What IS a Torah scholar?

September 30, 2005 10:30 PM

What qualifications must someone have to be recognized as a Torah scholar?

I've found articles like this, and definitions like "A Torah scholar is one who separates himself from the mundane and devotes his life to the living, infinite wisdom of the Holy Talmud" from here, and the Wikipedia article on Torah study give me a hint about what's involved, but how does one person who studies Torah get recognized as "a Torah scholar" while another does not? And does a Torah scholar need to be a rabbi?

"A professional baseball player" is easily defined, and what one must do to become a dentist are pretty straightforward -- "In the United States, dentists earn either a D.D.S. (Doctor of Dental Surgery) or D.M.D. (Doctor of Dental Medicine) degree after 4 years of postgraduate college education which follows 2 to 4 years of an undergraduate college education." (The latter came to mind because I've just had my teeth scaled again.) But "Torah scholar" strikes me as more intangible and/or subjective even than "philosopher"; when something "strikes me as intangible" I suspect I'm failing to understand something pretty obvious again.

(So far I think I'd prefer "dentist": do the schooling, pass the tests, get certified by a State board or something, and voila, whether anybody likes it or not you're officially a dentist; you can point to a diploma or certificate hanging on the wall, and the only "judgment" involved is whether you're a good or at least a competent dentist.)

posted by davy to religion & philosophy (8 comments total)

One doesn't get recognized--not officially, at least. Think of it as a subjective, descriptive term (like "genius" or "a brilliant surgeon"), not a formal title or profession.* I might think of or describe person X as a Torah scholar, but someone else might not.

*Okay, I realize there are IQ tests to put numbers behind "genius," but when someone describes Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking or even a neighbor as a genius, they're probably not making that judgement based on IQ scores.
posted by needs more cowbell at 6:02 AM on October 1, 2005

(That was my experience while growing up in a far-right Orthodox community, at least.)
posted by needs more cowbell at 6:10 AM on October 1, 2005

In my limited experience (as a non-Jew who has lived among Hasidim, has known many scholars of Judaism and more than a few rabbis, and has read for secular purposes, but extensively, about Judaism), the main qualification for being a Torah scholar is respect of your peers; that is, those who are already Torah scholars must accept you as one of their own. Obviously, this requires a lot of study (decades, usually) and adherence to the beliefs of a particular Jewish sect.

As far as becoming a rabbi, in general it is much like "preacher" or "reverend" in the Protestant faiths. While there are organized educational paths one can take to achieve the rank (depending upon the sect), the title is sometimes bestowed by the community one serves as a sign of respect. See How to become a Rabbi and How to become a Rabbi (different articles, same title).
posted by Mo Nickels at 6:36 AM on October 1, 2005

I suspect you don't want to hear from me davy, but I'm going to give an answer that's sincere and not caustically meant. To build off of what nmc wrote and your own question, I think that the definition is both more fluid and more fixed than you've suggested. It comes down to one of the counter examples you've suggested, "professional baseball player." Anyone can call themselves a professional baseball player, but it's easy to see when they're wrong. Pro ball players sign contracts and represent their sport, they can be sanctioned by their governing body.

Anyone can call themselves a Torah scholar, just like the word philosopher, the term is both assumed and conferred. But as there is no governing body, the attribution becomes trickier. The Torah is a big book and one can find a lot of justifications for a lot of different things. Some are accepted by mainstream Judaism, some are not. So, one can call themselves a Torah scholar and can even be followed as one, while being so far outside the mainstream that they only represent themselves or their fringe element. This is not so unlike many other attributions "scientist," "writer," "guitar player," "conservative commentator" which can be literally true (or their truth is so subjective as to almost always be literally true) without containing or adequately representing the thing claimed.

Because the definition of Torah scholar admits to so many different possibilities, and can be conferred (by themselves) on people so far out of the mainstream, we, in turn, make a choice when we use the term. For example, we might choose to call either David Brooks or Ann Coulter "conservative commentators," but the meaning of the phrase is very different depending on which one we so authorize. We might also choose to call someone performing experiments on phlogiston a scientist, and while doing so might not be factually incorrect, it fails to account for the obsolete nature of the phlogiston theory of combustion and the accepted scientific mainstream (even if that mainstream contains controversies of its own) which rejects it.
posted by OmieWise at 6:51 AM on October 1, 2005

OmieWise basically said what I was going to say. There are levels of being considered a Torah scholar. There is the respect and acceptance of your scholarship within your immediate cultural group, and there is the respect and acceptance of your scholarship within the larger less homogenous culture as a whole. I think of it as equally intangible to philosopher. I can be a philosopher in my own living room, or among a group of my peers, or even in my larger community, but that doesn't mean that the larger group of people who collectively create the body of knowledge that is taught to students in US colleges under the heading Philosophy 101 [for example] consider me a philosopher.

This is even more difficult with scholarhsip designations than with scientist designations because at least nowadays, scientists generally have advanced degrees from a smallish set of institutions [this was not true historically when many advanced discoveries were made by gentlemen of high and low backgrounds]. Scholars can just be someone with a deep understanding of any particular topic and the Torah isn't very different. The rabbi thing is similar. There are mainstream programs for becoming sort of an industry-standard rabbi, and then there are the honorific designations that a community gives to someone who they deeply repect who may have some sort of advisory role with regards to the path of the community. Torah scholars do not have to be rabbis.
posted by jessamyn at 7:49 AM on October 1, 2005

In addition to the excellent advice above, it's not dissimilar from other sorts of academic careers. In order to be recognized among the community of say, Shakespeare scholars, you'd need to have absolute familiarity with primary and secondary text, to contribute original research and thought to the body of work on the subject, and - for an academic Torah scholar - to be affiliated with an institution (secular or religious).

Combine this with the fact that for many (but not all) Torah scholars, this is a religious pursuit as well as an academic pursuit, and you would then add in a level of daily practice and the various religious obligations of the Jewish practice of your choice.
posted by judith at 9:35 AM on October 1, 2005

Hmm... Torah scholar? I think that some people are assuming that "Torah scholar" is an imperfect translation of a more firmly defined Yiddish phrase. Talmud chachem is probably the closest. Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish does the same and so does at least the one web page that I just read. But the web page that you linked (at "this") seems to be using the world "scholar" much in the same way that we understand it in English. Sometimes it means a respected sage and sometimes it just means any serious student. And in this case, I think they just mean "serious student." In this sense, you could be a "Torah scholar" tomorrow if you had the right spirit.

To convey the meanings that other people are describing here, the people that I know would probably just use Yiddish. Their meaning would be well understood even by those who aren't fluent in Yiddish. "Torah scholar" is potentially ambigious. At the same time it's the most natural translation of "Talmud chachem" which is more firmly defined and clearly understood to mean what everyone else has been describing.

And jessamyn is correct. Rabbi is now commonly used to address someone who has completed a formal ordination program (smicha) but it is also used to address someone held in generally high esteem. I think it can also be used to address an arbitrary person as a compliment.

I can't think of any other similar Yiddish words but I'm sure there must be many.
posted by stuart_s at 11:19 AM on October 1, 2005

Great set of answers. I agree with "the main qualification for being a Torah scholar is respect of your peers," and I think the key here is that Judaism, like Islam, has no hierarchical structure and thus no authoritative body qualified to issue certificates of approval. Being a rabbi or Torah scholar is like being a mufti or ayatollah: if enough people ask you the kind of questions that need resolution by a fatwa, you're a mufti; if enough Shi'ite clergy look up to you as a "sign of Allah," you're an ayatollah. Being an anarchist, of course I like that system better than the official-stamp one.
posted by languagehat at 5:29 PM on October 1, 2005