[By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for the Five Towns Jewish Times]
It was an initiative that was launched after a keynote speech of the 2015 Agudah Convention. The speech was delivered by Rabbi Dovid Ozeri, Rav of Congregation Yad Yosef in Flatbush. In the remarkably inspiring speech Rav Ozeri, vividly described the low salaries that are paid to Klal Yisroel’s heroes – the Rebbeim.
Since then, there has been incredible movement. Torah Umesorah and Agudas Yisroel have combined their efforts and have launched a project called, “The Rebbe Initiative.”
The goal is to raise millions of dollars in order to supplement the incomes of these heroes – those men who devote their lives to chinuch. So far, to support the over 3,000 Rebbeim in this country, millions of dollars have been raised for the Rebbeim Initiative. Back in July, it was reported that seven million dollars was deposited to fund this with more on the way.
This is a remarkable and extraordinary idea, and it should be lauded and supported by everyone. There is one area, however, in which this program should be tweaked – in this author’s opinion.
We are leaving out a second group of people in this initiative. The Rebbeim are truly extraordinary heroes, but so are the Morahs. Why can’t we expand this ground-breaking initiative to include the Morahs?
They too have devoted their lives to ensure that Klal Yisroel’s level of Ruchniyus remains high. They too have taken enormous cuts in potential salaries so that the next generation will be as devoted to the ideals of Torah and Yiras Shamayim. Their friends have gone on toward other careers; they are OTs, PTs, speech therapists, etc.
Not so the Morahs.
They survive on even more paltry salaries than do their counterparts – the Rebbeim. Many of them have taken on a second or third job so that they can continue to do their avodas haKodesh and still support their families.
The socio-economic landscape has changed dramatically since the 1950’s and sixties. Even in our world, an overwhelming majority of our homes are two-income families. Indeed, often the Morahs are married to Kollel Avreichim and, with the exception of tutoring and Kollel stipends, they provide the majority of the household income.
Why can’t we provide for the Morahs as well?
To quote Rav Ozeri but with a slight alteration, “We, as a klal, are lacking in our obligation of dei machsero asher yechsar lah— providing a person that which she lacks.. “Our melamdos, your daughter’s Morah (and in the earlier grades your son’s as well), your granddaughter’s Morah. Are we providing for what they are lacking? Your daughter’s Morah, who has forfeited most pleasures of this world to teach your child Torah. A brilliant mind sacrificing to live on a minimal salary. She is working in the most lofty field which the universe has to offer.”
Why can’t we either expand this initiative or simultaneously, yes simultaneously create and fund a Morah’s Initiative as well?
In this author’s opinion, higiyah zman.
The author can be reached at [email protected]
NOTE: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of YWN.
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17 Responses
Great point, Rabbi!
This, especially, since many of the moros are doing ut to keep their husbands thriving in kollel. So, in essence, the support initiative for them will, indirectl, be supporting kollel felows too!
Thank you Rabbi Hoffman!
I know Morahs personally who missed purim due to a family simcha or emergency and did not receive a single mishloach manos,thank you card,or check! One Morah i know actually depends on those Purim envelopes for pesach and she had a medical emergency two days before purim one year and she was not up to accepting visitors. She prepared the goodies for the girls and sent them to school, since then in all and any situations, she is there purim at her house greeting her talmidos because she can not afford not to!
Let us help our Morahs!
We depend on the schools for the bulk of our childrens chinuch … we need there to be chashuve women teaching our girls!
the answer to this issue is so simple , however organizations like the agudah refuse to get involved. if organizations like the agudah tell the yeshivas not to open and instead have all the frum kids register in public school , you will see how fast they get the money , because the public schools can’t handle the influx of all these kids.
as to the separation of church and state , that is simple. all schools that give regents for high school and other achievement tests for the lower classes should get the money that they are entitled to from the state , and take the money that the yeshiva saves from the English department and then give it to the Rebbeim and Morahs.
now i know that some people will say that the state will make us hire teachers that don’t live our type of lifestyle. who cares , if there coming to teach them the curriculum that we give them great and if not fire them. please remember even , when a boy is thirteen or the girl is twelve ,we still beleave the teacher first when there is an issue between teacher and student , because the teachers are scaired that they will loose there jobs if there are to many issues between teacher and student.
I would expect my comment to ruffle some feathers. I respectfully ask those who may be irritated by this comment to dismiss the irritating part, and give serious consideration to the underlying issues. Perhaps someone can apply them better than me.
Here is the generalization some might reject. Our girls’ seminaries teach our girls to be teachers – morahs. There is preparation to develop curriculum, manage classrooms, address individual issues of children, etc. Yeshivos offer no such training. There are training programs for melamdim, and these are great. They are training greater numbers of mechanchim today than ever before. There are major differences in the quality of chinuch today compared to just several years ago. Yet, there is nary a yeshiva that can claim that all of their mechanchim have been trained to do their job. This is less true for girls’ schools. Here, there is a much greater percentage of seminary trained morahs. I am not the expert to pass judgment on the quality of the trainings. But it is reasonable to assume that something is better than nothing.
In light of this, I am among those who wonder why morahs’ salaries are less than the counterpart mechanchim. No, I’m not the feminist thinker that subscribes to the equal work for equal pay idea. Perhaps it is assumed that the morah is not the breadwinner, and is just supplementing the income for the family. Just how often is this true? I suspect that this assumption is more often false than true.
As long as we are examining the financial struggles that affect the chinuch community, perhaps we should examine another angle (deserves its own post). Families struggling to cover tuition costs. There are worthy tzedokos (many advertise on the pages of YWN) to help people cover exorbitant expenses for medical care or hachnosas kallah. How about a fund to assist families to cover tuition? Should their children be denied admission or mid-year re-admission due to poverty?
People need to stop threating that they will send their kids to public school and say “Then we will get the money”. The mass sending to public school will never happen and if somehow it did, A few days wouldnt make a differnce, it would need to be more or less permanent before any real funds came
#5
i disagree with you , because the public schools have no room for more kids , therefor they will tell us , you educate your kids , and here is the money
Rabbi Hoffman- as they say talk is cheap- please start a campaign for the morahs, but even one slight word of complaint of someone who is leiv vanefesh getting something done is uncalled for. Obviously Rabbi Ozeri knew that Morahs need the increase as well- but he had the sechel to know that making a program that would be so expensive would never get off the ground. Rabbi Ozeri got the program going and would now be ecstatic IF you Rabbi Hoffman spend 24 hours a day collecting for the morahs.
Once we are on the topic…why not increase salaries for those in the Kiruv field? I am not talking about the heads of major organizations well known in the tri-state area (that shall remain nameless). I think they are doing quite well for themselves. I am referring to those out in the field-especially in “out of town communities” who are sacrificing many of the comforts of mainstream Jewish communities and subsist on meager salaries…the ones who day in, day out are being mekadesh shem shomayim every single day in their interactions with our not-yet-religious brethren, often with no tangible, visible results. Don’t they deserve more money as well?
Slabodka – your comments raises some questions. Why are the heads getting so much and the “out in the field” getting so little?
Why would an organization spend tzedakah money if there are no tangible results? perhaps the kLLAL money would be better spent by moving these people to another community.
This all sounds good but it has gone on for years the Rabeim are always the priority. My wife has been a full time teacher for 26 years she works full time in school and then comes home spends time preparing and taking phone calls from parents. She earns less than half of what a Rebbe with her years of experience earns. Sadly that’s the way it is. For years our gedolim have said we treat women equally we respect them, not true at all.
meanwhile tuitions killing people (to the point too expensive to have kids) so hopefully this will alleviate that. Another point – while rabbeim and morahs may not earn $$ that others (might possibly) earn – they still have many many vacation days and their work day is not exactly 9-5 and certainly no long nights in the office. Yom tov is for sure off, chol hamoed is off, summers are off so I’m not convinced the rabbeim are on the short end of the trade off. Obviously we are not going anywhere near bitachon and belief that their days are more rewarding – if that was believed then this whole conversation is oiver and battul since they wouldn’t feel they are sacrificing
I agree with everything in this article, but I feel it minimizes the issue even more than it should.
The way Morahs are treated is just horrible. Their pay scale per hour is a fraction of their men counterparts. Besides being unlawful, it is just not right.
On contrary to some of the comments, seminaries are not popping out as many well trained teachers as they used to. Most schoals have trouble finding good qualified Morahs nowadays. There are simply not enough qualified Morahs to go around.
Why aren’t as many girls going into chinuch nowadays? That’s simple. The work is harder than almost any other profession, the recognition is almost non-existent, and the pay is horrible!
Many Morahs work at least as hard as the Rabbeim, and some even more. They prepare for hours, deal with students and parents in and out of school, make professional sheets and tests and have to grade stacks and stacks of papers. In many areas, girls school curriculum is more straining on the Morahs than the Yeshivas is on the Rabbeim.
In addition, these Morahs have full family responsibilities, while the Rabbeim don’t ahve nearly as much. They come home and have to cook, do laundry, clean their houses etc., take phone calls, and then sit down to prepare for the next day.The Morahs are not paid enough to get proper cleaning help which doesn’t make it any easier.
Being the husband of a hard working Morah, I can attest to the fact that the lights in our house are rarely off until the wee hours of the morning. We play tag. I wake up in the morning, and she gets her nap before heading off to school.
When Chanuka comes around, some Rabeim rake it in, while the most well liked popular Morahs end up with a small collective gift from their classes, and a few thank you cards. Why do people tip the Rabbeim so well, and give the Morahs so much less?
This has nothing to do with a new campaign. It just doesn’t make sense. Why are Morahs busy all day with your kids, then cannot afford to by clothing for their own?!?
I even know of some Bais Yaakovs where men and women who teach the same amount of periods get paid on completely different pay scales. But the men teach and leave, while the woman are involved with their girls 24/7. Is this fair?
The only reason why a lady will stay in teaching nowadays is totally l’shem shomayim. The way they are treated compared to the Rabbeim is simply pathetic.
Yitzchok2-
To clarify: When I say no visible or tangible results I don’t mean there isn’t success. I mean that kiruv is an extremely slow process and to make even one person fully shomer Torah umitzvos can take many years. It is still a tremendous accomplishment-to save even one neshama- and worthwhile for people to dedicate their lives to. But it is frustrating in the sense that we don’t see waves of people becoming frum, and that makes the sacrifice from the mekarvim that much greater. Difficult to say that Klal money should be spent “elsewhere.” How can we put a price on a Jew?
Everyone agrees that our moras our special people who mechanech our children and are very valuable.
However we must not ever compare a morah to a rebbe and everyone who is frum and has the right hashkafa can understand that we do not compare rebbiem to moras.in a larger scale thier were many great holy women in the history of klal yisrael. Rebetzen Sara shnierer. Rebetzin youngries rebetzin kaniyevski…….
But obviously nobody compared them to rav elchonon wasserman or rav moshe fienstien or rav shach.
We as frum jews understand that a rabbi or rebbe is generally not equal in chashivus as a rebbe.
It’s ok if you feel moras should get raises it’s ok if you feel moras are underpaid and if anyone feels they can help with giving raises that’s very important. BUT DON’T COMPARE TO A REBBE. IT SHOULDN’T BE THAT BECAUSE REBBES GOT RAISES SO MORAS SHOULD TOO, THAT IS WRONG AND LACKING IN BASIC HASHKAFA.
Morahs teach all kind of beautiful things to girls including torah. But don’t compare to a rebbe teaching torah to his talmidim that through there learning they building klal yisrael that kind of teaching torah is on a much deeper leval than girls learning parasha.
LET THE MORAS GET RAISES BECAUSE YOU FEEL MORAS DESERVE RAISES NOT BECAUSE REBBES GOT RAISES.
ANOTHER POINT, stop with the nonsense thst many moras teach to support there husbands in kollel.
That is such a foolish statement.
#1. The school has to pay you for teaching not your husband for learning. Let his kollel give him a raise.
#2. A man can learn all day which is a extremely chashuveh thing but that doesn’t take away his responsibility to support his family even if his wife decides to be a morah. Bottom line a man is acharayus on his family not the wife.
May i dare say that morahs are not paid less than rebbeim.
I have heard this claim many times in the past and almost always i was right.
Let me explain
Although the bottom line salary of a rebbi is significantly more than a morah, the truth is per hour it is not that far off. In many bais yaakovs they don’t have school on Sunday. In most bais yaakovs limude kodesh ends significantly earlier than in boys yeshivas. In many bais yaakovs they start the year after and end the year before boys yeshivas. In most bais yaakovs they have more days off for yomim tovim and winter vacation than boys yeshivas. Many bais yaakovs have assistant teachers in many of the grades.
If you compare apples to apples you will see that it is not far off. This is in most cases, there are a few bais yaskovs that pay way below the average and there are boys yeshivas that pay below the average also. Another point to consider is tuition in a girls school is usually lower than in a yeshiva.
If we stop and look at the whole picture we will see that the difference is not as glaring as some like to portray it.
To anonymouschochom:
You said “any lady who stays in teaching now days is totally leshem shamayim”
I’m not sure if you are aware but ANYBODY WHO STAYS IN TEACHING MAN OR WOMEN IS TOTALLY LESHEM SHAMAYIM….
You really think rebbes teach to become rich?
You really think the few more thousand dollars a rebbe gets more than a morah really gives him ebough to support his family?
You really think a rebbe teaches to make money?
Anybody who teaches is leshem shamayim nobody even with raises can support a family from teaching.
And by the way any lady who goes and teaches and neglects her basic dutys as a mother and wife is foolish.
Moras shouldn’t complain that they need to teach and still go home and make dinner and laundry and clean…
That’s what you signed up for and of its too much than don’t do it and tell your husband to work harder and support his family that’s his obligation not yours.
And we don’t want cranky moras thst are overwhelmed teaching our kids anyway.
And by the way thier are plenty of women and moras who have a balanced life and schedule and know how to be a good mother and wife as well as a calm great morah and they do it because they feel great productive and accomplished.
THANK YOU Rabbi Hoffman for saying something publicly! This is a topic that when brought up, everyone knows that it’s not a just situation, and yet, it’s allowed to perpetuate… Rebbeim are paid more because we recognize the OLD model where the husband/father is the (main) breadwinner… The recognition should be applied to all Rebbeim and Moros who are undeniably the main breadwinner. There are many amazing Moros in our schools who are also unfortunately single mothers, and are not the main breadwinner, they are the ONLY breadwinner. Torah Umesorah, Agudas Yisroel, and the Rebbe Initiative should open the door and start at the very least by securing some of the fund for our Moros who are the sole breadwinners in their homes. Many single mothers who are also Moros are in a never-ending cycle of owing the schools more money than they can earn to pay all of the (reduced) tuition for their children, and struggle to live off the meager remainder. Must they be forced to leave their classes and their profession? Yes, as Annonymouschocom stated, our quality Moros should be paid equally, but if we have to start somewhere, lets start here. Lets make sure our Moros who are the (sole) breadwinners in their homes get recognized for their Mesirus Nevesh and Avodah L’sheim Shamayim. Let’s support our Moros to stay in this profession, and pay them a livable wage.