Who is Responsible for Jewish Education?

Rav Kook giving a Rosh Chodesh Shiur in Mercaz HaRav. (Found in מועדי הראיה עמ׳ 44)

​We are currently experiencing a crisis of Jewish education. To lay the facts out as simply as possible:

• Jewish day schools do not know if they will be able to open safely in-person, and if they do, how long they will be able to remain open without risking the lives of teachers, (grand)parents and students.
• School administrators are currently being pressured by boards and parents to open, in person, for fear of mass withdrawals leading to of laying off teachers and endangering school institutions.
• Parents are finding it hard to justify the cost of “zoom school”, knowing how this pales in comparison to the full experience of in-person, on campus teaching and learning.

Please Note: I am unqualified to debate the health and safety of returning to school in-person, being that I am a Rabbi and not a politician. My perspective in this article is that of a Rabbi, teacher and parent, who is not particularly flush with cash and thus, paying tuition is not a small matter. (Baruch HaShem, we are beyond wealthy in all the important ways - שמחים בחלקנו.)

With all of this being the case, it is instructive to rethink why we have Jewish day school at all. To illustrate, consider the Chinuch that Moreinu V’Rabbineu Rav Soloveitchik received:

In 1913, Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik became the Rabbi of Chaslavitch in White Russia. His son Yoshe-Ber, or Berel, later to become “The Rav” was a young boy at the time. Then, as now, Jewish education was of paramount importance, and as such, Berel was sent to learn in the cheder of Reb Baruch Reisberg, a Lubavitcher chosid. (The Rav would often reflect upon the value of his early chassidic education saying that without this exposure to Chassidus he would never have known the difference between one Yom Tov and the next.)
But it soon became apparent to his mother, Rabbanit Pesia, that shortly after the parents had brought their children to the cheder, the Rebbe would tell the boys to put away the Gemaros and take out their Tanya.
She was so bothered by this that she brought the matter to her father-in-law, the great Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik, who agreed to test his grandson on what he was learning, so as to ascertain the extent of the problem. Reb Chaim turned to his grandson and asked “what are you learning?”, and as young Berel opened his mouth, the words of the Tanya rolled out with nary a word of Talmud.
Reb Chaim called his son over, and instructed Rav Moshe: “You must take personal charge over Berel’s education.” And so it was, that the Rav’s primary teacher of Talmud for the next 10 years, was his own father, a privilege that he benefited from and spoke about his entire life.

Reb Chaim’s point, is that at it’s core, the obligation Chinuch, of education children, is a personal parental duty. This obligation is described by the Torah in the second paragraph of Shema in our parsha: וְלִמַּדְתֶּם אֹתָם אֶת בְּנֵיכֶם לְדַבֵּר בָּם - “You shall teach these words to your children to speak of them”. Practically, this means that every parent is obligated to ensure that their children are technically proficient in Torah, such that they can (at minimum) perform all of the Mitzvos of the Torah in which they are obligated with consistency and accuracy. Inclusive in this mandatory curriculum is that a child has a correct hierarchy of Torah and life values, that will reflect the way they live, work and participate in society. (ע׳ אגרות משה ח״ח עמ׳ מח - סימן י״ד).
The continuation of the Pasuk commands parents to educate our children בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ בְּבֵיתֶךָ וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ בַדֶּרֶךְ - when you are at home and when you are traveling. Reb Yehoshua of Belz explains that this obligation is in the second person. When you are at home, your children should learn with you, so that when you are unavailable, out on the road, they have the skills and motivation to learn themselves. That’s the goal of

So why do we have Jewish day schools? Because not every parent has the time, knowledge and wherewithal to successfully educate their children. To that end, we hire professionals to help us perform this essential and fundamental mitzvah. The obligation of paying tuition to achieve this goal is codified by the Rambam (הלכות תלמוד תורה א:ג). Of course, if a parent can personally provide adequate education to their children, they have no obligation to pay tuition. That being said, I do not know many people today that have the right mix of educational expertise and available time to absolve them of obligation to hire teachers for their children. There are not many Rav Moshe Soloveitchiks around.

Now, Coronovirus has created a situation where the normative infrastructure of Jewish Day Schools is compromised. So where to from here? Currently, both parents and schools are all at a point of hoping and wishing that in-person school works out. But what happens if the hopes in wishes don’t work out? Best case scenario is that only a few teachers are laid off, and our children receive yet another sub-par educational experience. Worst case? Our schools join the growing list of institutions that did not survive COVID-19, leaving parents and communities to figure out Jewish education from scratch for years to come. (My dear friend on college Rabbi Philip Moskowitz addressed the untenability of such a scenario during Kinnos on Tisha B’av morning.)

We need to ensure that none of this comes to pass. To that end, here are a number of suggestions that go beyond hoping and wishing.

• For Parents: We need to become far more active in the Chinuch of their children. This is after all, our obligation. To those that say “I don’t have time,” I hear you. None of us have time - unless, of course, something is a priority. Consider the time we used to spend commuting. Where has that time gone? To those who say “I do not have the knowledge and expertise,” I hear you. This is where schools come in:

• For Schools and Teachers: We need to step up communication, education and training for parents. Parents need to be given the tools to learn with and assist in teaching their children. The next round of town-hall zooms should focus on familiarizing parents with our Limudei Kodesh and General Studies curriculum, and helping them to help their children learn. To those educators among us that are saying “We’re in the business of teaching children, not parents” or “we cannot dedicate more time to help parents with this” consider that our charge is to ensure that Chinuch occurs. We are Shlichei Mitzvah and if that mitzvah is not achieved, we have no right taking payment. I’ll also add that reorienting our parent community to be more engaged in their kids’ education will be a welcome and much needed changed. (To my fellow teachers, allow me to rant for a moment as a Rebbe, about the countless parent-teacher conferences that began with “What subject do you teach my child?” Such ambivalence is borne out of neglect for the obligation of Chinuch. If all we learn this year is how to ensure more care for this essential mitzvah, then perhaps a year of insanity and unrest is worth it.)

• For Communities: We need to stop seeing attending a school building as a goal unto itself. School is not glorified babysitting. School is a means towards the very specific end of dedicated, passionate observance of Halacha in the next generation of our community. Our schools are good at achieving this. They have been doing a stellar job for decades, and have the right educators and experience to continue to do so. If circumstances dictate that attending school in a building is impossible, we need to think creatively within our school communities to consider how learning and teaching might be able to happen in-person, outdoors, in backyards and on driveways and not on schools campuses. In Florida we have the luxury of spending the winter months outdoors. Considering how we might be able to untether school from school-buildings is a serious avenue to consider. (This is especially important for early childhood students for whom zoom is untenable.)

Essentially, if schools cannot (any whatever point) meet in-person on-campus, there are a host of conversations that need to be had. Parents, teachers, schools and administrators are going to need to make consessions and work flexibly to ensure that effective Chinuch can occur. The only thing that absolutely must notoccur is that schools go online, and parents withdraw their children or stop payments without deep conversations about how to do this better.

The Tifferes Shlomo writes that והיה עקב תשמעון means that we should listen at the end of time, in these days of עקבתא דמשיחא - the days just before Moshiach arrives. Because any mitzvah, great or small is so precious in the insanity of our world. When Moshiach will come, please God very soon, he will run through our communities with tears in his eyes picking up each and every one of our children, singing with them, dancing with them, and saying “Wow! Baruch Hashem, you managed to hold on to Torah and Yiddishkeit when so many others let go.”
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Chevra, let’s hold on just a little while longer. For us, for our teachers and schools and communities. But most importantly, for our children, so that Moshiach will know to pick them up on the way to Yerushalayim.