Jewish historical experience with literacy should be a valuable lesson about importance of education, especially in uncertain times. Even to this day Jews invest more in education then the rest of the world, as well as they are engaged in more demanding work. As a result, the number of Nobel prizes per capita is the highest among Jews.

The second destruction of the Temple convinced the Jewish people that stone can not be a reliable foundation of religion. Only a thought held in believer’s heart and written in a holly book can do that. But the first condition for such foundation of religion is general literacy. The synagogues were determinate to this purpose, teachers have been raised and an educational system with Babylonian summit has been established. All that functioned as a global network on the basis of correspondence. Educational plan was »Kol Torah« which, a lot later, Russian Jews interpreted as “kul’tura” (tran. cul’ture). This important turn in Judaism happened when almost all believers were farmers and literacy had no meaning for their everyday survival. It was the other way around actually, literacy represented burden, since Jewish school was very expensive and kept the youth, which could help working on fields, busy. On the other hand, at that time cities began to develop and with that new professions that required literacy. The prophecy of the Babylon Talmud is: “The city, whose children are not going to school, will be ruined.” The investment in literacy was at first motivated with only religious motives, but later it has proofed to be a very useful and promising basis for existence.