives to a literate person, saying, ‘Please read this,’ and he says, ‘I cannot, for it is sealed’" (Yeshayahu 29:11). The Rambam saw that the laws of the Torah had become “like the words a sealed book” in his time – one which even those who are literate are unable to read. 

It was this sad state of affairs that motivated him to write the Mishneh Torah, “to clear the paths and remove the obstacles from before the students of the law, so that their minds will not become faint by the overabundance of debate and argumentation.” [2] In a rather dramatic fashion, the Rambam concludes his introduction [3] to the Mishneh Torah with a mission statement: 

For this reason, I, Moshe son of the Rav Maimon the Sephardi, found that the current situation is unbearable; and so, relying on the help of the Rock, blessed be He, I intently studied all these books, for I saw fit to write what can be determined from all of these works in regard to what is forbidden and permitted, and unclean and clean, and the other rules of the Torah -- everything in clear language and concise style, so that the whole Oral Torah would become thoroughly known to all; without bringing problems and solutions or differences of view, but rather clear, convincing, and correct statements, in accordance with the legal rules drawn from all of these works and commentaries that have appeared from the time of Rabbeinu ha’Kadosh to the present.

Unfortunately, the same problems which plagued the Jewish people in the Rambam’s era continue to plague us today. To countless of students across the religious (and irreligious) spectrum, Judaism is nothing but a hodgepodge of particulars. I have encountered many students who are ignorant of the most basic distinctions. They are unable to distinguish between Torah law, Rabbinic law, custom, and societal trends. They are unaware of the fact that halacha and philosophy occupy two totally different realms within Judaism, and that one does not necessarily influence the other. They are unable to differentiate between the letter of the law and the ethical principles which go beyond the letter of the law. They fail to distinguish mitzvos from chumros (stringencies), nor can they detect the various superstitions that masquerade as Jewish practice. They make grievous errors in the fundamentals of Judaism while embracing the literal (and often absurd) meanings of midrashic statements as gospel. 

Perhaps the most tragic outcome of this educational crisis is not the lack of knowledge per se, but the extinguishing of the desire to learn. Students have been so inundated with information that they are either paralyzed or jaded. They have no sense of independence in thinking, and their natural curiosity has been extinguished. They relate to Judaism as a body of unrelated facts, believing that the only difference between a scholar and a layman is how much information he has memorized. Worst of all, they see no connection between the Judaism they are taught and the lives they live. To them, Judaism has little to do with “the real world.” 

These are the problems the Rambam intended to solve with his composition of the Mishneh Torah. Although his vision has not yet been realized, it is never too late. We can still unlock the tremendous potential of the Mishneh Torah and revolutionize the way Torah is taught and learned. The key to unlocking this potential can be found in the writings of Jerome Bruner – a man who lived nearly 800 years after the Rambam, but who shared the same curricular insights. 

Part I – Bruner’s Theories of Learning

Structures in Learning (1963) [4]

Learning by Discovery

Bruner begins his article, Structures in Learning (1963), by describing a novel approach to teaching the geography of the Central states to a group of fifth graders. Like most geography courses, these students had previously only been exposed to a method of teaching based on rote memorization. As expected, this proved to be a bore. Refusing to accept that this is simply how geography “must be taught,” these teachers asked themselves: Could geography be taught as a rational discipline? Could students learn the material in such a manner that they would have to figure out not only where things are located why they are there? In short, could students learn to see geography “through a geographer’s eyes”? 

The teachers devised an experimental lesson plan. Students were given a blank map of the Central states; the topography and natural resources were shown, but the names and locations of cities were omitted. The students – who had no prior knowledge of the geography of the Central states – were then given the task of locating Chicago; there told only that Chicago is the largest city in the North Central states. Over the course of the next 45 minutes, each child proposed his or her theories as to the location of Chicago, and each one supported his or her theories with reasoning. Finally, students were shown the “real” map (with the names of the cities) and were able to see how close their guesses had been. Bruner then summarizes the results: 

Chicago had not been located. But the location of cities was no longer a matter of unthinking chance for this group of children ... What had the children learned? A way of thinking about geography, a way of dealing with its raw data. They had learned that there is some relationship between the requirements of living and man's habitat. If that is all they got out of their geography lesson, that is plenty. Did they remember which is Lake Huron? Lake Superior? Lake Michigan? Do you? 

This is what it means to teach geography “as a rational discipline.” Students who learn geography in this manner will not relate to geographical information as an infinite (and often irrelevant) set of arbitrary facts to be memorized by rote. Instead, they will come to realize that geography (and indeed, all knowledge) is characterized by “an internal connectedness, a meaningfulness.” These geography teachers learned that in order “for facts to be appreciated and understood and remembered, they must be fitted into that internal meaningful context.”

Bruner refers to this approach as learning by discovery. Rather than being “fed” the knowledge in verbal form by a lecturing teacher, the student is led to discover the facts, the internal structure, and the underlying principles of the subject with his or her own mind. The teacher’s role, then, is to facilitate discovery on the part of the student – to guide the student to experience “aha!” moments of genuine insight. Bruner, quoting Newton, describes this experience as encountering “islands of truth in an uncharted sea of ignorance.” It doesn’t matter whether the sea has been charted by the “experts.” What matters is that the student engages in his or her own exploration and independent charting.

The Benefits of Learning by Discovery

Bruner discusses four benefits of learning by discovery. The first he calls intellectual potency. This refers to the propensity “to search out and find regularities and relationships in his environment.” In order to do this, the student “needs to be armed with the expectancy that there is something for him to find and, once aroused by this expectancy, he must devise his own ways of searching and finding.” In order to do so, the student must naturally evolve into a “constructivist” – one who continually organizes and reorganizes the knowledge he gains in an effort to uncover the underlying lawfulness which he knows is there. 

The second benefit of learning by discovery is the development of techniques of inquiry. Children who are educated in this manner will begin to develop “heuristics of discovery.” They will learn how to organize facts in a manner that is ripe for insight. They’ll learn how to ask fruitful questions and how to go about searching for the answers. They will also develop their intellectual intuition and a “feel” for the subject. “Rather than a formal approach to the relevance of variables in their search,” Bruner writes, “they depend on their sense of what things among an ensemble of things ‘smell right’ as being of the proper order of magnitude or scope of severity.” 

The third benefit is that students will dramatically improve their memory processes. Bruner notes that “the principal problem of human memory is not storage, but retrieval.” The approach of learning by discovery naturally results in enhanced memory, since all knowledge is immediately incorporated into meaningful structures of the child’s own making. “In sum,” Bruner writes, the “very attitudes and activities that characterize ‘figuring out’ or ‘discovering’ things for himself also seem to have the effect of making material easier to remember.” 

The fourth benefit of a discovery-based approach – and, arguably, the most significant –is that it promotes intrinsic motivation for learning. Aristotle famously wrote: “man, by nature, desires to know,” and a discovery-based approach to learning is the ideal way to satisfy that desire. Since exploration and discovery are inherently exciting, rewarding, and challenging, the need for extrinsic motivators is minimal:

[If] a child is able to approach learning as a task of discovering something rather than “learning about it” he will tend to find a more personally meaningful reward in his own competency and self-achievement in the subject than he will find in the approval of others.

Bruner concludes his article by paraphrasing Maimonides (of all people!), who said that if intellectual excellence is the most important of man’s perfections, then the highest endeavor of an educator is to enable the student to know that which he or she discovers for himself or herself. The object of every curriculum should be to facilitate each student’s development into an independent discoverer. 

The Process of Education (1977) [5]

The ideas set forth in Structures in Learning reach their full development in The Process of Education. The book is divided into four sections, each of which deals with a different theme. The four themes are: (1) the role of structure in learning, (2) readiness for learning, (3) the nature of intuition, and (4) the desire to learn. The fourth theme is beyond the scope of this paper, and will not be discussed here. 

(1) The Role of Structure in Learning

Bruner’s first thesis is that the structure of a curriculum should be determined by the fundamentals of its subject matter (p.11). Every subject has, at its core, a relatively small number of basic assumptions, foundational principles, and general attitudes or outlooks. Bruner maintains that all content must be taught in the context of these fundamentals. To “[teach] specific topics or skills without making clear their context in the broader fundamental structure of a field of knowledge is uneconomical” (p. 31).

Bruner marshals four reasons to support his contention; these reasons echo the four benefits mention in Structures in Learning. The first reason pertains to facility of comprehension: “understanding fundamentals makes a subject more comprehensible” (p. 23). Bruner acknowledges that this point is almost a tautology, for “what is meant by ‘fundamental’ in this sense is precisely that an idea has wide as well as powerful applicability” (p. 18). For example, one of the fundamental organizing concepts in biology is the question, “What function does this thing serve?” As the student makes progress in biology, he learns to ask this question more and more subtly, and relates more and more things to it (p. 28). A biology curriculum organized around this question will help the student to contextualize and process information in a manner harmonious with the mode of inquiry natural to the discipline. 

The second reason for teaching fundamentals pertains to memory: “unless detail is placed into a structured pattern, it is rapidly forgotten” (p. 24). According to Bruner, a “century of intensive research” (which he does not cite) has demonstrated that detailed material is conserved in memory by use of simplified, organized modes of representation. The most efficient way to retain factual knowledge is by organizing facts in terms of the principles and ideas from which they may be derived (p. 32). For instance, it is much easier to remember the formula f=ma than to memorize dozens of particular number values for the force generated by accelerating bodies of various masses. Bruner observes that a “good theory is the vehicle not only for understanding a phenomenon now but also for remembering it tomorrow” (p. 25). This is a further instance of instructional economy. 

The third reason has to do with what Bruner calls transfer of principles and attitudes. This consists of “learning initially not a skill but a general idea, which can then be used as a basis for recognizing subsequent problems as special cases of the idea originally mastered” (p. 17). A student who acquires the fundamental principles, attitudes, and structure of a discipline is better able to generalize, broaden, and deepen his understanding as he makes progress in the field. “To understand something as a specific instance of a more general case ... is to have learned not only a specific thing but also a model for understanding other things like it that one may encounter” (p. 25). Thus, every new concept acts as an “upgrade” of the overall paradigm, thereby enabling the learner to continually and simultaneously expand his knowledge base and his ability to gain new knowledge. 

The fourth reason for teaching fundamentals has to do with maintaining contemporaneousness: “by constantly reexamining material taught in elementary and secondary schools for its fundamental character, one is able to narrow the gap between ‘advanced’ knowledge and ‘elementary’ knowledge” (p. 25-26). This helps circumvent a common problem in K-12 education, namely, “that material learned earlier is either out of date or misleading by virtue of its lagging too far behind developments in a field” (p. 26). This is especially true of the sciences, but occurs in other disciplines as well. This, in turn, allows for greater communication between the novices and experts in the field.

Bruner recognizes that his vision of a “fundamentals-driven curriculum” poses two challenges. First, there is the problem of how to rewrite the basic subjects and revamp their teaching materials in such a way that the fundamentals are given a central role. Bruner admits that good curricula can only be designed by the best minds in the field (p. 19). Only these “scholars and scientists, working in conjunction with experienced teachers and students of child development, can prepare curricula of the sort we have been considering” (p. 32). He acknowledges that enlisting the aid of such individuals may be difficult, but he is optimistic about the future. Second, there is the problem of matching the levels of these materials to the capacities of different students of different abilities at each grade level (p. 18). This requires a great deal of time and effort, and can only be accomplished by those who have mastery over the subject matter and intimate familiarity with the knowledge and capacities of the students at each grade level. 

(2) Readiness for Learning

Bruner’s second thesis is that “the foundations of any subject may be taught to anybody at any age in some form” (p. 12). He does not mean to imply these foundations can be fully mastered by young children, but rather that they “can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development” and that “these first representations can later be made more powerful and precise the more easily by virtue of this early learning” (p. 33). In order to be in command of these basic ideas and to use them effectively, the student must continually deepen his understanding of them and learn to use them in progressively more complex forms (p. 13). Bruner acknowledges that there is no evidence to contradict his thesis and considerable evidence to support it (p. 33), to which he devotes many pages. 

Next, Bruner goes on to describe the learning process itself, which he breaks down into “three almost simultaneous processes.” The first is the acquisition of new information – information which can be described as “a refinement of previous knowledge” that often “runs counter to or is a replacement for what the person has previously known implicitly or explicitly.” A second aspect of learning is transformation – “the process of manipulating knowledge to make it fit new tasks” through extrapolation, interpolation, or conversion into another form. A third learning process is evaluation – “checking whether the way we have manipulated information is adequate to the task” (p. 48). Ideally, every learning episode should utilize all three processes. “At its best,” Bruner writes, “a learning episode reflects what has gone before it and permits one to generalize beyond it” (p. 49). 

Bruner concludes this section with his famous proposal of a “spiral curriculum” – an idea which follows directly from his first two theses: 

If the hypothesis with which this section was introduced is true – that any subject can be taught to any child in some honest form – then it should follow that a curriculum ought to be built around the great issues, principles, and values that a society deems worthy of the continual concern of its members (p. 52). 

Surprisingly, Bruner spends only a mere three pages discussing the Spiral Curriculum, in which he does not introduce any new principles, but merely sketches some examples of what a spiral curriculum would look like. However, he does set forth the following revolutionary criteria for inclusion in the spiral curriculum: one must ask “Is this subject, when fully developed, worth an adult’s knowing?” and “Does having known this subject as a child make a person a better adult?” He concludes with a bold assertion: “If the answer to both questions is negative or ambiguous, then the material is cluttering the curriculum” (p. 52). 

(3) Intuitive and Analytical Thinking

Bruner’s third thesis is that intuitive thinking is “is a much-neglected and essential feature of productive thinking not only in formal academic disciplines but also in everyday life” (p. 13). For this reason, intuitive thinking ought to be encouraged and cultivated throughout a student’s formal education. Bruner is critical of the emphasis in formal learning and formal examination upon “explicit formulations, upon the ability of the student to reproduce verbal or numerical formulae.” The stress placed on verbal memorization tends to marginalize “the student who, by his operations and conclusions, reveals a deep grasp of a subject but not much ability to ‘say how it goes’” (p. 55). 

After emphasizing that relatively little is known about the nature of “intuitive thinking” (p. 55), Bruner provides a comprehensive account of how intuitive thinking differs from analytic thinking. Analytic thinking involves the conscious, step by step application of cognitive operations, such as “deductive reasoning, often using mathematical or logic and an explicit plan of attack” (p. 57) or “a step-by-step process of induction and experiment, utilizing principles of research design and statistical analysis” (p. 58). 

In contrast to analytic thinking, intuitive thinking characteristically does not advance in careful, well-defined steps. Indeed, it tends to involve maneuvers based seemingly on an implicit perception of the total problem. The thinker arrives at an answer, which may be right or wrong, with little if any awareness of the process by which he reached it. He rarely can provide an adequate account of how he obtained his answer, and he may be unaware of just what aspects of the problem situation he was responding to (p. 58).

Intuitive thinking and analytic thinking are complementary, and each has its advantages and disadvantages. “Through intuitive thinking the individual may often arrive at solutions to problems which he would not achieve at all, or at best more slowly, through analytic thinking.” These solutions should be treated as tentative hypotheses which are then checked through analytic methods. While “the intuitive thinker may even invent or discover problems that the analyst would not” it is the “analyst who gives these problems the proper formalism” (p. 58). Bruner adds that the “good intuiter may have been born with something special, but his effectiveness rests upon a solid knowledge of the subject, a familiarity that gives intuition something to work with” (p. 57-58). 

The advantage of intuitive thinking lies in this ability to quickly generate hypotheses, thereby yielding “a tentative ordering of a body of knowledge” which gives us “a basis for moving ahead in our testing of reality” (p. 60). Intuitive thinking also enables the thinker to make “good guesses whether something is so” and to determine “which of several approaches to a problem will prove fruitful” (p. 56). The downside is that the intuitive mode “may lead to some big errors as well – bigger than those that result from the more painstaking, step-by-step analysis used by [the analyst]” (p. 62). The risk of error is compounded by the feeling that often accompanies intuitive moves, the “feeling that the ordering of facts is self-evident” even before the validity of the hypothesis is tested (p. 60). 

Instead of proposing methods of teaching intuition, Bruner identifies the key questions which ought to be considered by teachers and curriculum designers – questions which require more research to answer. For example, “Is the development of intuitive thinking in students more likely if their teachers think intuitively?” (p. 61) Bruner thinks it “unlikely that a student would develop or have confidence in his intuitive methods of thinking if he never saw them used effectively by his elders” and adds: 

The teacher who is willing to guess at answers to questions asked by the class and then subject his guesses to critical analysis may be more apt to build those habits into his students than would a teacher who analyzes everything for the class in advance. (p. 62).

Another excellent question raised by Bruner is whether the teaching of heuristic procedures facilitates intuitive thinking. A heuristic procedure is “a nonrigorous method of achieving solutions to problems” (p. 63). For example, should students be explicitly taught strategies such as: “When you cannot see how to proceed with the problem, try to think of a simpler problem that is similar to it; then use the plan for solving the simpler problem as a plan for solving the more complicated problem”? 

Or should the student learn the technique without actually verbalizing it to himself in that way? It is possible, of course, that the ancient proverb about the caterpillar who could not walk when he tried to say how he did it may apply here. The student who becomes obsessively aware of the heuristic rules he used to make his intuitive leaps may reduce the process to an analytic one. On the other hand, it is difficult to believe that general heuristic rules – the use of analogy, the appeal to symmetry, the examination of limiting conditions, the visualization of the solution – when they have been used frequently will be anything but a support to intuitive thinking. (p. 63).

When it comes to day-to-day pedagogic decisions, perhaps the most pertinent question is: “Should students be encouraged to guess, in the interest of learning eventually how to make intelligent conjectures?” Bruner acknowledges that there are “certain kinds of situations where guessing is desirable and where it may facilitate the development of intuitive thinking to some reasonable degree” (p. 64). At the same time, he cautions: 

Certainly one would not like to educate students to do nothing but guess, for guessing should always be followed up by as much verification and confirmation as necessary; but too stringent a penalty on guessing may restrain thinking of any sort and keep it plodding rather than permitting it to make occasional leaps. (p. 64).

Bruner explains that “when the student sees the consequences of error as too grave and the consequences of success as too chancy, he will freeze into analytic procedures even though they may not be appropriate” (p. 65). Bruner observes that the present system of rewards and punishments may “inhibit the use of intuitive thinking” since “it tends to emphasize the correct answer” (p. 66).

On the basis of these questions and considerations, Bruner offers several guidelines for teachers. First and foremost, the teacher should provide the students with opportunities to practice making educated guesses with minimal threat of penalty. Second, the teacher must also strive to build self-confidence and “willingness to make honest mistakes in the effort to solve problems” (p. 65). Third, teachers should train students “in recognizing the plausibility of guesses” to be able to tell “that an answer at least is of the right order of magnitude, or that it is possible rather than impossible” (p. 64). Perhaps the most difficult task of the teacher is to have sufficient intellectual sensitivity “to distinguish an intuitive mistake – an interestingly wrong leap – from a stupid or ignorant mistake” and the emotional sensitivity to “give approval and correction simultaneously to the intuitive student” (p. 68). 

Conclusion

Bruner writes that “every subject has a structure, a rightness, a beauty.” Learning ought to be driven by the genuine search for this structure, and that search must be conducted independently by each and every student. “It is this structure that provides the underlying simplicity of things, and it is by learning its nature that we come to appreciate the intrinsic meaning of a subject.” Although the discovery must be made by the student, the teacher can create a “structure-sensitive curriculum” which facilitates the process of discovery on the part of the student. The ideal curriculum for this is a “spiral curriculum” which is built upon the fundamental principles of the discipline and follows the natural structure of the subject matter.

Part II – Mishneh Torah: Teaching Torah as a Rational Discipline

Having familiarized ourselves with Bruner’s approach of learning by discovery and his guidelines for developing a discovery-based curriculum, we are now in a position to explore how, and to what extent, the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah may serve as the foundation of a new Torah curriculum. Can Torah be taught as a rational discipline? Would such an approach be a way to counteract the educational problems that have plagued teachers of Torah for centuries The Rambam would answer both with a resounding, “Yes!” Indeed, this is exactly what he set out to accomplish with the Mishneh Torah. 

The Role of Structure in the Mishneh Torah

The Mishneh Torah is a unique work in many regards. One of its most salient features is its organizational scheme. The Rambam, like Bruner, was keenly aware of the importance of structure in learning. It was this very recognition that caused him to grapple with the question of how to organize the Mishneh Torah. The first time he mentions this question is in his introduction to the Sefer ha’Mitzvos, in which he presents his “game plan” for writing the Mishneh Torah: 

As I directed my attention toward this goal [of composing the Mishneh Torah], I began thinking about how the division of this work, and the arrangement of its parts, were to be done. [I wondered:] should I divide it in accordance with the divisions of the Mishnah and follow in its footsteps, or should I divide it in some other way, arranging the subjects at the beginning or at the end of the work as logic will dictate, since this is the proper and easier way for learning?

Ultimately, the Rambam sided in favor of pedagogical efficacy over traditionalism. He decided to utilize an entirely novel organization based on a hierarchical topical classification of the entire corpus of Judaic law. The Rambam explains his organizational scheme in his introduction to the Mishneh Torah: 

I have seen fit to divide this work into halachos (groupings of mitzvos) according to their various inyanim (topics), and I divide the groups into perakim (chapters) dealing with one topic; each chapter I divide into halachos ketanos (small paragraphs of one or a few particular laws), so that they may be ordered by memory. 

Among the groups in the various topics, some groups include the detailed laws of a single Biblical mitzvah, when the mitzvah comes with many oral traditions that make up a single topic; and other groups include the detailed laws of many Biblical mitzvos, when all the mitzvos are on one topic: for the organization of this work is according to topics, and is not according to the counting of mitzvos, as will be clear to one who reads it.

The Mishneh Torah’s four-tiered organization may be represented as follows: 

1. Sefer (Book) 

          a. Hilchos (Grouping of Mitzvos) [6] 

                    i. Perek (Chapter) 

                              1. Halachos Ketanos (Particular Laws)

The highest level of classification is that of sefer. The Rambam grouped each of the 613 mitzvos into one of fourteen themes, each of which was given its own sefer. After listing the 613 mitzvos in his introduction to the Mishneh Torah, the Rambam defines the theme of each sefer. The beginning of each book is “crowned” with verse or set of verses from the Written Torah which embodies the theme of the sefer. For example, the Rambam introduces his second book with the verse, “O how I have loved Your Torah! All day long it is my conversation” (Tehilim 119:97) and the following explanation of its contents: 

I have included in the second book the mitzvos which are continual, which we have been commanded in order to love God and to remember Him continually, such as the recitation of the shema, prayer, tefilin, blessings; circumcision is included among them, for it is a sign in our flesh to remind us continually at a time when neither tefilin nor tzitzit and the like are present. I have called this sefer by the title “Sefer Ahavah” (the Book of Love). 

The next level of classification is that of the hilchos. In his introduction to the Sefer ha’Mitzvos he explains that each of the hilchos sections would contain a number of mitzvos “either because there is some general topic which embraces them, or because many mitzvos relate to one objective.” Each section of hilchos is broken down into a sequence of perakim which explain the mitzvos in a logical order. Finally, each perek is divided into halachos ketanos, each of which contains one, two, or several laws. These, too, are divided topically and arranged in a logical sequence. 

Why did the Rambam insist upon this topical organizational scheme? Many readers of the Mishneh Torah take its classificatory system for granted, or assume that the Rambam organized the material this way merely for the convenience of the reader – much like a very detailed table of contents. This couldn’t be further from the truth, as is evident from the Rambam’s explicit statements about the organization of the Mishneh Torah, and from the Rambam’s continual reiteration of this organization throughout the Mishneh Torah. The most explicit statement by the Rambam about the purpose of his organization can be found in his Maamar Techiyas ha’Meisim:

We did the same also in our great work entitled the Mishneh Torah, whose true worth will be recognized only by those who are wise among the adherents of the religion, when they have good intellects and recognition of the methods of the composition, and who can recognize both the extent to which these laws which we have collected had been scattered and how we arranged them in order. We have also stated therein all the Torah principles and Talmudic principles, and we have intended thereby that all those who are called disciples of the wise, or Geonim, or whatever you wish to call them, should build their branches [i.e. legal details] on Talmudic roots, so that their Torah knowledge should be ordered in their minds and their learning should be readily accessible in its entirety. 

The Rambam here mentions two reasons for adopting this organizational scheme: (1) so that Torah knowledge should be ordered in the minds of the students, and (2) so that their learning should be readily accessible in its entirety. These reasons correspond to the benefits of a structure-sensitive curriculum mentioned by Bruner in The Process of Education, namely, that placing information in a meaningful structure facilitates both comprehension and memory. 

That the Rambam intended for his organization to serve as more than a mere table of contents is indicated by the sheer number of times the Rambam repeats his ordering throughout the Mishneh Torah. After his introduction and list of the 613 mitzvos, the Rambam identifies the title and scope of each sefer. He then breaks each sefer down into its component hilchos sections and enumerates the mitzvos aseh (positive commandments) and mitzvos lo taaseh (negative commandments) which will be explained in each section. At the beginning of every sefer, he reiterates the number and order of hilchos sections included therein. At the beginning of each hilchos section, he once again enumerates the mitzvos aseh and lo taaseh that will be explained in that section. Finally, at the end of each sefer, he notes the total number of chapters in the sefer, and then lists each of the hilchos sections and the number of chapters therein. 

It is clear from the continual repetition of the structure that the Rambam intended for his organizational scheme to be on the mind of the reader at all times. The student of the Mishneh Torah should never lose sight of the context of the halacha ketanah he is learning. At any given moment he should be aware of the place that halacha ketanah occupies within the order of the of the perek, the place of that perek within the “Hilchos” section, the place of that hilchos section within the sefer, and the place of that sefer within the Mishneh Torah. By constantly encountering this organization at every step of the way, the reader of the Mishneh Torah will not only understand the material more clearly, but he will come to appreciate the beauty of the Torah’s structure. 

In addition to facilitating comprehension, the Rambam also intended for his organizational scheme to aid memory – a point which he emphasizes time and again. In his letter to Rav Yosef, the Rambam writes that the “main goal” of his writing a compendium of the entire corpus of halacha was “to facilitate its memorization.” In his introduction to the Sefer ha’Mitzvos he writes that he opted for a topical organization “to render it easy for one who wishes to learn something from it by heart.” Likewise, in the introduction to the Mishneh Torah, he explains that the division of the perakim into halachos was “so that they may be ordered orally” (i.e. easily remembered). In his letter to Rav Pinchas ha’Dayan, the Rambam elaborates on the need for such a compendium to aid memory: 

This was my ultimate intention in composing my work, because it is beyond all human capacity to remember the whole Talmud Bavli and Yerushalmi, and all the Baraisas, three works which are the major sources for the laws.

The combined effect of these two benefits (i.e. comprehension and memory) will result in helping the student to develop “Mishneh Torah eyes.” Just as the geographer sees the world through the lenses of his discipline, so too, the student of the Mishneh Torah will see the world through the framework of Torah as organized by the Rambam. Additionally, we must remember that the Rambam characterized the Mishneh Torah as a comprehensive book of Oral Torah, and he defined “Oral Torah” as the explanation of the Written Torah. Thus, if the classificatory scheme of the Mishneh Torah is internalized, the student’s reading of the Written Torah will also be enhanced. Whenever he reads a section of the Written Torah, his mind will automatically associate to the corresponding area of the Mishneh Torah, thereby enabling him to truly learn the Oral Torah as a commentary on the Written Torah, as intended by the Author. Perhaps this is what the Rambam intended with the following statement in the Maamar Techiyas ha’Meisim: 

And when we ventured to undertake this project [of the Mishneh Torah] we saw that it would be wrong to aim at our goal of interpreting and facilitating the branches of the laws, and at the same time to neglect its roots, without explain them or guiding [the reader] to their truth . . . [Rather, the explication of the laws] should be built on yesodei ha’Torah (Torah foundations), and [the readers] should not cast the knowledge of God behind them, but should direct their utmost efforts and zeal to that which will bring them perfection and enable them to draw nearer to their Creator, not to the things that the masses deem to be perfection.

In other words, the Rambam conceived of the Mishneh Torah not only as a practical halachic compendium, or even a theoretical aid to studying the Written Torah. Rather, he saw the Mishneh Torah as a guide to life – a means of perfecting oneself and drawing close to God. For this reason, the Rambam typically concludes each sefer and many hilchos with a philosophical idea which reflects back on the theme of the entire section. This allows the student to gain insight into the philosophical underpinnings of the halachos, thereby enabling him to use the mitzvos as vehicles of attaining human perfection. 

Mishneh Torah as a Means of “Torah-learning Readiness”

Bruner firmly believes that “the foundations of any subject may be taught to anybody at any age in some form.” The Rambam agrees. Indeed, he even goes so far as to codify this principle as halacha in Hilchot Chametz u’Matzah 7:2:

It is a mitzvah to teach one’s sons, even if they do not ask, as it is stated, “And you shall tell your son” (Shemos 13:8). The father must teach according to the mind of the son. How so? If the son is young or unintelligent, he should say to him, “My son, we were all slaves in Egypt – like this maidservant, or this slave – and on this night the Holy One, Blessed is He, redeemed us, and we went out to freedom.” If the son is mature and wise, he should impart to him the knowledge of what happened to us in Egypt, and the miracles that were done for us through Moshe Rabbeinu, all according to the mind of the son. 

The fundamental ideas and laws which form the curriculum of the Pesach seder can and must be taught to each and every student on his intellectual and psychological level, in accordance with his unique mind. 

What is true for the Pesach seder is true for the entire corpus of halcha. In Hilchos Yesodei ha’Torah 4:13 the Rambam writes that in contrast to knowledge of physics and metaphysics, which can only be known by the greatest scholars, knowledge of “the explanation of the prohibited and the permitted and the like, regarding the other mitzvos” is “possible to be known by everyone –great and small, man and woman, broad-minded and narrow-minded.” The study of halacha is not limited to the so-called “experts,” but can and should be learned by all students on all levels. 

Moreover, it is clear from the Rambam’s statement in the introduction to the Mishneh Torah that he wrote it “so that the whole Oral Torah would become thoroughly known to all” in order “that all the laws should be accessible to the small and to the great in the laws of each and every mitzvah and the laws of the legislations of the Torah scholars and prophets.” This stands in contrast to the classical works of Oral Law (i.e. Talmud Bavli, Talmud Yerushalmi, Sifra, Sifre, Tosefta) “which all require a broad mind, a wise soul, and a long time, before one can correctly know from them what is forbidden or permitted and the other laws of the Torah.” This is also why the Rambam composed the Mishneh Torah “in the language of the Mishnah, so that it should be easily understood by most of the people,” instead of Aramaic, the language of the Talmud, “since only a few individuals among us understand it today, and even the erudite in the Talmud find many of its words foreign and remote.” 

It would seem, then, that the Mishneh Torah is ideally suited to serve as the basis of a spiral curriculum. Let us see whether it meets Bruner’s criteria. Is it “built around the great issues, principles, and values that a society deems worthy of the continual concern of its members”? Yes. Not only does the Mishneh Torah cover the entire corpus of Jewish law, but it also serves as “a comprehensive book of truth” with “true and accurate (philosophical) ideas” which “brings [the readers to] perfection and enables them to draw nearer to their Creator, not to the things that the masses deem to be perfection.”

Does the Mishneh Torah satisfy Bruner’s criteria of, “Is this subject, when fully developed, worth an adult’s knowing?” and “Does having known this subject as a child make a person a better adult?” Most definitely. Not only that, but the Mishneh Torah satisfies Bruner’s requirement of economy, as the Rambam writes in his Maamar Techiyas ha’Meitim: 

All our works are concise and to the point. We have no intention of writing bulky books nor of spending time on that which is useless. Hence when we explain anything, we explain only what is necessary and only in the measure required to understand it, and whatever we write is in summary form ... You, my readers, already know that I always tend to omit disputes and debates. Were I able to condense the entire Talmud into a single chapter, I would not do so in two.

It may seem like a stretch to refer to the 1,000-chapter Mishneh Torah as “concise,” but compared to the tens of thousands of pages which comprise the major sources of the Oral Law, then the brevity is truly a wonder to behold. 

Mishneh Torah and Intuition

On the surface it might seem that the Rambam did not intend for the Mishneh Torah to be used to train students in intuitive thinking. Upon closer examination, however, we see that he did. As demonstrated above, the Rambam intended for the Mishneh Torah to be learned by students on all levels as a standalone work. The Rambam explicitly states this in his introduction to the Mishneh Torah: 

This is so that all the laws should be accessible to the small and to the great in the laws of each and every commandment and the laws of the legislations of the Torah scholars and prophets: in short, so that a person should need no other work in the world in any of the laws of Israel; but that this work might collect the entire Oral Torah, including the positive legislations, the customs, and the negative legislations enacted from the time of Moshe Rabbeinu until the writing of the Talmud, as the Geonim interpreted it for us in all of the works of commentary they wrote after the Talmud. Thus, I have called this work the “Restatement of the Oral Torah,” for a person reads the Written Torah first and then reads this work, and knows from it the entire Oral Torah, without needing to read any other book between them. 

What, then, is a student to do if he encounters a case which is not mentioned explicitly in the Mishneh Torah? How can the Rambam say that one “should need no other work in the world in any of the laws of Israel”? The answer to this question can be found in an often overlooked statement in the introduction to the Sefer Ha’Mitzvos: 

And I would include in it everything of the Torah that has been established and confirmed, omitting no question which might arise, or at least I would mention the principle by means of which that question can easily be resolved without too deep reflection.

In other words, the Rambam intended for the Mishneh Torah to be so comprehensive that the students who studied it would be able to adjudicate new cases based on their own understanding of the halachos therein. In order to do this, the student must develop a fine-tuned halachic intuition. Evidently, the Rambam maintains that such intuition can be developed by studying the Mishneh Torah, and the Mishneh Torah alone! Indeed, the Rambam maintains that the development of this skill is a critical component of the mitzvas aseh of Talmud Torah (Torah study), as he writes in Hilchos Talmud Torah 1:11: 

A man is obligated to divide his learning into thirds: one third in the Written Torah, one third in the Oral Torah, and in the other third he should understand and conceptualize the end of a principle from its beginning; he should derive one principle from another, compare one principle to another, and he should apply the methods by which the Torah is expounded until he understands the essential manner of these methods, and how the prohibited and permitted and the like are derived from the principles which were learned from the Oral Tradition. This endeavor is called “talmud.”

Thus, one who follows this tripartite program of talmud Torah will – according to the Rambam – gain the requisite level of intuition necessary to adjudicate halacha on his own.

Part III – Practical Applications

How can the Mishneh Torah serve as the basis of an actual curriculum? It is not enough to point out the parallels between Bruner’s theories and the Mishneh Torah’s design. We must find ways to use the tool the Rambam has given us to solve the problems he set out to conquer. 

It will be most useful for us to consider this question in two frameworks: macro and micro. On the macro level, the student should be introduced to the classificatory scheme of the Mishneh Torah as early as possible. At first, they should become familiarized with the themes of the fourteen seforim. Next, they should start learning the themes of the hilchos sections within each sefer and the mitzvos included in each section. The sooner these classifications are internalized, the sooner the student will begin developing “Mishneh Torah eyes.” With the structure of the Mishneh Torah embedded in his mind, all of the knowledge that the student encounters will find its place within a meaningful context, thereby enhancing both comprehension and memory, as mentioned above.

Once the student has this basic foundation, the student should focus on whichever mitzvos are considered “relevant” – either to the subject being taught, or to the daily practice of halacha. At this point, it is up to the teacher and student to decide whether to strive for breadth (i.e. to master all sections of the Mishneh Torah and know all 613 mitzvos) or structural depth (i.e. to focus on particular hilchos divisions, and to learn the topics of the perakim and eventually the contents of the halachos ketanos). Again, this will be determined by the objectives of the teacher and the course. 

How should the organizational scheme of the Mishneh Torah be taught? In my opinion, the best way to do this is through a combination of rote memorization and actual application. At first glance, the use of rote memorization seems to run contrary to Bruner’s ideal. In truth, however, this is purely a matter of efficiency. In the same way that the biology student is conditioned to ask, “What function does this thing serve?” so too, the student of the Mishneh Torah should be conditioned to get into the habit of asking, “Where would the Rambam classify this in the Mishneh Torah?” Whenever a new topic is broached, students should be encouraged to guess where the topic is treated in the Mishneh Torah, and to offer support for their theories. Then, just like in the geography lesson, the teacher can reveal the “real” classification, thereby giving students an opportunity to hone their intuition and gain a firsthand appreciation of the Rambam’s classification system. 

The micro level is somewhat more difficult to teach. When encountering a new topic, students can be given the opportunity to answer the question, “What do you think this mitzvah entails?” or “How would you design this mitzvah?” After fleshing out their theories and discussing them, they can then look at the Rambam’s formulation and analyze the differences. At the very least, the teacher should show them the formulation in the Sefer ha’Mitzvos, the formulation in the Reshimos (i.e. the list of mitzvos at the beginning of the Mishneh Torah), the formulation in the Koseres, and the first few halachos ketanos of the first perakim of each mitzvah – enough to get a sense of what that mitzvah entails. Inevitably, there will be differences in the students’ formulations and the actual halacha. By analyzing and discussing these differences, students will begin to form a “halachic intuition.” They’ll develop a sense of what feels “halachic” and what feels more philosophical or ethical. This sense will serve them well in their attempts to orient themselves within Judaism. 

Additionally, there is another way for students to train their intuition, namely, by asking themselves, “What would the Rambam say about this issue?” Remember, the Rambam intended the Mishneh Torah to serve as a guide not only for halachic rulings, but for guidance in life as well. The Rambam’s opinion on philosophical matters can be derived from the Mishneh Torah, for those who are familiar with its structure and sensitive to its language. Of course, it must be made clear to students that we do not typically hold like the Rambam in halachic matters, and only a posek is qualified to give actual psak. Nevertheless, as a theoretical exercise, the Mishneh Torah is a good practice book for arriving at elementary psak and gaining an intuition as to how psak halachah works. 

Conclusion

We have only begun to scratch the surface of the Mishneh Torah’s potential as the foundation of a curriculum. Thanks to Bruner’s insights, we can see what the Rambam aimed to achieve, and we can appreciate why he structured the Mishneh Torah as he did. May we merit to utilize the Mishneh Torah to its full potential, and end the educational epidemic that has afflicted the Jewish people and caused the Torah to be regarded as “a sealed book.” 

[1] Introduction to the Mishneh Torah, 37 

[2] Letter to R’ Yonatan ha’Kohen of Lunel 

[3] Introduction to the Mishneh Torah, 38 

[4] Bruner, J.S. “Structures in Learning,” NEA Journal, LII (March, 1963), 27. 

[5] Bruner, J. S. (1977). The process of education: A landmark in educational theory. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 

[6] Grammatically, I should refer to this as “halachos” but I don’t want this term to be confused with the colloquial term “halachos.” For this reason, I will continue to refer to this classificatory level as “Hilchos.”