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There is no doubt that Emmanuel Levinas could not avoid questions concerning the communication of knowledge and education in his courses in philosophy. But his responsibilities for thirty-four years as Director of l’École Normale Israélite Orientale could not but reinforce further reflections on education, as many texts bear witness. In this article D. Poizat presents and provides a commentary on “Il nous manque une culture”. E. Levinas attempts to reply to a question that Ben Gurion asked him in 1953 on the failure of Jewish education. For Levinas, the reason for this failure is due to the fact that education can only be sustained where supported by a culture within a lived tradition, rooted in a “country”. This, however, is not enough, as other texts show. Education must be able to base itself upon and be expressed through knowledge of texts ( The Torah) and through re-reading and constant commentary on them. Education must be based on a philosophy that draws together univeralism, the contradictory exercise of reason and attention to the other.