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EXCLUSIVE: Refining Rechnitz Targeting – by Richard H. Roberts, M.D., Ph.D. -
I have never spoken with Reb Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz, nor heard him speak, until a video of his speech last week regarding the Lakewood community vis-a-vis its school system.
It is clear that Reb Shlomo is a tsaddik who cares about the suffering and welfare of Lakewood children and families and who uses his time, energy, thought, and money to try to rectify some of our challenges.
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The following information should enable him to more precisely identify the challenges to more effectively target his solutions.
The rejection of some children by Lakewood schools, beyond capacity limitations, is not due to arrogance, a lack of caring, or elitism. It is due to a desire to insulate pure souls, during their developmental years, from secular values and the pervasive electronic media which pushes those secular values in tempting and seductive packaging to children who do not yet understand the world around them.
Intel makes computer chips, and pharmaceutical companies make injectable drugs, in absolutely pure environments since introduction of contaminants during the formation process can ruin the resultant product. The more contaminants there are the greater the risk of a faulty product that is supposed to perform correctly when launched into the world.
Many people in Lakewood accept a life of severe economic hardship to live and raise their families in a pure Torah environment. In my experience, when a group of these people will leave a school if a certain student attends it is not due to some elitist, arrogant, or callous attitude but it is to protect the success of their most important product, their children.
During adolescence, children are developing their own identities separate from their parents and within the context of the group that surrounds them (which is a child’s society). The degree that secular values are permitted to enter that child’s society is an increased level of risk that the child’s development will be distracted or derailed from Torah values.
Not every Orthodox Jew agrees that the level of dress, exposure to electronic media, or extracurricular activities must meet the standards of the “greasy yeshivish” community (disclaimer – I love and respect “greasy yeshivish” and I financially support such people.). But the response should not be to try to force the “more-with-it” children into greasy-yeshivish schools. The correct target for Reb Shlomo should be to sponsor a range of more-with-it schools in Lakewood so that the entire range of frum children can be accommodated.
For example, one such boy’s school might be for those with video in the home but who want mostly Torah learning. Another such boy’s school might teach a couple of hours of Torah each day but mostly teach professions such as being a plumber, electrician, computer repair technician, and car repair expert. There would need to be a variety of girl’s schools too.
On a personal note, my first child was rejected from the Lakewood elementary school, that we applied to, three weeks before the school year was scheduled to start. For two weeks, I called multiple times to the school begging them to tell me why she was rejected. No one ever picked up the phone but I left messages explaining that I was not trying to get her into the school anymore but we just wanted to know if there was something that we needed to change or if I had insulted someone to whom I needed to apologize. For those two weeks, I felt that the Lakewood community had “spit me out” as Eretz Yisroel does to treif behavior. Since my daughter was six years old, and my wife was from Bais Yaakov of Boro Park, I could only conclude that I must have damaged my child by my being a baal tsheuvah. We would need to move ASAP out of Lakewood so that my daughter could go to school. The pain, the hurt, the aching was indescribably deep and unrelenting. After two weeks of no reply from the school, we were told from friends who knew the administration that we were rejected because we had a video machine (VHS in those days) in our home which we used to play children’s videos (Uncle Moishe, Sesame Street, etc.). That day we gave our video machine to a kiruv organization. Our home became video-free. With one week left to the school year, we were accepted to another “right wing” girl’s school in Lakewood which subsequently educated all of my girls and to which I donated over $1.6MM years later when I had some financial success.
I understand the pain of having one’s child rejected from admittance to the school system. But the solution is not to force schools to accept children who do not represent what each particular school is trying to achieve. Reb Shlomo can do a lot of good by sponsoring additional schools which are designed to accept the children and families who do not fit the current schools’ objectives. Everyone agrees that every child is precious and deserves a Torah education. Reb Shlomo has demonstrated the caring and willingness to dedicate his resources to achieving this goal. I hope that this essay will help him to refine his targeting to achieve a solution.
