Rabbi Dr Aaron Twerski writes in Crain's that the success some hareidim achieve in the business world proves that the education in hareidi schools is more than adequate to meet the needs of the secular world.
One can debate how many B&H Photo-like successes stories it takes to outweigh the many sad stories of hareidim who remain unemployed and unemployable due to lack of basic skills. However, I think R' Twerski's piece suffers from a more basic error: Education does not mean having a good job. There may be some correlation between the two, but they certainly are not identical.
If the entire purpose of education was to allow one to succeed in business, I would say we should end school at about sixth grade, or certainly by the end of elementary school. (Some of you, like me, may be old enough to remember Robert Fulghum's All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.) We should abolish algebra and trigonometry from the curriculum (it would certainly spare me my daughter's constant whining, "Why do we have to learn this?!") We should forget about challenging students to read Hamlet or Lear, to learn about other parts of the world, to discover something of past history, or to study other living creatures.
None of the above will help them run a business. None of the above are required to succeed at most professions. It will help them, however, appreciate their humanity, their past, the world around them. In other words, it will make them educated.
R' Twerski, this is what is lacking in the hareidi school system.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
"to learn about other parts of the world"
ReplyDeleteMoshe searched out first, darosh, incidents in his own backyard, and later
searched to know, darash, about the offerings of regional peoples*; by the latter investigation he tried to understand what could've moved Nadav and Avihu to offer aish zara; moreover, thought he, by understanding what the
various cults of the world are seeking, what they recognize, what makes them tick, the better will the [third] Temple be a House which elevates and satisfies all peoples...
Vayikra 10:16
* 'anthropology' before it's time
Doesn't this essay presume Mod-O of the styles of the Rav or R' Aharon Lichtenstein? When discussing chareidi education, do the people under discussion accept your givens?
ReplyDeleteLeshitasam, "hafoch bah vehafoch bah dekulo bah" means that everything they need to know to be well-rounded human beings is already in the Torah.
If this is truly their shita, why do teach history, biology, algebra, etc? I don't know of any schools in NY (or the US for that matter) that are Torah only.
DeleteI can't say that a liberal education, in Plato's sense of the education that gives the skills necessary for a free man to participate in civic life, is essential. I know many great, great men who knew nothing but Torah, and their understanding and advice was as if it came from God Himself (see Shmuel II 16:23.) But for most of us, the need to stand off from the characters in Tanach, and to view them as superhumanly great or horribly evil makes it difficult to see one's self and one's life in their stories. Shakespeare, on the other hand, that I understand. Or Tolstoy, or, most often, Flannery O'Connor. I can identify with those stories and those characters and they enhance my insight. Same thing with history. Our history has been cleansed, as encouraged by Rav Schwab and his spritual predecessors. To get a true understanding of the down and dirty, you have to read other accounts of the past.
ReplyDeleteBut the average person, and greatest, don't need for that kind of liberal education. We're all just drones, and we should simply follow orders. Who needs it? Civic and corporate leaders.
>>>We're all just drones, and we should simply follow orders.
DeleteResist! : )
To be fair, R. Twerski was addressing the claim that the charedi education does not prepare one for making a living - he was not attempting to address whether or not it is lacking in other areas.
ReplyDeleteR' Twerski links to a NY Times article where the complaint alleged is "that several dozen yeshivas in New York City fell short of the state requirement that they provide an education “at least substantially equivalent” to that offered in public schools." That has nothing to do with making a living -- it's about meeting the basic obligation of providing an education to students.
Delete