Hello, I was wondering what happened to the study of Tanach. I have read the entire Tanach and am reading it a 2nd time but I’ve noticed many Rabbis havent even read the whole thing. Why is that? It’s an essential book to Judaism, reading it teaches Jews of their origins, gives national unity, and of course all the lessons contained in the narrative. I think every Jew should read the entire Tanach at least once. But why don’t they?
The classic Biblical commentary of Rashi on Exodus 31:18 echoes similar sentiments, as well as the writings of many leaders of the most recent generations: Rabbi Samson Hirsch in his Nineteen Letters, the Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi Yaakov Kaminetsky and many more.
There are several reasons why people stopped learning Tanach.
1) The classic commentary of Tosafos in Sanhedrin 23 states that the obligation to use one third of your learning time for Tanach is fulfilled while learning the Babylonian Talmud, since it contains many passages from Tanach. Rabbi SR Hirsch maintains that this is still not the preferred course in Jewish practice.
2) Students start studying Talmud at a young age and, somehow, they are expected to learn it on their own. This is quite hard though since there don’t seem to be many people who can teach it properly, since there are many areas of Tanach which, if not understood properly, can lead one to many false assumptions, such as the stories of King David/Beth Sheba and Samson. Additionally, the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Job, etc have very difficult Hebrew and it is also very difficult to understand the intent and flow of these books, without putting in serious time and effort, something which is usually reserved for Talmud study.
3) Tanach was a favorite topic of the 19th century enlightenment, whose adherents used it as a means of teaching outlooks inimical to a traditional Torah outlook and who used it primarily as means of teaching Hebrew language, thus ripping out the inner “guts” and content so basic to Tanach. The Hasidic world grew very wary of such people and started to avoid Tanach altogether.
However, these are all excuses and the bottom line is that people should learn Tanach. Thankfully, lectures from Rabbi Yisroel Reisman and others, many of which are online, are making this more available.
Best Wishes,
Rabbi Meir Goldberg,
Rutgersjx.com