There has been an interesting ad floating around the Internet for a few weeks now. I highly recommend it. It very effectively demonstrates the principle of Chanoch L’Naar Al Pi Darko. For those who haven’t seen it yet, it is located here .
I happen to believe that one of the major problems with Jewish education today is the lack of applying or even understanding this principle. And it isn’t only about student being pressured into conformity. That of course is a major issue leading to many of the problems we have today with people staying too long in learning, and not properly preparing themselves for a Parnassa. But it is also in many ways responsible for the Kids at Risk phenomenon.
Lack of appreciation of the principle of Chanoch L’Naar Al Pi Darko is problem that cuts across all Hashkafic lines. In the world of the right, it manifests itself in the form of extreme pressure, from Mechancnchim, parents, and peers to follow the path of Torah learning only. Much of the thinking behind this is the Desslarian view that we need Gedolim, and we need to put all of our eggs in this basket in order to produce those Gedolim. And even though the rest of the student body gets sacrificed, that’s the price of producing Gedloim!
As I have said in the past, this is a premise with which I completely disagree and have said so many times. Suffice it to say that Gedolim are not produced through insisting on the conformity of learning Torah only in the Beis HaMedrash. Gedolim are unique individuals who if raised properly and allowed to follow their natural inclinations, will become Gedolim on their own without the need to sacrifice others.
Let’s examine what we mean when we say sacrificing others. These are the various levels of bright individuals who are encouraged to stay in learning and abandon all other ambition. This produces a class of young men that never quite make it in learning, although they are very bright and do have a certain level of achievement. Yet, they were not Mechanech al Pi Darkom. They did not follow their natural ambitions which were forced to be sublimated into learning full time.
It is my contention that many of these people end up frustrated later in life when they realize they will not rise to the great levels they were encouraged to pursue and are left with a sort of burnt out feeling, unable to go back and pursue goals abandoned early in their learning years.
And the other big problem is the fact that there are young people whose inability to measure up in learning with their peers is discovered early on, and are never the less encouraged to just continue “applying themselves” convincing them that they will reach that learning achievement. Most of the time, that doesn’t work of and these young people start tuning out at a very early age only to become dropouts from school ...and even Torah Judaism.
These are the young people that truly need to be Mechunach Al Pi Darkom. Not every person is a genius in Talmud Torah, the sciences, or math. But they may have great artistic genius. A great artist may not be a great rational thinker he may not “get” math or physics... or Gemarah. But his talent lies in producing great art. But that is either ignored or put down entirely as Bitul Torah. To me this is criminal. To force young people into the conformist modes of either Talmud Torah in Charedi schools or academic modes in much of the Modern Orthodox schools is damaging to the very fiber of our people.
We need to understand the meaning and importance of Chanoch L’Naar Al Pi Darko. And no where is thisa bigger problem than in the Charedi world in Israel. There are absolute conformist standards there. In the Charedi school system individualism is a non starter. All Charedi children are enrolled in schools that push only Talmud Torah and completely ignore everything else after 8th grade. There is no possibility for the artistic child to flourish. He will be forced into the straight jacket (for him) of Talmud Torah only to be completely frustrated.
And what about all the young married Avreichim who have gone through this system and have been snookered into learning for as long as possible in a Kollel? What happens to them when they burn out? Where do they go? There is virtually no possibility that their original interests will be re-kindled. Those interests have been so effectively purged from their psyches that they wouldn’t know it if it hit them in the face. And at age thirty five or forty, married, with a large family and in desperate need of a job... who is going to go back to school and pursue a career even if they knew what kind they wanted? It is a rare breed of individual who can do something like this. More often than not, such people will leave Kollel and find some menial low paying job and be very depressed by his condition
Everyone agrees with the principle of Chanoch L’Naar Al Pi Darko. But it many cases it is mere lip-service. It is time for parents to arise and do what’s best for their children and find schools that practice it, rather than only preach it.
