This essay provides a concise statement of the essential
approach that characterizes chareidi education and how it
differs from the approach followed in Western education. It
should be required reading for anyone who thinks about
chareidi education, which is just about anyone reading
Yated Ne'eman.
*
The entire spectrum of Torah education, from tinokos shel
beis rabbon to avreichei kollelim, from yeshiva
boys to Bais Yaakov girls, has come under attack on several
fronts of late. The Education Ministry is trying to interfere
with curriculum and study arrangements at talmudei
Torah while tendentious criteria are formulated to harm
the yeshivos kedoshos because they do not include
secular studies.
Last year talmidei chachomim who devote their lives to
Torah came under attack in the form of a threat to the very
subsistence of avreichim when ranking Finance Ministry
officials openly declared that the main intention of the
biased economic decrees is to drive avreichim out into
the work market. Meanwhile, there are continued attempts to
alter the nature of Bais Yaakov schools and to push the
seminaries toward a more academic framework.
Taken as a whole these threats that seek to destroy the basis
of our existence appear to have something in common: to
strike out at the most sensitive, essential spot, the heart
of the lofty idea that forms the foundation for education in
Torah and yiras Shomayim as passed down to us through
the generations.
*
Over one hundred years ago, the Enlightenment Movement made
its way onto the Jewish street. The leading rabbonim of the
generation came out strongly against it, seeing in it a real
and present danger to the existence of Klal Yisroel.
The early Enlightenment figures were not porkei ol
bereft of Torah. They did not promote heretical studies or a
curriculum directly opposed to halochoh. Why was there such
strong resistance?
The answer lies in understanding the essential difference
between an education in Torah and yiras Shomayim, and
a non-Jewish education. The distinction is not merely in the
curriculum and the subjects studied but extends to an
underlying question: What is the purpose and goal of
education?
Education not founded on Jewish principles sees its entire
vision in material and national objectives. From primary
school through high school to university, studies at these
institutions have a single purpose: striving to achieve and
to accumulate scholastic knowledge to help the student
improve his material life as an adult with a family, etc.
As people who live in a world of hevel vorik in which
the birth of man into this world is considered purposeless
and all that remains is to get through one's allotted time,
as people who see themselves as the most highly cultured form
of animal life, the only goal of study is to take advantage
of the human mind to accumulate knowledge and skills that
will make their lives easier and more pleasant. The race for
a respectable, ample livelihood heads their list of goals and
aspirations.
This is the goal secular and non-Jewish education aims to
achieve, from first grade through college graduation.
*
On the other hand, traditional Jewish education guides the
student, from early childhood until old age, toward the goal
of the spiritual existence of a member of Am Yisroel.
The opening lines of Mesillas Yeshorim speak of
the primary and basic need to recognize man's obligation in
the world and what his course in life will be. This is what
guides Torah education.
Thus, education whose goal and purpose is merely to amass
knowledge and skills for future material achievement--even if
the curricular material itself does not include apostasy or
contradictions to halochoh--represents the antithesis of
Jewish education. This is the enormous gap between education
for Torah and yiras Shomayim versus education in the
spirit of the Enlightenment.
*
The success of chareidi education--including ethical conduct
and values such as derech eretz, respect for parents
and teachers and respect for other people's property--is
clear to all, particularly following the studies published
during the past year. The blessed fruits of the chareidi
approach do not result from any specific class or study
period during the course of the day, but are drawn from the
essence and character of Torah education, which is designed
to raise menschen, to nurture the G-dly portion from
Above--the Jewish neshomoh seeking to fulfill its
obligation in the world.
This is the fundamental mistake made by our wayward brothers:
in light of the enormous mussar gap separating Jewish
youth educated in secular schools and the pure flocks that
quench their thirst at the well of Torah, the government
education officials are looking for what can be "adopted"
from the chareidi education system and replicated in their
schools.
Likewise they and other likeminded individuals are mistaken
in thinking general studies can be "integrated" into chareidi
institutions "to bring students up to par" with students in
the general population, based on the illusion that the level
of ethical conduct and Torah can be retained along with
"supplements" of this kind.
When we present them with the achievements of Torah-based
education and they see with envy how parents from our camp
get nachas from their well-raised children compared to
the anarchy in education and the decline of youth in secular
society, they start slinging mud: "Then why don't you take
the `good things' we have to offer as well, and enjoy the
best of both worlds? Why not integrate the two worlds?
Continue passing on Torah values and Jewish ethics while
providing them a full cup of general studies as well. Then
your children will be chareidim, well-raised and educated
(sic) too!"
But just as fire and water don't mix, so too the Torah legacy
cannot be integrated with Haskoloh teachings (even if the
clearly, explicitly forbidden elements are censored out).
This distinction comes to us from Rabbenu Yisroel Salanter,
who explained why the luminaries of the generations voiced
such staunch opposition to ideas for institutions like the
Beis Medrash LeRabbonim (Rabbinical Seminary).
The book Zichron Yaakov by HaRav Yaakov Lipshitz
relates how when HaRav Salanter was offered the post of
overseer of curriculum and study arrangements at the Beis
Medrash LeRabbonim, he made haste to leave Vilna (Part I,
Chap. 70).
Years later he was asked why he refused the offer so
decidedly. After all, were the institution under his constant
supervision he could ensure everything was run properly.
But an institution of this kind is unfit by definition, thus
there is no way to rectify it.
"We can see from day-to-day experience. When a shailoh
comes from a poor man, the rov quickly stops what he's doing,
even interrupts a meal, exerting himself and carefully
looking up the poskim in the hopes of finding a way to
permit the matter the pauper is asking about. And when
presented with a shailoh from a wealthy man he does
not exert himself as much . . . but experience shows the
opposite is true of the doctor. When the doctor is summoned
to treat a rich man he rushes to him in great haste, but when
asked to make a house call at the poor man's home he makes
every efforts to avoid the visit . . . This would seem to be
a big question for the field of psychology: Why do rabbonim
love the poor and doctors the rich?
"But in my opinion it is very simple. Ever since his youth
the rov learned Torah for its own sake, i.e. for the sake of
knowing Torah. Therefore the Torah and Torah study have
become an acquisition of his, an acquisition in his soul, and
the way of Torah is to guide through natural functions, with
all of the Torah's ethics and words recorded in his entire
body. If it should happen that this lamdan is forced
to take a rabbinical post, he would act according to his
nature, based on the spirit and path of Torah, which is
tzedokoh and chessed and rachamim
through and through. And the pauper's regret would be much
dearer to him than his own. For this is the way of Torah.
"Yet the doctor is different. He does not enroll in the
university for the love of humanity and the benefit of
mankind, to heal the sick and mend their troubles, etc., but
to make gains through the study of this discipline, which is
a `clean and easy trade,' while providing wealth and prestige
as well. And since he aspires to earn a degree and reach the
goal he rushes to the rich man and avoids the poor man.
"The same applies to the rabbinical seminaries, which are
also directed toward a degree and the goals of the
university, and talmidim enroll there as well in order
to acquire a trade that provides wealth and prestige. Thus it
contains two evils. For it will cause the rabbonim to love
and pity only the rich while despising the poor, and this
would constitute a new decree. Thus I washed my hands of this
affair."
*
This sharp distinction is the acid test for all of the new
ideas raised by various figures seeking to introduce changes
in the way we educate our children and to harm our
institutions.
Education toward careerism, toward knowledge and scholastic
achievement whose only purpose is to smooth the path to a
coveted materialistic standing the child is striving to
achieve in keeping with what his teachers and schools
inculcate in him from early childhood through adolescence --
this is the root of all the ailments that have been visited
upon this education system, which are not by chance but are
the direct consequence of shaping a world of yearning and
ambitions. For career-based education and value-based
education do not mix, just as fire and water do not mix.
The fundamental and constant striving for material
gratification that is achieved and improved the more one
studies creates, in both an overt and a subconscious manner,
the jumping-off point for a life of chasing after worldly
desires, crude egoism and unprincipled conduct. Lesaavoh
yevakesh nifrad (Mishlei 18:1).
Our rabbonim of past generations objected to the idea of
rabbinical seminaries that do not direct their scholars
towards Torah lishmoh from the outset, but toward
courses of study whose sole purpose is a rabbinical post and
a livelihood. Essentially, it is another Technion, another
institute for career training, which proclaims to the student
in advance that his years of study are limited and intended
to prepare him just to make money in the future. The period
of study is considered as a necessary stage on the way to
achieving a degree and a good job.
Therefore gedolei Yisroel voiced firm, unequivocal
opposition to initiatives by various amei ha'artzos
and haters of talmidei chachomim, who declared loud
and proud that they will not support "the old type" of
"regular" kollelim, but were willing to provide
limited support on condition studies are held according to
the rabbinical seminary approach, including a series of
conditions that are essentially to ensure avreichim do
not dedicate themselves to their studies for the sake of
Torah learning alone.
According to this baalei batim approach, which fails
to recognize the noble value of a life dedicated to Torah,
the long-term goal is to make money and leave the
kollel bench, thereby transforming Torah study into an
interim stage and a means toward an end.
In a letter written in 5732 (1972) Morenu HaRav Shach writes
against initiatives to alter the kollelim in order to
train rabbonim and spiritual leaders, "for the
kollelim have no objective other than Torah learning,
just as it has always been . . . and the holy kollelim
should not be even slightly changed, chas vesholom,
from the way they were established by the pillars of previous
generations, zechusom yogen oleinu. And anyone who
endeavors to make changes will have to stand judgment and no
avreich ben Torah should place himself among them,
choliloh" (printed in Michtovim Umaamorim
III).
Here Rabbenu teaches us what he received from his rabbonim
regarding the essence of a kollel and the secret of
its success and the foundation in spiritual elevation that
avreichim acquire. Different kollelim are
different. Some study Seder Zero'im, others Seder
Moed and still others Seder Nezikin. Some use an
approach of deep iyun, others stress broad knowledge
of Shas and still others learn shemateso alibo
dehilcheso. What all share in common is a singular goal:
Torah lishmoh and self-refinement through toil in
Talmud.
*
This approach does not apply to bnei Torah alone, but
also to the way girls are educated. Our rabbonim taught us
that although girls are not required to learn Torah, the goal
of studies at Bais Yaakov schools is not the accumulation of
general scholastic knowledge within a chareidi framework
designed to provide kosher professional training, but to pass
on to them emunoh and yiras Shomayim,
mussar and good middos, with which to build
Torah homes and prepare themselves for lives of Jewish
purity. Thus, study hours devoted to acquiring a trade are
subordinate to the primary objective.
But if this situation is altered and girls' schools and
seminaries aim toward professional and scholastic
achievement, toward degrees and academics, then these
institutions will be unable to produce mothers and teachers
whose aspirations and way of life are shaped by the proper
Torah way.
When education, work and salaries become the primary
objective then, just as HaRav Yisroel Salanter warned, we
will start producing doctors instead of rabbonim, and in the
case of women we will produce doctors instead of educators
and careerists instead of mothers.
The fundamental rule: the character of an educational
institution determines and shapes the character of the
students there, along with the totality of their ambitions
and yearning. The educational agenda of every institution
inculcates in its students a hierarchy of values and
priorities as well as what they will see as the objective and
what they will perceive as tangential.
A gaping chasm lies between the goals yirei Hashem
place before the students at pure Torah institutions and the
aspirations porkei ol place before their students.
The foundations of education for tinokos shel beis
rabbon will never converge with the core of the general
education system; yeshivas will not become places that
prepare students for Bagrut certificates too, kollelim
will not turn into rabbinical seminaries and Bais Yaakov
schools will not adopt an academic character.
