The synagogue preserved and passed down the heritage of the Hebrew Bible and developed as an educational institution for the transmission of Jewish rabbinic tradition.
In the Old Testament, it is impossible to separate religion from education. No ancient society subscribed to the modern notion of the “secular.” The Jewish community as a whole was responsible for the education of children and youth, which took place in the synagogue. The later instruction of youth in the Bible and the Talmud was carried on in the yshivot, the special schools for prerabbinical studies. In the earlier periods, such usage of the sanctuary was frowned on, but as the Hebrew language and learning began to fade from daily life, the preservation of the ancient heritage became a sacred mission, and the synagogue was used for this purpose. Since the primary responsibility of the adult Jew in the corporate synagogue service was to read, reading the unpointed Hebrew text of the Torah was the goal of synagogue education. The earliest lessons were undoubtedly in the form of memorizations of biblical passages, followed by simple readings such as the familiar Shma‘ (Deut. 6:4–5). The advanced students read the lessons from the great synagogue scrolls, guided by the commonplace synagogue official known as the ḥazzan. It was in these simple schools that the elaborate oral tradition that grew up around the Torah began to take form. Unfortunately, hardly any evidence has been derived from the archaeology of the shape or substance of these studies, except for some Egyptian papyri that may be fragments of school texts.