The book of Proverbs contains several verses about how to raise children and shape their character, but the one most popular in discussions of Jewish education today is 22:6: “Train a lad in the way he ought to go; he will not swerve from it even in old age.” From the verse’s first word, ḥanokh, is derived the modern Hebrew ḥinukh, education. But, writes Elli Fischer, it is too often misunderstood as an early articulation of what is now called “differentiated instruction,” i.e., the idea that pedagogy should be tailored to each student’s learning style:

When I hear [people] quote the familiar first half of this verse as a slogan, I sometimes ask them to complete it. Rarely are they able, and too often they are not even aware that they only recited half a verse! This is unfortunate because, taken as a whole, the verse offers a more modest but equally compelling vision of education—and, I believe, is addressed to parents more than teachers.

The “path” described is not the student’s unique personality; it is a metaphor for life. The word ḥanokh does not mean to teach or educate. Rather, as [the great medieval commentator] Rashi explains: “It is a term of initiation, the introduction of a person or object into the vocation where it will remain, as in, ‘initiate a lad,’ ‘the initiation of the Temple.’” The (re)inauguration of the Temple service is called Ḥanukkah, [a word derived from the same root].

If one initiates a child upon his path, taking those first few steps along with him, then [the child] will stay on that path as he matures. The mentor serves as the “training wheels”—there at the beginning, for the first few steps, and then letting go so the child can continue independently. The best education is one that grows and adapts with the student as she matures and encounters new circumstances.

The parent holds the child’s hand as the child learns to walk, but the goal is to let go and to stand back, beaming with pride as the child walks, then runs, along the path that they set out upon together.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.