You can now find the Seforim blog at its old address.
What happened? No explanation was offered in the Tradition announcement.
Moshe Friedman posts: "My guess: some higher-up RCA rabbis actually read some of the things posted on the site and disapproved."
I hear it wasn’t the content but the comments section.
After years of talk about a tuition crisis, many families that scrimped and sacrificed to send children to yeshiva in the past have hit a financial wall.
“Many children will end up in public school as a result of all this,” said Rabbi Shneur Wolowik, director of Chabad of the Five Towns. He says he is inundated with calls for help from parents who simply have run out of options.
“Parents have to choose between having a home foreclosed on or having a Jewish education. It’s a very tough decision,” he acknowledged.
An email he received this week from a woman in the Five Towns outlined her situation: “They have two children, she’s pregnant with a third, they’ve all but canceled the babysitter, have two old cars and a very simple home. She said it’s either tuition or their home and they can’t be homeless. She did the numbers with me and, unfortunately, she’s right.”
The children are now registered in public school.
Yonatan posts: So what’s wrong with sending your kids to public school?
Gil Student posts: Peer pressure. Yeshiva tuition is not about paying for Torah. It’s about socializing your children in the Orthodox Jewish community.
Yonatan posts: $20,000 is a lot to pay for socialization.
Gil: It definitely is! But socialization is essential to maintaining Jewishness in this society.
Yonatan: There are other cheaper ways to socialize people, such as synagogues & youth programs.
And there is something unhealthy about a Jewishness that can only be maintained by isolating from anyone non-Orthodox.
Gil: Those "cheaper ways" have been tried and the failure rate is unacceptable.
It isn’t a matter of isolation. It’s that the primary life of a child and adolescent needs to affirm Jewish identity and behavior, not undermine it at every turn. When they become adults, they’ll spent the majority of their lives in non-Jewish work environments.
Daniel: There is no question that the day school movement saved Orthodoxy in this country. There is no question that socialization aspect of day schools is crucial. There is also no question that day schools have become prohibitively expensive for a frowing portion of the Orthodox community. That is despite the fact that in some areas, day schools manage to provde a double curriculum that is competitive with the local public schools for LESS than that public schools spend per student. (I live in a district that spends over $10,000.00 per student. My tuition is $9,100.00) I believe that the only way to save day schools is to start a vigorous campaign to change the way schools are funded. Private schools have to be able to tap into the public dole. Nothing else will work.
Ilana posts: I was the only shomer Shabbos student in my grade in non-Jewish schools. I managed to emerge from that experience shomer Shabbos only because (1) I wasn’t popular and didn’t get invited to Friday night parties anyway (2) I LIKED being different from everyone else and (3) I was good enough academically that missing yom tov didn’t affect my grades too badly. Despite all that, it was a major nisayon for me and I would not expect every kid to come through ok. BTW I come from a very committed family and attended an excellent Talmud Torah 6 hrs/wk through grade 12.
Sifrah posts: When I went to Shulamith, it was in rented quarters in the Boro Park Y with two grades in a room with one teacher. It was followed by public high school, the only real option at the time. What made it workable was that we had enough of a chevra to support one another. Supplemental limmudei kodesh required evening and Sunday classes and subway travel.
Mordy: "Yeshiva tuition is not about paying for Torah. It’s about socializing your children in the Orthodox Jewish community."
And that is why the Jewish education it provides ranges from lousy to non-existent: education is not its raison d’être.
A JEWISH MOTHER EMAILS:
My son bumped into former classmates. They went to YULA and Shalehevet while he he attended public school. (As a result of a divorce, I could not afford the tuition and both schools did not help me. To think how many nights I cried into my pillow worried what will become of my three kids, afraid that they will become social pariahs).
He was SHOCKED to discover that they are all dating non Jewish girls and don’t go to Beth Jacob, anymore. They come from prominent families in town. It reminded me that during high school we heard of drug use in the Jewish schools. How do you explain that? Not to mention the hefty tuition payments in vein… Something went terribly wrong, I believe that they need to take stock of what went wrong in the above schools. Our community deserve better results.
My theory is that leaving it in God’s hands and praying a lot plus clear boundaries help. I guess it’s easier to set them in my situation. In a Jewish high school it’s like being half pregnant nothing is clearly define.
Prior to starting school we set some house rules:
– You go to public school for your education. (same in college)
– Yes, I know that they are very nice girls… but you don’t date them nor marry them.
– Eat Kosher or become a vegetarian.
– We don’t do drugs, or hang with drug users. Quick visit to a nearby drug rehab. is very helpful to make it clear: places you don’t wish to end up in.
Erica Brown writes for The Jewish Week:
Bored in synagogue? Bored in Hebrew school? Bored of the same old brisket?” The High Holy Days are fast approaching, and for many people the thought of spending meaningless, marathon hours in a sanctuary is already a source of anxiety. Why is it that so many Jewish rituals and behaviors elicit this kind of response, this lack of energy and dynamism? And it’s not only about religion. We’re bored of Jewish leaders who offer the same old-same old message and fund-raising campaigns that use one cliché after another.
The editor of this newspaper, Gary Rosenblatt, once commented that the greatest threat to Jewish survival today is boredom.
…When we examine Jewish laws and rituals carefully, we find that Judaism has created an intricate system for maximizing beauty and sanctifying time in all moments, what A. J. Heschel called the creation of “radical amazement.” We don’t have to look far; we just have to look deeper.
One of the reasons we fail to look within is that we blame others for our boredom. If a child is bored, it’s a parent’s fault. If school is dull, it must be the teacher. If shul is tedious, it’s probably the rabbi. The poet Dylan Thomas once said, “Something is boring me. I think it’s me.” When boredom strikes, it may be time to look in the mirror.
Yeah, that sounds nice, but how come the only time in my life when I am bored is when I am praying? The rest of my life is exciting and challenging. Davening bores the pants of me, which is why I’ve been ejected from so many shuls.
I don’t think I’m boring. I’m an exciting man with a lot on the ball. I enjoy reading, writing and walks on the beach. I am committed to monogamy, Torah, literature, and the Dallas Cowboys. I’m a swell guy. I just don’t have much interest in talking to God unless I am in deep trouble, which, thank God, does not happen that often because I lead a Godly life in an affluent country and I’ve been damn lucky to get away with a lot of mischief, baruch HaShem.
PS. I’ve just thought of one other time when I am regularly bored — when I am stuck with boring people who do not acknowledge my conversational genius and let me lead the way.
PPS. I also find much of Shabbos boring. I’d rather be watching a movie. The only time I don’t find Shabbos boring is when I have great books I’m dying to read and/or when I have great people in my life who want to talk to me.
Erica Brown concludes:
Let this be the year that we make Judaism thrilling. Pick any portal. Study Yiddish. Open the Talmud. Get a fabulous teacher. Take Hebrew. Start a Jewish book club. Learn Israeli dancing. Make changes to your Shabbat table dynamic. Make Shabbat dinner if you’re not. Invite interesting guests to share holidays. Close your eyes when you pray. Visit the sick. Sing a niggun loudly. Go skydiving with your shul sisterhood.
After all, this is not someone else’s Judaism. It’s yours.
Dov comments: “I started reading this column, but, ironically enough,
I dated a girl who graduated from Ramaz.
Now 40, bisexual, and never married, she loathed Orthodox Judaism. I asked her why. She said because it was aesthetically ugly, that Orthodox Jews smell bad (particularly on holy days when they are forbidden to bathe), that it breeds racism and insular thinking, and that it is rabidly anti-intellectual.
"Yeah, but aside from that?" I asked her.
I tried to show her how loving Orthodox Judaism could be but I failed.
I’m only flesh and blood.
Orthodox rabbi Gil Student posts on Facebook: "The worst part about traveling the subways in the hot NYC summer is being around immigrants who grew up in cultures that do not highly value the usage of deodorant."
A. responds: "That goes for a fair amount of "immigrants" from Boro Park."
On Skeptic.com, Alexander Nussbaum writes:
Denial of evolution is a defining characteristic of education in Orthodox Judaism. But what does the most modern segment of Orthodox Judaism — the small number of students permitted to go to a public university and be exposed to non-censored scientific knowledge — believe about evolution and other scientific issues? The sample of 176 Orthodox Jewish students surveyed showed almost complete denial of evolution and other central tenets of modern science (such as the age of the universe); the survey also revealed that these students received their scientific beliefs not from their college science courses, but from rabbinical authorities, or from Orthodox Jewish scientists, who in turn propagate the anti-science views of rabbinical authorities. Perhaps the most surprising result of the survey was that the Orthodox Jewish students who were science majors were even less accepting of mainstream science than those who were not science majors.
Introduction
Ultra-orthodox Jews have always forbidden members to get a secular education. Modern and Centrist Orthodox Jews are allowed a secular education only for reasons of parnasa, to make a living. In the last couple of decades two phenomena have interacted to shape Centrist Orthodoxy’s relationship with secular education. First the entire Orthodox spectrum has moved radically to the right. Modern Orthodoxy is in tremendous decline, the name itself becoming a term of disdain for those not “really religious,” i.e. “modern.” Centrist Orthodoxy is rapidly adapting Ultra-orthodox outlooks as the distinctions between them are fading. The entire community is being polarized over the issue of who is the most religious. The second development influencing the relationship between Orthodox groups is an increase in the need for college and advanced degrees in order to get a prestigious or high paying job. This has led to the creation of colleges and other educational institutions where courses are taught by Orthodox professors who shield the Bnei Torah (the sons or followers of Torah) in order for them to obtain degrees while avoiding forbidden practices and knowledge, such as sitting in the same room with members of the opposite sex, or taking courses in which sex or “heretical” philosophies are discussed. As we shall see, however, even those Orthodox Jewish students who attend public universities are insulated from evolution and other “heresies.”
Most(?) Orthodox schools have classes on Sunday.
Shalhevet does not have classes on Sunday. That’s something that Jerry Friedman, the founder, never wanted. I don’t expect there’s any enthusiasm for Sunday schooling among the parents who send their children to Shalhevet.
Students in the advanced Gemara track (AGT) at YULA boys high school get 24 hours of religious education a week. The least number of hours of weekly religious education you can get at YULA is 16.
(I believe only the AGTers at YULA have to go to school on Sundays.)
Not including Hebrew, Shalhevet high schoolers get 8-12 hours per week of Judaic education.
A Shalhevet teacher says: “It’s basically 50/50 (with art and music not counting as either). In a perfect world, I would definitely love Torah study to increase in all schools like Shalhevet that also offer a rigorous general studies academic program. But they days are so long as it is, and when you take into account (I’m talking high school now) that they have several fantastic extra-curricular activities as well (drama, model UN, choir, sports teams, etc), there’s simply not enough time in the day for more Torah study. I think it would overwhelm most kids to have such full schedules.”
Shalhevet class periods run from 48-55 minutes. The Shalhevet school day is 30 minutes shorter each week day than YULA’s.
Davening begins at 8:40 am at Shalhevet. There are five different davening tracks and all students are required to show up to one of them.
In YULA’s AGT track, the boys learn the Torah portion of the week with Rashi and get tested on it every Sunday morning.
I’d estimate that 30% of Shalhevet parents are not practicing Orthodox Jews (about 70% of the Shalhevet parents affiliate Orthodox). A similar ratio would hold for the co-ed Modern Orthodox Ramaz school in Manhattan.
Though YULA requires parents to sign a pledge (a development of this decade as the school turns to the right and more of the teachers are charedi) that they observe Orthodox Judaism, probably a third don’t (including most of the Persians). They will drive on Shabbos, etc.
Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy will take the children of parents who are not Orthodox. Yavneh has a policy to only take Orthodox parents, but they only have this because other Orthodox schools such as Hillel will take the non-Orthodox.
Los Angeles Judaism has little culture of learning.
The Yeshiva of Flatbush has the strongest religious education of any Orthodox co-ed school. It is stronger than many same-sex schools. Its graduates tend to be about as proficient in Hebrew as in English. They teach some secular subjects in Hebrew.
Over the past 20 years, Flatbush has had an increasing percentage of same-sex classes.
Ramaz doesn’t measure up to Flatbush in religious education. Most Flatbush parents are leading an Orthodox life. Most Ramaz parents aren’t living Orthodox lives. They have no culture of learning. Ramaz doesn’t teach Talmudic tractates. They pull out sugiyot (sections) and teach it as entertainment.
It’s the Lincoln Square social crowd. Judaism is primarily social rather than intellectual.
I’m talking about people who study it every day in the original.
And I am not talking about rabbis or anybody who gets paid to study Torah.
There are three at Bnai David-Judea (about 430 member families) — Shep Rosenman, Jordan Lurie, and….
There are about ten at YICC (about 300 member families, I’m not talking the daf yomi crowd, even I did daf yomi, that’s just listening, I’m talking about Torah study in Hebrew and Aramaic).
I don’t know if there are any at Aish HaTorah (about 300 member families). They’re almost all baalei teshuva (returnees to Judaism who rarely develop text skills).
Beth Jacob (about 950 member families) has about 30, maybe 50.
Anshe Emet (100 member families) is mainly baalei teshuva. I suspect maybe half a dozen study Torah daily.
Chabad Bais Bazelel (on Pico Blvd near Robertson) has a serious cadre of daily learners who are frum-from-birth. The messianic Israeli Chabad on Robertson and Pickford is mainly baalei teshuva and few of them learn.
There are a lot of Persians in Pico-Robertson but I don’t think any of them study Torah daily. There hasn’t been a Persian gadol in a thousand years, says Marc Shapiro.
Persian Jewry imported most of their great rabbis from Iraq. Persian Jews have traditionally been illiterate in Hebrew and they carry on that tradition in America.
About one percent of Orthodox congregants in Pico-Robertson study Torah daily in the original languages of their people.
I encourage you to turn in the names of anyone who studies Torah so I can reveal them to the higher authorities and they can be taken care of in the proper fashion.
The biggest informer gets to take me to dinner at Pats.
Shuls in the Fairfax-La Brea part of Los Angeles have a far higher percentage of learners, maybe 10%. Shuls such as Rabbi Mordecai Willig‘s in New York would be 50% composed of learners while the percentage of daily Torah learners in Rabbi Avi Weiss‘s Riverdale shul would be around 10%.
Because there is so little learning among the Modern Orthodox in Los Angeles, they tend to be subservient to the traditionalists. YULA is moving steadily to the right as more of its teachers become haredi.
I want to see this. It sounds appalling!
It is supposed to be the worst ever.
…never-released 1972 film called The Day the Clown Cried. As reported many years ago in Spy magazine, Clown is “the most notorious cinematic miscue in history.” Oh, and yeah: its director and star was Jerry Lewis.
Lewis plays a German-Jewish clown named Helmut Doork—suffice to say that we’re making absolutely none of this up—who is sent to Auschwitz, where his job is to entertain the children as they are marched to the gas chambers. So picture Jerry, complete with slicked-back hair but dressed as a clown, doing his schtick, while Jewish children—who all look suspiciously Scandinavian; the film was made in Sweden—are joyfully, laughingly walking unwittingly to their brutal slaughter. Life is Completely, Totally Tasteless. At the end, the clown, having led yet another group of kids to the “showers,” decides to enter with them. Fin.
According to The New Yorker, Lewis—who was battling a Percodan addiction during the film’s production—insists the film will never see the light of day (even as he also insists it is a masterpiece). So we have to rely on those unlucky few who have borne witness. “This was a perfect object,” comedian Harry Shearer told Spy. “This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is.” “I was appalled,” concurs journalist Lynn Hirschberg. “I couldn’t understand it. It’s beyond normal computation.” No word on how the French felt about it.
As I make my way around Jewish life, I notice Orthodox Jews jumping to their feet to honor speakers. I’ve even seen Orthodox Jews rise to their feet to honor a woman! And a TV writer!
I’m not into rising to my feet. I may do it sometimes because of peer pressure, but generally speaking, I am a sit-back-and-dispassionately-analyze-things type of guy.
I’m the very model of the Lithuanian yeshiva bocher.
I wouldn’t even get up for the president of the United States.
I’m with Mordecai from the Book of Esther. I’m not into bowing and scraping and the like. I’m a manly man. I’m an independent thinker. I’m a light unto the nations.
Still, there’s one rabbi in Los Angeles worth standing for because he knows more Torah than anybody else in town — Rabbi Yehuda Bukspan (I believe he is in his seventies).
Here’s a description I found online: "Kosher Overseers Associates of America. The Director, Rabbi Yehudah Bukspan, received semicha from Ner Israel Rabbinical College. He has authored "several volumes of responsa still in manuscript form." Kosher Overseers issues hashgachos nationally and internationally. Rabbi Bukspan is also the Director of "The United States K.""
To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never met the man nor communicated with him.
Unlike Rabbi Gershon Bess, the power behind the RCC, Rabbi Bukspan is not political. If Jewish law permits something, Rabbi Bukspan permits it, even if it would make him more popular with Orthodoxy’s right-wing if he forbade it.
A typical issue relates to carmine a red dye that comes insects. Rabbi Bukspan permits its use, the RCC forbids it.
An RCC rabbi may find a relevant ruling by the Akiva Eiger, but Rabbi Bukspan is often able to recite such a ruling from memory and explain why it is not binding.
Carmine is a lightning rod issue in kashrut today.
Rav Bukspan came to Los Angeles in the 1960s. He taught for Rav Wasserman for a few years. Then he got into kashrut certification. He was the main guy in that field until the mid-1980s when the RCC shoved him aside. He wouldn’t go along with their chumra-of-the-month mentality.
The Orthodox Union (an arm of the Rabbinical Council of America) used to rely for its kosher certification on leading rabbis around America. Rabbi Bukspan was the OU’s guy for the West Coast. If he said something was kosher, the OU relied on his ruling.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, the OU replaced this system with a more hierarchical one. Leading regional rabbis such as Rabbi Bukspan were fired if they did not accept the new way — taking orders from certain leading rabbis in the North-East (such as Rav Belski).
So the Rabbi Bukspans of the country went out on their own.
Modern Orthodoxy is no longer turning out rabbis of the stature of Rabbi Bukspan. All its leading rabbis are in Israel.
While it goes without saying that one should allocate time for Torah study on Shabbat,[1] it is interesting to note that a number of halachic authorities are of the opinion that one should not engage in intricate or in-depth Torah study on Shabbat. This is especially true with regards to Talmud study which is known to be one of the more difficult areas of Torah study. Indeed, some authorities have argued that one who delves deeply into Torah on Shabbat is considered to have desecrated Shabbat through excessive exertion, mental agony, and even transgressing the prohibition of "borer" when reflecting on different theories and arguments.[2] One may also want to consider avoiding learning completely new material on Shabbat.[3]
One explanation for this unusual and intriguing prohibition is that one who studies Torah in-depth on Shabbat burdens himself in a way that detracts from the requirement to spend Shabbat engaged in pleasurable activities (oneg shabbat). We are told that Rav Zeira would interrupt those who spent too much time studying on Shabbat, insisting that they engage in more pleasurable pursuits.[4] Furthermore, it is suggested that one who generally studies in-depth during the week may be in violation of the prohibition of engaging in weekday activities (uvdin d’chol) by doing so on Shabbat![5] According to this approach, one should preferably study Midrash, Aggada,[6] or Mussar[7] on Shabbat. According to the Rebbes of Chabad one should spend "two-thirds" of one’s Shabbat study time focused on chassidut. The Chafetz Chaim was said to have studied Chumash with commentaries on Shabbat.[8]
Lawrence Kaplan posts: Rationalists such as myself and others were upset because Rabbi Enkin used the poetic and profound notion of a fetus studying Torah in the womb in such a crude and literal way. Here the idea that the nefesh yeterah will be asked what new Torah insights it learned on Shabbat is itself a poetic idea, which should be understood metaphorically, that is, to offer one possibility, that the special spirit with which one is imbued on account of the holiness of Shabbat endows one with an increased capacity of Torah study and hiddush, and one has not made proper use of kedushat shabbat if one fails to engage in such study and hiddush –or something to that effect.
Y. Aharon posts: I consider some of the issurim of chazal, based ostensibly on things like snakes and demons, to be essentially hygenic in nature. Remember that hygenic conditions were an uncommon occurence in olden days. Hence leaving food outdoors, under beds, or in outhouses was considered objectionable or forbidden. The concern was rational even if the ostensible reason given was fanciful. The halacha is, therefore, not really dependent on the reasons given.
