Open letter to Crown Heights administrators

B.H.

Sivan 5, Erev Chag Hashavuos, 5780

Crown Heights, כאן צוה ה' את הברכה

With profound sadness and anguish, I write the following message to the menahalim of our children’s yeshivos, and am sharing it with all fellow Crown Heights parents as well, אשר נגע יראת אלקים בלבם.

Our schools are closed ר”ל. Even though the gemara (Shabbos 119b) tells us, אין העולם מתקיים אלא בשביל הבל תינוקות של בית רבן, that the world’s very existence, the survival of our community, and surely the health of its members, is dependent on our children’s pure voices studying Torah. I also must add that the title coined by the chazal, “tinokos shel beis rabban,” is very precise - the children studying at the house of their teacher, not in their family’s apartments.

There is no precedent to such a g'zeira in the history of our people (מימיהן של אבותינו לא פרשה ישיבה מהם... Yoma 28b). The grounds to keep yeshivos closed is only when there is a sakana for the child or teacher. Shockingly, some rabbis have invented a brand new concept in pikuach nefesh, that all yeshivos must be closed since there exists the remote possibility that their learning might affect other lives in distant locations, besides for the children, teachers, or school employees. They have done so without showing one bit of proof for this unprecedented Halachic (?!) ruling.

My purpose in this letter is not to condemn any rabbonim for making this newfangled decision without any proof or support to their position. In fact, I choose not to dwell on the matter altogether. I choose to move forward, but demand that you realize the present situation:

Both children and rebbies have either been infected with or exposed to the virus, and the risk for people of these age brackets was slim to begin with, even during the outbreak. The fear, even at the peak of the daily outbreak curve, for children and young teachers, was negligible. And now that the outbreak has ended in our communities, and there has not been a single case for six weeks, the threat to human lives that might be posed by our children learning with their rebbies is pretty much non-existent.

If follows, then, that our children are out of school, even though all local doctors have recommended that school’s resume, because of either (1) governmental decrees which seek to enforce a universal policy (to prevent the remote possibility of any new cases, even in communities wherein herd community is already manifest) or (2) rabbonim who still advise schools to stay closed, due to what they consider a threat to human life.

I cannot believe that I have to be writing this. I overheard one menahel announcing that opening school now could (1) violate the Talmudic edict - dina dimalchusa dina (that Judaism must adhere to all governmental decrees), and that (2) it would hence engender a chilul Hashem, a desecration of Hashem’s name. 

So I feel obligated to answer this assertion, and publicly. 

1. Dina dimalchusa dina applies only to dinei mamonois, financial matters, certainly not to mitzvos that are bein odom limokoim, like Torah learning, r”l.

2. Chilul Hashem can be applied when a talmid chochom is seen acting in an inappropriate or immoral way in front of others (see Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Deos, 5:13), not when a Jew is performing a holy and righteous deed like studying Torah or another essential precept to our faith.

Every day that goes by with our schools closed, the most serious chilul Hashem imaginable takes place - bitul Torah of all our children and talmidim! And even if there are financial concerns, fears that fines might be imposed, etc., why can’t the classes open in private homes, etc., just as underground schools were conducted behind the Iron Curtain?

Why can’t the rabbonim, who, boruch Hashem, finally allowed us to daven on our porches, allow our children to have classes on porches as well? Why haven’t we heard one thing from any of our rabbonim about the terrible chilul Hashem that takes place daily by our yeshivas being closed?

Is our Torah learning so insignificant that our communities and leadership remain silent for weeks, without Torah learning, with yeshivas closed, Heaven forfend?!

In Tehillim (11:1), Dovid Hamelech laments, איך תאמרו לנפשי נודי הרכם צפור, “How do you say to my soul - ‘Wander from your mountain, you bird!’" A Jew wandering from his place, the condition in which every Crown Heights child presently finds himself, is like a bird expelled from its nest (see Rashi ibid).

I am pained not only at the wide-spread “nest” closure, and at the total absence of any sort of protest from the rabbonim, as mentioned above - but at the quasi alternative to the pure hevel pihem of our children studying at beis rabban. 

As a brief introduction, the gemara (Sanhedrin 107a) interprets the above verse, nudi har’chem tzipor, in an entirely different manner:

A person should never, the gemara warns, bring himself to a nisoyon. Dovid Hamelech did this (as recorded in Tehillim 26:2, בחנני ה' ונסני… Test me, Hashem, and subject me to an ordeal; try my kidneys and my heart), a request that he would later regret. Alas, tests are not to be brought on by volition!

The test, of course, would turn out to be Dovid’s unfortunate encounter with Batsheva, as recounted in Shmuel 2 (11:2):

ויתהלך על גג בית המלך וירא אשה רוחצת מעל הגג והאשה טובת מראה מאד.

While Dovid Hamelech stood upon the rooftop of his royal residence, a sightly and unclothed young woman, Batsheva, was bathing behind a large beehive, which concealed her from sight. The unsuspecting and otherwise pious and unassuming monarch noticed a bird flying, which was actually the Satan disguised as a bird. Shooting an arrow at the “bird,” Dovid’s arrow severed the beehive, and the female bather was exposed! What followed, of course, Dovid would regret for the rest of his life. 

It was about this bird that the penitent Dovid beseeched Hashem,

...איך תאמרו לנפשי נודי הרכם צפור -

אמר דוד לפני הקב"ה רבש"ע מחול לי על אותו עון שלא יאמרו הר שבכם צפור נדדתו.

Forgive me for that sin, so that no one say about me that I, the “mountain” of the Jewish People, was uprooted due to a measly bird!

How tragic - an unassuming but a mere eye-catching bird, the Satan in disguise, led to the odious transgression that would threaten to extinguish the luminary and strong-hold of our people! 

Esteemed rabbis, fellow parents, and anyone else who might take a moment to internalize this message:

We aspire to raise each of our children to be a luminary amongst our people, to serve as Hashem with the extraordinary sincerity and piety of Dovid Hamelech, to study Torah assiduously and passionately with every fiber of his being.

Today, the “bird” that distracts our unsuspecting and vulnerable young Dovids, the Satan in disguise, appears in front of our youth in the guise of a tablet, smart phone, laptop, or other similar device. The seemingly harmless bird has destroyed many a bochur, and does so DAILY.

Having served as a spiritual guide to many, and having lived in Crown Heights and working in chinuch for the past few years, I cannot stress this with more enthusiasm and more poignantly.

And this is Dovid Hamelech’s plea, to each and every one of us: do not let another mountain be uprooted by this bird, chas visholom!

(And especially today, as we prepare to relive matan Torah, just as it was experienced at Har Sinai 3333 years ago, the plea is intensified - do not let the entire Mount Sinai be uprooted!) 

We chose to put our children in institutions of learning that espouse the highest standards in Chassidic and Torah-true education. Taharas hakodesh means that the learning is to be entirely pure and untarnished. From the youngest age, we brought them, wrapped in a talis, with tears of joy, sheer faith, and enormous gratitude, to a rebbe, to learn komatz alef oh, exactly as Hashem Himself uttered to all of us, standing at the foot of Har Sinai, the komatz alef oh of Anochi Hashem Elokecha. We entrusted them into your care, dear menahalim, aspiring that they dedicate their entire beings to Hashem alone.

How dare we be forced to continue to sit this child in front of a device, which although can used as be a tool to disseminate Elokus, is woefully more often than not the very “bird” that presents tests which affect and contaminate the child, infiltrating his “kidney and heart,” for the rest of his life! A Chassidic adolescent doesn’t need this test. His soul desperately needs taharas hakodesh! This is not it.

Even though, as you claim, you took extreme measures to filter the device, it does not alleviate the severity of matter. It’s like trying to prevent Dovid’s mishap by fortifying the beehive obscuring the bathing woman. You might be saving him from this particular unsavory exposure; but at the same time, putting the bochur in front of such a device, albeit filtered, is encouraging him to be focusing on the bird! And another bird will undoubtedly come around, way sooner than you expect. Such is the nature of those young adults whose life is centered around engrossed involvement with this oh-so-useful and attention-grabbing medium.

Whereas it might be a necessary tool for a working adult, a married person who needs to use the internet in order to generate income, etc., a yeshiva bochur needs to be focusing on Torah alone, not technology, not pop-ups, not even videos, inspiring memes, etc. True, Zoom seems harmless. But it’s not. It opens up a whole new world to the youngster, who formerly only knew only about Torah and its age-old forum and method of communication, staring at the holy letters of the alef beis printed in black and white on the sacred pages of a chumash or gemara, the very same alef beis he learned for the first time wrapped in his father’s talis, or during recess, playing ball in the park or playground with friends. Now, the child is being taught to focus his energies and attention on a blue light-emitting device, conditioning himself to react to the whims, impulses, and technological distractions of the said devices, albeit “filtered” distractions. 

True, when he leaves yeshiva, he will ultimately have to learn how to deal with the world’s temptations and distractions. But by that time, he will have been nourished with over a decade of genuine Torah learning and total immersion, he will be married, and will have achieved a heightened sense of maturity, making him less susceptible to the dangers of such interaction. Of course, no one, not even Dovid Hamelech himself, is immune to the danger. But by that time, the yungerman will presumably be stronger than he was as a fourteen-year-old!  

We have not heard a single rov being mentioned to condone such a move from all of our mosdos chinuch! If there has been no heter issued for this, we have no choice but to demand that it stop. Immediately.

As mentioned above, almost every child in every class has already been exposed to covid 19, and B.H. has survived. So have the teachers for that matter. The schools must be opened. If there is any community rov who feels differently, then we need to see his decision in writing, with sources (of which there are none, as mentioned above). And I’m sure that the very same rov agrees, too, that entrusting our child’s Torah education to a device, which repeatedly has proven to lead to - k’shmo kein hu - “vice,” is not the answer.

It is time for Crown Heights to get back to chinuch al taharas hakodesh. The battle cry of pikuach nefesh or “eis laasos lashem heifeiru sorasecha” will not work any more. Enough people were killed by Corona physically, Hashem yishm’reinu, but it doesn’t mean that we have the right to kill our children spiritually. Or, at the very least, even with your filtered device for zoom conferences etc., killing our children’s spiritual sensitivity and purity.

Please open the schools, without delay.

With heartfelt wishes for the geula ho’amitis vihashleima now,

And wishes for kabalas hatorah bisimcha ubipnimius,

Rabbi Daniel Green,

Crown Heights, NY

Schools still closed? Something's fishy...

Give me liberty, or give me death.

Patrick Henry, 1775

There is no one “liberated” but the one who studies Torah.

Ethics of the Fathers (ch. 6), circa 200 C.E. 

“Until it’s safe” means never.

Dennis Prager, May 21, 2020 

With the news of corona cases in dramatic decline, in some Jewish communities now almost entirely non-existent, the question now arises - 

What’s with the yeshivas? Are they to be closed forever? It’s like, how long can we force our kids to stare at a screen for eight hours a day? We all know that the virtual school idea hasn’t really worked out - something’s missing. To say the least.

Alternatively, no one wants to risk their children’s lives in order to be in school (although - after many weeks of lockdown with their beloved kids - some would. And the numbers are growing daily).

What to do? To learn, or not to learn (Prince Hamlet might have asked, had he too been trying to keep his sanity whilst sheltering in place) - that is the question.

And so, while many Jewish communities search for ideas as to when and how to open the schools, I would humbly like to suggest mine. I propose the Rabbi Akiva approach. 

But as an introduction, I first wanted to substantiate the outlandish title of this article. What is fishy about our schools, and what is the significance of their closure?

Alas - schools and fish have a lot in common, in fact. You probably know that fish traditionally swim in “schools.” But what you may not have known, is that there is, in fact, Talmudic precedent for the fish/school correlation:[1]

Once, the Roman government issued a decree banning Jews from studying Torah. Papus ben Yehuda came and found Rabbi Akiva, who was convening assemblies in public and engaging in Torah study.

He said to him, “Akiva, are you not afraid of the government?”

Basically, Rabbi Akiva rejected the home-schooling option, and felt the need to engage in group learning in a public setting, for some inexplicable reason, while his counterpart, Papus ben Yehuda, a wise man and fellow Talmudist with seemingly good intentions and communal clout, attempted to dissuade him; the government’s laws must be obeyed!

Rabbi Akiva replied, “I shall give you a parable. To what can this be compared? To a fox that was walking by a river. He saw fish that were banding together [in order to swim rapidly] from place to place. He said to them, ‘Why do you run away?’

“They answered him, ‘Because of the traps that man brings upon us.’

“He said to them, ‘Would you like to come up upon the dry land, and we shall live together, I and you, just as my forefathers dwelt with your forefathers?’”

The fox, like Papus, reasoned that the possibility of the fish being caught by the fishery authorities presented a situation of endangerment to life, prompting a call for pikuach nefesh,[2] which overshadows the advantages of the fish remaining in their underwater environment.

“The fish said to him, ‘You are the one whom they call the cleverest of the animals? You are not clever; rather, you are a fool! If in the place of our vitality [the water], we are afraid [for our lives], then in the place of our death [i.e. outside of the water], all the more so!’

“We too [concluded Rabbi Akiva] - now, as we sit and occupy ourselves with Torah study, about which it is written,[3] ‘For it is your life and the length of your days,’ we fear for our lives to this extent; if we proceed to sit idle from its study [the abandonment of which is the habitat that causes our death], all the more so!”

In other words, however “wise” it may have seemed to halt the study of Torah in the name of compliance with governmental decrees, even when the cessation was promoted as pikuach nefesh - Rabbi Akiva felt otherwise. Just as a fish, always on the run for its survival, would never entertain the silly and suicidal notion of leaving the water, the place of its vitality, so too should the “wandering Jew,” despite his trials and tribulations, never leave the environment of Torah study.

Although the general point of this familiar lesson is well-taken, I must admit that one particular detail is somewhat bewildering: 

Why did Rabbi Akiva insist on “convening assemblies,” organizing group study? Fish need water to live - water representing Torah - but not socialization. Just as a single or a few fish can live alone in the water, without convening in maritime assemblies, so too, couldn’t this venerable sage study Torah in private, with himself and his closest associates?

The insistence on public sessions seems a little fishy, no?

But the plot thickens.

Classical commentaries note that Rabbi Akiva’s insistence on communal learning was also indicated and illustrated in his parable, for the fish, too, weren’t merely on the go, they were congregating - “banding together” from place to place![4]

So I tried to understand this perplexing allegorical detail as well. Why couldn’t the fish do the right thing and practice proper social distancing laws, and why did Rabbi Akiva need to simulate this particular detail of the parable and its seafaring protagonists’ bizarre behavior - one that seemingly fails to make any meaningful contribution to their submerged survival?

After a little research, I was astonished to find out that quite the contrary - schooling enables fish to move through the water more efficiently and helps them avoid predators! I.e. their swimming in unison and in close proximity of their peers is essential to their very survival![5]

So if fish need not only to live in water but to “school” through their marine environment - pointed out the famed tanna, upon whose teachings the entire Talmud is based - then so do Jews! It’s not enough to be immersed in Torah on one’s own - learning needs to be a communal effort!

The profundity of this lesson cannot be emphasized enough.

To Jews, schooling is not only the transfer of information - it’s a way of life. The student, by joining with other students and studying with a live rebbie, maggid shiur, or morah, is infused with life and enthusiasm in serving his or her Creator. The cheder and yeshiva provide for an environment of Divinity and love for Torah - kedusha is in the air, so to speak - and studying with his or her peers provides for an element of social immersion and peer pressure that is crucial to the student’s development, success, and yiras shamayim!

The domestic setting with virtual, on-line classes is not an alternative. A single fish might think he can Zoom through the water on his own, but it is ill-advised, as expressed above. And a Jewish student, sentenced to solitude by the powers that be, is no different. Chained to a device throughout his or her scholastic day, the once happy and carefree child, now a homebound, playground-deprived Zoom participant, will not likely succeed in “swimming” effectively and navigating correctly through the “sea” of genuine Jewish learning, the yam hatalmud - let alone avoid the traps that lurk ahead, cast by the nasty yetzer hara throughout the student’s adolescence and adulthood.[6] The child needs to be in yeshiva; this is the best way, or I should say the only way, to keep him on track!

Such is the human condition; and more significantly, the Jewish condition. The “banding together” effect, spiritually, academically, and practically, does not transfer well over the world wide web. Just as fish need to “school” for their very survival, so do we Jews. And it was to this end that Rabbi Akiva not only risked, but gave up his life - for the sake of Jewish schooling!

***

One might, at this point, be tempted to raise the following question:

Why and how did this accomplished and immortal sage risk his life for studying Torah altogether, let alone public assemblies thereof, when such sacrifice is not indicated as one of the items that mandate mesiras nefesh?[7]

Commentaries suggest that Rabbi Akiva deemed the Roman occupation as a sha’as hash’mad, a time of a decree against Judaism, in which it is incumbent upon a Jew to sacrifice his life for even a minor Jewish custom like ark’sa d’misani (a shoe-string color on his footwear). Also, the Romans’ insistence in prohibiting public study put Rabbi Akiva’s misdemeanors against the dictatorship into the category of public martyrdom, parrhesia, which engendered the conditions for a kiddush Hashem, an obligatory opportunity for the sage to sanctify the name of G-d.[8]

(Papus ben Yehuda, alternatively, argued that the fact that the government had banned only public Torah study reduced the decree to one that did not warrant mesiras nefesh, and hence, warned Rabbi Akiva to desist).[9]

The above explanations are not necessarily in line with the accepted Halacha, that martyrdom is only indicated, even when in public or during a time of shmad, when the decree attempts to coerce a Jew to violate a negative commandment, whereas Torah study is merely a positive commandment.

Nonetheless, in lieu of the above, some deduce from Rabbi Akiva’s exemplary behavior as indicated in this very tale that public Torah study, in reference to the laws of kidush Hashem, is not limited to the mere status of a positive mitzva, for it is vital to and inclusive of all mitzvos, and is considered the very life and existence of the Jewish People, ki heim chayeinu v’orech yameinu, “our life and the length of our days”![10]

In any case, no one would dare challenge Rabbi Akiva’s righteousness in respect to this somewhat questionable act of perhaps unjustified mesiras nefesh, for permission is certainly granted for the one who chooses to go beyond the letter of the law, and sacrifice his life even for the performance of a positive commandment.[11] And for a person of distinction, a chasid, i.e. a pious and G-d fearing individual, there is even more of a reason to warrant such behavior.[12] Shulchan Aruch dictates that “im hasha’ah tzricha likach,” if the time necessitates such an act of martyrdom - it is certainly any Jew’s prerogative to act accordingly.[13]

Noteworthy, however, was not only Rabbi Akiva’s insistence on sacrificing his life in order to study Torah publicly, but that he even called his critic, a sage in his own right and quoted in the Mishna, a “fool” for thinking otherwise!

And alas, Papus himself ultimately conceded, as the Talmud concludes:

Not a few days passed until they seized Rabbi Akiva and incarcerated him in prison, and seized Papus ben Yehuda and incarcerated him alongside him.

Rabbi Akiva said to him, “Papus, who brought you here?”

Papus replied:

“Fortunate are you, Rabbi Akiva, for you were arrested on the charge of engaging in Torah study. Woe unto Papus who was seized on the charge of engaging in idle matters.”

Although Papus himself was also incarcerated and executed as a martyr for the Jewish People,[14] Rabbi Akiva’s mesiras nefesh was far greater, since it was for the promotion of public Torah study. Compared to Torah study, all other causes, even trying to save Jews from the Roman’s hands, is considered “dvarim biteilim,” idle matters!

***

Dear friends, fellow parents, educators, and administrators:

The state government’s decrees against yeshivas are not motivated purely by the tenet of pikuach nefesh - for parks, beaches, restaurants, malls, airplane flights, are all open for business. The government bars group Torah study and Jewish schools because it deems them as non-essentials. Sadly, many of our rabbis and communal leaders have not cried out and condemned the said governmental decisions and judgments as immoral and antireligious. They, like their predecessor Papus ben Yehuda, continue to caution us to adhere to all governmental restrictions against our faith, our right to gather in prayer, and our G-d-given right to provide our children with a religious education. They fail to realize that Rabbi Akiva, and many scores, hundreds, thousands, if not millions of Jews throughout history, have given up their very lives for the sake of Jewish religious schooling!

So, while the point of my essay is not to solicit you to risk your lives (especially at this time and in our communities, when there have been no cases of corona for many weeks), I ask you the following question:

Is public Torah study, at the very least, not an essential to our faith, and moreover, to our very existence?

I humbly demand that the yeshivas open. Immediately.

---------------

[1] Brachos 61b

[2] Saving a life

[3] Devarim 30:20

[4] Chidushei Aggados of the “Maharsha” - Rabbi Shmuel Eliezer Aidels 

[5] wikipedia.org, “Shoaling and schooling”

[6] In fact, internet use only augments, and exponentially so, the child’s exposure to the above-mentioned “traps,” as cautioned by most contemporary Halachic authorities.

[7] The three cardinal sins - idolatry, adultery, or murder.

[8] Chidushei Aggados

[9] Ben Yehoyada, famous commentary of Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Bagdad, a.k.a “the Ben Ish Chai,” 

[10] Birchos Yitzchok. See also Birchas Shmuel (in the introduction to Vol. 4).

[11] Tosofos D.H. Yachol, Avoda Zara 27b

[12] Nimukei Yosef Ibid.

[13] Siman 157 sif 1, Rama

[14] Imrei Noam, Rabbi Eliahu of Vilna (the Gr”a)