Without a solid Jewish education those values will be overwhelmed by the culturally liberal egalitarian value of the times. If anyone needs proof of what the lack of a good Jewish education has done to the Jewish people in America, one need only look a Pew research studies that have informed us of an over 75% intermarriage rate among non Orthodox Jews.
The success of the Yeshiva system in countering this trend cannot be overstated. A system that has existed since the end of the Holocaust is surely the explanation for why Orthodox Jews have bucked this trend. And while its growth is due to a high birth rate - clearly without the Yeshiva education that the vast majority of Orthodox youth get, there would be little if any growth despite that high birth rate. True – there are no guarantees. There are more Orthodox Jews opting out of observance than ever. But the simple fact of growth cannot be denied nor can the obvious reasons for it.
I would therefore never suggest rocking that boat. It would be foolhardy to change that basic paradigm.
There is a caveat to this paradigm that deserves our attention. Which is that when any good idea is taken to its ultimate extreme the results are often counterproductive. This is reflected in number of ways. One of which is the cookie cutter approach that is now the model for the most prevalent type of Yeshiva in Orthodoxy. A system where every male is encouraged to study from cradle to grave if possible. What this does is suppress the unique strengths of each individual to serve God in ways that are best suited to them. They are are encouraged to do only one thing: Study Torah. That has produced educational mediocrity.
This is the argument made by Benjamin Porat in his Times of Israel piece. He argues that the elitism of pre Holocaust European Yeshivos allowed entry only to the best and brightest young men who were highly motivated. That is what produced the Gedolim of yesteryear.
As it exists today, Yeshivos are not capable of doing that. What we have is what might be called a ‘dumbed down’ version of Torah education which of necessity is designed for for everyone. Put another way, the cookie cutter system that exists today hurts their very goal of producing Gedolim!
The 300 or so students per Yeshiva of yesteryear (like Volozhin, Slabodka and Kletzk) have been replaced by 10,000 (and growing) students of Yeshvos of today (like BMG, Mir, and and Ponevezh). There is no Rav Aharon Kotler Today… No R’ Moshe; No Rav Hutner; and no Rav Yoshe Ber Soloveichick. Yes they were all geniuses. But being a genius was not limited to pre Holocuast Eurpeoan Gedolim. There are genius today that are stuck in a world of mediocrity who cannot benefit from the kind of individualized attention that the Yeshivos of yesteryear was able to give their students.
But... in a follow up response in the Times of Israel by Rabbi Elchanan Poupko, he actually argues in favor of mediocrity. Here is how he puts it: .
..it would be a crime to look away from the rest of the picture. With no correlation to the existence of yeshivot, there was widespread illiteracy, antagonism to religion, rebellion against traditional Judaism, and many Jews who did not know enough about their faith to be proud of it…
While there is no guarantee that a young man who spent several years in a yeshiva knows how to read through a page of Talmud, there is a guarantee that every person who grows up in the Orthodox community today is literate, very familiar with the vastness of Jewish literature, fully aware of the vastness and depth of our Torah…
A Torah education that is for all, for a least a few years, leaves our youth inspired, committed, and familiar with who they are and what they stand for…
Indeed making sure every young Jew has access to a quality Jewish education should be our highest priority.
Is he right? Well yes and no. We absolutely need mass education that of necessity will end up with mediocrity. That is the nature of mass education. But the need for mass education need not mean a loss of excellence. We can walk and chew gum.
In my view, the solution to this seeming conundrum is not as elusive as one might imagine. I really believe we can have our cake and eat it too.
To borrow and slightly modify a phrase used in another context by Orthodox Jewish feminist, Blu Greenberg: Where there is a rabbinic will there is a Hashkafic way.
A Yeshiva education though high school is certainly required to perpetuate Orthodox Judaism. But it is not enough. One must continue that education beyond high school for at least a few years. but that should not preclude getting a secular education along the way. To say that a secular education diminishes the possibility of greatness in Torah study would be an insult to Rav Soloveitchik and his two most brilliant students, R' Hershel Schachter, and R' Aharon Lichtenstein. They are anyhting but mediocre.
Meanwhile the rest of us will get the education we need via the mass Yeshiva educational system that exists today and become productive members of the Torah world. I believe that if Lakewood would follow in the elitist tradition of Kletzk, the Yeshiva in which it's founder was educated, we would have a far greater chance of producing Gedolim than we do in the current cookie cutter system.
In other words mass Yeshiva education that includes a secular education, Yes!. But so too elitist Yeshivos beyond that - for those that are motivated and qualify. There is room for both.
