No More Vacations!

At least someone's learning these days...*

Why are Crown Heights’s shuls still empty? Why are the schools still on vacation - since Purim?!

At first, we thought it was fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of Covid 19. Fear of the government. Fear of rabbonim who decreed that we must conduct ourselves with even more fear than mandated by the government. Fear of social norms as defined by social media.

But the fear has, for the most part, worn away. Corona has come and gone. The government has begun to let up. The rabbonim rescinded their harsh decrees against tefila bitzibur. People are now only wearing masks because of social correctness.

So if no one is really scared anymore, why is our davening and learning still “out to lunch”? When is “lunch” going to be over? And if it’s not fear that’s standing in the way to “Reopen New York” (spiritually, that is) - then what is it?

There’s only one answer - indifference.

It’s kind of like we lost our sensitivity. As if we lack a spiritual sense of taste. (And intriguingly, for many Crown Heightsers who survived the virus, one striking symptom that almost everyone seemed to experience was the loss of taste and smell). Something happened here spiritually, and no one seems to be able to put their finger on it.

Our yeshivas and schools are closed, frankly, because we don’t care. Our shuls are empty, because we enjoy davening on the porch. The men’s mikvas? They’ve been open, but seem to be getting very little business.

So, if complacency is the spiritual climate we’re feeling now in the Rebbe’s shechuna, just why is this article going to make a difference?

You’re right. It’s not.

I choose, however, to focus one one area which is the very essence of the Jewish people, our very existence and life. Yeshivas.

At this juncture, Boruch Hashem, although the schools are still closed, some parents have gotten together with the melamdim of their children’s classes and begun organizing face-to-face study sessions in private homes or shuls, just like Jewish children were studying for millenia. It’s like a breath of fresh air for most parents, as well as for the kids, who basically, for all intents and purposes, have not been learning a Jewish word since Purim.

But not all classes or schools are doing this. And even those that are - some are only meeting for an hour here, an hour there. Some grades have ventured to gather for even two or three hours a day! Many teachers or parents are still uncomfortable with congregating altogether, it seems.

Basically, everyone is moving at their own speed, according to their own comfort zone.

But alas, such subjectivity is prevalent in our community, and not just in reference to Torah learning. While most people go outdoors freely without masks, some still wear masks in their own homes! Some parents send their kids to the ice cream shop every day (just to get them out of the house), some people still social distance while visiting any store, and some choose to do without ice cream or candy altogether because they feel that pikuach nefesh overrides their need for these not-so-essential items. Alternatively, some members of our community feel that while sweets are an essential, necessitating us to go out of our corona comfort zone - learning in yeshiva is not.

Everything is contingent upon people’s feelings at this point. Enjoying cheder is subjective, just as candy is subjective. It’s your choice. 

In truth, our community members are not at fault - it is the rabbonim who have created this. Their misconstrued reality, being even stricter than our community doctors, claiming that they are privy to more “advanced” information, from governmentally-mandated medical agencies who are “bigger experts” than our private doctors, is what created this mayhem. While governments were busy deciding what is essential and what is not, a very troubling state indeed, we heard no definitive psak from rabbonim that Judaism needs to continue, that schools need to resume (and not just re”Zoom”). 

So as far as shuls are concerned, the only thing that might fill up the shuls again is unbearably warm weather, causing the porch guys to go indoors.

But schools? The year’s over anyways.

In fact, that’s what we said Purim time; it’s almost Pesach anyway. So schools closed a few weeks early for an extended Passover vacation. And after Pesach? Let them stay closed, and let’s just get to Shavuos, and then we’ll figure it out. Zoom was then a novelty, so, hey, let’s try Zooming our way to Matan Torah.

But Shavuos is over, and the Zoom thing never really worked, so what’s now?

Oh - now!? Why should school’s open for another two weeks? Let’s think about the summer - camp! There’s no learning in America during the summer anyhow.

And this is how the shnas halimud of 5780 went. 

As such, I turn to the melamdim and menahalim with the following message (quoted directly from Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat siman 306 sif 8):

מלמד תינוקות שפשע בתינוקות ולא למד (אפי' רק יום או יומים)... אי אפשר שיחזרו ההפסד שהפסידו מסלקין אותם בלא התראה שהם כמותרים ועומדים עד שישתדלו במלאכתם הואיל והעמידו אותם הצבור עליהם:

A school teacher who is negligent with the students and did not teach (even for one or two days)... - it is impossible to reverse the loss that they caused, and they need to be replaced, without warning. For they are considered warned from the onset, that they show effort in their job, since the community appointed them for this.

The source of the above Halachic ruling, ולית מאן דפליג (with which no halachic authority argues), is Bava Basra daf 21 amud 2:

אמר רבא במקרי ינוקא... כולן כמותרין ועומדין נינהו כללא דמילתא כל פסידא דלא הדר מותרה ועומד הוא.

When a teacher doesn’t study with the children, the gemara says, it is a p’seida d’lo hadar - a loss that cannot be reversed!

As explained in Tosofos, dibur hamaschil “umikri dard’ki”: 

...פסידא דלא הדר דאותה שעה... מתבטלים ואותה שעה אין יכולין להחזיר לעולם:

Even one hour that goes by without learning will never be again! It is an irreparable and irrevocable loss! 

I therefore turn to you, dear melamed and menahel. It’s time to stop blaming the corona complacency, blaming the one or two parents who are still not comfortable about their kids going back to normal life, blaming rabbonim who refuse to speak up, or even blaming the government for that matter, for the bitul Torah that takes place in our community on a daily basis, week after week. 

Your responsibilities as to the limud hatorah of tinokos shel beis rabban is not contingent upon anyone’s subjectivity or comfort zone. A consensus about indefinite, continued corona caution or passing social norms have no bearing on the above-quoted Halachic ruling.

Please do your jobs and resume learning. Enough is enough.

* Much thanks to custodians Pedro and Fernando for the photo op... "Ki veisi veis tefila lichol ho'amim"... But when will the Jews start coming again too?