<HTML>Okay, we've built up enough verbiage, let's start to make some seder:
First-of-all we have to ask ourselves a fundamental question, which I will
introduce with a personal anecdote because people go for that kind of
stuff:
My son Yehuda recently asked me to help him gather information on the Web
for an essay his English teacher requires on the topic of "the rise in
crime." I told him that, if it's to be done right, he has to start
without any assumptions and see where the data leads him; who says, after
all, that crime has risen? In fact, checking authoritative statistics and
analysis from the US Justice Department, we found that crime has been
going down (on average, of course) for the past several years -- at least
in America.
Now, let's examine the assumption everyone is making that Jewish education
and leadership are fields for which our best-and-brightest have an
enthusiasm usually reserved for jury duty. Well? Does anyone have any
quantifiable way of backing this up? Me, I've been watching boys come
through the yeshiva here in the Gush for the past couple of decades, and I
see that their numbers have grown (including the number of those who come
for multiple years and/or join the kollel), that a non-trivial number
enter the Jewish business, and that they are largely both qualified and
enthusiastic. If we assume, for no good reason, that my
statistically-insignificant sampling is more representative than your
statistically-insignificant sampling, how do we explain your observations?
Well, it could be that you simply got up on the wrong side of the bell
curve, or it could be that the lack of qualified people in leadership
positions reflects a growth in demand, rather than a shrinking supply.
Think about it: There's a tremendous dearth of quality programmers (there
are actually rumored to be statistics backing this up); do we assume it's
because potential programmers choose to become short-order cooks because
the money, prestige and job-security are better?
Another possibility is that our "Mizrachi" schools are producing the
required number of educators, but that somewhere along the line many of
them cross over into the Haredi camp, leaving us short-staffed.
Okay, so we've established that we have seen no basis for sounding a
general alarm about the lack of quality personnel in the Jewish business.
But what about the other issues that have been thrown haphazardly into
this discussion? Let's see, we have the lack of "leadership," which can
be divided into the lack of guiding lights for the generation, as we lost
with the passing of the Rav z"l, and the difficulty that school principals
and community rabbis have in getting balabatim to take them seriously.
For both these issues we must first define who "we" are: Israeli or
American, Centrist, gedoylim-book junkie, Uptown liberal ecumenicist or
carrying-the-white-man's-burden-to-South-Succotash kiruv crusader. Some
might think we're suffering from a lack of Steiplers, others a lack of
Lichtensteins, some a lack of Elyashivs, yet others a lack of Greenbergs.
Perhaps the fragmentation itself is what's bothering people, and they're
looking for someone we can all rally 'round.
Likewise we need to define the type of community where we see -- and
choose to care about -- the problem. While it's certainly true that
parents and lay-leaders in society at large feel much freer to be nudniks
than in days gone by, the situation can't be identical in Efrat and
Englewood, or even in TABC and Ramaz. Some communities have a high level
of concern for Torah-and-mitzvos, while other are the Fort Apaches of
Judaism. If a principal fails to garner respect in the latter, do we
really need to scratch our heads over it?
As I said at the beginning, I'm just trying to make some seder, not to
propose solutions (especially given my contention that we haven't yet
either defined or identified the problems). I would welcome some
down-to-earth discussion. Other threads that I've scanned have been very
professional and practical, as in "I need source material on drug-abuse
programs/Check out the following sources...", whereas this one has been
more like a protracted whine. (Of course I'm tarring with a broad brush
here; Aharon Katz's comment about the importance of a mentor and the kli
kodesh's promotion of self respect are useful points, but they would be
more useful in a more rigorous context.)
Shavua tov.
Michael</HTML>
