Recently a friend of ours here in Jerusalem remarked, “When I arrived in Jerusalem, I had a master’s degree in Jewish studies from Brandeis University. I soon realized that was barely the equivalent of a high school diploma here.”

How true! Although certainly not all Israelis are Einsteins, and in fact there are many ignoramuses, in a society where you can often be taught some Torah from a cab driver, or a snippet of Maimonides from your plumber, it can be pretty intimidating.

I’m in awe at the depth of learning and erudition in Jerusalem, where the competition to teach and to learn is stiff. Fabulous days of learning happen all over the city before every festival, drawing interested, curious and passionate students from across both the religious and non-religious spectrum. Any night of the week offers you a chance to learn with another “big name” speaker. These speakers sometimes go on “speaking tours” that hit Toronto, and we get the opportunity to hear them once a year if we’re lucky. Here, you can attend their shiur weekly. Great yeshivas are a dime a dozen, and great teachers a nickel a dozen.

By great teachers, I don’t mean teachers who are all charisma and little content; who tell the students what the text means without giving them a chance to unpack it themselves, or who teach other people’s “stock” curriculum. They may be great teachers in that they’re funny, entertaining, provocative and make difficult material easy to digest. But what I mean is truly great scholars who have encyclopedic knowledge and offer novel and startling insights, not the same old reheated rabbinic clichés.

They don’t “dumb down” the material or interpret it using their own personal agenda. They expect students to reach up, to struggle with a difficult passage, to read the commentaries, and to go home and explore further (and not on Wikipedia, either). They admit when a text is confusing, contradictory, emotionally charged or even bizarre, and they wrestle with it even when it doesn’t “sit right” with a student at the end. I’ve learned as much from simply watching these methodical, brilliant teachers as I have from the material itself.

We have an amazing community and talented, first-rate scholars in Toronto, but I worry that we do not “reach in” and “reach up” enough. We should and must continue all our efforts to bring into the fold those on the margins – the unengaged, the peripheral. We should and must offer innovative and creative opportunities to start a Jewish journey. But what about those who are already well on the path, literate in Jewish texts and involved in Jewish life, those who have studied all the “basics” and want to move deeper, faster, higher?

I envision opportunities for advanced students to study on a higher level than most “basics” we already have, especially in liberal settings. I envision more Limmud-type days, evening and weekends where people learn in the same room with folks from very different backgrounds and viewpoints. I envision a beit midrash where men and women from across the Jewish spectrum could just “drop in,” find a study partner (who might not be from the same shul or even denomination as they are) and a teacher. I envision people learning biblical Hebrew as well as the beginner’s aleph-bet. I guess I envision a little bit of Jerusalem in Toronto.

At the beginning of May is Lag b’Omer, marking the end of a plague upon Rabbi Akiva’s students. Most people know it as a holiday of bonfires, but during the Middle Ages, Lag b’Omer became a special holiday for rabbinical students and was called the “Scholar’s Festival.” As such, it symbolizes the Jewish determination to learn, and the Jewish passion to teach. How wonderful if Toronto would lead the way in being a Diaspora Jewish scholar’s town.

Read Rabbi Goldstein’s blog from Israel at www.jerusalemofgoldstein.blogspot.com.