The Talmud in Bava Basra (21a) tells us: “And Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav: Indeed, we must remember that man, Yehoshua ben Gamla, in a favorable manner, for if it were not for him, the Torah would have been forgotten in Israel. Originally, if a child had a father, he would have been taught Torah, but one who had no father could not have studied Torah. Therefore the sages decreed that teachers be established in Jerusalem, so that any young man could go to study there and learn Torah. As it is said (in Isaiah 2:3), “And out of Zion shall go forth the Torah.” But since not everyone could go to Jerusalem, Yoshua ben Gamla decreed that local authorities should install teachers in each province and in each town and that they should bring children of six and seven years of age to be taught by these teachers.”

Scholars place Yehoshua ben Gamla’s takana (rabbinical decree) in the years 63 to 65 of the common era, before the destruction of the Second Temple. What did the takana entail? Nothing more and nothing less than establishing the foundations of the system of compulsory education for all Jewish males from the age of six. The religious, economic, cultural and political implications were enormous and we live with them to this day. And this is even more impressive if we understand that at that time the rest of humanity was mostly illiterate and only the dominant political classes could read and write. Judaism became a literacy religion.

But this decree had a high cost. Sending one’s son to be educated meant a significant economic loss, since labor was lost in the fields, and one also had to pay the teacher and buy books, since education was not free. Many peasants did not want to or could not do it, and it did not represent any economic benefit to them. The consequence was that, not being able to study Torah, they began to abandon the practice of Judaism and convert to other religions. It is estimated that from the 5 to 5.5 million Jews that existed in the year 65 AD, they dropped to 1-1.2 million in the year 650. Of course, assimilation was not the only factor that caused the loss of population, but it was the most important.

But on the other hand, having a literate population gave enormous benefits to the Jewish people. Knowing how to read and having received education facilitated the transition from a rural population to an urban one that began to dedicate itself to commerce, trades, medicine and finance. And this was reflected in a noticeable improvement in the economic situation of the Jew who was able and willing to send his children to Beth Sefer, the house of the book, as the primary school is called.

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Gamla surely did not think that his Takana would affect the development of the Jewish people in such a radical way, but without a doubt that was the result. We owe to this Takana in large part, the fact that we are “The People of the Book.”

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Chosen Few by Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein.