Teen Violence in Lakewood

@n0mesorah I’m repeating myself, but you flip flopped several times on the situation regarding non-Gemara non-Halacha studies in Lakewood high schools. First you said that they don’t exist because no one wants them, then you said that there are plenty of high schools. And you’ve gone through everything in between.

There are problems in every frum community. Most of them admit it and have long discussions regarding how to fix them. But there are communities that have very blatant open issues that are so big they affect people outside those communities. And people are screaming at them to fix it, but they adamantly refuse to acknowledge that there’s even an issue.

interjection: very high rate is an exaggeration. But your point about girls does refute the premise that the fault is about too much Limudei/too little secular.

Yserbius123,

Sorry I’m a bit late, but I would like to set the facts straight regarding your comments on Lubavitch chinuch:

The Lubavitcher Rebbe was vehemently opposed to studying ANY limmudei chol (English, math, science) at any point of the chinuch system.

In the chadorim, he only allowed the minimum limmudei chol if there was a risk that the students would otherwise go to less frum mosdos.
For this reason, many chabad chadorim teach basic English, while many do not teach English at all (such as Oholei Torah in Crown Heights, which the Rebbe founded).

When it comes to mesivtos, virtually no chabad mesivtos teach limmudei chol (there may be one or two small ones out of more than 40-50).

What a strawman!

Hadofi: You’re agreeing with the point. As the girls get more secular education than the boys, and yet there’s no evidence boys have a greater OTD issue than girls, there’s no correlation between less secular ed and OTD.

@ujm I am welcome to hearing corrections from people who are involved in kids-at-risk, but in my experience boys have always been going OTD far more often than girls.

Yserbius,

Not that I know of.

Though he did address his own attending university in connection with his strong stance against Jews attending university.

interjection>> “you encouraged me to go in this direction” …”
> Are you suggesting this is Lakewood’s fault?

it is a joint fault of the schools and yeshivos encouraging the guy into more and more limud (staying a couple of extra years every time he was to go home) and discouraging learning a job, and parents who went along (and paid tuition).

Gadolhadofi,

No, it’s not ironic. The Rebbe was specifically instructed by his Rebbe and father-in-law to receive that education.

Just as there were unique exceptions when the Rebbe encouraged certain chassidim to go to college.

Gadolhadofi,

It’s hard for me to tell you, because I don’t personally know any Lubavitchers who are in college (though I assume that there are some).

Again, the Rebbe was adamantly against any Jew (not just Lubavitchers) going to college (aside from very rare individual exceptions). Therefore, this is considered very taboo in Chabad.

I guess a chossid who would do this would be viewed like anyone who does something very wrong.

Google: “chabad dot org no college” for many letters (the less fiery ones) of the Rebbe (mostly to non chassidim) on the matter.

(For parnosa, there were certain conditions when the Rebbe allowed it bedieved, such as only AFTER MARRIAGE, etc.)

CS,

I wasn’t referring to attending college for “educational value” but strictly to pursue a livelihood. I know two sons of well-known shluchim who did so after marriage, one works as an attorney and the other as a therapist. They are both considered talmidei chachamim in their respective communities outside of Crown Heights but I was wondering how they would be viewed by Chabad.

The whole idea of Chabad is not to view people (who act different) differently.

Re: L R opinion of college, similarly to R Feinstein’s opinions – we need to differentiate between colleges in different time. 2% of American men (and less of women) were going to college in 1940s and then was growing over time. College of now, in general, is a different thing both in terms of what it teaches, can be very differfent in nature, and also in terms of ways of dealing with it (Chabad houses being one of the great means of mitigating some of the problems)

it may be “worse” in some senses, but you just need to define what exactly you are talking about. Someone at U Chicago Economics program and someone playing football at U of Alabama are just not comparable. Also, in terms of employmwnt, one had to inspire to be an elite person in 1950s if he ewnt to college, so, frmo Jewish perspective, “most” Yidden did not need it. Certainly L Rebbe and Rav Soloveichik were exception to that.

Nowadays, if you are not in college, you are limited to “heimishe” professions, that has their own downsides in terms of pay and job security and yetzer hara to cheat the government and others as a result. We also have lots of ways to mitigate problems that occur in college.

A large number of people can earn an honest living after getting a degree in a safe way and continue their learning through their life.

CS > TTI is not what The Rebbe meant when he was against college.
indeed. A good first step, but you can do better than that also.

> Alter Rebbe discussing how one is metame his brain with learning secular knowledge
I know Yidden who are convinced that Rambam’s science is all from Gemora, and not from goyim of his time. Do you think they understand Rambam?

But you need to specify what “secular” knowledge Ball Tanya was talking about. At his time, there was a lot of “anti-religious” secular knowledge.

Are we talking math? show me who is against math.

Physics, chemistry, biology, physiology that study how Hashem runs the world? You can say – to a certain degree, as Torah gives us a better approach to Hashem, but still.

English? I agree on annoying novels. Still, ability to write full sentences and express yourself clearly is useful. Most college classes have 1 or 2 of such classes.

At the end, if you take classes that help you get a productive profession, where you’ll spend part of the day doing chesed (surgery, legal, programming) at the price that you can afford seforim and your children’sschool tuition, and learn the rest of the day.

@CS Almost all of the Chachamim learned things from secular people. The Tana’im talk about Aristotle. Tosfos quotes Socrates. The Gra hired tutors for almost every subject studied at the time.

I question your interpretation of “secular studies are metamei the brain”. Perhaps when the previous previous Lubavitcher Rebbe ZT”L said that, he meant studying useless goyish things, like Indian mythology or comparative literature, and not the type of studies that can help a person understand the world (which are absolutely not “secular” no matter what your Cheder called them).

But just to add some explanation, I remember learning in one of the sichos something fascinating on this topic:

Really, the Torah has all in the info in every field, however, most people don’t know where to extract the info they need from the vast sea of Torah.

When people study a secular course on a topic, they become arrogant as they feel themselves a master of the subject, whereas when one learns Torah, the more they learn, the more humble they become (unless they’re learning for improper reasons in which case the Torah can cvs become a סם מות). because they realize how little they know…

That’s what I remember learning, and what I take from that is that it’s not the actual science that’s the issue, the issue is the presentation. When a goyishe source presents it, it’s as its own wisdom, and the more you know, the more you feel in control of the outcome. When you learn Torah, you feel this is the Torah of Hashem, and this knowledge is just one of the many ways He can choose to work, so you’re left affected completely differently.

CS > When people study a secular course on a topic, they become arrogant as they feel themselves a master of the subject, whereas when one learns Torah, the more they learn, the more humble they become

this is a gut vort. One hiluk: when Rabonim from 50-200 years ago write about this, it is about people who are abandoning Torah in favor of secular culture and knowledge. We here are mostly discussing Torah-observant Yidden adding knowledge of science or professions. This is a different issue.

Just to ponder: when gemora says – ein Torah b’goyim aval yesh Chochma b’goyim, why do they put these 2 things nearby, and how do they know about Chochma b’goyim? learned it and compared with their own studies?

“this is a gut vort. One hiluk: when Rabonim from 50-200 years ago write about this, it is about people who are abandoning Torah in favor of secular culture and knowledge.We here are mostly discussing Torah-observant Yidden adding knowledge of science or professions. This is a different issue.”

You’re right. I forgot that part of the perek when I cited it- that if the reason the person is learning it is to understand Torah better/ or to make a parnassa to serve Hashem (whoops I forgot that part) like the Rambam and Ramban, then it’s ok.

“Just to ponder: when gemora says – ein Torah b’goyim aval yesh Chochma b’goyim, why do they put these 2 things nearby, and how do they know about Chochma b’goyim? learned it and compared with their own studies?”

Some studied for the reasons above, and some came across It for example R Yehoshua who debated the philosophers of Athens.

However, the one Talmid chacham we know of, who knew a tremendous amount of Torah, but sang Greek songs etc. meaning he was interested in the culture itself and didn’t use it as a means to an end… well that’s Acher.

Dear Amil,

Everyone involved is interested in keeping it quiet. It is a very delicate and complex issue. The details are not widely known. Even your one sentence description contains inaccuracies.