For a religious teenager from a family with limited finances, especially in the USA and Canada where Torah education is so expensive, judgment begins way before Rosh Hashanah…
Editor’s note: Spreading the light of Torah and emuna in the world is our raison d’etre here at Breslev Israel. The holy Baal Shem Tov, Rebbe Nachman of Breslev’s great grandfather of blessed and saintly memory, took Torah out of aristocratic hands and spread it among the masses. Today’s reality (outside of Israel, where most Yeshiva tuition is government-subsidized and very low or even free) is that on a de-facto basis, Torah is returning to aristocratic hands, where only wealthy people can pay $15-25 thousand per child per year. We feel that it’s our solemn duty to cry out on this matter, and to desist in our prayers until every single boy and girl has a proper Torah educational framework. Since Hashem does everything for the best, the high tuition outside of Israel is just another reason to seriously consider moving to Israel, the sooner the better.
It’s That Time Again. No, not Elul when the King is in the Field, when we prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and the judgment of the King of kings. Rather, I’m referring to the start of the school year.
For parents it’s the time where they have to open their checkbooks and pay crazy amounts of money in yeshiva tuition. Parents wonder whether some of the children are going to make it, and whether they, the parents, are going to make it after writing all those checks.
For kids it’s the end of summer vacation the beginning of a new school year. Yet for many, this time of year is the worst. They wonder where they will be going to school, or even if they will be going to school. Whether their parents will be able to write those checks, and how many tears or arguments they will hear behind closed doors as the time to pay them comes close.
They wonder what the future will bring, and if they’re a teen that pays close attention to their parents, whether their parents’ sacrifice is worth the pain. Many look forward to the upcoming school year, but for these and other reasons many dread it.
It’s funny how the school year always begins in Elul, the month of teshuvah where we reflect on the past year. For some teens, it’s a time to reflect on how to forgive those who hurt them through the previous school year. For those who don’t fit our current traditional one-way-fits-all system, wishes of forgiveness slam up against walls of pain, forgiveness sometimes is a won’t or even a can’t. For “kids at risk” this is the hardest time of year. Getting ready to face who knows what in the upcoming year. Many go through such unpleasantness. And there seems no way out, no way to fix it.
For these young people, judgment doesn’t come on Rosh Hashanah, it comes in Elul. The few schools that are prepared to deal with these kids in need, no parent in a normal situation can afford it. The parents suffer, the kids suffer. The parents want the best for their children, but just can’t afford to pay fees that would easily cover a full college education.
The parents are in tears, kids are angry and worse, bitter.
There was a time, I’m told, when every Jewish child mattered. Extreme effort was made to get every and any Jewish child in yeshiva, and do everything possible to keep them there. Now, apparently, fitting in exactly, learning exactly the right way (G-d forbid if a child has a learning disability or even a low aptitude in a particular subject), is what’s important. There are enough children in yeshiva that I guess we can spare some misfits and throw the slow ones out.
But what future do we give them? Falling behind in studies, no skills to gain a future, no respect – only disdain from the community…
The prayers of these young people will be accusations for the general community this Yom Kippur. For their judgment came in Elul, when rosh yeshivas said no, when tuition committees said $25,000, when rabbanim said to get out and people turned away from them, and their parents painfully rung their hands and simply had no future to offer them…
I cry with them, for I am one of them. I wish I could forgive, but they don’t even realize what they’ve done. As for me, I have to pick up the pieces of a lost teenage life, an education only in pain, and figure out how not to end up on the street.
(Breslev Israel thanks Reb Akiva from Mystical Paths for sharing this heart-rending article with us)
Tell us what you think!
Thank you for your comment!
It will be published after approval by the Editor.
Tell us what you think!
Thank you for your comment!
It will be published after approval by the Editor.