The Highest Form of Worship 
Learning from the Master
Print the two-page PDF

In his book New Light on the Difficult Words of Jesus, Insights from His Jewish Context, David Bivin writes about the first century schools in which Jewish children began their study of Torah (the first five books of our Old Testament) at five years of age. He writes,

“One might assume that the synagogue as the place of worship would be considered more important or more sacred than the schools, but this was not the case. To this day the bet midrash [the secondary school in which children and adults studied Torah and the oral traditions] is given more prominence than the synagogues – not because education is valued more highly than worship, but because Judaism does not make a distinction between the two. Indeed, Judaism has always held that the study of Torah is one of the highest forms of worship.”