Now that the issues of unaffordable yeshiva tuition and youth who opt out of Jewish observance have reached “crisis” proportions, the Jewish community is finally willing to admit that such problems exist. My pessimistic side wonders what calamities must still befall us before all the pontificating will finally give way to meaningful, courageous action. Talk, after all, is cheap.
My optimistic side, however, draws hope from the fact that the blinders seem to be finally coming off. Now if we can only influence people to focus on the real issues, the real problems, perhaps we can make progress toward a brighter future.
One of the most prevalent views of contemporary Jewish education is a rosy one: “Today there are more people learning Torah, more yeshivas, and more new seforim being published than ever before. We are living in a golden age of Torah!”
Those who take this view will also point to the influx of newly observant Jews as evidence of the progress of Torah-true Judaism in our generation.
One must respectfully observe, however, that despite the increased quantity of Torah study, our generation lacks a strong, universally recognized gadol hador who transcends political considerations, petty controversies, and factionalism; who is actively involved in addressing the many critical issues facing the Jewish people today; and who is proactive in seeing that problems are actually solved.
This observation, when it is expressed publicly, is immediately squelched for being sacrilegious (despite no supporting evidence to the contrary) and the world marches blissfully on.
But the burning question remains: If more people are learning Torah today than ever before, shouldn’t we have more and greater talmidei chachamim than ever before? And if one will counter that it is spiritually impossible for that to occur due to an inevitable decline in generations (an analysis one might dispute based on the ebb and flow of Torah scholarship and observance throughout the ages), shouldn’t we at least have more and greater talmidei chachamim than we have right now?
The only conclusion, if one is going to be honest about it, is that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way Torah is being taught and studied.
Further, one must also counter the glowing remarks about the “kiruv movement” with the observation that the already-observant community is hemorrhaging with dropouts. Any mention of this phenomenon is usually met with diatribes against television, the Internet, secular studies, and anything else that can’t be viewed in the nearest mirror. Is it sacrilegious to consider the possibility that the observant community bears at least part of the blame for the disaffection of many of its own members?
There are too many things wrong with the way Torah is being taught and studied to adequately address in a single article. Problems of great magnitude and scope can’t be neatly reduced to a few hundred words, nor do sound bites make effective solutions. If we are truly interested in addressing the needs of our generation, we must think deliberately and then act decisively – not the reverse.
The two most striking problems with Jewish education that few seem to be talking about are 1) a lak of appreciation for the unparalleled mission that is entrusted to teachers, and 2) a lack of professionalism and accountability in the way schools are run.
Everyone innately knows that teachers are vitally important to the educational process, yet the way people tend to relate to teachers reveals a casual, dismissive perception of teachers and their profession. Look no further than the ads for teachers in Orthodox newspapers. It’s not unheard of for a school to boast that its teachers are paid on time. That’s an actual selling point to prospective teachers. Wow, sign me up!
