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