Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I understand YYA that he doesn’t want to go circles into debating Zionism, but this thread shows that people base their (sometimes insane) positions about current events on those theories.
Yes, it is possible to separate and say – let’s not debate old issues and look at current events, and it is very reasonable. But the reality is that many people are affected by years of propaganda – on each side of every issue. And when yo are dealing with decisions of life and death, it might lead someone, H’V, to very serious aveiros. This is also true about events in 1920s-40s when so many followed their group ideologies.
See gemorah drash about what word “es” means, and that “yire as haElokim” es possibly can not mean “something else”, but Rabbi Akiva says – it can mean that also “talmidei chachamim”. from this. yireh means something that when applied to Hashem can not be comparable to most other situationms. That, it i surely not general “fear” – it is either extreme fear or awe …
pure > Chafetz Chayim said the zionists are mizera amalek as stated by Rav Wasserman ztz”l)
it seems from your writing that we do not have any other source for such an opinion by Ch. Ch. despite him authoring so many seforim, articles, and private letters. Any explanations? He did not trust anyone except his favorite student?
PS Presenting one witness is a chapter in hilchos loshon horo. If you don’t have two witnesses – do not present info, go home.
So, the simplest way to stop such demonstrations is to invalidate the eruv? Just do it before the time of mothers taking kids to shul.
Kuvult, it is not so much lack of education – simple common sense can prevent this from happening. But, as discuss in another threat, lack of steady jobs make people insecure and wanting for a miracle to come and save them from the money problem. That enables the scams to go throufg
Rocky> I don’t really understand what a discussion on College has to Bnos Penina
retracing the steps:
my conjecture was that the root problem is parents’ inability to pay for school because the community is lacking good jobs; and a college is a way for having good erliche jobs for a wide swath of population. The other opinion is that people get by pretty well without college and .. hm. then I don’t know why they still can’t pay tuition … So, I am also lost by the claim that is not supported by facts!rescue > Studies are manipulated propaganda from special interests most times and it’s an appeal to authority instead of fact. Observation, real life experience is a much better teacher.
I am not denying that there is propaganda in the world. At the same time, there are studies that are “observations” – conducted according to a protocol. When you read a proper study and look at the authors’ other work, and, if needed, can contact the authors to clarify, and sometimes having data published openly – you can find good observations. So, if you want your opinion to be taken seriously in this debate – you should open some studies and read them inside.
rescue > Look around you? Do the liberals look like they have a high IQ no they don’t.
Not everyone with college degree is liberal, or have high IQ… It is hard for me to judge, indeed – I do not know many people with bachelor degrees, so what I observe personally may not generalize to overall population – that is why I am reading studies.
In my observation, highly educated people have a large subset of very smart people. It is true many exhibit signs of “schooling” – they are way more reasonable when they talk about their profession but less in others. Still, many who are teaching or doing research full-time can have interesting Torah discussions, comparable to Talmidei Chachomim, but much smaller number of non-college educated non-T Ch can do the same,
rescue, as I mentioned: in your – valid – criticism of college-educated people, just compare it with ignorance. Plenty of non-college-educated fall into a lot of logical pitfalls … starting from not being able to understand validity of sources, statistics, design of experiments, scientific method, etc. Can’t understand difference between a well-designed experiment v. anecdotes heard in a tiktok video.
One way to formulate your criticism – there is a difference between crystallized (learned skills) and fluid (ability to think) intelligence.
BUT educational level is positively correlated with IQ – from one study 1-5 IQ points per year of schooling. Is this due to self-selection or effect of college? check the original study or anything else like that.
How Much Does Education Improve Intelligence? A Meta-Analysis
Stuart J. Ritchie and Elliot M. Tucker-Drob
Sage Journal 2018 Volume 29, Issue 8
doi.org 10.1177/0956797618774253yankel> , rescue is influenced by his surroundings to arbitrarily proclaim his own ‘common sense’
R Daniel Feldman mentions “bias bias” – everyone is aware that people have biases. Therefore, when evaluate someone’s position, you correct it for their bias. Now, when you are evaluating your own position, you should also correct for bias – but you usually don’t.
Why? Because you experience your own thought process differently from others. With others, you only see the final output – writing, speech, maybe sometimes you hear them talking out load. You then reconstruct their thinking process and correct for biases. With your own thinking, you have access to all details of your thinking. So, you “clearly see” that everything you think is logical and unbiased. No need to go through evaluation!
Maybe a good example is voice. Do you know that you are thinking that your pitch is higher than what you think it is? You get sound from other people through air – while you hear your own sound through your head, which makes those waves lower frequency. Try recording yourself and listening.
YYA > It’s impossible to be an Ehrliche Yid without BOTH סור מרע and עשה טוב.
yes! and, as you mention, choices between might be different for different people/groups. but what is interesting that proponents of specific directions usually insist that “this is the right way”. Is someone treating the issue taking all views into account?
But, of course, the starting point is even earlier and fundamental from Adam and Hava time – knowing the difference between tov and ra.
Doing ra while you are thinking you are doing tov “is not an answer”.rescue > College isn’t knowledge it’s propaganda
we are talking generalities here. Fill me in some details – how much propaganda is there in the 2nd year of calculus or organic chemistry?
in most technical undergrad programs, they mark up the propaganda – you need to take 2 classes in “cultural awareness” and 3 in “global culture” or something like that. Well-taught kids know what it is – and current administration works on having less of that. It is a waste of time & money, but it is what it is. You can try taking them in a cheap online college or even pull in some Jewish classes to qualify as “diversity”.
Chaim > , Thats no longer true. Corp America has constant layoffs and is not stable.
not. comparable. I was laid off a couple of times rather unexpectedly, and baruch Hashem, it saved me from some years working for businesses that were on the way down. They really did chessed to those who they laid off earlier. Still, most professionals are doing “ok” after such things, even if they lose in status. You can’t argue about general statistics. Your response seem to be that it is different in Jewish community, and I hope it is, and it should be, but it is an onus on you to show those numbers.
> I just think anyone who is motivated can now learn that online too.
That goes about everything – Torah learning too … I am, and I was, internally motivated, but I do owe a lot to some of my professors who showed me different things I did not see on my own. When you are at work, you are focused on very specific tasks and yo can miss the big picture. I mean, two Yidden don’t need to argue that learning is important.phil> it is an all-out war over “maybe and probably ” that is what I am against.
current technology is such that waiting for someone to obtain dangerous technology and to get a 100% proof of that may be too late.
it is enough if someone shows bad intent to act.
See example of Avraham – when Avimelech starts conversation with “who is this woman”, Avraham immediately activates his defensive psyops. He did not wait until Avimelech kills him and takes his wife.
rescue, “if you think knowledge is expensive, try ignorance”
Rambam puts out criteria for a Navi that includes everything positive being fulfilled up to a minute detail. So, if someone claimed to have access to Hashem’s proprietary information and then failed, he has bigger problems with beis din than monetary payments.
Chaim,
on college – there is no one answer. different people have different abilities and interest. Most decent (top 50-100 in US reports) have capacity to teach professional skills. From what I hear, Touro is not there (yet?). YU is somewhat there. Having several good professors with whom you can interact can help a young person move in a right direction. Higher level seminars at top 50 universities give you access to world-class researchers. All weird stuff can be avoided by attending a local commuting college and attentive parenting.We discussed that professional work is less conducive to yetzer hara in mamanos. Another important aspect – yishuv daas. A professional is way more sure of his employment prospects and can focus on learning/family.
Arso, my understanding is that some of the early mussar was indeed focusing on punishment, so maybe LAboy quotes chassidic books from 150 years ago
On AI, see Rashi and Radak on Elisha’s encounter with naarim ketanim. Turns out these are “union members” who lost their water-carrying parnosa when Elisha cured water of Yericho. They are ketanim because they did not believe that Hashem will send them another parnosah and they would rather see people suffer but them keeping their jobs. As you sare saying, AI opens lots of opportunities to do things better and faster. Maybe work a day a week and then learn.
Now, what about AI answering teikus …
> Now you are 22 and single. Should they go to work before they need to?
You don’t have to be. If you are on the way to getting a profession, or in MS/PhD degree, maybe even Rambam will agree that you can get married off student loans :). Maybe with 3.0 GPA.
On your question whether one needs college for more than parnosah. Depends on a person. I think for some people, it would not hurt to learn about the world. R Soloveichik did not seem to regret learning philosophy, that means he found it useful. Rambam knew greek and muslim science and philosophy.
You can see on this site, a certain segment of Jewish velt behaves sociologically very similar to other uneducated social groups – conspiracy theories; rejecting public health advice … so, something is missing in our educational system.on accounting – I know closely my business accountant. He is working for himself, not big 4, serving small/mid-size businesses. He is indeed very busy during various tax deadlines, so I learnt not to bother him at that time.
on college – in theory, I agree with online education – most of my kids do that. But I am suggesting that you’ll get better parnosa if you actually learn “stuff”. Going to Harvard Law after BMG makes sense. Harvard medical school – not so much. But those graduating diploma mills – after having no-English schooling – are not necessarily well prepared. In theory, learning gemora should make you prepared deal with business issues, but in practice, many have hard time passing tests for their professions. There are many online colleges that are not very expensive and have reasonable programs – U of Florida, U of Oregon, Southern New Hampshire, Arizona State. I think they would be better choice than diploma mills for some (again, there are so many different cases, you can’t make one judgment here).
I agree on dangers of in-person college. My daas Torah, who was affiliated with OOT university, recommended sending kids to local colleges (his advice was against his own parnosa, so it was a real one :). In that sense, Touro and YU and Brooklyn college, esp honors, are great places.
Chaim> Please name a field thats part time and earns a decent salary even non college educated.
accountants working for themselves; bookkeepers; SW developers; college professors; nutritionists; physical therapists; maybe postal workers? plumbers;
PS teachers that you mentioned sounds good – even when working full time, you get whole summer when you can learn and a weekend.
chaim> but in our own homegrown economy, mnay get hired with well paying jobs in non colllege degree fields too.
I agree. But as I mentioned, we have similar advantages in other fields. You have Jewish connections and family knowledge in various fields. If a family is 3 generations of lawyers or doctors or MBAs, the kids know about the field and can get internships way better than a random 1st-generation MD. I work in a different engineering field than my father, but he was able to give me a wise advice when I described direction I was taking.
> Fair point re the fact that as a business owner its hard to even survive without being gray
That was my main point. Obviously, not every college-ed is a tzaddik and other way around, but as I mentioned when your value is based on your professional knowledge, the yetzer hara is less. And it affects whole line of business, so even if you are not a business owner, then you work for a business owner who does something shady and you may have to be part of it.
Back to the doctor in Taanis who had 7x more heavenly court visits than Abaye – great things he did are really possible to arrange in our times: treat patients with respect, maintain tzniyut, do not see what they pay. And hopefully do better than bloodletting … If you can become a doctor like that – what better job can you have?
philosopher, there is gemora saying that goyim will be signing praises to Hashem’s protection of Jews more than Jews. Why? Because we often have no idea what they attemted to do to us, and failed – but they know. You focus on Bibi’s failures of seeing an attack, but ignore multiple things he, and IDf in general, did to protect Jews. There are many thing we know and there are other things that we might not know. So, you think that this attack was not needed … and what if there were no attack and then turns out Iran does something bad – you would have blamed them anyway. This is how our minds work when we have no responsibilities and can criticize. Review various complains you had – they are all conspiracy theories made after the fact. were you warning about neglecting Hamas beforehand?
Try making falsifiable predictions (or see if you made any before) and then let’s discuss. For example, you are saying now that bombing will not change anything. Ok, so let’s see if this will come true. It is possible and Trump mentioned this risk analysis lately – in the best case, we will improve situation, in the worst case – new government will be as bad as previous one but a lot of their military will be destroyed. Hard to argue with this, unless new government will be worse – that could be, but it is not what you think, you said everything will be the same (well, all destroyed equipment will not be the same).
It would be ineresting for customers to provide feedback to developers of true and false reports, hopefully enabling them to improve software.
In this case, the feedback seems simple – software that finds tiny errors in someone else’s writing, should be able to double-check that the output is sent to the correct customer.
phil, everyone agrees that Iran wanted to make nuclear weapons, and they openly say who their enemy is. The machlokes is only about how successful they are. Clearly, someone who wants to kill others deserves the punishment. They already killed tens of thousands of their own citizens.
The public arguments is about politics – convince enough people, make sure another party is blamed, etc. It is not relevant to the simple fact that they deserve the punishment.
> success of college, again that was Pre AI and post covid where
post-covid is not relevant. I looked at timeline. Numbers are same as they were 20 years ago. In fact, most interesting that there is just several percentage difference in 20 years – slightly higher for college jobs and almost no change for non-college.
Re: AI. If it will take away all the jobs, then we can all sit and learn and this debate will be over. Realistic prediction – technology trend is such that a small number of people produce a lot of effect. An inventor brings way more to economy than an erliche shop owner. A SW developer develops code that can be used to service millions of people. That is why educated people are paid more – because there are more very productive people among them. So AI will make the small number of very smart people even more productive, and it will pay to be one of them.
Chaim > . Most boys unless they can’t learn need to be in yeshiva till they need a paransa. That’s more more important than establishing a career.
I understand the motivation behind this system, but at some point, thisis ridiculous. How many years of learning, travel to EY, is required to train a person to become observant and a life-long learner!? Maybe something is wrong in families where this is happening. From experience -we moved away some of my kids from a “frum” high school to avoid negative influences, and when some teachers met the kids a couple of years later,bli ayn harah, they were like “wow, you are still frum”. Our kids just stared back, they did not know what to answer… For these teachers, it was axiomatic – someone not following their “system’ is destined to be lost. Not that they tried to contact them in between, invite for shabbos or something …
MO does the same. R Lebowitz somewhere describes MA program in Talmudic studies: parents want them to go to Law School ASAP, and if you have a yeshiva gap year, the law schools will not look kindly at that. So, to keep boys learning for another year, we give them MA … Maybe, it was tongue-in-cheek …
At the same time, I know kids from serious families who have no problem going to a mid-level college and keeping serious seder at the same time. Maybe this derech is not for everyone, but surely this could be applied to more people if the public mood would consider it as normal as other ways.
chaim > Most jobs are 9-5 (college or not college educated).
I don’t think so. There are a lot of p/t jobs and there are a lot of jobs that involve working with multiple clients. It is just in practice, nobody seems to be willing to take 50% load when they can do more. Maybe, we are afraid for future – and most mussar says it is wrong – earn for today and quit …
I am included. I could easily live from what I earn 2 days a week. Not sure about the wife, but she’ll probably be ok. But it seems crazy to reject clients coming your way … not sure what the solution is … I am open to solutions. One option, of course, is to do your job full of mitzvos and learning – either working in chinuch or do like a doctor in Taanis – treat people well – this is way easier in our times. There are so many jobs in health care, police, defense, writing software that is doing something good for humanity.Re: business. A shochet came to R Salanter and said that he can’t bear responsibility any more – one mistake and the whole city would eat treif. He wanted to quit and go into business. R Salanter exclaimed – you are afraid of aveiros dealing with a beheima, and you are not afraid of all potential aveiros doing business?!
Chaim
> That data isn’t relevant for frum jews
Well, it is a baseline. If you have better numbers, bring them. You may be correcting, saying if a Yid runs a store, he will be more profitable … but then if the same smart Yid runs a financial firm, he might also do it better.> where you look at it as shady morally but its completely legal based on the law.
As we are both afraid to bring specific examples, I am not sure if we disagree. In general, US tax law is non-patriotic – there is no mitzva to pay more. So, everything legal is fine. Say, if I can hire my kid and can justify his salary according to going rate, even if he would not be able to find such a job somewhere else, it is fine. But if he is not actually doing anything, that is not ok, even if IRS most likely is not going to check it out. Or count how many miles I am driving for business.> I have the same yetzer hara and I have a college educated career.
Say, I have a professional business. I am paid $100K for my expertise + I earn $50K from profit from my workers + $20K by tweaking car and home expenses. These $20K are 10% of my income. If I want to increase my earning, I’ll be better off hiring 2 more assistants and do more business instead of finding loopholes. If I’ll want to do a worse product by spending less time, I am risking doing a professional mistake and ruining my application. So, I am mostly busy with my yetzer tov, trying to provide better service.Now, if I have a business buying widgets for $900K and then selling them for $1M and paying $50K for 2 assistants – my profits are just $50K.
BUT if I hire an illegal; if I pay my workers in cash; if I use worse quality goods – I can double or triple my income with zero effort. Of course, I am tempted. And if everyone in this business is doing the same – you may not be able to survive working honestly.rescue et al. here is 2024 statistics from Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC)
median worker income: high school $50K, Bachelor and higher $90K2022 for 25-34 y.o:
high school $41K (men $46K), ass degree $49K ($54K) , bachelors $66K ($75K), master or higher $80K ($89K)> One should not be working till they actually need the money especially at a young age when they need to still grow and lay a torah fundation.
I understand why we want young people to learn. Both idealistically and for protecting them from assimilation. But don’t pretend that it is “normal”. Rambam puts it simple – get a job, buy a house, then marry. Starting working only at the moment you actually need money, rather than preparing and progressing through life is opposite of smart.
> You are also advocating like a complete society reset that will never happen.
This is an important point. Jewish society did not live like that until 100 years ago. I think that what historically started as a horaas shaaa, protecting from bad influences, created a lot of successes, and modern democracies provided welfare state that allows people to use (or abuse) it. As a result, you are now talking about “complete society reset” for simple things like working. Practically speaking, you are right, things change gradually – people with limited skills going to diploma-mills and Touro are trying to improve situation. Hopefully, they will not be afraid to teach their own kids some math & english in high school.
> Many of my friends got their accounting degrees at young ages and never used it because by the time they went to work at 28 or 30,
I don’t know many people who did a degree and then went to kollel. But I do know people who first learn, then learn, then go for undergrad, and some even aspire for higher degrees after that. So, it is either wife first juggling the family while the husband is learning, then while the husband is going to medical school, or shidduch resumes with “could you support him for the next 5 years”. Weird.
Chaim, I’ll answer your points in random order:
> As a college grad in a very prestigious profession, I can attest that I can’t afford full tuitionFirst, “full tuition” is not what a normal person is expected to pay. “full tuition” is a starting negotiating point that includes payments for others who are not. I once negotiated for the first time with a yeshiva rep directly instead of disclosing all my income on irs-long forms, as is my minhag. We did not know each other well, so he looked at me. I said 30%? His eyes went dim and sad. I saved him from a heart attack as I immediately clarified – I mean 30% discount, not paying 30% of full… whoever saves one life ….
Of course, college is not a guarantee of anything. But look up unemployment rates and salaries – college-educated ones are better off. And, even more important, your life is more predictable and you don’t worry about things and can live an ehrliche Torah lifestyle. It is interesting that you volunteer as significant part of your compensation questionable write-offs. And I think you define “legal” as “very low chance of being caught”, which is not the same thing. I also have a (professional) business and can write things off, but my yetzer hara is significantly less because I would not need illegal actions to have a livable wage. And it is the nature of business where your added value is in your ability to hustle only, that you live off the margin and it is very tempting to increase margins significantly by playing with IRS or by underfeeding your nursing home residents. When you are paid for your ability to perform heart surgeries, there is way less of yetzer hara to do something shady.
On kollel, you raise an interesting question. The right answer is known from gemora times, of not before – a talmid chacham has a job or a business, spends several hours a day earning a living, and learns the rest of the day. The market gives talmidei chachamim early access to sell on the market so that they don’t waste their time, etc. Seemingly nobody lives this way our days. People either first don’t work and then scramble to earn any way they can, or if they start earning, they work at least 40 hours a week, if not more. I am not sure why we can’t find the middle ground? student loans? lack of proper middos?
what is minhag sochrim on returns? 2 weeks like on amazon?
but presumably this is just a mishap in sending you the wrong printout. So, if you let them know, they’ll send you the right one.
Alternatively, if that other megilah had less errors than yours (estimate from your other one) – then, you can claim that if the printout is correct,
you are entitled to the megillah corresponding to the printout!a freiliche Purim
Issue of loshon hora was legitimately raised here. Loshon horo is not only about damage to a persons involved, but also about maintaining community standards. From this pov, publicizing inappropriate behavior is a right thing to do, not the wrong. So it is not that simple. A good book on the topic with lots of relevant references is R Daniel Feldman False Facts and True Rumors
I don’t think most people believe in just doing mitzvos exactly – otherwise, we would not have so many minhagim and chumros and lev ush and hats of certain color that our ancestors were ashamed to wear … But then if a community can enforce a levush standard, why can’t it enforce a derech eretz standard? Put a shomer near intersection and stop everyone in levush who drives inappropriate. Even easier near the stores – put cherem on everyone who is on the phone while their kids are jumping out of the car into a busy parking lot.
Maybe this is same emergency decree – we are trying to save Yidden from assimilation, te rest of Yiddishkeit can wait. For what? Is moschiach supposed to be enforcing middos or is he waiting for us to do our part?
So, we have two camps here – horrible and “what’s a big deal”. Maybe this is coming from a debate, or two parallel views – are the mitzvos an exact list of thing to perform or is it a list of training exercises to make us into better people. See Ramban on naval b’rshus Torah, for example.
By the first view, as long as S’A does not mention cutting off cars, you are fine. By the second view, if someone learnt a ganze gemora and still does not have basic middos the moment his face is hidden behind the tinted windows – it is very sad and a siman that his learning was for gornisht. I am not sure, if he is pasul l’edus, but surely not fir shidduch.
Phil,
I am not sure what your distinction is. Total non-observance makes people tinokos shenishba and obviously acceptable for kiruv. You are just not comfortable with doing something for these Yidden and looking to build a theory supporting it.Chaim,
if your degree is somewhat underwhelming: no english in HS, then BA from a yeshiva, and 18-month low-level MS, then your ability to do a job and earing potential is lower than someone from a good college. Then, you claim that working in business and getting business perks beats that salary/ Of course …
and even with that – writing off personal car and tuition as a business expense – this is not what my accountant approves …Your impression that “things changed” is based on the fact that larger number of people now go to college, so the lower-level college grad is less impressive than before. As to AI, I agree the future effect is unclear, but, as of now, people who have better education and cognitive skills benefit more from using AI.
On Kiddushin, I agree that profession is not the same as degree – there are professions that do not require degrees, and there are degrees that don’t lead to professions. But, on average, reasonable college degrees lead to respectable ehrliche professions.
As to Kollel, it is personal choice to get oneself into a pretzel to get to marriageable age without having a defined profession, losing out on decades of future learning in comfortable conditions, and pushing the wife to deal with work and children, and children being taught by strangers.
qwerty, sorry for repeating that idea, I just find it very relevant. I agree that people are different, but I was pointing out that the same issue was apparent at the time – combination of glorious past, with current ignorance and dedication.
DaMoshe, could such schools run on a small budget while the emregency is ongoing?
pulling several classes together? classes in homes instead of a separate building?qwerty, it is a mixed bag. I know enough L around, had some kids in their (elementary) schools, met multiple shluchim all over the world. There are crazy ones, and there are excellent ones. You are asking whether the crazy ones bring any benefit? I don’t know. But this dichotomy is not new – R Soloveitchik writes in 1950s, during fridrike rebbe about this – one one hand, brilliance of Alter Rebbe, on the other hand – low quality current publications, on the third hand – dedication of people who travel to all kind of places and find kids to teach. He definitely does not dismiss the latter because of problems in the movement.
phil> Throughout the generations many Jews have left the fold, never has there been this concept of trying to reel them back
seriously? I suggest opening any book of Navi and see them addressing people doing various aveiros. For a random example, see R Gamliel, I think, talking to people distraught by the BM destruction who refuse to drink wine, eat meat, etc – probably early members of some sect or new religion. He is presenting them with a logical argument, trying to change their behavior. Overall, efforts of “teaching Torah” include not only learnng pilpul with young rab onim. but also teaching ignorant ones. See R Akiva teaching kaddish to a son of Roman tax collector.
Say, you have a problem with multi-generational reform Jews or Ivy League grads running with the red flag, but I am sure you can find some small-town ignorami or russian immigrants whom you could help. Did you?
I already mentioned recently Gemora in Avodah Zorah discusses how to travel in presence of potentially dangerous people – which side to keep on, depending on weapon and inclination, and R Akiva’s trick of telling that you are travelling further and then leaving abruptly …
So, to answer the OP – there were always rude people on the road, and you just need to adjust and make sure you are safe, expecting them to do dangerous stuff.
Also, BK might be relevant here – if you carry a load and then stop abruptly. This might correspond to driving that is unsafe. Is there a discussion somewhere about people who overcome or push others on the road?
user, so you think it is normal that Jews behave like that? Middos should be discussed in schools and shuls.
fake> When I do it, it’s because I spaced out
when I do it, I make clear that I am wrong – ask to be let in, le someone pass, waive my hat
rescue is right here. You don’t need to have a full school, just organize 1-2 years together. Presumably, we have parents who went through yeshivas and seminaries, so it should not be a problem for limudei kodesh. One interesting option for secular studies is an online school. Some states have online public schools. I am not sure what NJ offers, but even paid ones are not expensive (and lobby NJ to open public ones if they dont). Kids can then study together, but also separate if they are at different levels.
Chaim,
true all schools everywhere need to rely on donations, but tuition is the starting point …Let’s put two of your questions together – is it worth going to college? can we pay tuition? your answers seem to contradict each other – there are great ways to do without college and, no, we dont have money to pay for schools… there is no same answer for everyone, of course, but college is a proven way to get good pay & benefits at minimal risk for a large swath of middle class. Going into business involves risk, which may be hard for a head of a family and leads to ethical dilemmas in how you treat other people and taxes. Ideally, one should get education and have a solid profession and then go into business – whether in the same profession or otherwise. Then, there is no yetzer hara to do something wrong as you have a profession to fall back on. This is nothing new – it is in gemora Kiddushin 30something + last page.
Touro is a good tool for people who are not fully prepared at high school and can get reasonable education in kosher environment. Online and diploma mill is also a good tool, provided it is not a total scam. I know people who post-lakewood planned to go into health sciences or even MD, they have talent, interest, and support of their hopeful wives – but often lack skills in reading and math to pass exams, so they spend several years, trying to get in.