[Avodah] The Vilna Gaon and Secular Studies

[Alexander Seinfeld]

Playing devil’s advocate here. For the record, I have college and graduate
degrees, my children all read and write well etc.

However, in response to Prof. Levine. If the cost of that exposure to
American secular culture (language, history, values, etc.) is that a
certain percentage of children may be enticed by it and go OTD - more than
would have otherwise - then, yes, it makes sense. That’s an unacceptable
cost. I’m not saying that that is a real cost, but that is the perception.
If you want to change the practice, you have to change that perception
(which may have some truth to it, I don’t know).


>Does it make sense that a Bar Mitzvah boy who is born in America
>cannot read English on an 8th grade level?  Cannot read an 8th grade
>science book and write a report in acceptable English about what he
>has read? Cannot speak English properly?  Knows nothing about the
>history of this country and cannot relate, at least briefly, what
>happened during the Revolutionary War and the civil War?  Has the
>mathematics skills of a 3rd grader at best? Does not have a basic
>knowledge of science and hence has no idea of how, say,  the
>digestive system works?  (BTW,  one way appreciating the wonders of
>HaShem is to study how some of the systems in our bodies work.)  Has
>no real knowledge of how our government works?   I think not.
>