Q&A: Oh no, they’re censoring…
Oh no, they’re censoring…
Question
My daughter studies at a well-regarded ulpana and, thank God, is doing very well. [5-unit level in several subjects and with distinction; God’s kindness is upon us.]
But here is the problem: she is also broad-minded, God forbid. [A defect that apparently doesn’t pass among the talented.]
She found out about the civics teacher’s scheme [using excuses about corona, syllabus coverage, and the like] to teach the parts connected to the Jewish aspect [this is a Torah-oriented ulpana, and that they already know from home, from the community, supposedly a total waste of time] and skip the parts connected to the democratic aspect [with all that that entails, and perhaps even with a concern of secondary indirect effects].
The teacher is part of the administration, so it’s not clear who the address for a complaint would be.
[Of course she spoke with the teacher, but she, being a very average person in the fullest sense {and not only when things are hanging in the balance, but as a matter of principle connected to what the Blessed Giver endowed her with from the fourth blessing}, understands what is “really” important in life…]
What would the honorable Rabbi advise doing, so that they do not come out of there fanatical and ignorant?
Answer
Inform the parents, or don’t send her there. As for your daughter, you can teach her yourself or give her things to read.
Discussion on Answer
That’s fine. Since the democratic aspect is the ruling religion of the foolish street, the “Jewish” aspect is the novelty and worth teaching, while the laws of that religion you can learn from the newspapers and so on.
Is the lack of studying the meaning of a democratic state in civics class really what will cause her to come out fanatical and ignorant, especially when at the outset it was said that she is broad-minded?
Rather, quite simply, the real novelty that needs to be taught is that the state is Jewish. That it is democratic is obvious, and the zealots know that very well, in opposition to the Other Side and the mixed multitude, as is known to those initiated into hidden wisdom. But to know that the state is Jewish—who even mentions that? Go and see the deeds of the government and its new values, with the desire to separate religion from state, the principle of equality overriding the Jewish character, the erosion of the status quo, and more and more.
And in truth the teacher is right. That is what should be emphasized nowadays, when the learning is temporary and partial anyway. For a structured curriculum, of course one understands why both are taught; but in a time of сокращение—when things must be shortened—by its very nature the concern over not learning the idea of the democratic aspect is negligible in the case at hand (unless you are opposed to vaccines, in which case it might matter that what is written in the book presumably doesn’t fit), and one should aspire that a time of shortening not become a time of religious persecution. And if not persecution for us, then persecution for the state—that it should forget where it came from, from abroad and not from a minority of the local native-immigrants, and where it is going, and before whom it will ultimately have to give judgment and accounting. As we heard today the grave concern over our people and our representatives not eating kosher, and especially how they looked at him in the discussion as though they were nihilistic, materialist, heretical gentiles from America and Russia who don’t know a drop of Judaism.
And here the honorable writer is still saying that this is a waste of time?