"Our Sages (Tractate Sanhedrin 91b) say:
“Rav Yehudah said in Rav’s name:
If one withholds a teaching from his pupil, it is as though he has robbed him of his ancestral heritage, as it is written:
‘Moses gave us the Torah, the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob.’”
This is a very powerful statement indeed.
It does not deal with the question of whether or not we should teach Torah.
Rather, it says that the Torah is an inheritance for the entire Jewish people.
It is the legacy of all of Israel.
We must not detain it from its proprietors, and whoever does so, even partially, commits a grave transgression."
This is a very powerful statement indeed.
It does not deal with the question of whether or not we should teach Torah.
Rather, it says that the Torah is an inheritance for the entire Jewish people.
It is the legacy of all of Israel.
We must not detain it from its proprietors, and whoever does so, even partially, commits a grave transgression."
--Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
Remarks delivered at the annual Aleph Society dinner in Jerusalem, September 25, 1996
