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I think just the opposite. Instead of teaching that Judaism is not a narrow path we should be teaching the beauty of the path that is Judaism. How much emphasis do Yeshivos place on teaching about how we are the am hanivchar and what the means for each individual? How often do we teach about the importance of dveikus? Do you remember your Rebbeim teaching you about Hashem in a personal, real way?
Feif un: You mention that your parents already approved of the books you were reading that your Yeshivah did not.
MANY MANY parents present their children with mixed messages. “That’s for when you’re in yeshivah”. “Yeshivah says its bad but really its OK”. These things undermine the credibility of the Yeshivah in the child’s eyes and also serve to weaken the child’s stance on things related to yiddishkeit- ‘if my parents said this is ok even though the yeshivah doesn’t maybe that is also not really bad’. How many children come home from Yeshivah where they are taught that TV is bad only to come home and put their feet up on the couch as they enjoy their favorite shows.
In summary: Yeshivos need to make real relationships with Hashem and the beauty of yiddishkeit a priority in yeshivah.
Parents need to provide their children with stable and consistent hashkafic values.
Derech HaMelech~ just curious: do you live in Chashmo or the environs?
I’ve said in many (deleted) posts that God is absent from the typical boys yeshiva education. That is a major problem.
Derech Hamelech: so the Rosh Yeshiva says that you should only be reading a Navi. Yet, in the English department, they read Shakespeare, Twain, and many other secular works. The yeshiva itself sets a double standard.
When the child knows inherently that the Yeshiva/Rebbe/Hanhala is wrong, the worst thing a parent can do is to stick up for them.
I didn’t have experiences anywhere close to that of Feif Un, but there were plenty of foolish things they said and did. I never took them to be representatives of the Torah, and I have other role models.
Feif un:
I agree with you in that Yeshivos shuold not be teaching twain during secular studies and teaching against it in Jewish studies. But maybe the school is required to do this by law. In which case the yeshiva should be making it very clear to the kids that although it there are problems in reading these books, you would not be able to have a yeshivha education if we took them out of the curriculum and so we have to take the lesser of two evils. Other than that of course I agree with you that yeshivos should not be setting a confusing example.
HaLeivi:
Your second statement is what I was actually aiming at. A child who is not presented with 2 opposing views will be confident when he experiences situations where someone is acting wrong. I am not saying that in some of the cases the rebbeim were wrong, but perhaps if as a child he was more confident in what was wrong and what was right, he would have felt more confident as a child in dismissing the rebbeim instead of Judaism.
EDITED POST
Please do not give out personal information in the CR.
Sorry, didn’t realize saying that place is any different than saying Brooklyn. Also there was even a thread about it, So I thought it was OK.
always here:
I live in a chareidi community in the West Bank
kol hakavod, Derech! stay safe! 🙂
My post (correctly) got blocked, but I’ll try to add this:
Every person is different, and therefore every person has different reasons why they go on or off.
And one must remember, sending your child to a yeshiva does not abrogate your own responsibility to teach your child. If the yeshiva does or says something wrong, tell your child so, and don’t be fickle (but be understanding and perhaps explain what the yeshiva believes. Make it a springboard for conversation & questions. Questions that are accepted & responded to are the best cure (IMHO)) (as I have had to do on occasion).
Derech HaMelech: You say the yeshiva might be required to teach Twain by law. Why? So they can get government funding, or be accredited? I refer you to the famous speech from R’ Gifter zt”l, where he bashed Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm. In the speech, he attacked the fact that there was a gay student group in one of the YU graduate programs. His main point was that they went against what was right so they could get government money. He said it’s selling out Torah values for a few dollars, and it’s better to lose the money and close down than to go against what is right. Why doesn’t the same apply to what is taught in English classes?
Feif,
There’s a difference between what’s wrong and what shouldn’t be done, without a good reason. I agree with you wholeheartedly that what was told to you was foolish. I’ll even say that it sounds like one of those Shitos that are made up on the spot. If you looked up to these Rabbeim, that could be a real blow. However, it’s not actual hypocracy.
always here:
I suspect from your comment that you misunderstand. I did not move here to make a statement or to support settlement. This is not a small town that I live in, its quite large with many tens of thousands of people. We moved here because housing was cheap and its a chareidi environment…just like everyone else in this town.
g_a_w:
I think it would be a better idea to send your child to a yeshivah whose hashkafos you follow. It is very hard for a child to understand when a Rebbe is teaching fire and brimstone against TV and the child’s parents say ‘its ok to watch”. Otherwise I think you will just be undermining the yeshivah’s credibility in the child’s eyes.
Feif un:
I agree with you 100% on this. That is why we have Chinuch Atzmai in E”Y. What I tried to explain before was that I suspect (I never asked anyone) that the Yeshivos had to make a cheshbon:
-If we do not get government funding we will have to close down as parents can already not afford tuition.
-Most other yeshivos if not all are in the same situation as us.
-Having kids read Hucklberry Finn is not as bad as sending them to public school due to lack of yeshivos.
YU is a different case than yeshivos because it is primarily a school for advanced secular studies with what was supposed to be the benefit of a Jewish environment. Yeshivos though are a necessity as without them there would be know learning Torah at all.
g_a_w:
I think it would be a better idea to send your child to a yeshivah whose hashkafos you follow. It is very hard for a child to understand when a Rebbe is teaching fire and brimstone against TV and the child’s parents say ‘its ok to watch”. Otherwise I think you will just be undermining the yeshivah’s credibility in the child’s eyes.
Of course. But no Yeshiva is perfect, and children should know the truth. Your example is too extreme. I’m talking about (for example) explaining why our Minhag is to (or not to) say “Afilu Sha’a Echas” in Asher Yatzar and the like.
Oh, I was using Feif Un’s example of reading secular books with parent’s permission when the yeshivah doesn’t allow it.
i once spoke to someone who worked with OTD girls. she’s met many, many OTD girls and she said that for a girl to go off, she usually had to have been hurt pretty badly, either, physically, emotionally, or other. it was only a few years ago when i had this discussion, but things change all the time and don’t know if the situation is still the same. she thought that ta’avah was involved with boys, but didn’t find that to be the case with girls. (she was not an expert on the boys, just the girls, so don’t know if true or not). obviously, everyone has bechirah, but adults also have tremendous responsibility and need to realize it.
Oh, I was using Feif Un’s example of reading secular books with parent’s permission when the yeshivah doesn’t allow it.
I don’t think that is as extreme of an example as TV/no TV, which has become a litmus test of “frumkeit”.
Although in EY (especially Charadei community in the WB) it would be, just like “playing sports” would be as well.
This might be long but heres my take on it:
The system is what I think causes the kids to start having thoughts against Judaism and if a persons relationship with their parents starts getting strained they turn away.
The system need to be revamped completely because its killing people. It’s turning chumros into Halachos and doesn’t prioritize the right things.
It’s NOT okay to throw a girl physically off the bus becuase you don’t want to sit next to her. It’s not okay to push in front of a girl but when she gets indignant not talk to her.
Don’t yell at a girl who’s wearing skirts above her knees to wear tights.
Attendance should not be more important than davening.
People need to learn to prioritize and get their halachos straight. And not focus too much on chumros and “thats what everyone does”
The system is strangling people, and the natural inclination of a person when they are getting strangled is to run away!!!! So why would it be any different when people are feeling strangled like there is only this narrow path:
be a kolell guy, marry a kollel guy live in a basement apartment in Lakewood have 60 kids, be a teacher… and if you do anything else then you are a bad person and going to hell.
So if I’m anyways going to hell so why should I do all those hard things? Like get up at 5:30 to daven…
It’s the parents job to show the kid that Torah is beautiful and it’s NOT the way they’re teaching it in schools.
@Sister Bear; Very well said.
I happen to believe that schools arent really out to teach kids but rather mold them into their own version of jews and just try to build a massive army of kids and families that think exactly like they do.
I think if a Yeshiva or Girls School took the road less traveled and went with a curriculam and hashkafa that only the halacha mattered, you could solve the OTD problem on some level. Because the kids would find whatever hashkafa they were comftorable with on their own rather then be pushed into it and taught that their hashkafa is the only acceptable one and everyone else is a “goy”
Basically, turn the schools into actual schools rather than programming centers.
cleverjewishpun:
I have difficulty understanding where you are coming from. I know a number of people who went to Litvish/Chassidishe Yeshivos but switched over. I’m not so convinced that things are quite like the way you are describing them.
@Derech HaMelech,
I’m talking about how institutions refuse to acknowledge the validity of anyone else’s view point. I know obviously the “yeshivish” institutions are not going to endorse views you would find at solomon schecter..but maybe if institutions said “you can go out in to the world and make a living and still be a g-d fearing jew” instead of “if you dont sit and look at a book for 18 hours a day then you are a failure” and I know this might seem like an extention of the learn vs work argument but it also boils down to the chincuh factor.
If children and teens heard that there are numerous ways to pursue a life goal and still be close to Hashem, it makes the medicine go down a little smoother than “everyone who is slightly different from you is wrong and a sinner!”
I’m talking about how institutions refuse to acknowledge the validity of anyone else’s view point.
My feeling here is that you mean to specifically talk about learning vs. working.
I say this because I have never heard of a Litvish institution refusing to acknowledge the validity of a Chasidishe institution or vis versa.
In fact when I spoke to my Rav about sending my children to Yeshivah he specifically told me that it doesn’t matter whether they go to a Litvishe of Chassidishe Yeshivah and that I shouldn’t worry about them feeling out of place as at this point in time both sides are mixed.
No one ever said to me ‘Sephardim are sinners- stay away from them!’ Or, ‘ Oberlanders, we don’t mix with their type’. Never heard anything about the evil Yekis or Yemenites either.
Also, what is a ‘life-goal’?
I agree with cleverjewishpun that people aren’t accepting of each other’s differences. When people first came to America the divide between Orthodox and Shomer Torah and Mitzvos and the irreligious Jews. I think thats why the Orthodox Jews weren’t accepting of the irreligious Jews since they needed to protect themselves.
But nowadays, things are different and we need to be more accepting. If a school teaches that people who work or have a TV or who’s father wears jeans or whatever aren’t good Jews and frum Jews – THAT’S NOT TRUE!!!! And it’s not the way WE do it and they alienate people who have slightly different Hashkafos…
People need to learn to live and let live. If they’re not doing something assur (that was written in the Torah and not in your book) LEAVE THEM ALONE!!!
If you don’t want to marry someone who wears jeans, fine don’t no one is forcing you to but that doesn’t mean they’re a bad person.
If you don’t want to have a TV in your home, don’t but just because someone does have a TV in their home doesn’t make them any less frum than you.
Sister Bear:
Shemiras Einayim is a halacha:
Tur and S”A EVHa”E Siman 21-
A man needs to distance himself from women very very much.
Asur to look at a woman with intention to enjoy her looks.
Pri Megadim brought by the M”B O”C siman 75 s”k 7-
Places on the body that are normally covered like the arm etc. even looking without intention to enjoy is assur
So I’m just wondering, would you compare watching TV to smoking a cigarette? It’s assur if its actually hurting you but there’s no way to tell until after it happened.
Or does your husband only watch channel 13
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