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<font size=3>The following are some selections from Rabbi Berel Wein's
article with the above title. See
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/28td9kw" eudora="autourl">
http://tinyurl.com/28td9kw</a> for the entire article. YL<br><br>
It is no secret that many of our day school and yeshivah graduates are
not very literate in Hebrew language, know little Nach, are unexcited by
the study of Mishnah and Talmud and are therefore in jeopardy of becoming
children at risk. Though the problem is widespread and well known to all
in the educational field and certainly to the parents of these children,
it is not widely discussed in terms of curriculum emphasis and
adaptation. <br><br>
Generally, in our current religious society, legends, fantasies and
inaccurate nostalgia are taught as facts. Fanciful stories that appear in
current Orthodox newspapers and periodicals are believed as being
factually true by children who are completely unaware of the simple
meaning of the verses of the Torah that they have allegedly covered in
school. To say that this may create a distorted view of Torah and Judaism
is an understatement.<br><br>
The study of Tanach is almost an oxymoron statement regarding our
schools. During my years as the head of a high school yeshivah and beit
midrash program, I discovered that most students who graduated from
excellent elementary and high schools could not even name the twenty-four
holy books of the Jewish canon. Students revealed amazing ignorance about
the Hebrew language and all of the grammar/dikduk statements of Rashi and
the other Biblical commentators were never covered in the classroom.
<br><br>
A student who has never studied Sefer Yechezkel, Sefer Iyov or Tehillim
is unprepared for the omnipresent problems of Jewish national– or of his
own personal–life. <br><br>
The Judaic studies program in our boys’ schools is very heavily Talmud
oriented from fifth and sixth grade onwards. <br><br>
In previous generations in Europe and the early years in America, the
study of Talmud was reserved for superior students and certainly not for
the masses. All of this has changed in our current generation. The study
of Talmud is widespread among adults and mandatory for our boys and, in
some circles, even for our girls. <br><br>
Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky, the sage of American Jewish life in the past
generation, told me that it is wrong to impose an elitist education on
the masses. But that is exactly what we are doing. The danger that all of
us are aware of–it is the unspoken elephant in the room–is that a child
who dislikes the study of Talmud at the age of ten is more than likely to
dislike it even more at seventeen, and this leads often to tragic
results, both personally and religiously. <br><br>
A further element concerning curriculum in Jewish schools should be an
accurate and inspirational presentation of Jewish history. A generation
that has little knowledge of our past is always blindsided by current
events. A student of Jewish history, even a cursory one, will realize
that the problems that we face today are not new ones. <br><br>
Jewish history is a sourcebook for faith and hope, for inspiration and
tenacity. But Jewish history that is fanciful and false–stories that have
no factual basis, inaccurate and hagiographic biographies, the portrayal
of the past in the light of current political correctness– is a false and
ultimately uninspiring and self-defeating educational venture. I think
that false history, a form of poisonous insidious propaganda, is perhaps
worse in the long run than no history at all. <br><br>
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