Dear Shalom,
I was happy to read the numerous cogent responses of some very esteemed Jewish educators to the not so veiled critique of Jewish high schools in the diaspora.
Much of success in life comes from just showing up. I am flabbergasted by the lack of appreciation of just how big a victory it is for a school to successfully have a graduate take a gap year in Israel for a Jewish immersion experience prior to college for a year or even two.
I heard once that Rabbi Lenny Matanky supposedly tells students in his high school, "this is a five year program, 4 here and 1 in Israel after high school". Those of us who work in smaller cities where Jewish high school and a gap year in Israel are not always the norms can not take this for granted. We need to put in countless hours and much blood, sweat, and tears encouraging families to continue their Jewish education into high school and beyond.
Middle school students who continue in public school are less likely to maintain their Jewish education and affiliation than those who choose to continue their Jewish education in high school. It is like comparing buying lottery tickets to buying blue chip stocks. They both have risks involved but blue chips have way better chances of success than lottery tickets which although much cheaper are much less likely to provide a return on the investment.
If the only thing a Jewish high school accomplishes is getting a student to continue their Jewish education in Israel then we should all collectively say "Dayeinu","Halleluyah", and "Shehecheyanu".
Israel is God's home court and the same lofty ideas that fall on deaf ears and are often ignored as white noise in a diaspora high school classroom can suddenly become relevant and impactful when the same young person is more open to the intense Jewish influence of the avirah d'eretz yisrael that is machkim. It may also be that those ideas actually took root and laid dormant while in high school and started to blossom in Israel later on.
I can attest to this about myself. In high school my Principal often attempted to speak to us about deep meaningful ideas and to be honest it had little to no impact on me. There were just too many other compelling distractions competing for my attention.
This same Principal led a post high school Israel program which I attended solely because I wasn't interested in working hard at college so I took a gap year in Israel. Suddenly the same ideas that I found boring in high school became more interesting in Israel, especially those I chose to explore based on my own interests. I arrived in Israel that year interested in learning Torah for 10 minutes a day and I left Israel interested and able to study Torah for 10 hours a day.
In Israel, "Hirsch, Kook, and Soloveitchik" became names of meaningful spiritual guides to my less distracted and immature mind, instead of sounding as they had to my younger more immature ears like the names of partners in some law firm.
Dayeinu,
Elisha Paul
The Jewish High School of Connecticut
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2017 08:02PM by mlb.
