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Does anyone know of a school where students are taught to critically
analyze divrei torah and torah related speeches, essays, etc.?
I think that most grow-ups in the frum community know that a lot of things
said in the name of the torah should be taken with a grain of salt, or
don't really reflect the torah as much as the speaker's subjective
viewpoint. But children are so often encouraged to be reverent to torah
that a child who wants to be "good" might feel that anything said in the
name of torah must be binding and must be accepted.
I think students should be directly told that they have to judge how much
things they hear are accurate reflections or complete reflections of the
torah. Many "sichot", "hashkafa classes" etc. are little more than
someone's subjective opinion or half-baked treatments of complex issues
or cute ways of playing with the parshat hashavua. If students don=92t know
how to distinguish these from torah, they are in for major confusion.
I understand that hesitancy to do this may stem from a feeling that it is
good to encourage the students' reverence for torah, but when that
reverence is directed to unworthy targets, it seems counterproductive.
Maybe students should have a class where they take parsha sheets,
transcripts of sichot, etc, and try to tear them apart from within torah
(IE, try to demonstrate that the torah disagrees with these pieces) and
then the class should discuss whether these articles accurately reflect
torah or not. The presentation could also take the form of a debate
between students defending and attacking the selection.
-Aharon Frazer</HTML>
