Dear Shalom,
What are they doing with all that time?
Prof. Yitzchok Levine asks this question and seems to claim that many, if not most graduates from Yeshiva Day Schools, even the ones that studied one or even two years in Yeshiva in Israel are not observant today. At the risk of committing the same crime as he did (making a claim without hard data to back it up), I find this very hard to believe and strongly feel that it is very far from the truth. I have been associated with Post High School Yeshiva Education in Israel for over 40 years and have witnessed many hundreds (if not thousands) of students in the institutions where I have taught and my feeling is that this is just not true. While every Yeshiva has some alumni that are not observant today, the numbers are really very small. Why should it be any different today, it happened even in Volozhin? No system is perfect, but to claim that this is the norm (and surely the majority) of the Israeli Yeshiva Alumnus is preposterous. We cry for each one lost, each one is an ‘olam maleh’. Even so, we still have to realize and appreciate the revolution that the Israeli Post High School Yeshiva Education has brought to the world of Yahadut. This point should be so obvious to all that it doesn’t need elaboration.
As other Lookjeders have noted, the revolution that the day school movement has brought to America is also patently obvious to anyone who can imagine what life in America would be like if Day Schools didn’t exist. We should therefore be wary in belittling the accomplishments of the movement as a whole, which in less than a century has transformed America into the strongest Jewish community in the Golah. The strength of the American Orthodox Jewish community is at a level that few Jewish communities have reached anywhere in all of Jewish History. A lot of this is a direct result of the Day School movement.
Even so, part of Prof. Levine’s question is well taken - What are they doing with all that time? From my perspective the student coming to Israel today is by and large more committed to his Judaism, more intent on success in learning and growth in Yirat Shamayim than in years past. On the other hand both skills in learning and general knowledge are sorely lacking. While there are some stars, the average student has great difficulty with a Hebrew text when he starts yeshiva in Israel. He also has very little general Torah knowledge, be it in Tanach, Halacha, Jewish History or Machshava. While the average student knows all there is to know about all the top sports - the rules, the players and all their details, they will find it difficult to name even three kings after Shlomo Hamelech or if the Rosh is a Rishon or an Acharon.
The average day school student attends Jewish Studies classes for 3-4 hours, five days a week, for 12 years! How is it that they know all the characters in Harry Potter’s books but exceedingly few characters in Tanach or Jewish History? The fact that so many students accomplish so much in such a short time after arriving in Yeshiva in Israel makes the question even stronger.
I once asked this to a friend who has many years of experience teaching in Yeshiva High School in the US. His response was the following: “In reality, in Yeshiva High School we have only two objectives, 1) to get the kids to go to Israel, 2) to be a Shomer Shabbat, and for some kids just to ensure that they marry Jewish. After that, we don’t really have that much time to teach anything”.
I once heard from Harav Asher Weiss Shlita, that the essence of Chinuch is providing positive Jewish experiences. I think day schools and Yeshiva High Schools today are actually doing a better job of this than they were a generation ago. Kids today are prouder and more desiring of their Judaism than in years past. Even so, actual skills in learning how to read a text and basic general knowledge accrued is far from what it should and could be. If there is a question in “What are they doing with all that time”? that is the question.
David Lebor
Ram, Yeshivat Shaalvim
