As early as 1986, Jack Bieler argued that “The modern Orthodox school itself is undermining rather than supporting the religious outlook that it should be encouraging within its student body.”[11] Samuel Heilman, in his landmark 2006 study of the American Jewish Orthodox community, describes several factors that have contributed to this reality.[12] First, he notes that with increasing professional specialization and training in fields of medicine, law, and business, Modern Orthodox parents find themselves without the religious training or free time to be actively engaged in the education of their children. As Heilman puts it, “The school had hoped not to replace the family and community, but in practice in the modern world it did.”[13] This growing divide between the roles of parents and teachers – indeed, between school and home – means that students’ lived communal and familial experiences develop separately from their educational encounters; they often learn one thing at school and then see something very different at home. To make matters worse, the very teachers that students engage with at school are often at odds with the core values that Modern Orthodoxy espouses. This reality creates significant additional barriers to communicating a Modern Orthodox worldview within our schools, as Heilman further notes that
the teachers in their schools and many rabbis did not share their values and remained unprepared to endorse the modern orthodox life trajectory even tacitly… the teachers often did not share the same neighborhoods and certainly not the same community as the families of the students they taught.[14]
www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/02/23/measuring-the-size-of-the-u-s-jewish-population-comes-down-to-identity/%3foutputType=amp
ReplyDeleteSo now you say MO is going to disappear like conservative?
Here's the problem. I figured it out several years ago when YCT proudly ran a piece on a student of theirs who became a shochet. Now, leave aside the whole "But he's from YCT so his schechita isn't valid!" stuff. Bottom line - he took the course. How many MO schochtim are out there?
ReplyDeleteIn the UO world, career options are limited. Becoming a professional mohel, schochet or teacher are big because they're part of the few choices boys can make. So the UO community produces lots of them.
In the MO world, the pressure from early school on is on the holy Jewish trinity - medicine, law and accounting. Jobs like being a schochet or teacher are seen as "You couldn't do better and go to medical school?" So MO remains reliant on the UO community for its basic services and is exposed to the "We do this because we're frummer than you" message.
In addition, there is the issue of school curriculum. Now, I'm good with a standard secular curriculum when it comes to math, science, geography and the like. But then we get into things like history and English (in North America). MO schools will learn American history and study American literature. Why? Don't we have enough of our own to offer our students? Why do MO students graduate knowing more about Shakespeare's sonnets than Rav Kook's or Ibn Gavirol's poetry? Why not Tehillim? Why aren't Shai Agnon's novels the required reading? Why isn't history taught strictly from a Jewish perspective? By offering a secular approach alongside the Torah one, MO subliminally sends the message "Sure Torah's important but here's the stuff you're actually going to have to know" and ruins everything.
Sounds like someone has existential angst.
ReplyDeleteMO, like DL, is missing a huge opportunity to grow. The UO community has kiruv rechokim all locked up. For every Torah MiZion kollel out there, there's 1000 UO community kollels. No way will MO ever create its own version of The Chabad House(tm).
ReplyDeleteSo they need to look to the right - kiruv krovim. All those wanna-be OTD's who think the only option is to dump Torah observance completely should be reached out to and shown that one can live a full observant life in the modern world. They have to break the "If you're not UO, go eat pork on Yom Kippur" lie.
I asked that question once on an OTD group. The answer was not how you hope it would be.
ReplyDeleteOTD are not interested in any Torah , modern or otherwise.
Many have been abused in yeshivas or at home.
Many are into drugs.
Some are LGBT.
Some are intellectuals and study in university to become doctors. Others want careers but don't know how.
There are crazies in these communities, some go otd, but some stay in the community.
Would you want these deviants to be members of your kehilla?
There are enough crazies on the BT bandwagon who behave in crazy ways.
Here's the rule:
ReplyDelete"we can do it, but you can't "
So hateidim have thousands of otd people and shababniks, but thats fine. If some MO have gone otd, thats terrible, and tgey deserve, cause, and deny the holocaust.
Hareidim have doctors, lawyers, diamond dealers, real estate magnates, and agudah are represented by these educated rabbis - but mo is basically a brothel, yu is not Jewish.
There is history of Jewish military from Joshua to the Hashmonaim. Who were all Tzaddikim. The halacha has laws of rodef, self defence, sakkanat Nefesh, and King's law. All mitzvos are suspended for self defence - davening, shabbes, kashrus, even taking a foreign woman - but if tzahal do it, its assur, treif etc.
What a scientific sample!
ReplyDeleteNot at all.
ReplyDeletedo you do kiruv to the MO droputs who are LGBT, or don't believe in G-d anymore, Or intermarried?
there is very little difference between a hareidi Yeshiva and an MO yeshiva for BTs.
ReplyDeleteThe differences are for example that:
MO talmidim wear normal clothes, even when they have learned for a few years, whereas places like Ohr Somayach they go along a production line.
MO rabbis - some have kippa sruga, and their sutis are mroe scruffy, whereas Hareidi rabbis have nice clean, pressed suits.
the accents are slightly different - MO accents are all YU accents, so they sound a bit Boston and a bit lower east side, whereas Hareidi accents are often much more varied, especially as many are BTs themselves.
In Hareidi yeshivas they have digs and attacks at MO and Zionist organisations for ideological reasons, but in MO they attack Zionist orgs from personal experience (eg in the army, or in the banks, misrad hapnim etc.)
So the OTDs do not want to be in the same yeshiva attmosphere - they want to be in a secular, hedonistic, drugs and arayos atmosphere, or some kind of therapy to help them get ove their abuse.
Also, their prejudices do not change - Satmar OTDs still attack the Zionist state, but no longer on religious grounds, but left wing secular grounds - how we mistreat the Palestinians etc.
Rabbi rakeffet tells a sickening story , about a family who did "teshuva" - and he and rabbi Ruskin arranged a "tutor" for them, who was in fact a rapist and was abusing the daughter of the family.
ReplyDeleteIt raises a lot of doubts about what is the lesser of 2 evils...
one of the attackers of Modern O, was claiming that whilst YU has a Rosh Yeshiva, its President is a CEO and this does not exist in Hareidi yeshivas.
ReplyDeletethat is wrong - and is false.
https://www.makorrishon.co.il/news/342413/
This interview with people from Ponovezh tells of hwo things developed there -
the founder was Rav Kahaneman, and Rav Shach was appointed as a RY. However R' Kahaneman's son was not a Gadaol, yet he inherited the the Yeshiva,a nd all its buildings, funds, real estate across Bnei Brak, today worth 100s of $ millions.
Rav Shach opposed families becoming rosh yeshivas - cronyism. But that is how this thing developed. Even in Rav Shahc's day, there was conflict with Rav Povarsky, and this continues unto this day.
And look at the pattern in other hareidi yeshivas - Lakewood is a big family business - but is the grandson a Gadol?
So more fake alelgations made against YU, when in fact Ponovezh, Lakewood are big multi-million $ concerns, there are CEO's , and they are not real gedolim running the show. Satmar also the fight is about money, they go arkaot, they use goyisher gangs against each other....