I have been thinking about Yaakov Blau query for awhile now. Indeed, why don’t all of our students realize the potential that they show in high school?
I fear that for many students “real life†gets in the way of their aspirations to excel in their Jewish lives. Even if they can handle the regimented dual curriculum that is arranged for them in K-12, once they need to schedule their own lives including family obligations, schooling, making a living, health issues, leisure time, etc. it becomes very difficult to remain committed to excellence in Jewish learning and leadership. This will only happen if the commitment to those values is primary, and for most it is, at best, secondary.
We certainly don’t want to tell high school students that they will need to choose between their Jewish lives and their “regular†lives. We want them to believe that they can have it all. But many of them will not be able to have it all.
I don’t have a good suggestion on how to deal with this, but I do want to thank Rabbi Blau for raising an issue that should be of concern to mechanchim everywhere.
Sasson
