The “all is well in my home” mindset is an offspring of the view that basic Torah education is a parental and not communal responsibility. This view departs radically and wrongfully from the understanding since the Talmudic period that basic Torah education is a communal responsibility.
Inadvertently or not, our leaders have sent a message that it is not necessary to give tzedakah to ordinary yeshivas and Beth Jacobs. I have challenged this attitude for more years than I can recount. Sadly, it has taken root because too many of us like to hear that it is not necessary to give.
Starting with the top, we need a reversal of attitudes. Our roshei yeshiva who merit the respect that they receive must once more take responsibility for the financial well being of our schools. They can do this by changing the message they have sent for far too long that basic Torah education is the financial responsibility of parents whose children receive a service.
This message departs egregiously from the lesson taught by the Great Rosh Yeshiva of Lakewood, Rav Aharon Kotler, zt”l, who though exhausted by his other responsibilities worked without stop to support basic Torah education, here and in Israel.
Only when we recognize that all Torah education is a communal responsibility will we be able to say, “all is well in our home.”