A special prayer rally was held this Tuesday in the Wagshall auditorium in Bnei Brak to protest and to pray for the preservation of pure chinuch as transmitted to us throughout the generations. Participating were the principals of the various educational institutions, headed by gedolei Yisroel, in view of the threat to the souls of the tens of thousands of students attending chadorim throughout Eretz Yisroel.
HaRav Dovid Cohen, a member of the Moetzes Gedolei Torah, said at the Atzeres, "HaRav Shlomo Wolbe zt"l said the chinuch is not just imparting facts, but building up the child to be educated in the ways of Torah, mitzvos and good middos. Their education is just to convey facts and not to build up the character of the children, and they wish to control our chinuch and to cast it in their mold."
"We have passed all limits. The orders of the Ministry of Education are illogical and have no rationale other than the will to harass the talmudei Torah. We must be united in this struggle over the independence of the pure chinuch," according to Rav Avrohom Sholom Pinzel, head of talmud Torah Chochmas Shlomoh in Jerusalem.
The rally was a step against the complaints of many of these institutions protesting the hostile, provocative and even illogical demands of officials of the Education Ministry of the various principals both in the spiritual area, regarding the curriculum of study, thus tampering with the spiritual administration of the schools, as well as the draconian economic measures which threaten the very ongoing functioning of these institutions. The principals go so far as to describe these measures as a real catastrophe, a solid inconceivable impasse, notwithstanding the ongoing energetic efforts of the UTJ Knesset representation headed by Rabbis Moshe Gafni and Education Minister MK Meir Porush who do their utmost to thwart those demands, solve the problems and ease the burden.
In the wake of the untenable situation, the principals have decided to take up the `arms' of our ancestors in raising a public prayerful hue and cry headed by our Torah leadership. What better prayer can express their plight than "Ovinu Malkeinu... help us for the sake of our young ones."
